Rome 2: The Coming of the King

by M C Scott

  Pantera sat, saturated in colour, until, presently, a priest from the Temple of Augustus emerged from behind the black-curtained wings and walked with meditative slowness across the stage, swinging a bowl of sandalwood to sweeten the sweaty air.

  He was barefoot, and walked with a dancer’s grace, and yet it sounded as if he stamped past in the nailed sandals of the legions, so cleanly was the sound picked up and sent out to the listening thousands. It was, Pantera thought, a product of the copper wall and the vellum roof and a particular resonance of the raised stage. Such things were known in Corinth and Athens, but Pantera had not expected it here.

  From his right, softly, Menachem said, ‘The stage upsets you? The light is, I agree, particularly penetrating this time.’

  ‘I was in Rome during the fire,’ Pantera said. ‘To see flame this intense touches memories I would rather leave behind.’

  ‘And the camel train? I understand there were aspects of your journey you might also like to leave behind you?’

  ‘Nothing we didn’t expect. Ibrahim had the worst of it, with the governor taking all his good camels in tax as soon as we arrived. Yusaf ben Matthias paid for the whole shipment in advance. Was he happy with the results? I have a silver coin resting on the answer.’

  ‘A silver coin is your pay for the entire journey,’ Menachem said. ‘You would rest it on a gamble?’

  ‘Not a gamble. I only bet on certainties.’

  Menachem turned to look fully at Pantera. His face was perfectly bland. ‘Will you name for me those certainties and the nature of the wager?’

  ‘Ibrahim brought five barren camels on a month’s journey, knowing from the start they were not in calf. All through the month, they were the ones that we protected first, from jackals or bandits, from thirst or hunger. We considered what might be inserted into the womb of a camel to be retrieved later and decided it might be something that was worth more than its own weight in gold. Gemstones, therefore, or balsam. I bet that it was balsam. Mergus thought diamonds. Perhaps you could settle that for us?’

  Menachem considered a moment. ‘You win,’ he said. ‘The camels brought balsam, equal in value to three talents of gold. Yusaf paid half a talent to the camel drover for the journey, and he will send him back with the same and horses this time, of Berber breeding, which will fetch almost as much in the markets of the desert.’ He looked up. Something close to a smile played on his lips. ‘Does Ibrahim know of your wager?’

  ‘Would we be alive if he did?’

  ‘Probably not.’ Menachem did smile then, and it lit his face, shedding years. ‘Watch now,’ he said. ‘It’s starting.’

  A cymbal clashed at the stage-side. At its command, the entire theatre fell silent. To the high notes of a reed pipe, five well-muscled slaves drew on to the stage a set of thrones and benches, enough to seat a dozen, and set them so that the central thrones, adrape with silks, entwined with carvings of vines and olives, faced the very apex of the auditorium.

  As promptly as the slaves departed, so did the royal retinue enter. King Agrippa led, clothed in tissue of gold, long-striding across the stage to stand in front of his throne. Berenice, his queen, if not his wife, followed a pace behind, then eleven men and women followed, draped in silks of alternating colours; the queen in blue, her women in green and the men in varying shades of amber, citrus and pale copper-gold.

  Hypatia was among the women. Pantera saw her first as he would in any room she entered, as any man would, who had eyes to see. They had robed her in a shade of dark emerald green that brought out the faint tint in her eyes, and pinned up her blue-black hair so that her neck was exposed, smooth as alabaster, slim as a swan’s, thin enough to wrap his one hand round, almost.

  Seen like that, a man might have thought her fragile, which would have been a mistake. Pantera had learned not to think thus in Alexandria and then Rome, when they had seemed to be enemies. He had come to be grateful for it since.

  And then Agrippa had stepped apart from the rest, and drew all eyes, for he was no longer a mere man, but had become the blistering sun; dressed from shoulder to heel and beyond in tissue of gold with a filet of gold in his dark hair and diamond-studded gold on his fingers.

  To a rising trill of pipe music, he stepped up on to a wooden pedestal placed at his feet by a kneeling slave. His flaring, dancing sun-fire robes hung down to the floor so that it seemed as if a far taller man stood there. Somewhere, a steward clapped his hands, once. The reed notes tumbled to silence.

  As if released, the theatre hummed to quiet life again. Menachem leaned to Pantera and murmured, ‘Agrippa’s father died here in this theatre. He makes a point of dressing in gold, as did the old king, to silence those who say his death was an act of God, to punish his hubris. His sister is next to him, Berenice of Cilicia, who was married to the son of the Alabarch of Alexandria. When he died after a year of her marital bed, she married her uncle, Herod of Chalcis. When he died four years later, she married King Polemon II of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia.’

  ‘Lucky man,’ said Pantera, drily. ‘How long did he last?’

  A smile split Menachem’s long, lean face. He spread his palms in mock distress. ‘Polemon graces the world yet with his presence, but he no longer has the pleasure of her company. Berenice left him to return here, to Caesarea. Men say she has … unnatural relations with her brother and that they could not bear to be parted.’

  ‘Men often say such things of the women who rule over them,’ Pantera observed. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘That she is the granddaughter of Herod the Great, whose name is for ever despised, and she will for ever bear the stain of his blood; that she worships false gods, that she is given to Rome above all else, but that even so she rules Caesarea far better than does her brother and, the riots of the last half-month notwithstanding, Caesarea is more peaceful, more prosperous and more godly with her here. It is said—’ On the stage, the king had raised his hand. Menachem lowered his voice still further. ‘It is said that Agrippa sent to his sister four times begging her to come back and rule at his side. She came only after the start of the corn riots of ten years ago. They ceased within a day of her return and the city has known very little violence since. What happens here tonight may keep it at bay for some time longer. Watch now.’ He leaned forward. ‘This is what you have come here to see.’

  The king’s raised hand had summoned forth a string of five blue-robed men from the front row of seats. They walked at a measured pace along the ground at the front of the raised stage. From his place high in the auditorium, Pantera saw little more than their heads.

  ‘Hebrew or Syrian?’ he asked.

  ‘Hebrew. They come to petition the king for the safety of their central synagogue, which lies now beset by scaffolding. You will have seen the harm that has fallen on it. Queen Berenice, of course, will hear them. Her response will carry more weight, but it must be given in private, and appear to come from the king.’

  ‘Where’s Florus?’ Pantera asked. ‘If something of import is happening, should Rome’s governor not be here?’

  Menachem gave an eloquent shrug. ‘Our overseer doesn’t choose to involve himself in disputes between Hebrews and Syrians. In his view, Rome stands above such things. But if you look closely now …’

  Pantera looked closely; everyone did. Across the theatre, silence fell in a thick, breath-held blanket. In it, a silver pipe sang three notes. At their dying away, the foremost of the Hebrew men left his fellows and approached the stage alone.

  Seen from the height of the seating, the most obvious feature of the man who mounted the set of small wooden steps was the shining length of his beard, grizzled here and there with silver, so that he seemed sombre even when, as now, he smiled.

  Beyond that, what set him apart, even from the royalty on stage, was the splendour of his robes. He wore a long-coat of midnight silk so thick it took the frantic coppered fires of the theatre and soothed them to stillness. Its luxury enfolded him, screaming wealth and rest
raint together, a thing rarely done here, or in Rome, or even in Alexandria, which prided itself on the subtlety of its riches.

  Reaching the stage, the newcomer turned to face the king. With perfect pride, and perfect humility, he knelt, pressing his face to the floor. His voice welled out across the auditorium, carried by the magnificent acoustics of the copper-backed stage.

  ‘Yusaf ben Matthias salutes his king and his queen, and offers the salutations of his people, who are their people.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MERGUS STOOD STILL and a torchlit tide of people passed him by. He was wearing an outrider’s tunic and plain sandals with a plain eating knife at his belt, given to him by Menachen to replace the one he had lost. It was sharpened along both edges to the point where he could use it as a razor, but outwardly it did not look like a soldier’s weapon.

  Certainly, he had no gladius with which to run an opponent through, no nailed sandals to stamp on his skull and crack it open, sudden and satisfying as a hammered nut. Even so, the breadth of his shoulders, or the tilt of his head, or the flat line of his brows, marked him as a legionary and the citizens of Caesarea, men and women, Hebrew and Syrian alike, gave him a clear berth by lifelong instinct without ever knowing they’d done it.

  He was free, then, to watch as Pantera stepped into the throng and was instantly lost, swept on towards the theatre by people who did not know him, but equally did nothing to avoid him. No halo of space marked him as different. Nobody paid him any attention at all until he reached the theatre door, where he had to haggle for entry exactly as did all the other strangers from outwith the city whose names were not known to the Watch.

  And then, because the tide was still flowing, Mergus was able to see the other man in the living, heaving ocean about whom there was also a halo, not because he held himself with the bearing of a legionary but because he was too big to offend, and so clearly a fighter; a bull of a man with a head fully shaved, with bear’s shoulders and hams for fists and pegs for teeth, of which two were missing. He bore two short twin-headed axes, one at either side of his belt; if the passing men let their eyes rest on anything as they veered to avoid him, it was those.

  Mergus hunched his shoulders, tucked his chin into his chest and cut sideways across the flow. He laid his hand on the big man’s arm, ready for a swing if it came. It did not. The man turned, his face open, ready, entirely free of guile.

  Mergus bowed. ‘I am Appius Mergus, lately a centurion of the Twentieth,’ he said. ‘You, I believe, are Estaph the Parthian, whose daughter is named Eora. You helped a friend of mine to remove a pig’s head from unfortunate surroundings. He would want me to thank you keeping watch for his safety tonight.’

  The bear-man’s face passed through a recognizable sequence from suspicion to contemplation to interest. It stuck at the last. ‘May I know how you learned my name?’

  ‘My friend spoke of a man with bear’s shoulders and a bare head, and of his infant daughter, of her beauty and intelligence; of the sagacity of her father, who is a merchant, but also, he thought, a warrior of some renown.’

  That was the simple version, and almost true. Pantera’s description had been precise, complete and accurate but it was what he had added at the end that mattered. He looks bored. And bored men seek entertainment. If he’s with us, he will be useful. If he’s against us, he will be difficult. Talk to him if you get the chance, find out which.

  On the basis of that, Mergus had made his own assumption, which was that a certain kind of individual, having met Pantera, was inclined to follow him closely, if not out of desire or admiration, then in the understanding that where he went, life was always interesting.

  The tilt of Estaph’s head, the open question in his eyes, was living proof of the theory. Mergus wished he’d placed a bet.

  He said, ‘Our friend has gone into the theatre, to learn how much the Hebrews will pay to preserve their synagogue. I am here to see that no harm befalls him when he comes out. You, however, have a wife and daughter to protect on a night when Caesarea’s wrath might boil over into violence. Should you not be with them?’

  Estaph shook his head. ‘They went with a pack train to Damascus the evening after I met your friend. They will stay safely with my wife’s father until I can return.’

  ‘In that case …’ Mergus made a small gesture of invitation and saw Estaph’s smile spread wide. ‘Our enemy is a man of skill and imagination. He is not Pantera’s twin, but it is useful to assume that he knows all that we know. I imagine we will not have long to wait before—’ He spun quickly on one heel, tracking a man’s movements on the edge of the crowd. ‘Do you see the Greek with the black beard on the crowd’s furthest edge?’

  ‘The one walking away from the theatre, towards the city centre?’

  ‘Yes. His name is Kleitos. He has already tried to kill us once.’

  ‘Then we should kill him?’ said the big Parthian hopefully, and laughed at the look on Mergus’ face.

  Mergus drew his fine-honed eating knife. ‘I had heard the Parthians were the most skilled men in the empire in the use of a hand axe at close quarters. It would cheer my night immensely to see you prove that true.’

  * * *

  In the theatre, Pantera watched Yusaf kneel before his king. The Hebrew’s voice was hurled out to the audience by the beaten copper wall. Even so, four thousand men and women held their breaths, straining to hear him. For effect, the reed pipe sweetened the air. Menachem did not strain. He sat with his head in his hands, as if wishing himself elsewhere.

  ‘We would hear your petition,’ Agrippa said.

  A steward in long, gilded sleeves unrolled a scroll at Yusaf’s side. The merchant glanced at it, but gave no sign of reading directly. To Pantera, it looked as if he knew his words by rote. His words rang brazen through the air.

  ‘We, the Hebrews of Caesarea, cognizant as we are of the honour done to us by our late king, Herod the Great, and all his kin in the creation of this city, wish publicly to proclaim our precedence above those of other tribes and other gods. Our city is a Hebrew city, founded by a Hebrew king and ruled by his grandson. But in this, our city, foul men despoil our worship. We will not soil our king’s ears with the detail, but what has been done is known in every street and avenue from the harbour to the outer walls. We are reasonable men and do not wish strife with our neighbours. Therefore we bring now to the king eight talents of gold, and respectfully request that he give us leave to buy the lands around the house of God that has been so ruinously defiled.’

  Eight talents. Eight talents?

  It was not given to speak in the presence of the king without express invitation, but the intake of breath sucked at the theatre walls with its gale.

  Eight talents was a room’s worth of gold. A river. An ocean. For the worth of eight talents, a man could buy every camel in the east and its progeny and its progeny’s progeny for the next ten generations. If Ibrahim and his brothers had earned so much as a single talent of gold, they would have retired to their Saba villages and bought themselves as many Saba wives as they wanted, each one preparing pickled calves’ intestines for the rest of their idle lives.

  Even in Caesarea, where men could spin money out of straw, Pantera doubted whether they made that much. Yusaf probably didn’t make a talent’s clear profit in a decade, although the balsam might have tipped the scales in that direction. Eight, though … eight would have bled the entire Hebrew population dry of every ounce of profit.

  Yusaf rose stiffly to his feet and handed to his king a small scroll, the promissory note.

  Agrippa took it, slowly, as he might have taken sacred texts for safe keeping. ‘Did I understand correctly: you wish to buy the land around the synagogue that you might hold it free of other buildings?’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘And if it is not for sale?’

  ‘We feel that any man will sell to his majesty, if he is offered a reasonable price.’

  ‘And with this, we could be reasonable.’r />
  ‘Immensely so.’

  There were stirrings in the crowd, the first warnings of shouts to come, whatever the protocol of speaking in the royal presence, the first clenched muscles of beatings and stabbings, the first wave of the violence that threatened to crest the bulwarks of civility and break into bloodshed.

  A voice murmured across the stage, too quiet for those in the seating to hear, even with the copper curtain. The king cocked his head and asked a soft question, equally inaudible to those beyond him. A woman’s voice rode over the answer, tuneful as a mountain spring. Its tone ended in dismissal. Bowing, Yusaf withdrew from the stage leaving the king alone on his pedestal.

  Tension hung taut across the theatre. Nobody shouted yet, but the air was thick with waiting.

  As if in answer, the king flung both his arms high. A cascade of high-toned silver bells rang from behind the bronze wall. On their signal, scarlet and saffron silks rained from its height to hang halfway down, casting the braziers in blood red.

  Agrippa, set ablaze by the new light, brought both arms crashing down.

  At which, every light within the theatre was doused; every torch, every lamp, every candle, snuffed before the king’s hands reached his sides. The radiant, many-coloured theatre was struck to utter darkness as surely as if the sun had been extinguished.

  The men and women of Caesarea were seasoned theatregoers, not readily impressed by pyrotechnics or displays of deus ex machina, but they gasped aloud then, and again when a single man’s voice boomed from the stage out across the auditorium.

  ‘A king lives for ever in the eyes of God. Mere mortals rise and die, taking four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening to stagger to their graves. Keep to your seats now, men of Caesarea, and witness such wonders as have never before been seen in the civilized world!’