by T. L. Higley
You are a champion of the weak.
Jeremiah's words, spoken over him that night, in a holy hush that felt like a calling.
Somehow, in all of the sprawling decay of Rome and the countryside beauty of Pompeii, there seemed to be only one man who could see into his heart.
Cato turned from Remus and left him to the vineyard.
If it was truth he sought, there was only one place it would be found.
CHAPTER 40
The Empire had more festival days than it had gods, or so it seemed. On the heels of Maius's feast to honor Vulcan and appease the fiery underworld god, he prepared for another holiday the next day, the Festival of Luna. There would be no feast today, only the opening of the mundus pit outside the city. Three times each year the stone covering of the pit was pulled away to allow the departed spirits trapped in the underworld to escape and, for a brief time, roam the world of the living.
As duovir, Maius was expected to be present at the lifting of the stone, but he made his way outside the city walls, anxious to be about his more pressing desire this morning—to begin the raids.
The morning was bathed in that unnatural stillness he had noted yesterday, as though the earth held its breath, listening for what would come next, like the gray serenity of the sea in the moments before a mighty storm. The silence unnerved Maius, and he quickened his steps along the shadowed eastern wall of the city and through the arched stone of the Marina Gate. He sought reassurance above in the bright yellow orb of the sun, already scorching a pale blue sky, and the mountain behind him with only a trace of wispy whiteness above it. There would be no storm today.
Only the storm of my wrath.
He smiled. Yes, he would sweep through the city in a tempest of retribution.
But first, the mundus pit.
The pious had already begun to assemble around the large pit with its stone covering when Maius arrived. From a distance he could identify the blinding chalk-white toga of the priest, surrounded by the lesser white of the townspeople. An air of agitation prevailed. Did they also feel the strangeness of the morning air? The crowd was smaller than it had been even last year. The people grew less religious with each passing season. They preferred the arena to the temple, the public baths to public worship. Ah, well. They could be controlled either way, it made little difference to him.
The priest chanted over the pit as Maius approached, and lifted his head in a subtle acknowledgment of the duovir, as though the magistrate were inconsequential in these religious matters.
Maius curled a lip and scowled at the presumptuous little man, who began the official opening ceremony.
"Mundo nomen impositum est ab eo mundo qui supra nos est." The mundus gets its name from that world which is above us.
He would participate when the stone was pushed aside. That would communicate to the priest where he stood.
In the beats of eerie silence after the priest's declaration, there was a whispering, like the touch of a breeze through a leafy tree, and it raised the hair on his neck. He surveyed the people. Did he alone hear the murmurs of the dead?
But it was not the dead that whispered. Beyond the circle of peasants who waited to toss their first-fruit offerings into the pit stood a tight circle with clasped hands, facing inward, and it was their hushed prayers that had sounded so sinister. The very Christians he had been dreaming of raiding now prayed against him, prayed against the good fortune of the city bound up in the mundus pit opening. Maius shuddered, part disgust and part mystical fear. Would that he could push each of them into the pit when it opened.
"Mundus cum patet, deorum tristium atque inferum quasi ianua patet." When the mundus is open, it is as if a door stands open for the sorrowful gods of the underworld.
Four lesser priests bent to the stone, and Maius pushed his way through the sparse crowd to bend over the lip of the stone beside one of them. The high priest frowned, but Maius ignored. They lifted the large piece away from the pit, revealing the black earth beneath, deep enough that one could not be certain where the bottom lay. A musty, rotten smell escaped the pit. Was it the odor of decaying spirits rushing out of Hades?
The Christians' prayers increased in volume, as though they also sensed evil escaping. He clenched a fist, ready to leave the ceremony and begin the day's arrests.
The high priest said a few words over the pit, and the rites ended. The people dispersed, but the high priest grabbed at Maius's toga before he could leave the grassy hillside.
"A word, duovir." The small man's eyes bore into him.
"I have pressing business—"
"Yes, so I have heard."
Maius turned on him. "You question my actions?" He pointed to the disbanding Christians. "Even after this?"
"It is the Festival of Luna. In honor of the blessed dead there are to be no military or public matters undertaken this day."
Maius waved him off. The priests alone cared for such trifles. "I am certain the blessed dead will understand the urgency of the situation."
The priest's face darkened. No matter. Maius stalked away, reentered the city with haste, and found the contubernium of eight legionaries he had requested awaiting him in the Forum, arranged in two silent rows of four.
Somewhere in the city the wretched howl of a dog punctuated the odd atmosphere. Maius crossed the paving stones to the Decanus, their leader. "All is ready? They have instructions?"
The Decanus gave a sharp nod.
Maius clapped him on the back. "Then be about your business!"
The quiet morning was in need of shaking up. The chaos they would cause throughout the city pleased him. He followed the contingent of soldiers as they began their march.
Street after street, house after house. Had the mystery sect believed they had gone unnoticed? Oh, but their names had been catalogued and recorded long ago, and now it took only the stomp of military boot, the splintering shove of a wooden doorframe, the sharp end of a soldier's pilum to bring them to heel.
Maius stuck close to one bulky soldier who seemed to delight in his work. The excitement of it built in his own stomach, as though he himself bore the weapons, as though his hands grabbed and yanked the Christians from their hearths and gardens.
Rich and poor alike were snatched from their homes, but it was the rich that gave the most delight. In one large city house, a family of six gathered in the leafy atrium at the sound of the soldiers, mother clutching young children to her side and father standing before the huddled group as though he could protect them. The home smelled of freshly baked bread. Beside them, a table had been set with midday breads and cheeses, and a bowl of glossy black olives watered Maius's mouth.
A soldier jabbed at the father and the man smacked the pilum away, bringing the wrath of the soldier. Two grabbed at him, and the children cried out.
Maius pushed past the soldiers to the woman. "Take them both. Leave the children." No one could say he was not merciful. He snatched a handful of the olives, filled his mouth, and bit down on the moist flesh.
They were all crying now, the children and the mother. They should have considered the consequences before they aligned themselves with impious traitors to the Empire.
The troops stomped out, the man and his wife gripped between two of the lead soldiers. Maius followed, ignoring the cries of the children.
It was good, this purging. Good for Pompeii and good for him.
Even better would be the moment when they came upon Portius Cato. Perhaps he would fight the soldiers. Resist and force them to run him through with a sword.
Maius shut the door of the house as he left, and he couldn't help but smile.
CHAPTER 41
By the time Cato reached the home of Seneca and Europa, he questioned himself a hundred times. Why did he keep crossing the city to hear the opinion of an aging Jewish slave? Did his future rest in the old man's leathery hands, as though his life were nothing more than an evening meal prepared for gladiators?
And yet, the brokenness a
nd desperation that had left him cold in the sand of the arena drove him forward, until he stumbled out of the stink and noise of the street, over the threshold of the warm house, as though he had reached the comfort and safety of a fortress, with an invading army snapping at his heels.
The Persian slave, Cyrus, met him near the door and led him in silence to a receiving room off the main atrium garden, where he collapsed into a chair. Seneca appeared moments later. Cato lifted his head from his hands.
Seneca started forward. "What has happened?" His brow furrowed deeply. "They have not come for your family?"
Cato scanned the room, feeling as though the invaders had arrived. "Who?"
"Maius. His soldiers. They are sweeping the town for the Christ followers."
Cato breathed deeply, trying to free his chest from the pressure of this latest news. "No. I knew nothing about it. Except that he has identified me along with you."
Seneca said nothing. No doubt he weighed whether such an honor were justified.
"Seneca, I—I need to speak with Jeremiah."
The man's lips twitched into a sad smile. "Remain here."
Seneca disappeared and Cato waited in the chair, until he was drawn to the doorway by a lilting voice in the atrium.
Flora worked the garden, plucking blood-red blooms, clipping stray green stems, and singing of her Savior. Curious girl. Her uneven gait from shrub to shrub was unfortunate, for otherwise she was lovely. He rode a wave of guilt once more, as he did when he had seen her last. Was there not something wrong with a world that would have disposed of this infant, simply because she would never walk correctly? And was there not something extraordinarily fine about Seneca and Europa, who had saved her?
Jeremiah limped across the atrium, carrying a tray. He drew a smile from Flora, who must have seen in him a strange reflection of herself, as their disability was much the same. Cato crossed the open space to take the tray of bread and wine from Jeremiah.
"Haven't spilled any yet." The old man's usual quick smile welcomed.
Cato tried to return the smile. "Nor shall you."
They retreated to the receiving room once more. The food and drink were hospitable, though only brought more guilt at his imposition. He did not come to have Jeremiah serve him.
Or perhaps he did, but not his physical needs.
"You are troubled." Jeremiah sat beside him, his eyes sparkling with that inner light. Where did one find such a light?
"I have lost everything, Jeremiah."
The slave nodded. "That is good."
Only Jeremiah would speak cryptic and wise nonsense.
The man gripped Cato's hand with his own strong one, skin like soft leather. The touch made Cato want to weep. "Emptiness always precedes filling, son."
Cato could do nothing but look at those hands.
"Eat something." Jeremiah released him and offered a cup of diluted wine. The tray had been filled with small loaves of a grainy bread, a bowl of oranges, and a small pile of walnuts, their wrinkled brown shells again reminding him of Jeremiah's hands.
He took the wine and sipped at it, from courtesy rather than thirst.
"Maius is spreading word about my involvement with your sect, which will cost me the election. And with it, my sister's freedom."
"What else?"
Those eyes, they could read his very soul. "Ariella."
The name ruffled the old man's peace. "She is in danger?"
Cato nodded, swallowing at the tightness of his throat. "Her former owner—Clovius Valerius of Rome—has claimed she ran away, and has taken her back."
Jeremiah sighed deeply, and Cato shuddered in response. Had he hoped the old man would offer some reassurance?
The slave shifted in his chair, perhaps to relieve the pressure on his hip. "The election. Your sister. Ariella. These are those that you have lost?"
"What else is there?"
"There is hope."
"Then I have lost that as well. Evil has triumphed once more, and I have done nothing."
Jeremiah smiled, a sad and wise smile. Would that he could read every thought in the man's heart.
"Tell me what to do, Jeremiah." Ludicrous statement, given their positions. And the only words that made sense.
"What do you want to do?"
He stood and paced, too restless to remain in one place. "Destroy Maius! Free my sister. And Ariella."
"Champion of the weak."
Those words again, yet they were untrue. "It is I who am weak, Jeremiah!"
"His strength is made perfect in weakness."
More paradox. "How can I be both weak and victorious?"
"How indeed? Do you ask in earnest, or do you only wish simple answers?"
He came to Jeremiah then, kneeled before him as he had before, and opened his heart, bruised and bloody. "I seek the truth, Jeremiah. Tell me only the truth."
"There is so much more for you, Quintus. Abundant life, a life of His calling and your responding to do the work He has prepared for you."
"I don't know how, or what, He wills."
"You have been set free from your sin, my boy. Freed for a battle yet to come, if you will join it. But first, before there can ever be victory, there must be complete surrender. His battle, His fight, not your own."
Again, talk of surrender. Cato struggled against this paradox. Called to fight, asked to yield. Like any true warrior, under his general's orders.
The room fell silent, as all of Pompeii had been silent today, waiting. Waiting for his decision, for his will to flow in one direction or another.
He dropped his head again, and felt Jeremiah's holy hands on him. There was a power there, and it seemed to pulse through him, to set his body trembling. But no, there was more than Jeremiah's power at work here. The very ground beneath him shook, as it had in the theater when he had given his speech.
He lifted his eyes to Jeremiah, saw the confirmation. The earth again convulsed. He stood and gripped Jeremiah's shoulder. "Stay here."
In the atrium, Flora had suspended her gardening, her hand still raised above a flowering rosebush, as though she had turned to stone. Her eyes followed Cato as he ran through the courtyard to the doorway.
In the street, a roar began. Like a rumbling thunder that did not lessen, like the hoofbeats of a thousand bulls pounding through the cobbled streets, the sound rolled onward, shot upward through the soles of his feet to shake his very core.
This is no minor quake.
The incident on the day of his speech had been swift, over before he had realized what occurred. But this tremor was different. It reverberated through the street and buildings like an evil warning from the underworld, on and on. Did the spirits released from the mundus pit this morning bring destruction with them?
Cato's gaze traveled the length of the street, saw the panic of townspeople as they turned on each other, unsure where to flee. Stone walls cracked. A column splintered and crashed to the pavement, knocking a woman to the stones. At the end of the street, he could see the mountain.
Vesuvius.
Something ominous hung above its peak. Gray and thick, like a storm cloud that had collapsed inward, condensed and threatening.
A cloud of death.
Her time had come at last.
No longer would she hold back her discipline.
Under her rocky depths, one shifting plate at last gave way to the other, and as the victor hurtled over the vanquished, escaping gases shot upward with unrivaled force.
In the rivers below, turtles jumped out of the water. Animals were often quicker than humans at sensing doom.
She garnered strength as the poison flowed upward, gathering debris, rock, ash, all it could consume on its way. The pulsing flow bulged her sloping sides impossibly, as though she would give birth to a hideous monster of death.
Above her peak, a roiling cloud of ash and rock signaled that the birth pangs had begun.
Do you see, Pompeii? Do you see, Herculaneum?
My time has
come at last.
CHAPTER 42
The dawn did not reach into the cells deep under the countryside estate of Nigidius Maius. Ariella stirred with the vague awareness that the night had passed, and stretched her limbs, grown stiff with the chill of the brown muck in which she spent the hours.
She stood and walked off the numbness, willing her body and her spirit to be ready for what should come next.
But it was hours before she saw or heard another. Had Valerius forgotten her, underground and out of sight? More likely he was sleeping off the excesses of last night. Best not to think about her brother, and what Valerius's celebrations may have included.
Micah. The momentary joy of finding him washed over her once again. Damaged, yes. But alive. And once they were away from the stench that was Clovius Valerius, she would love Micah back to health. They would be a family. She swiped at the unbidden tears with her palm. Later. She could give way to emotion when they were safe.
For today, for this moment, she would be Scorpion Fish once again.
They came at last, two of Valerius's slaves, with the news that her master prepared already to leave Pompeii, to return to Rome via the ship that had brought him. The two brutes seemed to enjoy dragging her upward to the daylight, though she would have come willingly, her singular focus driving her to face the vile man.
When to kill him? And how? She indulged a moment of imagination, of her trident in her hand once more, of Valerius on the ground, three prongs driven through his empty chest.
The wagon sat ready outside Maius's villa, and a muscular horse had been harnessed to a two-wheeled gilded cart. Slaves loaded Valerius's belongings into the wagon, his prime slave shouting direction and insults. The two that had brought her from the cell yanked her forward and lashed her wrists with a lead-rope that trailed from the wagon. The late-summer sun beat without pity on her face, and the day was still, silently watching her shame.