Search the Seven Hills

by Barbara Hambly

  Arrius sighed. “Don’t you ever find it a little disappointing never to be surprised by anything?”

  “Not really.” The old man poured out a cup of wine for himself. “The last time I was truly surprised it was by a cobra under a rock in the desert, and since that time I have endeavored to avoid all occasion for it.” He looked out across the dark square. The guards had formed a semicircle around the door of a brick building at the corner of the gladiators’ compound, and among the crowding backs of the mob, the Christians could be seen entering the building under the escort of more soldiers from within. Most of the crowd from the wineshop had gone to join the fun; only the sand-raker remained, moodily pouring raw wine down his throat, oblivious to all else.

  “So those are your Christians?”

  “Prime bunch,” agreed Arrius.

  “If one isn’t particular about one’s entertainment, I suppose so. Is there really a tunnel from the holding jail to the pits beneath the amphitheater?”

  The centurion nodded. “It runs under the square. There’s another one to the gladiatorial barracks. The whole compound there is barracks—the stables of the Red chariot-racing faction lie just beyond. The whole quarter between here and the circus is like that, lodgings and stables and armories.”

  “It must be a joy to police. Have you learned anything from your poor Christian?”

  “Not much. He was far-gone.” Arrius poured himself another cup of wine; his fourth or fifth, Marcus thought. Perhaps there was more to that curious, complicated man than the brutality he had shown in the prison. “Only—who is it that the Christians call Papa?”

  Sixtus frowned. “What do you mean, ‘who is it’?”

  “Arrius thinks they could be referring to a kind of archpriest.”

  “Possibly,” agreed the old man doubtfully. “But that would imply some kind of overall organization, wouldn’t it?”

  Arrius laughed unexpectedly. “Have you ever seen a roomful of Christians? I thought we’d be taking up the bodies in the morning.”

  “Oh, yes,” smiled Sixtus. “As I said to Marcus earlier, Antioch was crawling with them, all of them preaching brotherly love and ready to scratch one another’s eyes out over whether the Christ had one nature in two bodies, or one body with two natures, or one and a half natures or whether he existed corporeally at all. I suppose that is the remarkable thing about Christianity: that it is attempting to apply logic to mysticism, to make rational sense of what is essentially irrational.”

  “The remarkable thing about Christianity,” growled Arrius, “is the damn Christians. Do you know what that scrawny little monkey Ignatius has been doing all afternoon? He’s been trying to bait the guards into killing him, so he can the for his faith and go straight to heaven. The poker-backed old priest finally told him not to tempt the judgment of the Lord, and that set the rest of them off again. Lunatics, all of ‘em. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Oh, it’s quite the thing to die for one’s beliefs.” The old man leaned his back against the wall behind him, his scarred hands resting at ease on the scrawled carvings of the filthy table. He looked as at home in that grubby tavern, with its crude paintings of gladiatorial murder and ill-assorted ruffians at the bar, as if he had spent the last five years here instead of in study and meditation in that leafy cave on the Quirinal Hill. “It’s easier than living for them. And in any case where their Savior led, they are eager enough to follow.”

  Arrius grunted and poured himself another cup of wine. “You’d think their god would have picked a better way to go than a punishment reserved for traitors and brigands. If he did die that way, that is.”

  “Oh, he certainly did,” said Sixtus. “Back in the days when I was an arrogant junior staff officer of the Tunis garrison I talked to the centurion who had been in charge of the punishment squad at Joshua Bar-Joseph’s execution. In view of the fuss that was made over the execution itself, and the rumors that went around immediately after, he remembered it quite well.”

  “So he actually saw Bar-Joseph die?” said Arrius.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What was he like?” asked Marcus curiously. “Bar-Joseph, I mean.”

  Sixtus was silent for a time, his chin resting upon his knuckles, his eyes seeming to lose their focus as they turned inward, remembering another night, in perhaps another tavern. “He said he chiefly remembered Bar-Joseph as being very tall, and quite strong,” he said at last. “He was supposed to be able to break a cornel-wood spear-shaft in his hands, but had that gentleness you often find in big men, who have seldom had to fight. Longinus said it surprised him that he died so quickly. A crucified man will sometimes die in as little as twelve hours, depending on how it’s done, but others can hang on for days.”

  In the warm darkness beyond the wineshop lights a stallion whinnied. Faint, bitter arguments could be heard floating from the barred window of the jail.

  “Of course, Longinus admitted that the garrison had used him very badly through the previous night.” The old man’s eyes seemed to flicker back into focus, looking sharply from Arrius to Marcus beneath their heavy lids. “It’s always the late-night watch that catches all the bad squad, you know. And evidently there were a couple of real toughs in the Jerusalem garrison who egged the others on. They were all rather drunk, because of the festival, and after a week of Messianic agitation, and rumors, and threats of riot, the guards were keyed-up and dangerous. Jerusalem was always a bad station, and Pilate was such an incompetent governor that the men were ready to lash out at anyone or anything. Longinus said by morning the Nazarene could scarcely walk, much less carry the beam of a cross through the city and up a steep hill—they’d flogged him with a leaded whip, and I suspect he had internal injuries from the beating as well. Longinus said he never spoke a word to them, from first to last.”

  “And was he dead,” asked Arrius softly, “when they took him down from the cross?”

  Sixtus nodded. “Quite dead.”

  Most of the crowd had returned to the tavern by this time, joined by others, gladiators or soldiers of the watch. At the bar, amid whoops of encouragement, a black-haired whore was attempting to drain twelve winecups in succession; the smell of lamp oil and cheap perfume and spilled wine was everywhere. From somewhere close by, the beasts of the Flavian could be heard roaring and growling—you could probably hear them in the jail as well, thought Marcus, and remembered the dying man in the stinking cavern below the amphitheater again.

  He asked, “Why a fish? Because Bar-Joseph was a fisherman?”

  The scholar shook his head. “No, in point of fact he was supposed to have been a carpenter, though most of his followers were fishermen. The fish is from the anagram of the Greek words for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior—Iesus Christos Theou Yios Soter—ICTHYS—fish. And of course, the symbol of the fish itself is sacred to other faiths from that part of the world as well...”

  “There,” said Arrius suddenly, pointing. “There he goes.”

  Marcus looked up, startled. From the darkness of a street that led up the Caelian Hill a litter emerged, surrounded by its host of bodyguards, torchbearers, slaves, and hurrying clients: a splendid equipage liveried in the bright colors that marked an eastern taste. The litter itself seemed to be plated entirely in embossed gold, the lotus-buds on its handles glinting with jewels. The embroidered curtains had been thrown back to reveal an enormously obese Syrian, clothed in a bright primrose dinner suit whose hems were a handspan deep in sardonyx, bullion, mother-of-pearl. His black close-curled hair was cut short, like a Roman’s, and glistened with unguents. Blue silk ribbons fluttered from the knot of emeralds that tipped his cloakpin. His sausage fingers were thick with rings, as though he anticipated a fight and went prepared with a cestus made of gold and gems.

  “Who is it?” Marcus asked in distaste. “I’ve never seen anything so vulgar in my life.”

  “It’s your rival in love, boy,” grinned Arrius unkindly. “That’s Chambares Tiridates, the pride of
Phrygia and potentate of the East.”

  “East bank of the Tiber, anyway,” commented Sixtus, referring to the location of the import warehouses that were the source of the Syrian’s wealth.

  The litter and its procession halted in the midst of the square; the man inside called out and waved. A charioteer in a gaudy blue silk tunic detached himself from the bar at the back of the tavern and went striding past the table where Marcus and his companions sat, and ran lightly to the litter’s side. Gold curly hair glinted in the light of the surrounding torches; Tiridates was evidently wishing the man luck in the races tomorrow. After a moment the huge merchant leaned down to kiss the charioteer full on the mouth, a salute that was received with practiced enthusiasm. The bearers, resignedly, shifted their grip to compensate for the sudden list of the chair.

  “That’s them!” whispered Marcus. “That’s the bearers—look, you can see the bruise on the nearer man’s face.”

  “Sturdy brutes,” murmured Sixtus appraisingly. “They’d have to be, of course.”

  “So he didn’t sell them!”

  “I never thought he had,” mused the centurion. He glanced sideways at Marcus. “You think they’d talk to you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. They might recognize me as a friend of hers, but nobody in Tiridates’ household knows who I am. I mean, that I—that Tullia—” He broke off in confusion, and Arrius hid a grin.

  “Think you could pass yourself off as a slave?”

  “Not in a household,” Sixtus objected. “Someone would notice. There’s a thousand things that would give you away as a free man, you’d stand out like a vestal in a whorehouse. Find out where he’s having dinner tomorrow night and slip yourself in among the other linkboys and litter-bearers on the doorstep or in the nearest tavern. People talk to anyone about anything when they’re forced to wait.”

  “He’ll be out at that supper-party Praetor Quindarvis is giving at his villa tomorrow night,” supplied Arrius. “Because of the Christian problem we’ve been asked to put an extra guard on the Naevian Gate.” He turned to look at Marcus. “Think you can do it?”

  He nodded shakily. “I can try.”

  “Would Quindarvis agree to pass you off as one of his slaves?”

  “I don’t think we can risk asking him.”

  They both turned to stare in surprise at Sixtus.

  “Think about it,” said the old man. “From all I’ve heard—and believe me, Churaldin is a spy network in himself—Priscus Quindarvis is a climber. Look at the crowd he habitually entertains. Lectus Garovinus. Porcius Craessius. Men who are all far richer than he is, and viciously dissolute—men he can prey on. He’s supposed to spend a fortune staying in the running with them.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard, too,” put in Marcus suddenly, as various bits of Felix’s gossip fell into place in his mind.

  “If he’s courting Tiridates, would he want to risk it getting back to him that he’s sent a police informer in to pump his slaves?”

  Arrius bit his lip thoughtfully. “You have a point. And if we ask his permission and he refuses, he’ll be on the lookout.”

  “Whereas ordinarily I doubt he’s ever been in the slaves’ courtyard of that country palace of his. No—I think the best course would be to pass Marcus off as one of my own slaves.”

  “Yours?” said Marcus, considerably startled.

  “I admit he doesn’t know me from Tiberius Caesar—yet.” Sixtus rose and drained his winecup. “But do you think that after I call on him in the morning to thank him for the handsome recompense he sent to my slave, I won’t be able to secure an invitation?”

  Marcus shook his head. He was beginning to come to the conclusion that there wasn’t a great deal that this frail, formidable old aristocrat couldn’t do.

  VIII

  ...everyone there seemed to be completely drunk on aphrodisiacs....

  Petronius

  “ONE THING YOU MUST REMEMBER.” Sixtus held out one arm, and the burly old Greek who generally looked after his ruinous gardens draped the toga over it, arranging its folds in a simple elegant style some forty years out of date. “To be what you wish to seem is not only excellent philosophy, but also very good advice for spies. To pretend to be something you’re not is not only almost impossible, but painfully obvious. You must put an element of yourself into your persona, and you must take elements of that persona into your own heart. Temporarily, you are a slave, and you have to think like one.”

  Marcus, seated on the foot of the narrow bed that was one of the few pieces of furniture the Spartan room contained, remembered Telesphorus and Dorcas at the prison, playing “wicked uncle” for the benefit of the sentry, with her life and freedom as the stake. “But all slaves don’t think alike,” he protested.

  Sixtus shrugged with his eyebrows, so as not to disturb his valet in the midst of an accomplishment of one of the “great arts.” “Of course not. But slavery affects the way anyone thinks. What sort of person would you be if you were a slave, Marcus?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Pretty much the same sort of person I am now, I suppose.”

  “Really? You must have an extraordinarily strong character. I’m afraid that had I grown up from childhood with the knowledge that I could be summarily punished, even unto death or several things a good deal worse, for things I didn’t do, the knowledge that I had no rights whatsoever, the knowledge that my life, my education, my body, my friends, my wife were totally at the whim of persons considerably less intelligent than myself—I’m afraid I would have turned into a terrible rogue.”

  Marcus remembered Nicanor, pleading for his silence; Quindarvis saying, “The man should be put to death, and if he was mine he would be...” about a man whose only crime had been to do as he was ordered. As though he’d read his mind, Sixtus continued, “That old chestnut about the slave who’s punished for obeying his mistress’s orders to climb in bed with her is a situation that happens tragically often. Can you wonder that slaves are popularly credited with slippery morals and a propensity for telling lies?”

  “I suppose under circumstances like that,” he replied slowly, “a brotherhood, a solidarity—even if it was based on whatever abominable rites the Christians practice—would be almost understandable. I mean, a slave’s life is forfeit anyway, isn’t it?”

  Sixtus stepped back from his valet and looked at Marcus consideringly. “I think you’re beginning to understand,” he said. “Thank you, Alexandras,” he added. “I have always felt guilty about letting your talents as a valet atrophy; I’m pleased to see one doesn’t get rusty at this sort of thing.” He turned to view himself in the polished bronze of the mirror. The toga lay in the simplest possible drape, but the folds fell like carved marble, showing off the quality of the weave and the perfect shaping of the garment itself.

  “You do get rusty, a bit,” replied the big slave mildly. “That there drape’s not hardly the style no more, but it suits you, sir, better nor what the double-crossed folds in the front would, that men are wearing now.”

  “I bow to your wisdom,” said the scholar humbly. “Thank you.”

  “That hired chair’s gonna be here pretty quick. I’ll be back.” And with the sketchiest of bows the slave departed.

  “Yet I wouldn’t call Alexandras a liar, or say that his morals are particularly bad.” Marcus looked through the open door into the colonnade in the wake of the gardener. “He seems to be pretty attached to you.”

  “He’s been with me a long time,” admitted Sixtus. “I’d like to think that he trusts me. I’ve offered him freedom for him and his wife, or sale to some fashionable nobleman who would do his talents as a dresser credit, and he says he’d prefer to remain as he is—stubborn Greek. And I admit I should hate for Phyrnne to leave the household. I’ve become much addicted to her cooking.”

  Marcus looked around at the stark cleanliness of the small whitewashed room. Through the latticework of vines that walled in the pillared walkway,
he could see into the jungles of the garden, silent and somnolent in the late afternoon hush, where the gray cat slept on a sundial mossed over with disuse.

  “You don’t have many slaves, do you?”

  “Actually, I have over a thousand,” replied the old warrior mildly, “but they’re all on the estates. I suspect my steward cheats me,” he added regretfully. “And as for this house... Well, I suppose I’ve rather let things slip. One does, I’m afraid.” He looked around him at the chipped tiles, the overgrown garden, the great elegant house grown dusty and empty. “But what’s the use?”

  And for an instant Marcus heard in his voice the tiredness of an old man who has been dragged from the safety of his chosen retreat, the sadness of someone who is aware that he has gone badly downhill but is not quite certain where he took the wrong turning. He felt suddenly sorry for him, and ashamed of himself for dragging him back to the noise and brilliance of the world he had quitted, to be a stalking-horse for his own affairs. But as he turned, an apology on his lips, Alexandras appeared again in the doorway, carrying a couple of cold torches, cloaks in case the evening grew chill, and an ebony shoecase containing his master’s houseslippers.

  “The chair’s here.”

  “Where’s Churaldin, by the way?’ inquired Marcus, as they emerged from the vestibule to find the hired chair and its six bearers waiting in the street.

  Sixtus’ eyes twinkled. “I didn’t ask.”

  “Boy’s pecker’s too damn long for his own good,” grumbled the huge gardener, helping his master up the step and into the litter. It occurred to Marcus for the first time that this was what Sixtus might have meant when he spoke of his slave’s “other faults.” With his dark handsomeness and that curious quality of aloof pride, the young Cymry must be enormously attractive to women. And yet he had never impressed Marcus as a womanizer, although, he reflected, his heart turning over at the thought of Tullia, sometimes there was no accounting for women.