In the dark I had no idea where the exterior door of the stable was. Nor did I know how many animals were around us or where they were tethered. We were as likely to be tripped by an ox or a horse as felled by our assailants.
Matthias started to say something, but Bar-jonah cut him off. “The tall one speaks Hebrew. We’re not going to be able to surprise them.”
“Then let’s just rush them and be done with it,” Matthias said.
But, as he took his first step, a crash resounded through the house. Even though I’d never heard the sound before, I knew it was a door being knocked off its hinges. Bar-jonah’s slaves came running into the stable in a panic, followed by Tacitus and Damon and several other of our slaves. Even with numbers on our side, the struggle that followed was still in doubt. Bar-jonah, Matthias, and the other two had considerable practice in using their weapons. No one on our side had ever pointed a knife at another human being.
The four cut-throats had forced their way through our ranks, leaving two of our slaves writhing on the floor and Tacitus with a gash on his arm. They were about to break completely away from us when a Herculean figure loomed in the doorway leading into the living quarters.
Marcus Carolus!
* * * *
The fight was soon over. Bar-jonah and the second of the three cut-throats lay dead at Carolus’ hand. One of Tacitus’ slaves appeared to be seriously wounded. Tacitus and another of his slaves had suffered cuts that were quickly bound up by one of Bar-jonah’s slaves. Using the litter and bearers which had brought Carolus to the stable, we sent the wounded slaves to Apelles’ house. Timothy knew Luke had been planning to visit the family. He sent along a note explaining that we would all be arriving there soon.
“Your transportation came in handy,” I said to Carolus as the bearers set off.
“It was the only way I could get through the streets in this part of town without drawing attention to myself,” Carolus explained. “I thought you might need some help. Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?”
I resented feeling like a child always in need of rescue. But I could only watch in awe as Carolus had tossed our attackers around like a bull in the arena tossing condemned criminals. I posted Damon to watch the stable door that led onto the next street and put a couple of the slaves Carolus had brought with him at the door of Bar-jonah’s living quarters. Now there was just one matter left to settle. I turned to the surviving assailants, who were seated on the floor with their backs against the wall.
“Where is the girl?” I demanded of Matthias.
He snorted and refused to look up at me.
“Tell them,” the other man urged him. He had said his name was Simon. He was the one who spoke the best Greek in the group.
Matthias replied in Hebrew, which Timothy translated. “Why should I help Romans find their precious little pet?” He spat at my feet.
Carolus grabbed him by the beard and jerked his head back hard against the wall. “Tell us where she is or I’ll yank your ugly head right off your shoulders.”
“Why are you with them?” Matthias sneered, forced into Greek. “The Romans have burned your homes, enslaved your women. You Germans should rise up against them, as we did.”
“We tried that,” Carolus said. “And it got us exactly what it got you. But we’re not here to talk politics. Where is the girl?” Matthias’ head hit the wall hard on each word.
“I’ll tell you,” Simon said.
“You dog’s vomit!” Matthias said. “Don’t betray our cause.”
“Your only cause is your purse,” Simon said. “Kidnapping this girl had nothing to do with Rome or Jerusalem. You just wanted to make yourself rich. That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
I turned my attention to him, determined not to resort to traditional Roman methods to get the information I wanted.
“Simon,” I said, “I’m a reasonable man. I don’t want to hurt you. In fact, I want to thank you for not letting Matthias kill Melissa.”
“Was that the woman we left tied up in the old temple?”
“Yes. The woman you raped.”
“I had no part in that. I swear it. That was Matthias and Benjamin.”
I pulled his hands toward me and examined them and his forearms.
“What are you looking for?”
“Dog bites,” I said.
“Check Matthias’ arms. He fought with the dog, and Benjamin helped him kill it. I’ve never seen anything so ferocious.”
“What were you doing all that time?”
“I was holding the women, to make sure they didn’t run away. But I didn’t hurt them. It was those two thugs.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say about your family.”
Simon shook his head. “They’re not my blood. They’re my wife’s cousins. Matthias always has some scheme going, something that will make him rich without any hard work. He killed a man in Antioch. We barely escaped crucifixion and didn’t stop running until we reached Smyrna. Matthias has made us notorious here as men who will do any job, no matter how despicable.”
“That’s true,” Carolus said. “His was the first name that came up when I started looking for someone to find Chryseis.”
“But he had no intention of giving her back, did he?” I asked.
“No. As soon as he heard the description of her, he started this plan. He knows that a blond virgin slave will bring a high price in some palaces in Mesopotamia.”
“But right now she’s not blond,” I said. Carolus’ head jerked toward me in surprise. “Melissa cut her hair quite short and dyed it,” I explained. “She also applied some kind of coloring to her skin.”
Simon nodded. “She looks more like a Jewish boy than a Greek girl. I wasn’t sure we had the right one. Matthias was furious. He would have to wait months for her hair to grow out and the dye to wear off.”
“Has he hurt her?”
“Not that I know of. I’m so tired of it all. I just want it to end.”
I think I saw tears in the poor man’s eyes.
“Do you know where she is?”
“We brought her here. Matthias and Bar-jonah took her out into the stable and hid her. I think they put her in some sort of cellar. I don’t know exactly where it is.”
Carolus jerked Matthias to his feet. “Come on, scum. You’re going to show us right now.”
I helped Simon up and we all trooped out into the stable. The slaves brought lamps. With their dim illumination the stable appeared to be cavernous. The earth floor was covered with a thick layer of straw. The dozen or so tethered animals—a conglomeration of horses, donkeys, and oxen—moved nervously.
“Where do we begin searching?” I asked.
“I could make this one talk,” Carolus said, tightening his grip on Matthias’ beard.
“He won’t tell you,” Simon said. “He’d let you kill him out of spite.”
“Don’t you have any idea where they hid her?” I asked Simon.
“No, but one of Bar-jonah’s slaves has been tending to her.” He looked around, then pointed. “That one.”
Carolus pushed Matthias away and stepped toward the slave. But the fellow was already scampering across the stable. At first I thought he was trying to escape, but he shooed some animals out of his way and began brushing back the straw at one spot on the floor.
We all had our attention turned in that direction, so I don’t know exactly what happened. And it all happened so fast. Simon, standing right next to me, gasped and let out a groan, then dropped to his knees. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matthias pull a knife out of his back and strike him again. Simon crumpled to the floor and Matthias stepped back, brandishing the bloody knife.
“He’s got a knife!” I yelled. Then I realized it was my knife. I had carelessly laid the thing down instead of putting it back in my chest band.
Matthias grabbed a lamp from a slave standing near him. He threw it hard onto the floor a few steps away from me. The clay shattered and burning oi
l spread quickly into the straw.
Fire! It would be a raging inferno by the time it consumed Bar-jonah’s stable, I wanted to catch Matthias, I had to put out the fire, I had to get Chryseis out, and I was paralyzed by indecision.
Matthias turned to run. I felt a vaguely familiar sensation of something whizzing past my ear. Matthias dropped like a child’s doll cut loose from a string. Damon, across the stable, tucked his shepherd’s sling under his tunic.
“All right, everyone, don’t panic!” I shouted. I grabbed the two slaves standing closest to me. “Get water and blankets! Put that fire out.” They didn’t move until Timothy repeated my commands in Hebrew.
Through the smoke, I thought I saw Matthias’ leg move. “Timothy,” I called, “check him. He may still be alive.”
Carolus was digging in the earth where Bar-jonah’s slave had cleared away the straw. I joined him to see the outline of a door emerge. Carolus found a ring attached to the wood and pulled. There, in a hole not much bigger than a bed, lay Chryseis—a brown-haired, dark-skinned Chryseis—bound and gagged. Before Carolus could let go of the door, I dropped into the hole, picked her up, and handed her up to him. He put her on the floor and started to untie her.
“Get her out of here!” I barked. “Do that outside.”
Tacitus and Damon helped me out of the hole. The fire was getting beyond the point where we could put it out. The doorway back into the living quarters was blocked by flames and thick smoke. Timothy dragged Matthias over to us. “He’s still breathing.”
I glanced at Damon.
He shrugged. “I don’t carry large stones, my lord. I don’t really want to kill anything.”
“We’ll take him with us,” I said. “Timothy, tell these slaves to call the night watchmen.” He translated and the slaves scampered away.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I don’t think we can save the place.”
“But, my lord,” Damon said. “What about the animals?”
“I guess they’ll be consumed along with everything else.”
“Please, my lord, we can’t leave them to suffer like that.” He ran to an ox and struggled with the tether. Tacitus and I looked at one another and then began untying the animals or cutting them free and herding them out the stable door.
XVI
FULL DARKNESS HAD SETTLED by the time we were all safely ensconced in Apelles’ house. I had been half afraid Carolus would take Chryseis and run once he got out of Bar-jonah’s stable. Every time I got her back, it seemed, someone was waiting in the shadows to snatch her away again. I insisted that Damon stand guard outside the room where the servants helped her clean up.
Matthias was trussed up in a neighboring room, complaining of the pain in his head. Luke examined him and pronounced him fit to stand trial for his actions. I didn’t tell the doctor, but a trial wasn’t what I had in mind for that cut-throat. I was concerned about keeping him confined. Kallisto had no chains in the house. She and Apelles would never chain a slave, she told us, so we had to settle for a couple of pieces of rope and some vigilant watchmen.
After what seemed too long a time Chryseis entered the large peristyle garden, where food had been set out for all of us. Kallisto and one of her slaves tended to our needs. In the flaring light of torches the plain white gown Chryseis was wearing made her darkened skin seem even browner. She kept looking at her hands and arms in dismay. Among Greeks and Romans the whiter a woman’s complexion is and the longer her hair, the prettier she is considered to be. Chryseis must have felt like some deformed creature.
“Come and eat, Chryseis,” I said.
She knelt in front of me. “Thank you, my lord. And thank you for saving me. I know I’ll be punished for running away, but—”
“There’ll be no talk of that,” Carolus said. The challenge in his eyes when he looked at me was unmistakable.
I took her hand, pulled her up, and seated her between Carolus and myself. I thought everyone in the garden, slave and free, would be taken aback by this breach of etiquette. “Seneca invited his slaves to recline on the couch with him,” I started to say in my defense. “After what Chryseis has endured, she certainly deserves to be treated with some consideration.”
“In this house,” Kallisto said, “we see no difference between slave and free.”
That was the same claim Luke had made when Cornutus and I were squaring off over lunch a few days ago.
“How do you get your slaves to do their work?” I asked.
“We work together because we love one another,” Kallisto replied.
“You’ll understand more,” Luke put in, “when you’ve read my book about Jesus.”
“I’ll do that as soon as we’ve cleared up the matter of Cornutus’ murder.” Turning to Chryseis I said, “I’m not sure what’s going to happen to you, Chryseis. Given Florus’ eagerness to torture slaves, I’m hesitant even to let him know we’ve found you.”
“Florus? Is he the governor?” she asked.
“Yes. He arrived yesterday.”
“He’s a Roman magistrate, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then I have to see him, my lord.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise.”
Carolus put a hand on her arm, alarm on his face. “He’s right, my child. Florus has found he has a taste for blood.”
“He’s a weak man who has discovered that being cruel makes him feel strong,” Luke said morosely.
“But I have to see him, my lord. That’s what my master told me to do if anything happened to him. Oh, do you know where my bag is? The one I was carrying when I ran away?”
“It’s in my room at the inn,” I assured her. “Melissa made sure I retrieved it when we found her at the old temple.”
“Is everything still in it?”
I knew what she was asking: Have you been meddling in my things again? “I couldn’t say what is or is not in it. I haven’t opened it.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
* * * *
Chryseis was so exhausted from her ordeal that she nearly went to sleep while she was eating. Her head drooped onto my shoulder. She would have stayed there all night if I’d had my way, but I knew she needed good rest. I sent her, under Damon’s aegis, off to the room which had been prepared for her in the interior of the house. Damon would see to it that the slaves assigned to stand watch at her door and Matthias’ understood the importance of their task. Of that I was sure.
After Timothy and Luke retired as well, Carolus let out a long sigh. “Well, Gaius Pliny, we have had some excitement tonight, haven’t we?”
“Yes, Marcus Carolus. Thank you for your help. Your arrival was well timed. It’s good strategy in battle to hold fresh troops in reserve until a crucial moment.”
He dismissed my compliment with a wave of his hand and a modest smile. “I wish I could take credit for being so clever. Tonight I just happened to blunder in when I was needed.”
“You certainly didn’t make any blunders with that knife of yours,” Tacitus said from the bench where he was sitting across the table from us.
“Yes, about your knife,” I said. “May I see it?”
Carolus’ smile faded. If Tacitus hadn’t been present, I’m not sure what the big German would have done. As he hesitated, I put out my hand. He reached inside his tunic, pulled out the knife, and laid it in my hand, hilt first. “My father purchased it,” he said, “on one of his trading trips. It comes from somewhere in the east, beyond India.”
I held the knife up to the light of a torch that was fastened to a column on one side of me. The hilt was carved of ivory and shaped like some mythical beast. I had never seen anything so exquisite. I ran a finger along the blade, looking at it rather than Carolus as I spoke. “It’s an unusual design. I’ve never seen one with such a slender blade. Is it the one you used to cut out Cornutus’ heart?”
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly as Tacitus gasped. “But I didn’t kill him. That’s what you asked earlier.�
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“I know you didn’t.” I handed the knife back to him. “He was poisoned at dinner.”
“But . . . who?” I don’t know if he was more surprised by my returning the weapon or my claim of poisoning.
“I think I know, but I need conclusive proof. For now, though, please continue with your story. You cut his heart out. Why on earth would you do such a . . . horrific thing?” I managed to catch myself before I said ‘barbaric’.
“My mother was distraught over her daughter being taken captive. She made me pledge myself to getting Helga back or taking revenge on the man who captured her. When I had to tell her Helga was dead, she killed herself. She stabbed herself in the heart. With this very knife.”
He held the blade poised between two of his own ribs. If he decided to plunge it in, I would be unable to stop him.
“Losing her daughter was like having her heart cut out, wasn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, exactly. I have known for years I would stab him in the heart when I got the chance. I thought I had him cornered four years ago at Baiae, but Chryseis was right there. I couldn’t kill him in front of her. Watching Marcellus help him up the stairs that night, I decided Cornutus’ defenses were down enough for me to make my move.”
“What did you think when you stabbed him?”
“I realized he was already dead when he didn’t react to my first thrust. It was like butchering a dead animal. When he didn’t resist, I went wild and gutted him. I guess I was so angry at being denied my chance for revenge.” Recognition came into his eyes and he lowered the knife. “By the gods! It was Marcellus who poisoned him, wasn’t it? It must have been that wineskin.”
My glance at Tacitus said, See, it’s so obvious that even a German can figure it out. “That’s what I’ve concluded,” I replied to Carolus. “The problem is to prove it. Cornutus’ body has been burned, and the type of poison he used left no signs that even a doctor could find.”
“Why don’t you ask Marcellus to take a sip of the stuff?” Tacitus said. “If he refuses, then you can demand to know why.”
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