Rome 2: The Coming of the King

by M C Scott

  She watched him leave, and wondered that he had never thought to ask her who was with Pantera, whether the mountain-man was with him, or the Hebrews, or why the centurion had dressed as a woman.

  Because he had not asked, she had not told him, but kept the information to herself, in case it might be useful later in the plan she was beginning to make, which was significantly different from the one she had nursed on the ship sailing in from her homeland.

  JERUSALEM

  EARLY SUMMER, AD 66

  IN THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR NERO

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  JERUSALEM WAS OLD: older than Alexandria, older than Rome, older possibly than Athens or Corinth.

  Riding in at dawn with Kleopatra slack as a corpse before her saddle, Hypatia had caught the ripe scent of a dunghill and noted it – Caesarea had no dunghills – but she had not yet been struck by the differences between the city of David, scarred by war, built and rebuilt over and over by the pride and blood of the Hebrew nation, and Caesarea, youthful city of Herod, whose grandson sat on the throne, whose mason marks were still sharp on the buildings, whose carpenters still used the tools their grandfathers had held when they built it.

  She saw it now with the morning sun hard on each detail. Where Caesarea was young, bright, shining, with wide streets of white stone, with cleansing sewers the height of a man that carried ordure and storm water equally into the ocean’s depths, Jerusalem was … wizened, wise, balanced on the shoulders of forested hills, with dry wadis all about and steep valleys cutting through her heart. Her crooked, arthritic streets crabbed along valley sides, up slopes, twisting, knotted; sore, yes, but with her history written in every angled stone, and such a history …

  Where Herod’s city, named for a Roman emperor, claimed to be the Roman capital of Judaea, and boasted a temple to the deified Augustus, Jerusalem, named for peace, was the Hebrew capital, sanctified by Solomon, by David, by the Hasmonean monarchs who had last held her free; here was the Temple sacred to the heart of every God-fearing Semite across the empire.

  Here also was Herod’s palace, four storeys high, built in the Greek style and set on the westerly wall, where the king might enjoy the fruits of his labours and yet not overlook the Temple and the sacred works performed therein.

  Hypatia stood now on its steps, and looked east across the city to the Temple and the fortress of the Antonia. She breathed in the scents of the Upper Market just below her; of saffron and garlic, of olives and oil and wine and fresh meat and dried fish, and began the slow process of knowing in the way she might, in other times and other places, have come to know a lover; slowly, over time, and fully.

  In that coming-to-know, she had another task: the finding of herbs for Kleopatra’s head. She was not a healer of headaches in fourteen-year-old girls and had said so several times in the sleepless morning that followed their arrival. Nevertheless, she had trained to her vocation in the company of healers whose skills had cheated Anubis of far more certain souls than Kleopatra’s and she did have a reasonable grasp of what herbs and poultices might prove effective.

  Sadly, Herod’s magnificent, many-storeyed palace, while being larger, more stately and possessed of far more intriguing layers and corridors than its counterpart at Caesarea, had proved to be shockingly poorly provisioned. Hypatia had lost half the morning searching through cold stone kitchens, cluttered, dustrimed storerooms and an unused infirmary on the fourth floor of the western side before one of the permanent under-stewards who staffed the lower levels thought to tell her that the High Priest preferred prayer to the use of herbs and she was unlikely to find what she sought anywhere in the palace.

  Thus it was that in the worst heat of the day, when every other member of the royal household from servants to king had retired to bed to sleep off the effects of the ride, Hypatia petitioned a drowsily amiable Polyphemos for a new, anonymous tunic to replace the green silk of the night’s ride and, minimally refreshed, left the palace for the undying heat of a Jerusalem afternoon.

  She looked out across the Upper Market, which grew as a riotous, many-coloured fungus below the steps, almost to the palace walls. It sold silk, evidently: colours exploded from every stall; cerise, midnight blue, turquoise, searing yellow, spring-leaf greens. She thought she saw a herb-seller somewhere behind the flagrant colours and set off to find her.

  ‘Wait!’

  Kleopatra stood, flushed, on the wide marbled porch. She, too, had abandoned her theatre silks for an undistinguished tunic, belted with rope. She was barefoot and her hair was caught up under a boy’s cap. From a distance – even close up – it was impossible to be sure of her gender. She ran down the steps, clumsily.

  ‘Kleopatra, go back. You’re not fit—’

  ‘I am your princess. It’s not for you to say whether I’m fit or not.’

  ‘Really?’ Hypatia turned fully round and arched one brow. ‘Tell me, when did you gain rule over Isis? I must have missed it in the night.’

  Grown men – governors, princes, kings – had withered before that look and that tone. Kleopatra of Caesarea halted, balanced between one step and the next. She looked mildly discomfited; hot.

  ‘You’re barely conscious and the sun’s at its height. Even if you don’t still have a headache, it would give you a new one,’ Hypatia said reasonably. ‘I’m going to look for valerian and monkwort or whatever I can find in the market that will take away the pain in your head. I’ll bring it back as soon as I can. You’ll be far more comfortable if you stay here.’

  Kleopatra shook her head. ‘You’ll need a guide to find what you need.’

  ‘I doubt it. I have travelled in other cities; I can find my way to—’

  ‘Jerusalem is different. The streets wind and bend up and down like a maze. You could be lost here and not even know it.’

  ‘Then I’ll find a guide I can trust. Thank you for your advice.’

  ‘I’ll be your guide. You can’t trust anyone else.’ Kleopatra came closer, a step at a time, punctuating each short, sure phrase. ‘I was born here. I’ve spent half my life exploring the Jerusalem markets. And I know where the herbs are sold. There isn’t anything you want in the Upper Market, you need to go into the lower city. I can show you the way.’

  It was still possible to send her back. The Chosen of Isis had had command of armies in the past, and of their commanders in the nearer times, but … but … There are days in life where each moment passes and is remarkable in its own right, but not particular. Then, occasionally, there comes a day when a particular moment holds the key to different futures, and the gods hold their breath upon its turning.

  Hypatia studied the girl who stood before her, whose dark hair mirrored her own, whose high, smooth brow was exactly that of the queen, whose stormy eyes belonged to nobody but herself. The black dots at their centres were small now, and of equal diameter, which they had not been in the night.

  And so a choice was made. ‘Come then,’ said Hypatia, and the gods breathed again. ‘Keep close to me. Your family’s not well liked and news of Caesarea’s riots will have spread with the dawn. If the merchants come to know who you are …’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘To be certain, we will say that I am a Greek woman seeking herbs for her husband and you are my niece. Speak Greek unless I say otherwise. Lead me to the herb-sellers, but not directly. Saulos will have set someone to follow us.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THUS IT WAS that Hypatia discovered the hills, the valleys, the sacred pools, the riotously loud markets, the quiet places of worship, the narrow lanes and dark, hidden alleyways of Jerusalem not in pleasurable solitude but in the company of a fourteen-year-old girl. The early surprise was that she found herself not at all unhappy with the exchange.

  Passing swiftly through the Upper Market, Kleopatra showed an easy familiarity with the city’s angular back streets and blossomed in the role of leader and guide. She led at a fast pace, taking random turns to left and right, up slopes, down hills, a
sharp back-turn here, a long, lazy arc there, keeping always in the shade, so that whoever was behind them – there was someone, Hypatia could feel a presence and thought she knew who it was – could not readily follow.

  They passed down steep alleys and along streets where the mud-brick houses reached four storeys or more and leaned over almost to touch one another above the street. They passed through small, open squares where the sun flooded in, and lit the bricks to gold. In Rome or Corinth or Caesarea, they would have housed a fountain in the shape of a dolphin or a satyr. Here they played host to a stall where a woman or a girl or a youth sold melons, or dates, or peaches.

  Elsewhere, they skirted round courtyards in which middle-aged men in dark robes sat in a semicircle and debated points of law and religion, and in between all of these, in the markets that clogged every free area, they threaded through throngs of men, women and children, who eyed them with a degree of loathing Hypatia had rarely encountered.

  Kleopatra ignored them all; her clear Greek etched out the architecture and the politics, but not the immediate press of people.

  ‘This street leads to the Temple. Only priests live here, but you can tell who’s out of favour, for those close with the High Priest have the north side, sheltered from the sun, and those he hates are moved to the south side, and bake through the day.

  ‘Over there is the street of the knife-grinders. The priests buy most of them; they kill a million lambs for the Passover so they need dozens of knives and replace them monthly.

  ‘That’s the Hasmonean palace. Would you not want to live there, with all those beautiful round towers, rather than the square edges of my great-grandfather’s?

  ‘This is the lower city. The best markets are here. To your left are the silk merchants. Did you ever see colours like that?’

  ‘In Alexandria, possibly.’ Hypatia turned slowly, looking about. No one was behind, and had not been for the past three blocks. ‘But not so many in one place. Alexandria has one great market spread over acres of land, not dozens of small, close stalls cramped into a hundred different markets as you have here.’

  ‘I’ve never been anywhere except here and Caesarea.’ Kleopatra had lost the imperious stance of the palace steps. Here, her face was wide with a child’s curiosity. ‘Tell me about Alexandria. No – just tell me about Isis. Tell me where you trained as the Chosen, what you did, all of it.’

  ‘I can’t tell you all of it. About some parts, I am sworn to secrecy.’

  ‘Tell me what you can.’

  It wasn’t possible to give a lifetime’s teaching in an afternoon, but it was still a day for god-held moments, not to be ignored. Hypatia let the god guide her voice and Kleopatra, listening, asked intelligent questions that led the conversation along unexpected avenues, so that by the time they reached the far edge of the lower city Hypatia had agreed to take her to the Oracle of the Sibyls in the Temple of Truth when her business in Berenice’s court was over.

  ‘That won’t be soon, though,’ she said. ‘I may have to stay for the rest of the year.’ And then, ‘Someone’s behind us again.’

  ‘Let’s go.’ Kleopatra caught hold of her elbow. ‘This way.’ They passed left and right and right again down a dark and steeply sloping passage and came out into the heady scents of a small fruit market. A beggar spat at them as they passed. Kleopatra rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore him.’

  ‘If I took notice of everyone who spat at us,’ Hypatia said, ‘we’d still be in the upper city. These people hate us, and they don’t even know who we are.’

  ‘If they knew you were the Chosen of Isis, they’d stone you to death in the street.’

  Ducking under a saffron-yellow awning, Kleopatra bought a net full of peaches, and handed the fruit to Hypatia. In her lightly accented Greek, she said, ‘For my aunt, a gift from her niece.’ And more quietly. ‘Are we safe yet?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Keep moving. And keep talking so I can look around. Tell me why so many people wear blue here, when further back, near the valley, it was yellow?’

  Kleopatra set off at a brisk pace. ‘It’s to do with factions and their hatred of each other. Yellow is for the War Party, led by Menachem, grandson of the Galilean who led the zealots out of Galilee and died fighting to rid the land of Romans. His people think they can do all their grandfathers did, but better. They rule the land around the valleys and they’re pledged to destroy the king and his family.’ She said this as if they were distant people, seen perhaps twice in a lifetime.

  She went on. ‘Blue is for the Peace Party. Those who wear it are pledged to rid Israel of Rome by peaceful means, by prayer and diplomacy. They’re led by Gideon, known as the Peacemaker. The War Party want his death almost as much as they want the king’s. Menachem is the only one holding them in check. He says they’re not ready to fight yet, that they risk annihilation if they act too soon.’

  They passed under an arch. A crowd of blue-clad women stepped aside, hard-eyed. The blue was not all one colour; some were paler than dawn sky, washed almost to white, some were the deep blue of woad traded from the far side of the empire, some were stained with berry juice and almost black. A prick at the back of Hypatia’s neck said someone was following still, but she, who could see through the heart of men’s souls, could see nothing.

  Kleopatra was deep in one-sided conversation, following her own inner line of thought.

  ‘It’s all the fault of Ananias, the High Priest. The Hebrew god is jealous of the other gods which means his people have no choice of worship. They pray to be rid of Rome and Rome stays, therefore the Hebrews believe that the invaders have been sent as a punishment for their poor behaviour. If they hate us, it’s only because they hate themselves more.’

  ‘Did someone tell you that?’ Hypatia asked. They turned right into a narrow alleyway and had to pass a throng this time of men and youths marked by patches of hidden yellow, a fleck on a neckerchief here, a thread through an armband there. They parted to let the women go by.

  ‘Who would tell me?’ Kleopatra gave a short laugh. ‘Men have been stoned for saying such things.’

  ‘What makes you think you’re safe?’

  ‘Nobody listens to a girl. I can say what I like as long as I’m careful who I say it to. Hyrcanus knows what I think, but he won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘He might tell Iksahra,’ Hypatia said, absently. She scanned the market, trying to see what did not fit.

  Kleopatra shrugged. ‘Maybe. But she hates everyone also. Was she the one behind us earlier?’

  ‘Possibly. One of them.’ Hypatia was turning circles now, trying to see through the blue-clad crowd that followed as they passed out of the narrow alley and into yet another teeming market square. ‘I think there are two, maybe three. The question is whether they are together or apart.’

  ‘Really?’ Caught by the new urgency in her tone, Kleopatra said, ‘If we run, we could lose them. We could go left here and across the square and—’

  ‘No, wait.’ Hypatia caught the girl’s arm. ‘Not everyone who follows is an enemy.’ She turned the girl round so that she could hold her shoulders and look down into her eyes. ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hypatia read no hesitation in her face. Truly the afternoon had wrought miracles. ‘In that case, will you stay here for a moment? I won’t be long.’

  The girl’s eyes flew wide, but she nodded, and stepped back under an awning and crouched down. Fast as a mouse, and as delicate, she swept up a dozen small stones and balanced them on the back of one hand. Transformed, she was a street child playing knucklebones.

  Hypatia plunged back through the blue-clad throng towards the alley on the square’s western edge, following a flutter of linen that might not have been there, and a half-sensed feeling that was old and yet new.

  The alley ran from east to west and was dark along its length. Halfway along, on the north side, was a house of only a single storey nested between two others far taller. A set of stairs sloped down from its flat roof
. A bundle of rags twitched in the tight angle of the stairs’ foot. As she reached it, the rags unfolded in a single fluid movement. A knife gleamed once in the shadows and was still.

  She said, ‘Pantera?’

  Pantera grew from the dark. There was barely light enough to show the lines of exhaustion on his face, but Hypatia was trained to see beyond the outer skin, and what she saw was the man she had met in Alexandria, a man whose will shone like polished iron, and was as hard. He had lost that polish on the day after Rome’s fire. It was back now, just as bright and sharp and hard as when she had first met him.

  He was studying her with a disconcerting frankness, one brow raised. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I am. You, on the other hand, look exhausted. Have you slept at all since you left Caesarea?’

  ‘No.’ His gaze still fed on her face. ‘Am I alone in that?’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘Not at all. But I’m on my way back to the palace where I have a safe bed, while you will need to find somewhere—’

  ‘We have somewhere. Yusaf has a house here. He is giving us refuge.’

  ‘Yusaf ben Matthias? The counsellor who petitioned the king?’ A memory flashed between them of absurdly weighty silk, of a weightier beard and eyes sunk so deep they were hard to read. ‘The petitioner whose failure tipped Caesarea into riots last night?’

  ‘He’s safe company for now.’ Pantera looked both ways down the alley’s length. ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘Iksahra is following you. We can’t be seen together.’

  ‘I thought we’d lost her in the markets round the Hasmonean palace,’ Hypatia said.