‘Oh Jonathan, what an awful thing to say.’
‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘What’s the point of life anyway? We’re born, we struggle, and then we die. What’s the point?’
Lupus, Ursus and the old man called John were eating breakfast at a wooden table in the shade of a mulberry tree.
John had taken off his skullcap to reveal a bald head fringed by white hair. Then he had pronounced a blessing over a frugal breakfast of white cheese, olives and cucumber. He had given Lupus a ceramic beaker with a salty yoghurt drink.
As Lupus carefully tipped the drink down his throat, he secretly examined John. With his hooked nose, keen eyes and beetling brows, the old fisherman looked like an eagle. But he radiated gentleness and love. The farm cat was rubbing itself against John’s legs and on the table, sparrows pecked crumbs only inches from his hands. One of the sparrows fluttered up to John’s shoulder and the sight was so extraordinary that Lupus choked on his last swallow of liquid yogurt. Ursus pounded Lupus on the back while John refilled Lupus’s beaker from the jug and handed it to him.
Lupus drank down half the beaker, then nodded his thanks. His eyes were still watering and his convulsions had frightened away the cat and the sparrows.
‘Beloveds,’ said the fisherman when they had finished eating, ‘what can I do for you?’
Lupus wrote on his wax tablet: CAN YOU HEAL ME?
‘I can do nothing apart from God,’ said John.
Lupus rubbed out one word and replaced it with another: CAN GOD HEAL ME?
‘God can do anything. But are you sure you want your tongue back?’
Lupus nodded.
‘Of course he duz,’ said Ursus defensively. ‘Why wouldn he?’
Lupus frowned down at the table. He remembered the strange half-dream he had experienced: of something huge and hot and wet in his mouth, choking him, suffocating him. Would it feel like that if his tongue grew back? Would he even be able to talk? Or would he have to learn to speak again, like a baby?
‘In the resurrection,’ said John, ‘we will be whole and healthy, forever. This life and its suffering lasts but the blink of an eye.’
Lupus frowned. He wasn’t sure he understood.
‘God knows the plans he has for you,’ said John. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and future. Above all, know that he loves you, Lupus, with infinite love.’
Ursus beamed at Lupus. ‘God loves you,’ he said. ‘And he loves me, doo.’
John nodded happily. ‘Tell me, beloveds,’ he said. ‘You have both been baptised in water. But have you received the baptism of the Holy Spirit?’
Lupus shook his head and looked at John wide-eyed.
‘And you, Ursus?’
‘No.’ The big man looked puzzled.
‘Then let me pray for you now.’
Lupus stood in the shade of the mulberry tree before John the fisherman. Ursus stood on Lupus’s other side. The old man had one hand raised high, resting on the giant’s head, and one hand low, on Lupus’s head.
Lupus closed his eyes as the old fisherman prayed. ‘Father God, come and fill your beloved children with your Holy Spirit.’ Then John began to pray in a language like none Lupus had ever heard.
There was a thud beside Lupus and he opened one eye to see Ursus lying on the ground at his feet. A beatific smile spread across the giant’s face.
Lupus was wondering how he could ask John what had happened when he felt a kind of pressure, as if he stood at the bottom of a great warm ocean: an infinite ocean of God’s love. The pressure was too great for him to stand and a moment later he found himself on his back beside Ursus, looking up into the leaves of the mulberry tree, feeling great waves of love washing through him.
It was the most glorious thing he had ever felt. As if he were lying in the palm of God’s strong, warm hand. He never wanted this feeling to end. He would lie here forever.
He began to laugh, and beside him Ursus laughed. And above them the Fisherman laughed, too.
Nubia stood in the shaded colonnade of the Orpheus courtyard and watched Aristo teach. He had spread reed mats for the younger children and put chairs at the back for the older ones. He was sitting on one of the cedarwood benches beneath the fig tree, using the dolls Nubia and Flavia had made to act out a Greek myth. Three more children had been reunited with their families early that morning, but there were still forty-three children here at the Villa Vinea, aged between four and thirteen. They all sat watching him.
Nubia watched him, too, her heart full of pride: Aristo the storyteller. He was so good at this. These damaged children, who had been beaten and abused, were enthralled as he related the Greek myth about the abduction of Persephone.
When he reached the part of the story where Pluto came up from the underworld and snatched young Persephone as she was gathering violets, two of the younger girls began to cry. Nubia moved silently forward and sat between them. Euodia from Laodicea hugged her arm and grew silent. But golden-haired Larissa kept sobbing. Nubia let her cry, but she kept her hand on the girl’s back. She knew what a release tears could bring. Next to her, Sapphira was holding little Xanthia in her lap. Her face showed no emotion.
Aristo stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Nubia, his eyebrows slightly raised in query. She smiled and gave him a little nod in return, and he continued.
When it came time in Aristo’s story for Demeter to descend to Hades to plead for her daughter, he used the Nubia doll.
‘Let my daughter go!’ Aristo made Demeter say. ‘She is not made for this world of darkness, but for the world of flowers and sunshine and joy.’
‘Very well,’ said the dark-haired Pluto doll, one of Flavia’s efforts which had gone wrong. ‘But she must spend part of every year down here with me, for she ate six pomegranate seeds in my court.’
Larissa looked up at Nubia through her tears. ‘Did Sefunny have to go back down?’
‘Yes,’ said Nubia and handed her a handkerchief. ‘Persephone had to go back down to darkness.’
‘Will I?’ asked Larissa.
‘I hope not,’ said Nubia, and kissed the top of her head. ‘But if you do, remember: you are made for a world of sunshine and flowers. And it’s always here waiting for you.’
‘Will you stay here with me?’ asked Larissa.
Nubia lifted her head to look at Aristo. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will stay with you as long as I can.’
It was late afternoon and Jonathan’s whole body ached from all the riding he had done over the past few days, but he endured each jolt and bounce as penance for his crime. Bato and his two soldiers had made them ride hard all day, only stopping briefly at noon to eat a handful of grapes and let the horses drink from the river.
Their determination had paid off: around the fourth hour after noon, two men on donkeys told Bato they had seen a man and a woman on horseback only half an hour before. The man had fit Mindius’s description and the woman had been carrying a baby.
If only I could rescue Popo, thought Jonathan, maybe the guilt would go away.
Do you think saving one baby will help? said the voice. You killed thousands. You deserve to die like that insect on the floor.
‘But the fire was an accident,’ muttered Jonathan under his breath. ‘Like Flavia said.’
Only at the very last moment, said the voice. Until then you wanted to help the zealot destroy Rome. You know you did.
‘I didn’t know the wind would change. I only wanted to kill Titus, not all those innocent people.’
But you did kill innocent people, said the voice. Twenty thousand of them.
As Jonathan rode through vineyards lit emerald green by the late afternoon sunlight, he knew the voice was right.
‘Maybe I should die,’ he whispered. ‘And take Mindius with me.’
For a moment the voice fell silent and even the jarring of his mount no longer hurt. He inhaled the strong smell of horse, underlain with the fragrant scent of thyme, and listened
to the throb of the cicadas in the vines. The sun was warm on his back and there was a taste of dust in his mouth. He spat onto the road, then took a swig of sweet warm water from his gourd.
For a few glorious moments he felt empty and clean and free.
Then the voice returned.
Burn. You deserve to burn, too.
He wanted to scream in frustration, but then they rounded a bend in the road and Jonathan saw one of the most amazing sights of his life: on the mountain straight ahead was a cliff gleaming whiter than any marble he had ever seen. And a city stood above it.
‘Hierapolis,’ said one of Bato’s soldiers from his horse. ‘The holy city.’
‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ breathed Flavia an hour later. She reined in Herodotus beside Bato’s mount. ‘It’s covered with snow in the middle of August.’
The dazzling slope was on the left hand side of the road. Up close she could see what seemed to be frozen waterfalls pouring out of scallop-shaped pools, dozens of them, mounting the side of the mountain like semi-circular stairs. Behind them the sun was setting, and the frozen water gleamed golden in its light. There was the soft constant murmur of rushing waters.
‘It can’t be snow or ice,’ said Jonathan, as his horse came up beside hers. ‘It’s as hot as Hades today. And if it was covered with snow, we’d be able to feel the coolness from here.’
Bato looked at one of his soldiers. ‘You’ve been here before, Demetrius. What makes it look that way? Is it an illusion?’
‘Hot springs near the top of the cliff,’ said Demetrius, the soldier with the fierce blue eyes. ‘Something in the water makes them grow hard, like frozen waterfalls. Only they’re warm, not cold. People say the water is sacred, with healing properties.’
‘It’s beautiful!’ breathed Flavia.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Jonathan.
Demetrius pointed up towards the top of the dazzling rank of cascades. ‘The town itself is up there. It was badly damaged in an earthquake ten years ago. But they’ve rebuilt most of it. My girlfriend’s mother used to have a bad rash,’ he added. ‘She bathed in these waters and now her skin is as smooth as a baby’s.’
Bato nodded absently. He was scanning the scalloped steps of the cliffs. There was a woman washing her clothes in one pool, and three men ritually rising and bending over another further up. A mule-cart was clopping up the road, and a litter carried by four slaves was coming down towards them. Apart from that, there was nobody around.
Then Bato cocked his head. ‘Listen! Did you hear that? A horse’s whinny.’ He pointed to the pines on the right side of the road. ‘Coming from those woods.’
‘Yes!’ cried Flavia. And without waiting for permission she heeled Herodotus into motion and rode into the woods.
Bato and his men galloped after Flavia but, as usual, Tiberina refused to be hurried.
‘Come on, you old nag!’ Jonathan kicked her hard in the flanks.
The mare sighed and started up the path after the others.
At that moment something on the sparkling mountain to his left caught Jonathan’s eye. Two figures had appeared from behind one of the frozen waterfalls: a man and a woman, bathed in orange by the setting sun, picking their way carefully across the pools. The woman wore a headscarf and carried a baby. He could hear its thin wail.
It had to be Mindius, Lydia and Popo. And they were only two or three hundred feet away.
Jonathan reined in Tiberina.
‘Lydia!’ he shouted, waving his arm. ‘Lydia! Over here!’
The washerwoman and the three bathers turned to look at him, but the man and woman with the baby did not seem to hear.
‘Mindius!’ he shouted.
This time the man and the woman both turned to look at him. The man was Mindius all right; Jonathan recognised him from the portrait in his Halicarnassus villa. But he would not have known Lydia. Her face was thinner and she seemed to have aged ten years. Her blue eyes were dark with grief.
‘The brute,’ muttered Jonathan.
The baby was still crying.
‘Mindius!’ called Jonathan. ‘Let them go! There are soldiers after you. They’ll be here any moment!’ He turned towards the woods. ‘Flavia! Bato! I’ve found him! He’s over here!’
But there was no reply from the woods and now Mindius had grasped the woman’s hand and was pulling her after him across one of the pools.
‘Mindius!’ shouted Jonathan, riding up to the edge of the pools. ‘Don’t do it! You can’t escape!’
But Mindius was escaping. Jonathan looked back towards the woods, but there was still no sign of Bato or Flavia or the two soldiers.
With a curse, Jonathan dismounted.
‘Lupus!’ cried Nubia, putting her piece of bread down on the mat and rising to her feet. ‘Behold! You are back. Did you find baby Popo?’
It was evening and all the children were sitting beneath the grape arbour in the canal garden having a picnic dinner of bread and thyme-scented honey. Lupus had come into the green garden, followed by a bald old man with a white beard.
Nubia ran to him. ‘Did you find Popo?’
Lupus shook his head, but his eyes were shining. He held up his wax tablet, then pointed to the old man, who was gazing at the children in delight.
‘John?’ read Nubia. ‘Prophet and friend of Jesus?’
Lupus nodded and began to laugh. The old man named John chuckled, too.
Nubia stared at Lupus. Something was different about him. She had never seen him like this. Then she gasped as a third figure stepped out of the shaded corridor into the garden. She took an involuntary step backwards and bumped into Aristo, who had come to stand behind her.
The man who had emerged from the corridor was an ugly giant, with a broken nose, close-set eyes and a scar in the middle of his forehead. The last time she had seen him, he had been running like a madman from the theatre at Halicarnassus, yelling incoherently.
With a cry of horror, Nubia turned to hide her face in Aristo’s tunic, and she felt his strong arms encircle her protectively. The giant was Mindius’s evil bodyguard, Ursus.
The cherry-red sun was sinking in the west, bathing the calcite steps beneath Hierapolis in a pink light and making their scallop pools glow orange. Mindius was picking his way across this alien landscape, one hand out for balance, the other gripping the girl’s hand. Jonathan could hear the baby crying above the murmur of rushing water: his little nephew Popo.
Somehow Jonathan had taken a different route across the slope and now he faced a six-foot gap between two pools, with a twenty-foot plunge between. A gust of wind snatched Jonathan’s straw sunhat and spun it away. His stomach writhed as the hat rolled down from one cascade to another, and finally to the gleaming floor hundreds of feet below.
Jonathan forced himself to focus on his prey. He saw Mindius looking back at him: ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ came the man’s angry voice above the rushing waters.
‘I want my . . . nephew back!’ Jonathan tried to shout but he was wheezing. ‘And I want you . . . to pay for . . . what you’ve done!’
Mindius frowned in puzzlement, then shook his head in disgust and continued on up the slope, pulling the girl and the baby after him.
Jonathan almost cried with frustration. His sister Miriam had died so that her twins might live, and now this monster was about to sacrifice one of them. The baby’s cry made him angry and the anger gave him strength. Without thinking, Jonathan leapt the gap between the two pools.
He managed the leap, but his foot slipped and he fell forward into the steaming water. It was only a few inches deep and the water was not boiling, just the temperature of a warm bath. But now his sandals were too slippery to wear. As he unlaced them, an idea occurred to him. He pulled one off and threw it at Mindius. It splashed harmlessly. Jonathan took aim and threw the second sandal, giving it a spin. It missed Mindius but struck the girl’s leg. She cried out and Jonathan saw Mindius turn and look back, his eyes wild. He said som
ething to the girl and they began to run.
Jonathan ran, too.
Abruptly, the girl slipped and fell backwards into one of the pools. The baby was crying lustily now. Mindius cursed and went back for them.
The surreal pink and orange world of frozen waterfalls blurred as tears of frustration filled Jonathan’s eyes. He blinked them away and the world cleared.
But Mindius had disappeared.
And now Lydia was screaming.
‘Stay there!’ cried Jonathan. ‘I’m coming!’
As he came closer he saw what had happened. Mindius had slipped and was hanging from the slippery lip of one of the calcified waterfalls. Jonathan came wheezing up and looked over the side. The drop was only fifteen or twenty feet, but the ledge below was not wide and from there the slippery slope tumbled down for hundreds of feet.
‘Help me!’ cried Mindius in Latin. ‘Help me, boy!’ His accent was just like Jonathan’s father’s and this disconcerted Jonathan for a moment. Then he remembered. Mindius was also Jewish.
Lydia was sobbing now and little Popo was still crying, his wails echoing eerily off the strange formations around them, now blood red in the light of the dying sun.
‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘I won’t help you. You’re a murderer and you deserve to die. As Seneca says: “The way to freedom is over a cliff.” So be free.’
He turned his back on Mindius and went to help Lydia and his baby nephew.
‘Ursus!’ cried Nubia, withdrawing from Aristo’s arms. ‘You were Magnus’s henchman.’
‘Yes,’ said the big man, hanging his ugly head. ‘And Mindius’s, doo.’
‘You did bad things.’ Nubia turned and gave Lupus a reproachful look. ‘Lupus, how could you bring him here?’
‘Do not be angry with the boy,’ said the old man called John. ‘Ursus here has repented. He has asked God’s forgiveness. Can’t you see he’s sorry for what he did? Little children, let us love one another.’
Lupus nodded enthusiastically.
Aristo narrowed his eyes at Ursus. ‘You repented?’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 250