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“Wait a minute,” said Marcus. “How did you know I was a philosopher at all?”

“I didn’t,” smiled Sixtus. “You told me.”

“Yes, but...”

“Why else would a rich man’s son leave his father’s house, to live like a pauper in the Subura, and where else would any man get that lamp-oil pallor and bookish stoop?”

Marcus stared at him blankly for a long moment. Sixtus pointed to the stained hem of his toga. “Mud that color isn’t found elsewhere in Rome. The stains are all ages; you obviously spend considerable time there and just as obviously don’t have slaves to keep the garment properly cleaned.”

“Yes, but...” Marcus halted, those twinkling, impish eyes daring him to ask another question. Instead he said, “Have you ever thought of going into soothsaying, sir?”

“Frequently, but not only would I lose my citizenship, but the incense makes me sneeze. I suppose if I hadn’t been coerced into a military career by an arrogant and well-muscled father, I might have made a fair lawyer, but even that would have been a blot upon the name of the House of Julianus; what he’d think of me now I can’t imagine. No, what a man is and does marks him, body and mind. It only takes reading the marks and a modicum of the logic with which, believe me, I was inundated during my days as governor of Antioch.”

Marcus had to grin. The Syrian capital was famous for the wranglings of its metaphysicians. “How long were you governor there, sir?”

“At the time it seemed like forever. It’s less of a social nuisance than other things one can acquire in Antioch, but in the long run I’m not sure it hasn’t been more troublesome. Why revenge?”

He was beginning to wonder how Churaldin kept pace with the old man’s lightning changes of subject. “Because Tullius Varus was responsible for the deaths of a group of Christians three years ago.”

There was momentary silence. “Yes, he was, wasn’t he? As prefect of the city he would be able to order such things. And he was, I believe, giving games?” Sixtus leaned his chin on his hands; chips of white light outlined the stretched skin over the cheekbones, the delicate fretwork scoring around the eyes. Then he glanced back at Marcus again, the tips of milky lashes glinting like silver. “But I can hardly imagine the Christians themselves would be so united as to prepare an organized revenge. I am given to understand that of the several groups of Christians in Rome, no two are on speaking terms with each other.”

“Several groups?” The scope of the problem widened, suddenly and alarmingly.

“Yes, of course. I gather that Christianity, unlike the other cults based on irrational acceptance of some central mystery, puts a high premium on acceptance of the correct beliefs—on the correct interpretation of the mystery. Unfortunately, opinions differ on what is correct. And since all Christians, whatever their belief, are passionate believers, tomcats in a sack are nothing to it. This doesn’t even include offshoot cults, Gnostics and Black Gnostics and the worshippers of the other Jewish prophet John.”

“You know a great deal about it,” said Marcus slowly.

“I should hope that I do,” remarked the old scholar dourly, “Antioch was alive with them, fighting and cursing and denouncing one another and forever hauling one another into court over the most trivial litigations. Since I’ve returned to Rome I have spent most of my time in seclusion, but I’m using my time to compile an encyclopedia of eastern cults.” He gestured at the room around him, which, Marcus could see, as his eyes grew used to the subaqueous light and deepening shadows, was heaped with scrolls, wax writing tablets, and stray leaves of parchment and papyrus. From the gloom of the corners idols peered with agate eyes from crude shelves made of stacked boxes, on which Marcus saw clay baals, bronze votives to barbarian deities of unimaginable age, a tiny gold image of the Slayer of the Bull, and a minute jade of a little man with an enormous bald head, sitting cross-legged amid a swirl of draperies. “My researches have taken me very far afield,” continued Sixtus’ deep voice. “I probably know as much about Christianity as any man in Rome.”

“Do you know any Christians?”

For a long moment he did not reply, only toyed with a stylus on the table before him, tracing the pale grain of the waxed table with its blunt end. Finally he said, “I know people who have been suspected of being Christians. I have taken care, however, never to ask them directly if they were, in fact, followers of Joshua Bar-Joseph, for the simple reason that if asked, they might speak the truth. Then I should be in the intolerable position of having to decide whether to abet them or denounce them.”

“It’s a fine distinction to make,” said Marcus hesitantly, “between lying and truth.”

“A year governing Antioch,” returned the old man in a dry voice, “would make a semanticist out of anyone.”

“But—why would you screen them at all? Why would you screen anyone who does the things they do?”

His shock and disgust must have carried into his voice, for Sixtus looked down for a time, rolling the stylus slowly between his fingers, as though struggling with something within his own mind. At last he looked up and said, “I did a lot of killing when I was a young man. Soldiering in Africa I must have killed hundreds of men personally—nobody I knew, of course—and caused the deaths of literally thousands more. Generals do that, it’s their job. And later, as military governor of Antioch, I was responsible for law within the city. I saw a lot of very untidy dying, and I learned the painful fact that once one has been accused, if the crime is heinous enough it does not greatly matter whether one is in fact guilty or not guilty. Perhaps I am merely philosopher enough to try and make a distinction between general and specific guilt.”

“But they’re all guilty!” argued Marcus. “I mean, they’re all guilty of abominations, of sacrificing children to the ghost of a dead fisherman—and besides I thought the Christians hated philosophy, along with just about everything else.”

Sixtus smiled wryly. “They do. But that is hardly reason for philosophy to hate them back. After all, one doesn’t return the compliment when an ill-mannered child throws stones.”

“But that isn’t the same thing!”

“No,” sighed the old man, “perhaps not. But then, the Christians hardly have the monopoly on the killing of children. Quite aside from what goes on at the Flavian Amphitheater—Have you heard of Atargatis?”

“Well—of course, I mean—everyone has. There are rumors...” He glanced up, to meet a blue gaze turned suddenly hard as chipped ice.

“The practices of the cult of Atargatis,” said Sixtus, “are hardly rumor. They were pursued in Rome until the beginning of the present reign; every emperor from Augustus down winked at them.” He got to his feet and limped to the mazework of boxes in the back of the room, to remove a small brass image from a shelf. “Pretty, isn’t she?”

Marcus averted his eyes. The idol was obscene, fishy, and crudely done; even in that small size the Syrian goddess was depicted with her arms outstretched over a wide and slightly hollowed lap. “Did they really sacrifice children?” he asked queasily.

Bitter memory edged the deep voice. “Yes.” He set the baal back in its place.

“Did you see them?”

Sixtus didn’t answer. Though he looked still at the shadowed figure of that many-breasted mother, it was clear he did not see her.

“Here in Rome?” he whispered.

Sixtus turned away. “In Antioch,” he replied unwillingly.

Churaldin, who had remained seated in silence all this while, looking out into the dark dappled tangles of the vines, asked, “And what were you doing in the Temple of Atargatis in Antioch while services were being held?”

“Looking for a child.” He turned back to them, an ancient anger deepening the lines of his face. “Meddling in what wasn’t my business. I saw their faces then, you see. And they were men and women I dealt with daily, in the market, or the law courts; some of them were relatives of the child who had been kidnapped. People I thought I knew. I had thought up until that time that—that such a thing would be written upon the human countenance, so that it could not be hid. Maybe they didn’t even consider it wrong to roast a three-year-old girl alive, maybe they were so sunk in their trance that they weren’t aware of what they did.” He limped back to his worktable, his movements restless and halting; the baals watched his back. “But it taught me that you cannot understand human motivation, or human need. Every rock has two sides, and only one of them is exposed to sun and washed by air. I have never been sure,” he continued, his voice low, as though he spoke half to himself, “whether that was the starting point of my philosophy, or whether it crippled me in its study forever.”

Marcus was silent, feeling suddenly very young and unfledged. Darkness had deepened in the gardens; the cavelike workroom had slipped imperceptibly from cool shadows to a thicker gloom. Churaldin said quietly, “I hadn’t known that.”

The old warrior relaxed, as though wakening from a half-trance, or an ugly dream. His voice in the semi-dark was amused and kind, “There’s a great deal about my evil past that I’m at pains to keep from everyone—including my well-meaning meddler of a body servant.” He limped to the corner, where a six-foot staff of iron-shod hardwood leaned against the wall. “Have the lamps lit, if you will, Churaldin,” he continued. “I shall show this young man out.”

Leaning on his staff he conducted Marcus through the murmuring twilight of the dark garden, through the hall and into the dusty atrium, where the last gleams of evening quivered like quicksilver in the waters of the pool.

“The question, Marcus, is not entirely one of guilt or innocence,” his deep voice said out of the faceless gloom that surrounded them. “To undertake a general persecution of the Christians is one matter, and one that is entirely within Arrius’ sphere. But it will hardly serve to restore this girl to her family. To follow a single trail—to affix specific, rather than general, guilt requires judgment on your part, and at least a temporary tolerance of things that you might consider quite abominable. Don’t confuse the two.”

They paused in the vestibule, a dark silent room as black as the anteroom of Pluto himself. No lamps had been lit in the front part of the house for many years. Evidently if this courteous, old-fashioned scholar had ever had clients, they had long since gone elsewhere for their patronage.

“Socrates always opened an investigation of any truth by demanding that people define their terms,” mused Marcus after a time. “Once you understand the question, sometimes you don’t need to seek very far for the answer. I think you’re the only person I’ve met who’s done that.”

“Recreational hysteria relieves the feelings,” replied Sixtus, “but it is seldom of use in achieving the best solution to what is not, at bottom, an emotional question. What you need is an unclouded mind, my son, and an unflinching capacity to confront unexpected truth.”

“It isn’t all I need,” said Marcus quietly. “I need help. I realize it’s an imposition to ask it of you, when you’ve been retired for so long from the world, but do you realize that you’re the only person I’ve ever met who actually knows anything about the Christians? Can I—can I count on your help? I don’t know where to start, or what to do.”

“Leave that to me, for the moment,” said Sixtus. “There are other ways to utilize Churaldin’s particular talents without forcing him to spy upon his acquaintances. In the meantime—”

“I know,” sighed Marcus. “School myself to accept the dictates of Fate.” Relief, exhaustion, or the release of what had felt like an unbearable burden put a cracked, gritty edge to his voice that he had not intended; Sixtus raised one white bristling brow at him.

“We should all learn to do that, of course,” he replied mildly. “Or at least learn to identify them. I was going to say, in the meantime, keep your wits about you. You may see one of your kidnappers in the street at any time, you know. If you do, don’t rush up and seize them—follow them, and see where they go.”

Marcus laughed shakily. In the warmth of the distant gardens he could hear the crying of cicadas and the sweet voice of a woman singing a love song in Greek. Throughout that empty and time-haunted house, there was no other sound.

After a time Sixtus sighed. “When I returned to Rome fifteen years ago, it was with the intention of retiring from the world, and in that I feel that I have been happy. In the last eight years I have scarcely gone out of the house; my world has been encompassed by my books, my meditations, my friends, my research, my little statues. I hardly thought to embark upon a Christian-hunt at this stage of my career.” He straightened his shoulders a little, folding his blunt warrior’s hands around his staff. “Come back, when you need advice. I fear you will generally find me at home.”

And in the absence of a doorkeeper, Sixtus Julianus, former commander of the Imperial Armies, former governor of Antioch, opened the doors for him and bowed him graciously upon his way.

Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself, breathes, lives, and dies.... I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question and to discuss the treatment of slaves, toward whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting....As often as you reflect how much power you have over a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. “But I have no master,” you say. You are still young; perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?

Seneca

“S
EE ANY OF THEM?”
Priscus Quindarvis turned from the smooth mirror of polished brass with a startled growl; the slave who was holding it up for him bowed and effaced himself. “Great gods, boy, by the time I’d summoned the men of the house and come running to the scene those murdering scum were long gone.” He paused in his pacing, the folds of his toga settling into graceful lines around his heavy shoulders and massive arms. Marcus, who generally looked as though he’d been rolled in his garments like a piece of fish, regarded the effect with envy.