‘What?’
‘She sent me after you.’
‘Who? My mother?’
‘No,’ said Agathus gently. ‘Not your mother.’
‘Flavia?’
‘No,’ said Agathus. ‘Berenice.’
‘But why would Berenice . . . You!’ he cried suddenly. ‘You’re Berenice’s agent!’
Agathus nodded and turned back to the desk. He dipped his pen in the ink pot and resumed writing on a piece of papyrus.
‘She sent me a letter last month, you know. From Brundisium. Said she had finally decided to leave Italia and return to her own country. She was to leave as soon as the sailing season began. I was to wait for her word and then I was to go to her.’
He stopped writing and looked up at the small unbarred window. ‘I have served Berenice for many years. All those years she stayed with Titus, waiting until he should become Emperor and marry her as he promised. Waiting in vain.’
Agathus turned to look at Jonathan.
‘Do you know why she wanted to be Empress? Not because she lusted after power or riches. No. She wanted to help her people. Our people. The children of Israel. She used to say she would be Esther to his Xerxes.’
‘The beautiful queen who saved her people,’ murmured Jonathan.
Agathus nodded. ‘And because Esther was queen, she was able to prevent the evil Haman from wiping out the Jewish race. On that occasion the Jews fought back against those who would exterminate them.’
‘The festival of Purim,’ said Jonathan, and then, ‘but Berenice is not good like Queen Esther. She’s wicked. Flavia told me that she and her brother—’
‘She is passionate, as well as compassionate,’ Agathus interrupted. ‘And she can be fiercely jealous. She believed your mother was the only barrier to her becoming Empress. I sent her many assurances that Susannah was not the reason for Titus’s change of heart, and I finally succeeded in persuading her to go home.’
Agathus stood and looked down at Jonathan.
‘But when Simeon delivered your letter saying that Titus and Susannah were just friends – yes, she showed it to me the night she arrived – when she saw that letter, her suspicions were instantly aroused. I don’t know whether she suspected some intrigue, or whether she believed Titus might really want her back, but she immediately abandoned her plans to leave Italia.’ He glared at Jonathan from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. ‘She had finally accepted the truth, that Titus would never make her his Empress. And then you sent that foolish letter.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jonathan miserably.
‘Feeling sorry doesn’t help. Make it right.’
‘How?’
‘Berenice made one error of judgment. Titus is not “Xerxes”, the misguided but benevolent ruler. Titus is “Haman”, the evil tyrant who would exterminate our people. Do you know he intends to open his new amphitheatre with a hundred days of games?’
‘My mother said something about it.’
‘Think of it, Jonathan: one hundred days! Do you have any idea where he will get enough gladiators to fight and die daily for more than three months?’
Jonathan’s blood ran cold in his veins. ‘The Jewish slaves,’ he said.
Agathus nodded. ‘Correct. The men who have been working on that pagan death pit for the past nine years have been building their own tomb!’
‘But . . . Are you sure?’
‘Where else will he find a thousand gladiators?’
‘Volunteers?’
Agathus snorted. ‘He’ll need those, too, but no. He will finally exterminate all the Jews he brought back from Jerusalem.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Help me eliminate Titus. It’s the only way. Berenice will never stop loving him while he’s alive. But with Titus dead, Berenice will have no more ties here. Then she can finally leave this corrupt city and go home.’
‘No. I can’t do that.’ Jonathan closed his eyes, saw the image of his father and mother embracing, and quickly opened them again.
Agathus pulled his stool closer to Jonathan’s bed and sat forward.
‘Jonathan, think about it. God has shown his displeasure with Titus. First the volcano, then the blighted harvest, the blood-red sunsets, and now this pestilence. Do you know how many years it has been since the First Temple was destroyed?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Flavia told me: 666, the number of the Beast,’ he said, and added, ‘according to Josephus.’
‘Josephus is correct. We are in the end times, Jonathan. Titus is the Beast, another Nero. He must be eliminated.’ Agathus spoke these words calmly, as if he were arguing a point of rhetoric.
Jonathan wished he could close his ears as well as his eyes.
‘Jonathan, listen to me. Your mother’s life may be in danger. You know that Berenice hired three assassins to have her killed last year?’
‘How could I forget?’
‘After you foiled their plot, I wrote to her. I informed her that Titus and Susannah were just friends. I assured her that Titus had changed. That he had reformed. That he had renounced Eros to devote himself to the Empire . . . But after what Berenice saw and heard yesterday – Titus’s open declaration of love for your mother – I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to poison your mother herself!’
A sudden wave of nausea flooded over Jonathan. He managed to lean out of the bed in time, and he retched a bitter-tasting yellow liquid into the chamber-pot. Then he sank back onto the prickly mattress, trembling, aching, drenched in cold sweat. His head hurt and there was the sour taste of vomit in his mouth.
‘Drink this.’ Agathus brought a beaker to Jonathan’s mouth. The cold water rinsed away some of the bitterness.
‘Jonathan,’ said Agathus, sitting back on the stool. ‘Consider what I am about to say: Titus’s death would solve your problem. There would be no reason for Berenice to kill your mother. And there would be nothing to keep your mother here in Rome.’
‘Even if I agreed,’ said Jonathan slowly, ‘how could you . . . we . . . do it, without getting caught?’
Agathus looked up at Jonathan from under his bushy eyebrows. ‘Tomorrow is the last day of the Parentalia, when the temples reopen. Titus plans to make a special sacrifice at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. He will beg Jupiter to end this pestilence and show his favour. Tomorrow is also the day before Purim, the festival which celebrates the victory of the Jewish people over Haman and his evil minions. It is the perfect day for us to strike.’
‘How will you kill him with the priests and people all around?’
Agathus stood and went to his table. On it was a linen shoulder pouch. He brought the pouch and held it open so that Jonathan could look inside.
‘A garland?’ said Jonathan.
‘A poisoned garland. The poison works subtly, giving the appearance of death by fever. When Titus puts the wreath on his head before he makes the sacrifice, he will be the instrument of his own death. Titus may even fall in the very act of sacrificing the bull. Those people who are superstitious will believe the gods have struck him down, and those who are sceptical will believe he merely has the fever. But in such a time as this, nobody will suspect poison.’
Another image flashed into Jonathan’s mind: Titus on his funeral bier, eyes closed, hands folded peacefully across his chest.
‘I saw the way your mother looked at your father yesterday,’ said Agathus softly. ‘Anyone could see she cares for him. If Titus were to die, then his younger brother Domitian would be Emperor. Domitian has no interest in your mother. Just think, Jonathan: your mother would be free to go home. You would be together again. Don’t you want that?’
‘More than anything,’ said Jonathan fiercely. ‘Why do you think I wrote those letters?’
‘Then you must help me.’
‘I can’t. It’s wrong. It’s murder.’ He was seized by a coughing fit and Agathus waited until he was quiet.
‘Is ridding the world of a tyrant murder? Or is it rather mercy
?’
Jonathan lay back on the lumpy pillow and closed his swollen eyes. For a moment he let himself wonder what it might be like if Titus was dead and his mother was home. In his mind’s eye he saw his mother and his father standing in the sunny inner garden of their home in Ostia, holding hands and laughing.
He suddenly realised that in his entire life, he had never heard either of his parents laugh.
Hot tears squeezed out from between his eyelids and although his whole body ached he felt the brand on his arm throb with particular insistence.
‘All right.’ Jonathan opened his eyes. ‘I’ve come this far. I may as well go the whole way. Tell me what you want me to do.’
It was an hour past dusk when Nubia and Flavia finally went to the bedroom in which they were to sleep. Mordecai had returned at sunset – no word of Jonathan’s whereabouts – and they had helped him feed and tend all the members of the Cornix household. Now they were exhausted.
As Nubia put her clay oil-lamp down on a narrow shelf, she froze. There was some creature crouching in the dark corner of the bedroom. A small rat? A coiled snake?
She held the flickering lamp before her and took a cautious step towards it.
‘What is it, Nubia?’ Flavia had been brushing her teeth and she stood still, her tooth-stick poised.
‘I am not sure.’ Nubia felt braver with Flavia watching. She took another step forward, then relaxed. ‘It is nothing. Just a little sandal.’ She bent, picked up the object and held it out for Flavia to see. The tiny leather sandal fit easily in the palm of her hand.
‘Oh Nubia! It’s a baby’s sandal. It must have belonged to Aunt Cynthia’s youngest child, Marcia. It was probably her first shoe.’
Later, after Flavia had fallen asleep, Nubia lay wrapped in a blanket and her lionskin, clutching the little sandal and weeping. She was thinking of her own baby sister Seyala, whom she would never see again.
A chill wind from the northwest had scoured the air above Rome so that the stars blazed in the sky above. The moon had not yet risen and so the two figures climbing the Capitoline Hill were almost invisible. The lamp horns they carried threw a circle of orange light so dim that only a person with very sharp eyes would have noticed the man and the boy moving up the dark cliff face. They had wrapped rags round their boots and their footsteps were so silent that even the watchdogs in the opulent homes on the lower slopes of the Capitoline Hill did not stir.
At the beginning of the climb every step had been agony for Jonathan. He was still bruised from his beating two days before. But presently the pain faded to a dull overall ache. His right eye was swollen almost shut and by the time they reached the hundredth step he was wheezing.
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus – Jupiter Best and Greatest – filled the whole sky before him. Behind him an enormous moon was just rising, huge and blood-red. It illuminated the top of the massive building before them with an eerie red light.
Jonathan caught his breath. In this light the temple was an awesome sight. A gaping triangular pediment resting on a forest of massive columns, each thicker than the biggest tree trunk he had ever seen.
As he followed Agathus across level ground, a large black shape loomed before him. The altar, not yet lit by the moon. His fingertips on the long block of cold marble guided him round it and now he saw Agathus up ahead, a dimly-lit shape moving towards the steps which, like the altar, were still shrouded in darkness.
‘Agathus,’ he whispered and heard the wheezing in his voice. ‘Will this really work?’
‘Of course.’ Agathus turned back to him, a vague shape in the darkness.
‘But what if a priest makes the sacrifice instead of Titus? What if someone else puts on the poisoned garland?’
‘Is your courage failing you so soon? You disappoint me, Jonathan.’
‘No, I’m not afraid. It’s just that . . .’
‘You’re having second thoughts?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Jonathan, listen: Titus destroyed our people, our capital city, our temple. Berenice humbled herself and waited patiently for ten years, living in hope that he would one day make her Empress so that she could help her people. And what does he do? The moment he gains power he discards her for a younger woman.’
‘That’s not how it happened,’ said Jonathan. ‘Everybody knows he wept when he sent Berenice away. It was the senate’s orders.’
‘The Emperor has found consolation very quickly in your mother’s arms.’
‘They’re just friends, not lovers.’
‘Until now. Now, thanks to your letter, Titus has realised what the rest of us suspected all along. He’s in love with your mother. And thanks to your letter Berenice has been publicly humiliated for the third time. You know,’ he gave a bitter laugh, ‘you really opened a Pandora’s box.’
‘What did you say?’ Jonathan stopped again. ‘I opened what?’
‘Pandora’s box. It’s a figure of speech.’
‘Titus told you about the prophecy?’
‘What prophecy? I only meant that you caused a great deal of trouble for a great many people. That’s why you must help me put it right. Come on, boy!’
But Jonathan could not move. He stood trembling between the altar and the temple. He felt as if someone had emptied a jug of snow-chilled water over him.
He suddenly knew who he was.
And what must happen.
And the revelation sent a stab of horror through him. He looked around for Agathus, but the steward was already climbing the temple steps.
Jonathan hurried after him.
‘Agathus!’ he called. ‘Wait!’
‘Be quiet, you idiot! If they catch us they’ll throw us to the beasts in the arena!’ Agathus turned and continued up the steps.
Jonathan followed him in silence but when they reached the top step he wheezed, ‘You didn’t come all the way up here to kill Titus, did you?’
Agathus turned and looked at Jonathan. The red moon illuminated his face and body so that his grey hair seemed bathed in blood. The pupils of his eyes were black.
‘No,’ said Agathus. ‘I didn’t come up here just to kill Titus.’
‘What, then?’ said Jonathan. His body was shivering, and not just from the night air. ‘What have you come to do?’
‘I’ve come to do God’s will. Tonight our people will be avenged. Tonight Rome dies!’
Jonathan felt sick. ‘How?’ he said. ‘How will Rome die?’
Agathus lifted the hollow horn from his candle. ‘With fire, of course. A holocaust. A burnt offering. Rome is a tumour on the face of the earth. It must be cauterised, burnt away.’
‘Fire,’ repeated Jonathan and stared at the lamp horn in his own hand.
‘It has to be,’ said Agathus. ‘And it has to start here, at the Temple of Jupiter, the temple which represents Rome throughout the empire. The temple maintained by Jewish taxes. Taxes which should have gone to the Temple in Jerusalem. Titus burned our Temple and now I will burn his. Proof that the gods are angry with Rome. Perfect justice,’ he murmured, turning back towards the middle door. ‘Thanks to you. You devised the perfect catalyst. You brought Berenice to her senses at last. I couldn’t have organised it better if I’d planned it myself.’ Agathus turned his back on Jonathan and moved between the enormous fluted columns, their red vertical stripes black in the pink light of the moon.
‘Tonight is the perfect night. The temples are still closed. It is the day before Purim. And if this wind holds, it will carry sparks down onto the forum and the Palatine Hill, igniting the temples of their pagan gods and consuming the palace of the Beast.’
‘The Imperial Palace?’ Jonathan felt numb. ‘But my mother’s still there. She’ll die!’
Agathus shrugged. ‘Then she will die for a good cause. For our cause.’
‘Berenice will die!’
‘She will have left for Judaea early this morning, while you slept. If God wills it, I will join her there.’
‘Agath
us, please! You can’t do this. Hundreds of our people will die. There are thousands of Jews living in Rome, both free and slaves.’
‘Most of them have been warned by now. The others are dying anyway, of the pestilence.’
‘You’ll die, too!’
‘The philosopher Seneca says: “Wherever you look you can find an end to your troubles. The way to freedom is over a cliff. At the bottom of a well. Hanging from the branches of a tree.”’
‘That’s Roman thinking,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s not what we Jews believe. Only God can take life, because he gives it.’
‘Wool fluff!’ snorted Agathus. ‘Think what our brothers did at Masada seven years ago. Three hundred of the bravest Jews who ever lived. They preferred death to slavery.’ Agathus stopped and gestured at one of the massive columns in the porch. ‘And what about Samson? He pushed down the columns of a pagan temple and killed more by his death than he did in all his life. If I die, at least I will take many Romans with me.’
Agathus turned and moved towards the central door, its painted design black and pink in the moonlight.
‘But I’m no fool,’ he said, as he pushed the door. ‘As soon as I set the fire I’ll run.’ The door to the temple opened quietly. ‘Tonight is the night before Purim, when our people struck back at those who would exterminate them. If I perish, I perish. But if it is God’s will—’
‘God’s will!’ said Jonathan, and followed him into the dimly lit cella. ‘How can you talk about . . .?’ He trailed off and his head tipped back as his gaze travelled up the massive cult statue. The image of the seated god Jupiter was as tall as Ostia’s town wall. Dimly lit by a few oil-lamps below and hanging rings of candles above, the great bearded head seemed to glare down at them.
‘Behold their idol, their loathsome Baal,’ said Agathus, and he spat on the floor.
But Jonathan was looking around for something he could use as a weapon against Agathus.
Apart from the enormous cult statue there was very little in the inner chamber.
On the back wall of the cella hung an enormous tapestry, not unlike the one in Berenice’s quarters. On either side of the cult statue, right up against the red and white painted walls, were small semicircular tables. Even now, when the temple was officially closed for the Parentalia, candles burned to light the cella. Jonathan could see various sacrificial vessels and implements: a silver jug and flat silver bowl, incense burners, strainers and wreaths. But no knives, axes or anything else resembling a weapon.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 93