Aristo did not reply, but he nodded.
‘May the gods protect you,’ whispered Flavia, fighting back fresh tears.
‘And you,’ said Aristo. He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but: act like a boy!’
Flavia nodded and tried to smile bravely. ‘Just call me Placidus.’
From her mat Nubia called. ‘Bring baby Popo back here and we will look after him.’
‘Yes!’ cried two of the little girls after her. ‘Bring baby Popo.’
Before she went out of the courtyard, Flavia stopped and looked back. Aristo had gone to sit beside Nubia in the deep cool shade of the fig tree. With the boys and girls gathered around them, they looked like a family.
The Magnesian Gate had three arches: the first for pedestrian traffic, the second for riders and pack animals and the third for carts and carrucas. But a crowd had gathered around a pair of arguing women and the pedestrians had spilled over into the passage provided for riders and pack animals. There were so many people that Lupus’s mare could barely move forward. Lupus reined her in and made a reassuring grunt. She stood patiently. She might be frightened of goats in the night, but she was obviously used to jostling crowds. From his vantage point, Lupus could see the two women causing the blockage.
‘It’s not him,’ one of the women was saying.
‘Yes, it is,’ said the other; she wore a dark blue headscarf. ‘It’s Erastus what begs in the Harbour Agora.’
‘Must be someone who looks just like him,’ said the first woman. ‘Couldn’t be Erastus. He’s been blind from birth.’
‘And now he’s not. Look! It’s him all right.’
The crowd shuffled and stirred, and now Lupus could see the women were arguing about a man. He had the typical dark hair and heavy eyebrows of a Phrygian, but his eyes were the eyes of an infant: a pure and startling blue in his tanned and weathered face.
‘There are towers either side,’ he said, gazing up at the Magnesian Gate with his new eyes. ‘I never knew the gate had towers. And are those stone animals lions? Or panthers?’
‘They’re lions, of course,’ laughed a blond youth. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a lion before?’
‘Course he hasn’t!’ shouted the woman with the blue headscarf. ‘I told you: he’s been blind all his life. Until now, that is.’
‘Is that true?’ asked the blond.
The man looked at him with eyes full of delight. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am Erastus who was blind from birth. My parents will tell you. They live here in Ephesus.’
‘Who healed you?’ called the first woman.
‘Tell us his name!’ shouted an old man.
‘Where is he?’ said another.
‘His name is Tychicus,’ said Erastus. ‘He used to travel with Paul of Tarsus. He’s baptising in the Cayster River, up past the Temple of Artemis. It was when I came up out of the water that I could see!’
Lupus suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing. He looked around for Flavia and Jonathan. Flavia was following Bato and his two men, their horses like ships in a sea of faces. They were taking the road east, towards Magnesia and beyond.
But Jonathan had ridden his dun-coloured mare up beside Lupus.
‘Go on, Lupus,’ said Jonathan softly. ‘I know you want to. You’ll never know if you don’t try. We should have stopped before, outside Heracleia. If we had, we might have found Popo and you might have been healed.’
Lupus pointed at Jonathan and then at himself, then raised his eyebrows.
‘I can’t come with you,’ said Jonathan. ‘I have to save Popo. But you should go and find the prophet who heals.’
Lupus looked at his friend for a long moment. Some deep sadness clouded Jonathan’s eyes.
‘Go!’ whispered Jonathan. He whispered a prayer of protection in Hebrew, then turned away and urged Tiberina after Flavia, Bato and the two soldiers.
Lupus sat watching him go. His little bay mare stood calmly as a sea of people swirled around her. Something made Lupus look down, and he found himself gazing into the joyful new eyes of the former blind man.
The man smiled up at Lupus and for a heartbeat their gazes locked. Then Erastus was gone, pushed along by the people. When the crowd had swept him through the pedestrian arch of the town gate and out of sight, Lupus turned his mount north and started on the sacred way, towards where the prophet Tychicus was baptising believers and healing the sick.
Lupus found Tychicus north of the city on the lush banks of the River Cayster, which some people called the Little Maeander. The prophet was not baptising or healing. He was speaking to the crowd.
Lupus rode close enough to hear what he was saying.
‘Many of you are Jews,’ cried Tychicus. ‘You know the story of The Binding. How God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. The rabbis teach that Isaac was thirty years old when his father took him up Mount Moriah. Isaac was a man in the prime of life. Abraham over a hundred. And yet Isaac allowed his father Abraham to bind him. He was prepared to die. In the same way, God’s own son went willingly to the cross. But no ram was supplied at the last moment, for Jesus himself was the lamb of God. He is your messiah. The anointed one.’
‘You mean your god sacrificed his own son?’ cried a woman. ‘Instead of a sheep or a bull?’
‘Yes!’ cried Tychicus. ‘And his death was more terrible than the most terrible thing you can imagine. But it had to be. Jesus was the sacrifice for all the bad things anyone would do ever again.’
‘So it will save me a lot of money if I convert,’ joked a man in a pale-blue tunic. ‘I’ll never have to buy an animal for the sacrifice again!’
Some people laughed but Tychicus pointed at him and shouted, ‘Exactly! No more animal sacrifice. Imagine it! A world without altars, a world without the daily slaughter of innocent creatures, a world without the smell of burnt flesh rising up into the heavens.’
‘But it was cruel of God to kill his own son,’ said the woman.
‘Do you have children?’ said Tychicus. ‘Do you not suffer when they feel pain? So it was with God. He suffered, too.’
‘Then why did he do it?’ shouted another woman. ‘If it caused him so much pain.’
‘He did it for us,’ said Tychicus. ‘Because we are his children, too, and he loves us. He sacrificed his son once and for all people. And then he rewarded his son by bringing him back to life. Life eternal, and not in a body which grows old and decays, like this.’ Tychicus thumped his chest with the hand that held the staff. ‘A new body, resembling the old, but better and more real than before. So real that walls were like vapour and doors like dust in comparison. The resurrected Jesus could pass right through them.’
He spread his arms and looked around at the people.
‘Imagine. A body which will live forever, whole and healthy, without disease or pain. And those of us who believe in him will share in this resurrection, so that one day we, too, will have these resurrection bodies.’ Here he looked round at the crowd. ‘But to share in his resurrection we must die to ourselves and be born from above.’
‘What does that mean?’ called a man’s deep voice.
‘How can a person be born from above?’ a woman cried.
The joker in the blue tunic shouted out. ‘I can’t crawl back into my mother’s womb.’
But others said: ‘Quiet! Let him speak.’
Lupus nudged the mare closer, under the shade of a cypress tree.
‘To be born from above,’ cried Tychicus, ‘is very easy. All you need to do is repent of your sins, accept Jesus as your lord, agree to follow his Way, and be baptised.’
‘I already have a master!’ shouted a man.
‘What do you mean by sin?’ cried a woman.
‘What do you mean by way?’ asked someone else.
‘When you say yes to him, he will give you understanding,’ said Tychicus. ‘But don’t leave it too late. The resurrected Lord is returning very soon. There is not much time left!’
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Tychicus was already striding down through the crowd to the river. He waded out into the glittering water and when it had reached his waist he turned and waited for the people to come.
‘Where’s Lupus?’ said Flavia to Jonathan.
It was mid afternoon and the road was passing through barley fields, white in the ferocious heat and brightness. She had reined in Herodotus and was waiting for Jonathan on his dun mare. Despite her wide-brimmed straw hat, her face felt sunburnt and sweat trickled down the back of her neck.
‘Lupus left us at the Magnesian Gate,’ said Jonathan. ‘Didn’t you notice?’
‘I’ve been trying to keep up with them,’ said Flavia, nodding towards the three riders on the road ahead. She urged Herodotus into motion again, so that she and Jonathan rode side by side. ‘I wish Bato would slow down a little,’ she said.
‘You told him you’d be able to keep up.’
‘I know. But they haven’t taken a single break in the past two hours.’
‘Exactly. We’ve been riding for two hours and you’ve only just noticed Lupus isn’t with us.’
‘That’s because I’ve been thinking,’ said Flavia, ‘about how to rescue Popo.’
‘No you haven’t,’ said Jonathan. ‘You’ve been thinking about Flaccus and Prudentilla.’
Flavia glared at him and was about to make a cutting remark, but he looked so miserable that instead she said, ‘What’s wrong, Jonathan?’
After a long pause he spoke: ‘I haven’t been sleeping very well. Ever since we got back to Alexandria, I’ve . . .’
‘What? You’ve what?’
‘I haven’t been sleeping very well.’
‘Is it the voice you were telling us about?’
‘That. And the dreams.’
‘Dreams?’
He nodded. ‘Last night I dreamt about the fire in Rome. For the third or fourth time this month.’
‘I know,’ said Flavia. ‘The fire was terrible. I still have nightmares about it.’
‘It’s worse for me,’ he said. ‘Considering I started it.’
‘You still feel guilty about what happened?’
‘You could say that.’ He gave a bitter laugh.
‘But it wasn’t really your fault.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ They rode in silence for a while. Then Jonathan asked: ‘Do you ever wonder why all these bad things have happened to us?’
‘Of course,’ said Flavia. ‘I said in Alexandria that I wished I’d never become a detectrix. If we hadn’t gone on that mission for the Emperor then maybe Popo wouldn’t have been kidnapped.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s mine. Ever since the fire in Rome, we’ve had such bad luck.’
Flavia thought about this, then shook her head. ‘No. The bad luck started before the fire. What about the dog-killer and the fever and the pirates? And don’t forget Vesuvius!’
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
But he did not sound convinced.
Lupus sat astride the bay mare in the shade of the cypress tree and watched the prophet baptise. The people stood in a group at the riverside, and when it was their turn one of the prophet’s helpers would take them by the hand and lead them down through the reeds into the glittering water and take them to where Tychicus waited. The prophet stood waist deep in the water, holding his staff in his left hand.
The helper would take up position behind the person to be baptised. Tychicus would speak with the person, sometimes for quite a while. At last he would rest his right hand on the person’s head, then push them under the water. His assistant would lift them up a moment later, then escort the dripping and spluttering convert back through the reeds to the river bank. He even baptised some lepers, and was not afraid to touch them.
Many of the freshly-baptised passed close to Lupus on their way back to town. He watched them closely. Some seemed dazed, others unaffected. But a few of them had looks of pure joy on their faces.
It was almost dark as Nubia passed through the bedrooms, making sure all the children were tucked in.
She said goodnight to the four youngest girls last of all. Zoe was six, with straight dark hair and dark eyes. Larissa was also six. She had soft golden curls and brown eyes. Five-year-old Euodia had brown hair and hazel eyes, as did the youngest, Xanthia, only four years old.
‘My bedroom is the one next door,’ said Nubia, sitting on Xanthia’s bed, ‘so don’t be afraid. I’ll hear you if you call.’ The little girl gazed up at her with long-lashed dark eyes full of trust and love.
Nubia leaned forward and kissed Xanthia on the forehead, the way her mother had kissed her when she was little. Then she stood and turned.
Aristo was leaning against the doorway, watching her. He must have been there for some time, for she had not been aware of his arrival. In the golden light from a small oil-lamp he looked tired but very handsome. His shoulder came away from the door-frame and he smiled at her, but his smile made the knife twist in her heart, so she looked away.
‘You’re so good with them,’ he said softly, as she moved past him out into the colonnaded upper balcony. ‘Already they love you.’
Nubia nodded and started towards the bedroom next door; it was small with two beds, one for her and one for Flavia. Nubia had chosen it for its frescoed blue panels with pigeons and doves.
‘Play some music with me?’ he said. ‘I know you’re tired. But I’ve missed it.’
Nubia turned and looked at him. In the twilight it was hard to make out the expression on his face.
‘Perhaps we could play a lullaby to help them sleep?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘I would like that.’
‘Down in the palm tree courtyard?’ he said. ‘The jasmine is in bloom.’
‘Yes,’ she said, pulling the flute out from under the neck of her tunic.
Instead of starting downstairs, he stepped closer and gently took the flute from her fingers. ‘This isn’t yours,’ he said, turning it in the half-light. ‘It’s a cheap reed flute. Where’s your cherrywood flute? The one you got in Surrentum?’
He was standing so close that she could feel the heat from his body and smell his musky lavender scent. She kept her gaze on the floor, afraid that if she looked up her eyes would betray her feelings. ‘I dedicated it to the god Neptune,’ she said. ‘As thanks for sending his dolphin to save me from the shipwreck.’
‘A dolphin saved you?’
‘Yes. When our ship ran aground in the storm.’
‘You must tell me about it,’ he said and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You poor thing. Even the memory of it is making you tremble.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I will tell you about the shipwreck and the dolphin after we have played lullaby music.’
She moved away. It was not the memories making her tremble. It was his touch.
Lupus had found a patch of lush grass beside the Little Maeander. He tethered the bay mare to a poplar tree, leaving enough rope to let her graze on the lush grass and drink from the river.
Then he went to spy on Tychicus, who was sitting near a fire with three of his helpers. They were eating flat bread and fish grilled on sticks. The smell made Lupus’s stomach growl fiercely, but he ignored the hunger pangs.
It was dark now, and the night air carried the cool scent of the river. Lupus crept closer and listened to the prophet speaking with his friends. Tychicus had a deep, comforting voice, but the topic of discussion was not comforting. They were discussing the end of the world, and how quickly it would come.
Presently Tychicus rose and left the firelight for the darkness of the riverbank.
At first Lupus thought he had gone to relieve himself, but when the followers spread out their cloaks and lay down beside the dying embers of the fire, he realised this was the prophet’s usual behaviour.
Using the starlight to light his way, he crept through the long grasses in the direction Tychicus had gone. There were tall poplar trees here
by the river bank. Their leaves trembled in the warm night breeze. In the east, a silver glow on the horizon heralded the imminent appearance of the moon.
Then Lupus saw the prophet.
He was standing between two rows of poplars, leaning on his staff and gazing at the sky toward the east.
Lupus crept closer. Close enough to hear him praying in a strange bubbling language.
At last the moon appeared, a misshapen bowl of light rising behind distant mountains. The prophet’s prayers became more urgent, more plaintive.
And now the moon was free of the horizon and as it floated up, the prophet slumped to the ground with a sigh, as if he had just won a great battle.
Lupus was about to go closer when he heard a twig crunch behind him.
He turned and his heart gave a lurching thud as he saw a huge dark shape emerge from behind a poplar tree.
The moon was up now and it clearly showed Lupus his mortal enemy. The light was so bright that he could even see the mark in the middle of the giant’s forehead. It was the scar from a stone that Lupus had slung at the giant over a year ago. Now his enemy was advancing on him with a horrible grin.
Lupus groped for his sling belt. But he had lost it months earlier in the shipwreck, and anyway there were no stones here on the lush riverbank.
Lupus feinted one way, then darted the other, but it was no good. Ursus had anticipated his move and he grasped Lupus’s wrist in an iron grip.
He was caught.
In a villa in Ephesus, forty-six children were lying clean and bathed in comfortable beds. Although their life had been terrible, it had held a sort of routine. Now everything had changed. The change had given them hope. And with hope came fear that their hope might be in vain.
Then the music began, lyre and flute blending together, rising up from the courtyard below and filling the rooms with a wordless song of comfort. The children had never heard such music before. It took them from their dark places and transported them to sun-dappled glades, with warm sunshine, cool breezes and birdsong. The notes were like a mother’s fingers, gently brushing the hair from the forehead, soft and infinitely loving. And soon all the children were asleep.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 248