Search the Seven Hills

by Barbara Hambly

  In the harsh light of late afternoon, the house was no longer mysterious. It simply had the dilapidated air of a place whose owner no longer concerns himself with keeping up any semblance of a position in society. Yet to have a house at all, instead of spacious apartments on the bottom floor of a multiple-family dwelling, argued considerable wealth; certainly to have a house in this quiet tree-grown quarter did.

  When the door was finally answered, it was by a breathless, chubby slave who had obviously run all the way from the kitchen, and Marcus’ first impression was confirmed. The place was run by a skeleton staff. He asked, “Is this the house of Sixtus Julianus? Is he in?”

  “Of course,” smiled the scullion, wiping a hand on his apron. “He’s always in.” And he bowed him into the vestibule. “Not been out of these doors in five years—the crazy old coot,” he added affectionately. “Can I tell him who’s here?”

  “Uh—C. Marcus Silanus. He doesn’t know me. But if he isn’t busy...”

  “Oh, he’s always busy,” said the slave cheerfully, as they emerged into a shadowy atrium whose only light was that which fell through the skylight above the pool and whose floor of old, yellowing marble was thick with dust and scattered with brown leaves. “But take a seat. I’ll tell him you’re here.” And, still wiping his hands on his tunic hem, he trotted off between the slender decorative pillars and down a hall, leaving Marcus alone in the semi-darkness under the ancient, knowing, haughty eyes of the sculptured Egyptian cat in the wall niche.

  After a few moments the man returned, puffing and out of breath. He led Marcus down the hallway, past priceless frescoes faded by time, out into the green still jungle-riot of overgrown willows and uncut vines, where the fountain trickled through bulbous cankers of moss and the lichened bricks of the few paths still visible were being relentlessly thrust apart by the weeds. The colonnade around the garden was so badly choked with vines that only a small entrance remained. Through green filtered light he led him down a kind of tunnel of stone and leaves, to a sheltered bay that had once been a workshop looking out into the garden. Marcus had the curious impression that he had wandered into a hill cave, inhabited by a scholarly hermit and stocked with scrolls and tablets and curiosities, strange stones, and a globe of the stars.

  Sixtus Julianus rose as Marcus was ushered in. For all the apparent frailness of his build, Marcus’ first impression of him was of a kind of latent toughness, coupled with a kingly dignity. He was an aristocrat of the most ancient traditions of a long-vanished republic, clean as bleached bone, his plain tunic the color of raw wool and his short-clipped hair and beard fine as silk and whiter than sunlit snow. The burning demons of sun and wind, sand and enemy steel had carved his face; from the webwork of lines, blue eyes regarded him, fierce and pure and serene as the desert sky. His hands, resting among the scholarly confusion of the table, were heavy and powerful, the white-furred forearms crisscrossed by old pale scars. A soldier’s hands, thought Marcus, like those of the centurion Arrius.

  He said, “Please be seated,” in a voice deep and rich as bronze. Someone brought up a chair, and turning, Marcus met Churaldin’s eyes.

  The slave asked, “Is it about the girl?”

  Marcus nodded.

  Churaldin turned to his master. “Sir, this is the man whom I—tripped—in pursuit of the kidnappers last night. Are you well?”

  “No thanks to you,” grinned Marcus wryly.

  “Have they found her?” asked Sixtus, reseating himself and clearing aside part of the welter of scrolls that lay between them.

  Marcus shook his head. “Not yet.” He fished in his purse. “But they found this.” And he laid the silver amulet of the fish on the table between them like a coin. “It was picked up from the mud near the litter. I must have torn it loose from the neck of one of the attackers in the struggle.”

  The old man picked it up carefully, and turned it over in his fingers. His eyes met Marcus’. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Yes,” said Marcus quietly. “Yes, I do. We have to rescue her, and rescue her quickly. I need Churaldin’s help to do that. I—I came here to ask your permission to speak with him.”

  Sixtus nodded and rose to go. Churaldin, who had also seated himself at the other side of the table, glanced up and met his eyes, and Marcus saw, with a curious sense of shock, the trust and understanding between the young slave and the ancient master. “Will you stay, sir?”

  “If you don’t object, Marcus Silanus,” said the old man. Marcus quickly shook his head. Sixtus moved back to his chair, steadying himself on the edge of the table, and Marcus saw then that he was lame. “Now, how can my wild Briton be of help to you?”

  “The men we’re looking for are Christians,” began Marcus, looking from that haughty old man to the slave who sat at his side, proud and forbidding as a black hawk on his master’s fist. “The centurion Arrius—the centurion of the Praetorian Guard who’s in charge of finding the men who did it—believes they had a confederate in the household. He says the ambush couldn’t have been planned any other way.”

  “Oh, it could have,” remarked Sixtus. “But I’ll admit that having a confederate in the household would be one of the easier ways of doing it, particularly if it is a large household.”

  “Not overly large,” said Marcus. “Fifty or sixty slaves, I think. But I wondered if Churaldin had heard anything, any rumor, about one or more of them being Christians?” He turned to look at Churaldin and was surprised at the anger that flushed that dark angular face.

  “You’re asking me, in effect, to turn informer,” said the slave, his voice harsh for all the quietness of his speech. “In spite of the fact that, as a citizen, you must know there’s only one way they have of examining slaves.”

  Marcus felt his cheeks scald. “Well—I mean—that wasn’t exactly what I meant—”

  “It was what you said,” he lashed at him. “What if one of them happens to be a Christian who knows nothing about it?”

  “But in any case,” cut in Sixtus smoothly over the slave’s anger, “even if you did know anything, Churaldin, it would probably be better to let the authorities know than to have the Praetorian Guard embark upon a general hunt. But the question is academic, I believe. Had Churaldin been aware of any Christians in any of the households upon the Quirinal Hill, he would have told me. When you are a crippled old recluse such as I, it pays to know your surroundings.”

  Churaldin was still regarding him with a smoldering resentment, and Marcus was philosopher enough to know that although no Roman citizen is ever obliged to apologize to a slave, he owed this man an apology.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I really didn’t mean...”

  “Oh, I think you did,” said Sixtus, in a tone of great kindness. “Or at least, I don’t believe you thought much about what you meant. And it all comes under the heading of civic duty anyway.” He turned the amulet over in his blunt fingers, and experimentally nicked the soft silver of the tail with his fingernail. “And Churaldin, for all his other faults, isn’t one to screen criminals of that nature.”

  At the mention of his other faults, the Briton looked up quickly, his eyes meeting his master’s in a flash of amused connivance, less master and slave than father and adopted son. But he only murmured, “No, sir,” in a humble voice, and turning to Marcus he said, “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. You’ve probably never witnessed a judicial examination in your life.”

  “I’m far more certain,” continued the old man, to cover Marcus’ confusion, “that information could be gleaned from the chain that this hung on. It’s pure silver, you see. An expensive trinket for a slave.”

  Marcus shook his head. “There was no chain found, sir.”

  “Indeed?” One white eyebrow went up. “Interesting.” He turned the amulet over in his fingers again and angled it to the light. “But what is far more interesting is why the Christians would put themselves to the trouble of kidnapping the sixteen-year-old daughter of so formidable a father
in the first place.”

  Marcus swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. “Sacrifice.”

  The blue eyes looked into his, kind but very grave. “Children are cheap.”

  “And revenge.”

  “Ah.” He laid the amulet down. “But I thought that the Christians were opposed to violence in any form?”

  “Are they?” asked Marcus, considerably startled.

  “Of course.” The old man folded his hands among his papers. “That’s why they refuse to enter the legions. They have placed themselves in the hands of their god. They will not struggle against his will.”

  “But I thought—I mean, I don’t know much about it, but I have heard stories of Christian soldiers, even Christian gladiators. And the man who kicked me sure didn’t have any scruples about violence.”

  The bright blue eyes widened at him. “It would hardly be the first time that a man believes one thing and performs the opposite. Under stress, the most stoic Stoic has been known to curse Fate and even try to meddle with its outcome.”

  The look the old man shot him was so knowing, and yet so teasing, that Marcus had to chuckle. “But I’ve been told I’m very young in my philosophy,” he apologized.

  “I venture to say,” returned the old scholar, “that you are merely very young. For all his own philosophy Plato almost grieved himself to death over the murder of Socrates—thereby demonstrating that he placed far more importance on the event than did Socrates himself. But as for the Christians...”

  “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.”