‘Ah, I see where you’re coming from,’ said Hayek.
‘Now please stop me if I’m teaching granny to suck eggs,’ said Flora. ‘But from what little I know about the antiquities trade, I reckon that if Mr Grossman lets it be known that he’s in the market for the grids to help translate parts of his own collection, I don’t think the customer could take the risk of sitting tight and potentially losing his chance of reading them for ever.’
‘That’s assuming he knows of their existence and what they’re for,’ Cohen said.
‘That’s easily done,’ said Hayek, snapping his notebook shut. ‘We put out another press release about the theft, concentrating on the grids – how important they are, what they’re for and so on. Then we get the word out on the street that Grossman and his wallet are in town. Our buyer – as Flora has pointed out – has to react.’
Cohen nodded. ‘Sounds good to me,’
‘Good. I’ll call DC and tell the Director. Now, run us through the rest of what you’ve got.’
Chapter Seventeen
Rome AD 62.
Jozar looked back over his shoulder but Philo was nowhere to be seen. Trying to stem the rising tide of panic, he turned into a side-street he thought he recognised but realised at once it was another wrong turning. A shouted warning from above gave him just time to dodge to one side as the contents of a chamber pot splattered into the street from a third-floor window.
In the canyons between the timber-framed brick tenements of the Aventine the sun didn’t reach street-level but it was nonetheless unbearably hot and a mixture of blood and sweat ran into Jozar’s eyes as he stumbled down the hill, searching in desperation for a road that would take him out of these slums and back towards the Palatine – safety beckoned only a few hundred yards away but he couldn’t see it, nor did he know in which direction it lay.
***
Their mission to the Capena Gate area had yielded results straight away. At a tavern just outside the city walls, they found a willing helper who gave not only a name, but directions to an address on the Aventine belonging to one of Paul’s lieutenants where the Christians were said to meet. Their informant claimed to have attended one of the cult’s meetings, but when Jozar and Philo tried to press him for more details he made off, claiming a previous engagement.
At first, the directions were easy to follow and they arrived at the temple of Minerva. It had seen better days but was in better condition than many of the buildings around it which seemed in imminent danger of toppling into the streets. As they moved higher, searching for the temple of Ceres, the apartment blocks hemmed them in ever more closely and the air became thicker with the smell of open sewers, rotting garbage and with the stink from the tanneries. ‘I think we should turn right here,’ said Jozar.
Philo looked around. ‘Are you sure? I think we’ve come round in a circle, I’m positive I’ve seen this corner before. Let’s ask.’ He stopped a man who was carrying an amphora over one shoulder. ‘Excuse me, we’re looking for the temple of Ceres: are we in the right area?’
The man grunted something in return that Philo only half caught – the man’s accent was so far from classical Latin that all he understood were a couple of lefts and a right, accompanied by a jerk of the man’s head in the direction of a street leading up the hill. ‘Did you catch any of that?’ he asked Jozar.
‘Two rights and then second left is all I got.’
‘Damn. I got two lefts and first right. Come on, let’s try up here and if we can’t find it we’ll ask again.’
It soon became apparent that they were heading away from the main thoroughfare. The crowds were thinner, the shops and food stalls on the ground floors of the tenements looked even more poverty-stricken, and as the two friends went on they realised they were starting to attract attention. This time Jozar tried his luck. ‘Excuse me, sir, we’re looking for the temple of Ceres.’ Without a tooth in his head, the old man’s reply was incomprehensible. ‘I’m sorry, we’re new in town and I didn’t quite catch that,’ he said.
‘Who’s new in town?’ a voice demanded. They swung round and saw a strongly-built young man, hands on hips and glaring at them from his one remaining eye: what looked like a healed sword cut ran vertically from his forehead down to his disfigured jaw, his injuries twisting his words into sibilant menace.
‘We are,’ said Jozar. ‘We’re looking for the temple of Ceres.’
‘There’s one in the forum. And anyway, what are two Jewboys doing looking for a temple?’ He stopped and screwed up his eye, staring at each of them in turn. ‘You’re up here looking for a bit of trade aren’t you?’
‘No we’re not merchants –’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a mocking laugh. ‘You’ve come to the right place. Second on the left, knock on the green door and ask for Callista; tell her Marcus sent you and she’ll find you a couple of nice young Egyptian girls – fresh in off the boat, and very well trained if you get my drift.’ He tapped the side of his disfigured nose and leered at them.
‘No actually,’ said Philo. ‘That’s not what we’re here for at all –’
‘Oh, so it’s boys you’re after is it? After a spot of Greek, eh? Well, each to his own I s’pose.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, in that case you need to – ’
‘No really,’ said Philo. ‘We’re trying to find the Temple of Ceres because it’s near the house of Thaddeus the Syrian.’
The mask of affability disappeared in an instant and the young man took a step towards them, placing his hand on the hilt of the knife he wore at his belt. ‘And what do you want with him?’
‘Just to talk to him.’
‘Balls,’ he said and spat on the filthy cobbles. The knife glinted as he whipped it up under Jozar’s chin, the point only inches from his windpipe. ‘Tell me why you want to talk to Thaddeus.’
Jozar took a pace backwards, his eyes wide with terror as he blurted out, ‘W-we were told he could put us in touch with Paul the Cilician.’ Philo wanted to kick Jozar in the shins to shut him up but he was out of range. To make matters worse, from the doors leading to the filthy stairwells, other figures were moving towards them, attracted by the altercation.
‘And what if you’ve been told wrong?’ The single eye flicked from one to the other.
Despite Philo trying to shut him up, Jozar’s mouth had come disconnected from his brain. ‘Well then perhaps someone else could kindly tell us where to find him...’ He took another pace backwards away from the knife and trod on someone’s foot. A voice from behind cursed him and powerful hands shoved him in the back, almost pushing him onto the point of the blade.
‘You still haven’t told me what you want with this Paul: you see, for all I know he might be very picky about who he talks to – people round here are like that.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Philo, grabbing Jozar by the arm and trying to steer him away. ‘We’d heard so much about his preaching that we wanted to come and listen – no need to bother him, so if there’s somebody who could tell us where and when the next meeting is, we’ll be on our way.’
The crowd had grown and, emboldened by the numbers, the one-eyed man stood blocking their way, body-checking Philo as he tried to lead his friend to safety. ‘Tell you where the meeting is? So you can send the Cohortes Urbanae along to it? You must think I was born yesterday.’
His remark drew hoots of derision from the mob pressing around them: the sound was anything but friendly and a call of, ‘Cut their bloody throats for them,’ was greeted by a general murmur of approval. Pushing the knife under Jozar’s chin once more, he held up his hand for silence.
‘Be quiet, all of you, and listen. I’ve a fair idea who these jokers are, or at least who sent them. Now if we kill them, it’ll send the wrong message. If that lot over there,’ he jerked his thumb in what Philo assumed was the direction of the Palatine, ‘find these two clowns with their throats cut, all manner of shit will fall on us and we don’t want that, do we? Anybody would think w
e knew where this Paul the Cilician was,’ he jeered and the mob joined in the hilarity. Then he turned to Philo and Jozar once more. ‘Right, you two, you can fuck off out of it and tell whoever sent you that we don’t know where this Paul of yours is. Never heard of him. Got it?’
He shoved them away and the crowd parted, forming a narrow corridor of jeering humanity. They were almost clear of the square when Philo felt hands scrabbling at his belt, and looking down, saw a bandy-legged street urchin – the boy can have been no older than seven – trying to steal his purse. Instead of hurrying on he made the fatal mistake of cuffing the child away, sending it howling into the nearest stairwell. In an instant, shouts and yells followed them down the street and, too late, the friends started to run. Jozar looked back and saw a face he recognised: the man they’d spoken to earlier in the tavern near the Porta Capena was now leading the rush towards them.
The next thing Philo felt was a blow in the stomach. At first he thought he’d been punched and although winded, carried on for a few more steps before sinking to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth. The assailant’s knife had found its mark. Jozar stopped to try and help but someone lunged at him with a blade. He parried it but his right hand and wrist were slashed to the bone. Another downward thrust tore a gash in his scalp and as the mob closed on his fallen companion, he fled in panic. All he could think of was to get off the hill; downwards lay safety, uphill was the mob. For a moment the sounds of pursuit appeared to have gone so he stopped, bent almost double, gasping for breath and with his uninjured hand against the rough brickwork of a shop front. Then he heard it again, like the baying of a pack of hunting dogs and getting ever louder.
Two years in the Carceris Lautumiae had taken their toll on Jozar’s physique. Despite his leg muscles screaming at him to stop, he stumbled on, looking back at regular intervals in the forlorn hope of seeing Philo coming down the hill towards him. The voices sounded louder again, like a nightmare where the nameless terror gets ever closer but running becomes impossible. His tunic was soaked with blood and at his approach, people turned away – life was precarious enough in Rome’s Regio XIII without sticking your neck out for strangers.
Jozar was now hopelessly lost but at least it felt like his steps were carrying him in the right direction. However, his instincts had played him false and somehow, instead of coming back down into the Regio I, the area around the Porta Capena, he had gone in the opposite direction and was now heading westwards towards the Tiber. Even though he could see the river below him glinting in the sun above the waterside roof-tops, no safety lay there because the more determined of his pursuers were still not far behind. Weakened by his injuries and with blood running into his eyes from the head wound, in desperation he turned into a narrow side-street in the hope of throwing them off his scent. As he did so, his feet skidded on a pile of rotting offal, pitching him hard to the ground, his head striking the rim of the gutter. The impact left him stunned and splattered with filth.
‘Are you all right? Can you stand?’ The voice seemed to float disembodied in the air as though coming from far away. A hand shook him by the shoulder and he opened one eye to see a woman kneeling beside him. ‘Hey, you there,’ she shouted at a couple of youths who’d stopped to look at the prostrate figure, their eyes fixed on the purse at his belt. ‘Come and give me a hand, you useless pair of lumps. Don’t leave the poor man lying there, help him up for goodness sake.’
With a sigh, they shambled over and under her direction manhandled Jozar through the gap in the butcher’s shop counter and into a room at the back. Propping him up in a chair, the woman dismissed the two idlers, scolding them as they left. Next she fetched a bucket of water from the cistern in the courtyard and, using a floor-cloth, began to bathe his wounds. In the distance, Jozar heard the sound of raised voices as the last of his pursuers made their way past.
‘I need to get back to the Palatine,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I have an urgent message for the emperor.’ At this, the woman dropped the blood-soaked rag in horror.
‘The emperor? Are you in some kind of trouble?’ she asked. ‘This is a respectable household and I’m not having any trouble here, d’you hear?’
‘Please, it’s just – ’
‘Right, you stay put. I don’t know who you are or what you’re up to but I’m going to fetch the Vigiles.’ Stopping only to sling the bucket of water out into the street, the woman swept out, locking the connecting door to the shop behind her. Alone in the cool darkness, Jozar slid off the chair and crawled over to the low wooden cot that stood against the far wall. Pulling a tattered woollen blanket over himself, he curled up in the foetal position, trying to smother the pain in his head and wrist with sleep.
Dusk was falling by the time the woman returned. A patrol from the Cohors XI Urbana had turned out from their barracks near the port and in the darkened back-room they found Jozar delirious and rambling in Aramaic. It wasn’t until they pulled him to his feet and walked him out of the shop into the fresh air that he regained the ability to talk to them in something approaching comprehensible Latin.
‘Where do you live? Where are you staying?’ asked the commander, shaking him to try and get a response.
‘On the Palatine…’
‘Yes, but where?’
‘The palace.’
‘Come on, don’t mess me about, I haven’t got all day.’
‘We’re guests of the emperor,’ said Jozar.
The guard commander looked at his senior non-commissioned officer. ‘He’s clearly not Roman. What do you think, take him to the palace or leave him for the Vigiles?’
‘If I were you, sir, I wouldn’t risk it. If he’s telling the truth and he dies before you get him back, you’ll be in it up to your neck. If he’s lying, the Praetorian boys will kick his arse out into the street so either way, we don’t end up with the problem.’
Pushing his plumed metal helmet back on his head, the commander wiped his brow with the back of his arm. Although dusk was falling there wasn’t a breath of wind to provide any relief from the day’s stored heat radiating from the brickwork of the closely-packed buildings.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get him down there.’ With a curse, he gave the order and a semi-conscious Jozar was half carried, half dragged the few hundred yards to the palace.
Nero joined Josephus and Giora at Jozar’s bedside. The doctor, a Greek, like most who followed his calling, was not the emperor’s personal physician, but a surgeon specialising in treating wounded gladiators to get them fit for a return to the arena. He managed to stem the bleeding from Jozar’s damaged hand and made him drink copious amounts of clean water. Next, he turned his attentions to the gaping head wound, dressing it with cobwebs to staunch the bleeding and honey to prevent infection. Slowly, and without rushing his patient, the doctor coaxed the story from Jozar.
‘You mean you asked for Paul the Cilician by name?’ asked Josephus, aghast.
Jozar nodded, wincing now, in spite of the drink of milk laced with opium that he’d been given to ease the pain. ‘I don’t know why. I’m sorry, Josephus, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault – poor, poor Philo. We should never have gone to the Aventine.’
‘Shhh, don’t blame yourself,’ said Giora, patting him on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought was best.’
‘We were betrayed, Giora.’ Jozar’s words were barely audible. ‘It was the barman from the tavern by the Porta Capena.’
Josephus shot Giora a worried look and Jozar continued, each word a painful effort. ‘I can’t remember the name of the place, but there’s a carved stone boar above the door. We told him we’d heard there were Christian preachers in town and we were interested to hear what they had to say. He mentioned Paul by name and –’ The opium was taking effect and they could see his pupils growing ever wider.
‘Come on man, get a grip, we haven’t got all evening,’ snapped Nero. ‘Give me names and addresses and I’ll have the buildings pulled down and
the inhabitants executed.’
‘But that’s the point,’ replied Jozar. ‘The barman told us to find the Temple of Ceres and ask for Thaddeus the Syrian. We were lost and got into an argument with some thug with only one eye. And when the mob set on us, there he was.’
‘There who was?’ asked Nero. ‘The man with one eye?’
‘No, not him, the barman. He must’ve run on ahead of us.’ Jozar’s speech was slurring, almost incoherent and despite the heat he was shivering. ‘I’m cold, can someone please get me a blanket?’
‘You’re bloody useless, the lot of you,’ stormed Nero. ‘Jupiter only knows how many pig-ignorant low-life have managed to find this cult and listen to its leaders preach their mumbo-jumbo, yet four of Judea’s finest minds can’t even manage it in broad daylight without two of them getting lynched. Explain to me why I shouldn’t put you in the arena? And as for –’
‘Sir, could I have a word please?’ The doctor interrupted Nero in mid-sentence.
The emperor raised a hand as if to strike him but then slowly lowered it. ‘Yes. What is it?’ he asked, his eyes burning with cold fury.
‘Not here, sir.’ He gestured with his head towards the door. ‘It won’t take a moment.’ With a sigh, Nero followed him outside. Once out of earshot, the doctor continued. ‘He’s going to die, sir. There’s nothing more I can do: it’s probably just a matter of a day or so. Maybe less.’
Nero thought for a moment and glared at the diminutive Greek, his fists resting on his hips. ‘So you’re suggesting you take their place in the arena while I send for a sawbones who can tell an arse from an elbow in a well-lit room?’
‘With respect, sir –’
The emperor took a pace forward and lifted him up by the front of his tunic. ‘If you value your life, man, don’t you dare “with respect” me. Every time somebody says that it’s an excuse for outright disrespect and I won’t have it.’
The Seven Stars Page 18