The Sacrifice Stone (22 page)

Our great festival to celebrate Mihr’s day was close now, and we were preparing to welcome the beginning of winter in his honour. Whilst no one expected a sick man to crawl from his bed in order to attend, there was an unspoken obligation not to absent ourselves unless we were virtually dying.

‘I
am
dying,’ I groaned, my head pounding with renewed viciousness as I sat up.

Then — perhaps the god put the thought into my mind — I remembered lying in that stone cistern as the live coals were piled on top of the lid, remembered fighting increasing pain and panic. The god had given me strength to endure, and he had rewarded me with such a forceful awareness of his presence that sometimes I felt he was still right there beside me. I bore my time in my coffin, I thought, I can bear a headache. And, if I am strong, my god will be with me.

Concentrating my thoughts on him, I got up.

I took my time over washing and dressing, then saddled my horse and set off for the temple. As I rode, I confessed to the god that, as well as worshipping him, today I was also intending to glean what information I could about those two Ravens. ‘There is trouble for you’, one of them had said. And now I’d had a second warning.

Written on a piece of parchment of the sort we used in the Procurator’s Office.

A voice inside my head told me to beware of jumping to conclusions: anyone else knowing that one of the Ravens worked in the Procurator’s Office could easily have used that parchment in order to throw suspicion on him. And, unless the plot against me was particularly cruel and complex, why should Flavius be warning me of my peril one moment and viciously attacking me the next?

Trying to reason it out was making me feel ill. Massaging my forehead, keeping in the shade as much as possible to help the pain behind my eyes, I reached the meagre conclusion that the best I could do was keep my eyes and ears open and see what I could find out.

*

I had no chance to investigate either of the Ravens, because they weren’t there. Since apologies for absence need be made only to the Pater, I didn’t know what reasons they had given.

In a way, I was relieved: not having to puzzle over them meant I could devote myself wholeheartedly to the ceremony. And, as always, I felt greatly uplifted — as I left, I felt more confident than I had for a long time.

And my headache had gone.

On the way back I called in at the farm. Theo was cavorting with the colt, but abandoned him for long enough to come over and give me a warm welcome. He looked well: I could have sworn he’d put on weight, and his face was glowing with health. He appeared to have grown, although that might have been my imagination.

Cassius came out to join us, putting an affectionate arm round Theo’s shoulders. ‘Good lad, this one,’ he said. ‘He put up a post and rail fence all by himself yesterday. Look!’

I did. Theo’s fence wasn’t as straight as a purist might have wished, but it looked solid enough. ‘Well done,’ I said. ‘I’ll go home and knock down the rickety old hurdles round my new vegetable patch, you can build me a fence too.’

‘Today?’ Theo said.

It was tempting. But I had a strong feeling he was safer here. ‘Not today. Far be it from me to tear you away from your colt. But soon, maybe.’

‘All right.’

‘Go on, he’s waiting for you.’ The colt was whinnying plaintively. Theo grinned at me, then rushed off, vaulting his new fence with ease.

‘You want us to keep him a while longer?’ Cassius asked quietly.

‘Yes. Do you mind?’

‘Not at all! I’ve plenty more jobs he can do.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Everything all right?’

‘I think so.’ I smiled. ‘I hope so!’

‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, is that it?’

I patted his arm. ‘Something like that.’

*

Nothing happened for several days. No night-time visit from Zillah to tell me Gaius was on his way, no threatening anonymous notes, no mysterious strangers lying in wait. The anticipation was almost worse than an outright attack.

Just when I was thinking that I really ought to put in an appearance at the office, somebody there decided to check up on me. I was finishing my breakfast when Callistus announced I had a visitor.

‘Who is it?’ I almost added, Is it Zillah? but managed not to — anyway, Callistus would surely have said so if it was.

‘He didn’t give his name,’ Callistus said, his tone eloquently expressing his opinion of such poor manners. ‘He says he’s from the office. In Arelate.’

I suppressed a smile: for all that I didn’t go to my office very often, I hadn’t forgotten where it was. ‘Show him in, please.’

I recognized the young man he ushered in. He was familiar on two counts: I’d seen him going in and out of the Procurator’s Office, and I knew him from the anteroom of the temple.

It was Flavius.

It was not our way to greet our Brothers openly in public, but surreptitiously I held out the back of my hand, briefly displaying my thunderbolt symbol. He reciprocated: the caduceus on the back of his hand, symbolizing the Raven’s function as messenger of the god, was well executed. It didn’t look like the work of our own tattooist — the style was quite different. Wherever he’d been initiated, it hadn’t been with us.

‘What can I do for you?’ I asked, indicating that he should sit down. ‘May I offer you refreshment?’

He shook his head. ‘No. This is not a social call, Sergius Cornelius.’

He didn’t go on, merely sat there staring at me. There was something like contempt in his eyes.

Suddenly I was irritated. ‘Speak your business,’ I ordered.

He looked momentarily taken aback at my brusqueness — which I’d fully intended him to — then rallied. ‘I come as a friend,’ he said, his voice low, ‘out of duty to a Brother.’

Warnings were sounding in my head. Although I couldn’t have said why, the implication that he was out to do me a favour rang false.

‘Go on.’

‘There is a boy,’ he murmured. ‘A boy who you are shielding.’

‘No,’ I said instantly. ‘Where is he? Do you see him?’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘It makes no difference whether or not he is actually under your roof. You took him out of the town, and now you are hiding him from justice.’ He leaned towards me, the dark eyes slightly hooded by heavy lids. ‘It is unwise. I must warn you that if you do not give the boy up, you will suffer the consequences.’ He paused, then added coldly, ‘As will he.’

An image of the arena shimmered before my eyes. Banishing it, I stood up.

‘Don’t threaten me,’ I said, my hand closing on the neck of his tunic. I twisted the cloth, and he tried to jerk away. I tightened my grip. ‘On whose authority do you speak?’

He said with some effort, ‘No-one’s. I told you, I’ve come to warn you out of loyalty.’

Not with that expression in your eyes, I thought. Whoever had given him his instructions hadn’t said anything about trying to look like the friend he claimed to be.

‘I hear your warning,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Now get out of my house.’ I let him go, and he fell backwards, almost slipping off the bench.

Getting to his feet, he edged to the doorway, walking backwards so that he still faced me.

I laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.’

He waited till he’d reached the relative safety of the yard, then said, ‘You will be sorry you didn’t listen to me.’

While I was thinking up a suitably crushing reply, he hurried across the courtyard and out through the gates.

*

I’d already decided it was high time I went into Arelate, although I admit the young man’s visit would have made me go anyway. Whatever the truth of it, it would do no harm to make a few enquiries myself.

Everything was much as normal. There were a few minor matters awaiting my attention, which I saw to in under an hour. Lucullus and Ulpius both sauntered in to have a chat — in Ulpius’s case, nothing more than a long moan about his workload, his wife and his piles — and I saw the Procurator in the distance, although not near enough to greet.

In the afternoon, when the October sun was making people lazy and more inclined to gossip than to work, I strolled along the corridor to pass the time of day with anyone else who happened to be about. I found my friend Maximus, and, after chatting for a while about the price of corn and the Emperor’s campaign on the Danuvius — Marcus Aurelius had decided to deal with the troublesome Sarmatians by the drastic but effective method of wiping them out — I asked how his new man was shaping up.

‘Avidius Valerius?’

‘Er — yes,’ I said. I could have been wrong about the young man being called Flavius. Or — much more likely — he was going under an assumed name for some devious purpose of his own.

‘He’s doing well,’ Maximus was saying. ‘Want to come and meet him?’

Why not? ‘Thank you, yes.’

I followed Maximus out of his room and along to another, bigger chamber where several young men sat labouring at their desks. I cast an eye over them — there were about eight or nine of them.

I couldn’t see the young man who’d come to see me that morning.

‘This is Avidius Valerius,’ Maximus said, stopping beside a thin, earnest-looking youth with a fine crop of spots. ‘Avidius, this is Sergius Cornelius.’

The youth stood up, managing to knock both stylus and wax board to the floor. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he whispered.

‘Good afternoon. Please, don’t let me disturb you.’

He dropped to his knees, located his board and stylus, and, sitting down hurriedly, bent his head over his work as if hiding his face made him invisible. Feeling sorry for him in his extreme nervousness, I caught Maximus’s sleeve and indicated we should return to the corridor.

‘Er —’ I began. ‘Have you any other new recruits?’

‘Employees,’ he corrected, smiling. ‘You’re not in the army now. No, nobody else has joined us recently.’

‘What do you mean by recently?’

He paused, obviously thinking. ‘Last new man we took on was over a year ago. Well over,’ he added, ‘it was before my daughter had her baby, and he’s —’

Before he could launch into the sort of family update he was notorious for, I said, ‘And was that man also a youngster, like your Avidius?’

‘No, more your sort of chap — used to be in the Legions. The Twentieth, I seem to recall — want me to check?’

‘No, thank you — no need.’

Belatedly, his curiosity stirred. ‘What’s this all about, Sergius?’

I wondered how slim an explanation I could get away with. ‘Oh, someone mentioned a young man he thought worked here. It seems he was wrong.’

‘Ah.’ Maximus was satisfied, apparently. Curiosity had never been his strong point. ‘Oh, I know what I meant to tell you! Remember that merchant who came in, accusing some street urchin of trying to rob him?’

It was so unexpected that it was all I could do to answer calmly, ‘Yes. What about him?’

Maximus was laughing. ‘Didn’t we have some fun with him! First the boy disappears, leaving him with no one to pin his accusations on, then we get our lads to go and have a look in his warehouse.’

‘And?’

‘He’s now in prison for tax evasion.’

I laughed dutifully with him — they have a funny sense of humour in the tax collectors’ department. ‘And the boy?’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Did he ever turn up?’

‘No. He probably slipped back into whatever part of the town’s underworld he came from.’

We exchanged a few more pleasantries, then I took my leave. Walking back to my own office, I was trying to rid myself of the superstitious dread engendered by his choice of words.

Even in fun, I didn’t like the thought of Theo being in the underworld.

*

When I deemed I’d done enough to give the illusion I’d completed a day’s work, I tidied up and got ready to go home. On my way out, Lucullus caught up with me.

‘Don’t forget about tomorrow!’ he called.

‘What about tomorrow?’

He tutted. ‘You
are
out of touch! It just goes to show what you can miss if you don’t keep yourself informed! Tomorrow’s the games!’

Gods. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

He must have detected my lack of enthusiasm. ‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea to show your face,’ he said, edging closer and lowering his voice. ‘You know the First Secretary’s a devotee, and he likes his staff to support him.’

He was right, and it was decent of him to remind me. Especially in view of my somewhat haphazard attendance in the office just recently. ‘I’ll be there,’ I said. I turned to go, but Lucullus hadn’t finished.

‘It should be a good show,’ he said. ‘They’ve been having trouble with the Christians — there’s a group living up in the hills who’ve been refusing to sacrifice to the gods. They defaced an altar to the Imperial Cult!’ His eyes were wide with pleasurable horror.

‘Have they been brought in?’

‘Arrested, tried, condemned,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘They’ll face the beasts tomorrow.’

And I’ve virtually been ordered to attend, I thought. Gods save us. ‘Will it be a long show?’