Rome 2: The Coming of the King (25 page)

On the fifth stone, the shutters opened and Saulos’ round, white face showed moon-like in the dark window. He looked out and down, waved a white kerchief three times and withdrew. His visitor gave a grunt of satisfaction and began to make his way back along the fence.

Iksahra followed until she reached the cheetah’s empty cage and slid in behind it, keeping her head low.

Saulos passed the hound kennels; they caught his scent and stirred restlessly. The horses shifted in their stalls and a mongoose chattered alone in its pit. Unheeding, Saulos walked on through the garden, towards the dungheap at the back.

With half a hundred different animals emptying their bowels through the day and all of it dumped in that pit, the stench was ripe, and the rats sleek. Saulos did not go all the way up to the barriers that bounded the pit, but stepped to one side at the last moment and pressed his head sideways to the oak fence.

A knot hole pierced the wood there, wide as a man’s bent thumb. When she first came, Iksahra had seen the faint shimmer of grease around it from faces pressed to the oak and had thought it a trysting place for lovers. Perhaps it was; certainly Saulos and his visitor had used it before.

Saulos knocked on the wood three times in simple rhythm. A knock came back, and a hoarse whisper. ‘Who is the third son of David?’

‘Absolom is third son of David. Are you he? Or his emissary?’

‘It’s me. No one else is to be trusted this close to the end. I bring news that the Egyptian witch is in Pantera’s pay.’

‘Is she? And young Kleopatra so smitten with her. How immensely unfortunate. Thank you.’

It was not a secret: Saulos had told Iksahra the same before they left her people. Which meant that he kept his spies in the dark and let them tell him what he already knew; it fitted with the kind of man she had seen him to be.

On the other side of the fence, the voice said, ‘There’s more. Tonight, the War Party and the Peace Party met together under one roof for the first time. Pantera was there. He plans your death.’

‘Of course he does.’ Saulos sounded amused, in so far as a whisper could impart feeling. ‘He is, after all, a worthy adversary. Remember that, my friend; if you are going to fight a mortal battle, fight it with someone you respect, however much you hate them. Victory is sweeter that way. What does he plan?’

‘He personally will denounce you tomorrow in front of all Jerusalem as an enemy of Judaea.’

‘And you think he’ll succeed?’

‘I am afraid of it. More than that, I am afraid he is right. Are you an enemy of Judaea?’

‘I am an enemy of those who would destroy her with their petty squabbles. I will restore her to glory.’

‘Under Rome?’

‘Of course under Rome. But as an equal partner in the Kingdom of God. You know this. My friend …’ Saulos placed his flat palm against the fence and leaned his cheek on it. His voice was warm with care and reason. ‘We have talked of this so many times, over so many years. How can you doubt me now, when we are so close?’

‘How can I not? They say you will destroy Jerusalem.’

‘And so you come here in person to find the truth, as is fitting. I taught you to doubt even the hand in front of your face, did God not show it you first.’ Saulos pressed his cheek to the fence.

‘Jerusalem will fall, but she will rise again by God’s hand. The Kingdom cannot be built but out of the rubble of what has been. When the time comes, tell that to those you command.’

‘And what do I tell them of the women? They speak already of the witch, and the beastwoman who is more demon than witch, and they know that you consort openly with both of these.’

‘But not for long. You know – who better? – that in pursuit of our goals we must pretend to be that which we are not. Trust me in this, neither the witch nor Iksahra has turned the course of my heart. They serve their purpose, which is my purpose, but when their use is done they will join Pantera in Hades. We can do this, except only if you doubt me; faith is everything and without yours I am nothing.’

A silence came from the far side of the fence, a waiting, and then, ‘My faith is as it has always been. And my trust in you.’

‘And mine in you. Go back whence you came, my friend. Sleep and know your warning fell on fruitful ground. Tomorrow, Jerusalem will begin to die, that you and I may raise it living from its own ashes.’

The visitor left then, his footsteps fading into the black night. Iksahra laid a hand on the cheetah’s broad brow and another under its chin and held its mouth still until Saulos had walked past and let himself out of the garden, back into the palace.

Then she breathed in the scent of the cat, of the horses, of the hounds, of the night, and considered her hatred of Judaea and her contempt for Rome and how, exactly, these were outweighed by her utter loathing of Saulos the Herodian, snake in the night, who must pretend to be what he was not, yet was blind to those around him who did the same.

ON THE MORNING
of the sixth day of the month of Ab, high summer in Jerusalem, a bird sang to greet the dawn. A hot, dry wind blew from the east. High over the hills, a hawk soared in hunting spirals, scanning the early land.

On that morning, a night and a day and a night after the riots had begun at Caesarea, a single night after Hypatia had come to tell him that Saulos was planning to rob the Temple of its gold … at dawn on that day, under the high, shimmering call of the hawk, Pantera stood alone on the second to top step leading up to the Temple of Jerusalem and watched the High Priest of Israel step out through his breathtaking, jewel-studded gates and look down on the gathered people of his city.

Ananias ben Ananias was a man of average build and average features. His head was a fleshless skull, with eyes set too far up to his brow and a wattle neck like an ageing hen’s.

Beyond that, he would not have stood out in a market, or a hippodrome or a battlefield, but that he was robed in silk of porphyry that shimmered in the sun, and tiny gold bells sang on the lower fringes of his coat, so that he was a songbird in motion. Black onyx stood out from his shoulders with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved thereon, and other
gems in emerald, in aquamarine, in ruby, studded his cuirass, each bearing the name of a different tribe. A polished gold plate fixed to the turban of his headpiece proclaimed him holy in the eyes of his god.

Chiming in gold, splendid in purple, he paced forward to the edge of the heights on which his temple was built and looked down on the gathered people.

A sea of blue-marked men and youths and girls too young to marry, too old to be left at home, looked back up at him. Silence settled on them as a moth settles in the evening, softly, without their noticing.

These were the Peace Party, come out in their multitudes at the request of Gideon, the Peacemaker. At their back, around their edges, stood the War Party, brought by Menachem and his cousin Eleazir, distinguished by their flashes of sun-yellow. All around, in their unmarked but remarkable long-coats, stood the merchants summoned by Yusaf ben Matthias, who bore no affiliation to either party, but whose future turned on the morning as much as anyone else’s.

It is possible we might live
.

Hypatia’s promise rang in Pantera’s ears as the last echoes of a thunderstorm. He felt as if his skin had been shed and grown back again, thinner. The world was sharper around him, with danger so clear he could taste it as iron on his tongue and feel it in the sweat on his back.

He watched the High Priest come forward and counted his own heartbeats by the soaring in his ears.

‘Your excellency—’ He clasped Nero’s ring in his hand; gold and turquoise, with a lyre engraved on it, and the chariot that was this emperor’s sign. He raised it up so that Ananias might see it, and the crowd might know that he carried gold.

‘Your excellency, I am Sebastos Abdes Pantera, known as the Leopard. I come in the name of the Emperor Nero, bearing this, his ring. I bring news of one who would rob your temple, taking the emperor’s name in vain.’

Pantera had fought on battlefields; he knew how to pitch
his voice to carry. A sigh came from the crowd. They loathed Nero as the author of their woes, as the man who had thrust Governor Florus upon them, and held the legions in the palm of his hand, ready to crush them if they rose against the excesses of his greed. Even so, the sound of the imperial name carried the patina of royalty and the gold flashing in Pantera’s hand took on new meaning beyond simply wealth.

They drew a long inward breath and Pantera let it lift him that last step up to the platform on which the Temple stood. The walls faced him, white and brilliant in the sun, their glorious gem-studded gates hanging open only by a foot’s length, enough to let the colours catch the morning sun, but not so far that it was possible for Pantera to see inside to where the Hebrews worshipped their god.

The crowd’s sigh became a low hum, not yet angry, but not cheerful either.

Ananias, High Priest by appointment of the emperor, turned his head. His fat eyes rested on the etched lyre on the ring. When he raised them, they were hard as flint.

‘You do not come from the emperor,’ he said, and his voice, too, carried out and down to the sea of ears below. ‘You are a liar and a traitor to your emperor and to your god.’

The crowd drew another breath, harsher than before.

Pantera made himself smile. He scanned the horizon for signs of Mithras: a raven, a bull, a hound. He saw none of these, only the soaring hawk. ‘Your excellency, I am loyal to my emperor and to my god, who is not your god.’

The crowd was muttering now, so that it was harder to be heard. Beneath their rumblings, Ananias said, ‘And if I choose not to believe that?’

‘Then the emperor who commands both of us will wish to know why.’

‘I see.’

They might have said more, but a gong sounded from inside the walls and on that sound, drowning it in a crash of hooves on stone, Jucundus rounded the corner at the head of two hundred
and forty cavalry, breasting the crowd like an ocean ship in a high swell.

In the chaos of their arrival, the fury of horses and mail, the screams of men, women, boys who had never faced cavalry, Pantera’s sense of danger sharpened. It came not from the armed men below, but from the flurry of quiet movement behind the temple walls, from the command given in a voice he knew too well, so that when, finally, the oak gates opened wide, flashing their jewels to the morning, and a figure walked out, sleek in sand-coloured silk, to stand beside the High Priest, Pantera was beyond surprise.

Two years evading capture had drawn a few new lines about Saulos’ eyes, but he was still the smooth-faced, smooth-voiced enemy Pantera had known, invisible unless he chose to show himself, but when he did, the power of his ambition could draw a thousand eyes. It was doing so now.

‘You are not the emperor’s man.’ He spoke crisply, but not loudly, so that the crowd must quiet themselves to hear. ‘I doubt even if you are the Leopard, for he is known to be loyal. We will find your true name in due course. The questioners are even now preparing the tools of their trade. The people of Jerusalem are diligent in their love for the emperor and will honour him by allowing the High Priest to donate fifteen talents of gold to Rome for the repairs after the fire. Your blood will seal the gift.’

Fifteen talents? Nobody in the crowd believed that. They made no sound.

‘I bear the emperor’s ring,’ Pantera said.

‘A forgery.’

‘Perhaps we should await the Governor Florus and ask for his opinion. He alone has seen it on the emperor’s hand.’ Pantera spoke to Ananias alone. ‘I bring also a letter from the emperor to the governor, commending me to his service in the search for the man who would destroy both Rome and Jerusalem in pursuit of a broken prophecy. His name is Saulos. He stands at your side.’

The message was rolled in his belt pouch. It was written on imperial paper and sealed with the imperial seal which was identical in all ways to the imperial ring. Pantera had written it himself, sitting alone in the night at the table in Yusaf’s room when sleep would not come, but Saulos had no sure way of proving that, short of asking Nero himself.

‘Truly? Let me see.’ Saulos stepped out of the High Priest’s shadow, and, by that single movement, made it clear who had command of whom.

Below, the crowd sucked in another, greater, breath: a hundred thousand breasts, affronted. A murmur became a rumble, became a torrent. With a single shouted signal, Jucundus deployed his men in a row along the bottom of the temple steps, forcing the people back.

In front of them all, Saulos took the message Pantera had written and tore it across and across. ‘This is not real.’

Pantera turned to Ananias and spread his hands wide. ‘Your excellency, we each speak and you cannot be expected to discern the truth. But the emperor knows. If you wish to send a message-bird now, I will compose for you a message which will confirm the truth of what I say.’

Ananias pursed his lips. A flicker of doubt burned in his eyes. He said, ‘It will take a handful of days to send a bird and get one back.’

‘Then we can wait. You cannot empty your treasury in less time than that. And in the meantime, I beg leave to commend to your lordship the words of our emperor when he sent me here:
Say to Ananias the High Priest that we approve the quality of his leadership and wish that he may continue in his place until his nephew is fit to wear his robes
.’

Pantera kept his gaze level. Very few men in Rome or Jerusalem knew that neither Ananias’ sons nor his grandsons featured in his plans for the future of the priesthood. The Emperor Nero was one of those who did.

Ananias’ eyes flickered back and forth, too fast to follow. He closed them, and when he opened them again, a small shake of
his head was the only sign that he had come to a decision.

This time, when he raised his arm and the gong sounded, a troop of armed legionaries marched from the temple compound. These were not Jucundus’ Syrian auxiliaries, but legionaries of the Jerusalem garrison Guard; Roman citizens all, raised in perfect certainty of their superiority to every race on earth.