The Stones of My Accusers

by Tracy Groot

  “I could have gone straight to Pilate,” Prometheus said now.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  While Prometheus considered this, Orion looked away. How he hated the arrogance on that cold, handsome face. It was the end of everything for Orion. It did not matter what happened to him—it was Father. Father alone mattered. The scroll on the table before him mocked every sacrifice his father had ever made, every dream he ever had, for surely, the son of the freedman would end up a slave. Or worse.

  “I suppose I felt grateful enough for this opportunity that I wanted to give you a chance to leave,” Prometheus mused.

  “There’s some Roman decency.”

  Prometheus leaned back and studied him, genuine puzzlement on his face. “Orion, why did you risk it for a Jew?” He looked at the scroll. “Why make her Pilate’s whore? If Pilate ever found out—you’ve lit your funeral pyre.”

  Now, instead of a funeral pyre, exile or slavery or suicide. And Prometheus did not even know of the stonemason. Despair began to fill him. Prometheus did not know of little Benjamin, but he would soon find out. He did not know of young Cornelius’s program.

  To my beloved father . . .

  “What happens now?” Orion said. Despair tinged his voice; he could not keep it back.

  “You leave,” Prometheus said lightly. “Tonight. I’ll give you one hour to pack your belongings and write a letter to Pilate. You’re on your own after that. You should have enough time to get a ship out of the harbor before your absence is discovered. Do you want help penning your resignation? Put in something like, ‘I was too Jewish for you.’ Something like, ‘Rome comes fully to the palace.’ Yes. I like the sound of that.”

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  Prometheus’s brows came up and he smiled, clearly amused. “Do you?”

  Orion’s eyes narrowed on the scroll. “I could deny it.”

  Prometheus smiled a nasty hard smile. “You’re too Jewish for him. He is going to welcome this, you know that for truth. No, Uncle Pontius likes me much better. I’m more Roman than you have ever been. And why is that, do you suppose? Oh yes. Perhaps because I’ve actually served in the army. Perhaps because I have scars from battle on my body. You were nothing but a small man.” He put his hands behind his head. “But what can I do for you, Orion Galerinius Honoratus? My first official act as chief secretary will be to see how I can accommodate the former chief secretary.”

  “Let the new granary plans stay as they are. It does no harm to let them stay.” Don’t let it be for nothing. It cannot be for nothing. “It is only a granary. Only a tree.”

  Prometheus shrugged. “It’s done because I do not care. Anything else?”

  “No,” Orion said, and felt it descend on him entirely. An hour ago he was Pilate’s number one. Now he was lucky to leave Caesarea. He would never see Theron again. He would never see Rivkah. He would never see his father again, for he could never, ever return to Rome. He was a fugitive heading for exsilium.

  “My guard will escort you to your quarters. He will remain with you until you leave the palace.”

  Orion nodded, now breathless and numb, now sick. He started from the table, but struck it hard and without mercy. His voice hollow in his ears, he heard himself say, “Prometheus—we must go over the status of the palace.”

  Everything was transferring to this man. Everything! Did he know Pilate preferred his barley mashed with—Did he know Pilate suffered greatly if he ate anything with mint? Did Prometheus know Orion allowed the coalman to—

  “Pilate is not good with names. He always forgets the name of the city engineer; it is Lippus. Lippus. The guest list for the Festival of Luna isn’t complete. Laertes, the charioteer, cannot attend Pilate’s luncheon tomorrow, he has a fever. Prometheus, the coalman cannot obtain Pilate’s preferred—Decimus will arrive any day, keep the triclinium in readiness. . . .”

  He didn’t remember how Prometheus answered, or if he did at all. The guard pulled him staggering from the audience hall, and now walked beside him in the torchlit corridor.

  Sometimes the responsibility was a chain and sometimes like bristlebane to stop his breathing. Nothing was ever really done. The interruptions alone could make a task-oriented man splay his neck on the block and cheerfully part with his head.

  Now all he wanted was the chain and bristlebane, for suddenly it occurred to Orion that no matter how harshly he judged his own performance, no matter how short he fell in efficiency in some areas, he did not fall short in others. The nameless dread gained form: suddenly the most irresponsible thing of all was not walking away from it as he had often fantasized; it was that he had allowed it to be taken away.

  The letter of the law came now to the Praetorium Palace, and Jews and Gentiles alike would suffer for it. Orion’s father was old and good and had taught him ways of mercy as only an ex-slave could. Taught him to listen, taught him to look into the eyes. Long had Orion berated himself for not running a perfect palace. Now he could only wish for the chance to run it again with imperfections rampant and little Ben fast at his mother’s side. The responsibility, too often like weights to snag him at the bottom of the sea, was now cut loose. He was released and set adrift, and why ever had he once wished to be free? He felt himself floating away. Soon others would be adrift as well. Orion Galerinius had fallen, taking others in the fall.

  The hobnails from the guard’s sandals ground and squeaked on the pavement.

  Rufus, Clemidius, Alexandria, Aelius. The names were a mad cadence he could not silence, a murmuring backdrop to every minute in his workroom. He had been taken to his apartment and in a daze had stuffed things into a bag. He stood now in his workroom, just as bewildered.

  He took his mother’s tiny banded amphora, dropped it into the bag. He took his pearwood pipe. He took the new writing tablet from his father. He stood motionless at his writing table, gazing at his calendar and the notes bordering it. His table would be sifted by Prometheus in the morning. He didn’t have a chance to explain everything, he didn’t have a chance. . . .

  Simon and Lydia. Mary and Sophoccles. Benjamin and his mother. The old man who came once a month with a bag of dates; Prometheus would demand coin for his taxes, not dates. He would report him to the Publicani. The old man would go to debtors’ prison and there he would die.

  The only thing Orion could do for them now was watch them go down in his wake.

  “It is time,” the guard said at the door.

  Galen. Firmicus. He did not know there had been so many.

  “I have to write the letter.”

  “Do so quickly.”

  He dropped onto his stool for the last time, and for the last time slipped a clean parchment out of his drawer. He dipped a pen that shook and touched the excess to a crumpled piece of ruined parchment. In five years he had lied twice to Pilate. Once about a stonemason. Once about a tree. He would tell his last lies to Pontius Pilate.

  To Pontius Pilate, Prefect of the Eastern Imperial Province of Judea.

  With a heavy heart I put my pen to paper this evening. I have served you with pride these past five years, but fear I cannot remain another day: I have allowed indiscretions within my administration. For conscience’s sake I must go. For the good of Rome I resign my post.

  Rome fully comes to the palace now. Prometheus Longinus will serve you well.

  I have learned much from you.

  Orion Galerinius Honoratus

  Pilate lowered the letter that had arrived on his breakfast tray. His gaze drifted to his sandals on the floor, to the leather laces curled beside them. His gaze went to the freshly whitened toga hanging by the open window, the edge newly dipped in shellfish purple. The air had a faint bite of sulfur from the whitening.

  He was long gone by now. First ship out of the harbor with dawn’s light. That’s what Pilate would have done, and Orion was no fool.

  “So falls a martyr of Rome,” Pilate murmured. “Hail and farewell, Orion Galerinius.”

  13 />
  MORNING CAME to the quay. The evening revelers had drifted away. A few drunks were sleeping where they fell. With dawn came the muster to ships, and crewmen came in to report from all directions. The sailors were a mixed lot: Thracians and Gauls, Germans and Spaniards and Macedonians. Some from Egypt, many from Judea.

  From the doorway of Falnera’s import shop, Orion watched the three large vessels in the harbor. He couldn’t tell yet which were ready to leave. He would have inquired earlier but did not want to show himself; there were Roman soldiers on the harbor too.

  Expulsion from the palace, those first steps away, brought clear thinking. He couldn’t gallop from Caesarea Maritima in a huff and lather; he had to close out his Ostia fund with Justinian the banker. He would not be happy to see Orion, not this time—Orion had never withdrawn from his account.

  At least here in the province he made more interest on his money than he would have in Rome. His father told him interest rose and fell between 6 and 10 percent back home. Here on the dangerous edge of the empire he would clear 12 percent, and that on over five years’ worth of savings . . . Orion would be a fairly rich exile at least.

  Those first steps away had brought to mind one thing he had forgotten. The slave collar he had deliberately left, wasn’t sure why, it had been his amulet for years. But the collar sat upon the wide cut of parchment that was his calendar, and under that calendar was more to implicate him for Jewish doings than a forged scroll. Under the calendar was the sheaf of papers from Theron. Nothing would ensure the charge of treason faster than those documents.

  Physical evidence of collusion with a subjugated people. How could he have been so stupid? He took his mother’s tiny banded amphora, took the red charioteer, but left the papers. Why hadn’t he destroyed them the second Theron left his room? The granary plans were laughable in comparison. Even when they discovered that Orion had protected the stonemason, a lawyer could easily argue that Orion had forgotten to give the order.

  But once Prometheus found those documents—and he would—he’d have all the evidence he needed to prosecute Orion for treason. Treason was a public offense, not a matter of private law. What a way for Prometheus to start his term, revealing to all that he had single-handedly discovered Orion Galerinius Honoratus to be a traitor. The glory Prometheus would bathe in for a year.

  Treason meant execution. Exsilium had a sudden warmth to it.

  Orion could go to Spain, but too many Roman veterans retired there. He was considered in military service because of his appointment to Pilate—Spain was hardly the place for anonymous exile of a non-civilian official. Briton was an alternative, but he had heard horror stories of the climate. He hated the cold.

  He could go the route of Herod the Great’s son, Archelaus. Archelaus had been deposed nearly thirty years ago, with a succession of equestrian-class Romans to rule in his place. Ironic, that one who would dwell in the same palace years later would also find himself on the lookout for a winsome place of banishment. Where had Archelaus gone? Gaul, wasn’t it? If he was still alive, he was an old man now. Orion should look him up. They could trade expulsion stories.

  How did you lose your job, Orion?

  Oh, I was an idiot. Didn’t know which favor would be one too many. So how is the weather around here? Do you happen to have an extra room?

  A sleepless night on the quay left him with two clear options, Roman options, the two that had been obvious at the start no matter how he sifted it and tried to make it come out otherwise. It was suicide or exile.

  Suicide was the more stylish way to go, but Orion had long considered suicide to be an act of impassioned petulance. Exile held more interest. The life he knew was over, and Orion had to say it many times to himself to make it true. Maybe there was another life out there, waiting to be lived. Maybe he would find it in Gaul.

  Seagulls began their harbor cries. No one noticed him in the shop’s doorway, and as he watched the growing activity on the harbor, he inched backward into the shadows. Falnera would arrive soon; perhaps he could spare some bread and figs before Justinian opened for business.

  Yesterday he had his choice of breads. Yesterday he ate Dothan figs from Samaria because Pilate would have none other. Today he sat in a smelly doorway, probably smelling like the doorway himself. He had two finely woven sacks of all he possessed and no real plans, save escape. If a laughing fit wouldn’t end with him flinging himself on a sword he would laugh himself to hysterics. Then Orion saw the big Roman soldier. He doused any notion to laugh.

  No mistaking that profile; it was the drillmaster, Cornelius. He was in full Roman soldier rig, metal plates like scales overlapping on his shoulders, a belted leather cuirass over his chest, from which a sword hung stiffly at his thigh. The rust-colored cape was short, clasped low at his throat with a silver brooch. Orion wouldn’t have been too concerned; he’d seen five soldiers already, at least. But Cornelius was looking for someone.

  His back was to Orion, and he strode slowly on the dock, pausing occasionally to scan the ships or the people passing. Orion watched the back of the capped bronze helmet slowly turn . . . enough for him to see the scalloped cheek guard and leather chin strap . . . then turn again toward the sea. Orion soundlessly pushed back as far as he could go. The big soldier was not more than ten feet away.

  Cornelius did not belong to Prometheus. Neither did he belong to Orion, exactly, but it was Cornelius who had come to him a few years ago and made his unusual request.

  Orion saw the cheek guard again and held his breath; now he saw an eye and the side of his nose. Then the burly centurion was looking in his direction, and it was then that Orion saw the tip of his own sandal in the early sunlight—the same time Cornelius did.

  The man looked at the toes exposed in the shadowed entrance, then looked around before he strolled over to Falnera’s. He leaned against the wall next to the entrance, folding his arms. To anyone else it would appear that he had found a place to stand and wait. To Orion, the man softly said, “I was hoping to find you.”

  “You found me,” Orion replied, his scalp prickling.

  “I seek information. By the way—I am sorry to see you go.”

  Fractionally, Orion relaxed. He had not had many dealings with this man, but if he wasn’t a friend, exactly, he wasn’t an enemy. “Your gleaners’ program is about to end,” Orion muttered. “I’m sorry about that, Cornelius.”

  “It lasted four years. I am grateful to you. So are the poor of Caesarea. They know you for a friend, Orion Galerinius Honoratus.”

  The poor of Caesarea. Wonderful. Add the entire population of the poor to the litany of names. “They know me?” he said dully. “I do not know them.”

  “You have fed them for years. They all know your name.”

  Orion blinked. “That was not my idea. It was yours.”

  Cornelius scratched under his chin strap. “It was your backside on the line. True, it was safer in the beginning while Pilate tried to figure out the Jews, but we all know what you risked. This last year . . . we’ve been watching carefully. Many of us knew it was only a matter of time.” His voice took a grim note. “Things are only going to get worse.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’ve been watching carefully’? Who’s ‘we’?”

  “It would be wise if we do not exchange too much information.”

  “Good. Because I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

  Cornelius chuckled and shifted his arms as he looked out on the harbor. “We’re talking about what you have done to ease the burdens of innocent people over the years. We’re talking about people who have been spared misery because of what you did or did not do. I have many Jewish friends. They consider you a righteous man.”

  A righteous man. Orion pressed on his eyelids. He was tired and didn’t need to get emotional right now. He pulled a dead leaf off his toga and crumpled it between his fingers. “I could have done much more. It could have lasted longer, had I not—” But Orion stopped himself. No point deciding
where the line should have been drawn.

  “I want no details,” Cornelius quickly said. “But I know the difference between you and Prometheus Longinus. Things are going to be different, and quickly.” Almost to himself he muttered, “You can already feel it.”

  “Tell your poor I’m sorry.”

  The man lifted his chin as he surveyed a ship. “Don’t worry about that. Their god will take care of them. He did for years, through you. No offense, but it seems to me their god is bigger than you are, Orion Galerinius.”

  Wearily Orion pushed his eyelids up under his brows, but they fell down. “Someone else told me that once.” A thought came to make him chuckle. Here, grubby and cowering in the corner of a shop entrance, even here in his newfound lowliness were—interruptions. “Good Cornelius, you say you seek information. What information could you possibly seek from an ex–chief secretary?”

  “A person came to me late last night, after he learned of your—”

  “You can say fall, Cornelius, I won’t be offended.”

  “He came to see if I could give aid in a certain situation.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “There is a boy named Joab locked up in the new facility.”

  Orion’s eyes widened, then he groaned. “The person who came to see you . . . a big short hairy man?”

  “Yes. His name is Theron.”

  “Joab.” Another name adrift. “I forgot all about him. I was a bit preoccupied.”

  Cornelius risked a sideways glance at Orion. “I need to know if he should be released. We have to act quickly because the boy is Jewish.”

  Orion stiffened. The documents. If Prometheus finds the documents while Joab is still imprisoned . . .

  Gods and goddesses and all their flaming mincing offspring. He kneaded his forehead hard. Ho, never mind the fact that Joab has past ties with Raziel of Kerioth, and the gods grant he keeps his mouth shut. No, the documents plus Jews working in the palace under the traitor Orion Galerinius would look like . . . Should he forget the bank account and swim from the harbor? If they found out Theron the Great had supplied him with the documents, Tiberius would hear Prometheus scream Plot! all the way to Capri. Theron and Marina and anyone associated with them would be in peril. They would be brought in for questioning. Anything could happen.