Castinus took a step to leave.
“I’m not finished with you,” Helius said. He had plans for the children of Jerome. “Sometime during the night, unlock the gates of Damian’s villa.”
“Damian is well guarded. Unless you send at least two dozen—”
“If you continue to presume my intentions,” Helius snapped, “it will be very bad for your health. Just make sure the gate is unlocked.”
Helius pointed to a sack in the corner of the room. “There’s one last thing. Leave this where Damian will find it.”
Castinus frowned. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Helius said.
What was in it would be enough to put Damian in pursuit of Vitas. With Jerome nearby and ready to kill.
“Iniuriam facilius facias quam feras.”
This was the beginning of the letter addressed to Vitas within the scroll. It’s easier to do a wrong than to endure one.
The writing continued, like the first sentence, in Latin:
Yes, dear friend. This injustice inflicted upon you by Nero is an injustice you must endure for a greater cause.
Many of us in Rome need you to survive. Yet we dare not identify ourselves. Remember Piso! The emperor has not declared a successor, and if he dies, a strong man will be needed to hold the empire together and prevent civil war.
As there was no surety that you would survive to read this letter and a great danger that it would fall into the wrong hands had you not escaped to reach the ship with the scroll, precautions have been taken to protect us. These you will discover in time.
In time, too, you will discover a messenger you can trust by remembering this: eleven hundred and eighty-one.
Arrangements are in place. If it is you reading these words, Vitas, the promise is simple. The pieces are scattered in such a way that only you will be able to put them together. That will keep us safe.
Destroy this portion as soon as you’ve read it. The remainder of this letter is locked, but you will find the key nearby.
Darkness had nearly descended, but there was still enough light, just barely, for Vitas to see that the writing on the scroll continued. Yet it was not in the familiar form of Latin. The etchings were symbols that became a blur to his eyes as he struggled to make sense of them. Then the light was gone.
The effort to stay on his elbows had already taxed him too greatly, and he allowed his body to collapse.
Getting the letter back had seemed to promise hope, but it had not delivered.
For Vitas fell into a troubled, painful sleep with none.
Mars
Hora Tertiana
Lying in the doorway of Damian’s bedchamber, a guard dog on each side, Jerome heard a sound he dared not believe.
Throughout the night, the dogs on the tile at his feet had shifted and turned in sleep. Damian had grunted and snored from the nearby bed, occasionally yelping and muttering during his dreams.
Jerome, however, had remained sitting and awake all through the night.
Each minute had been agony. He knew he was a man of limited imagination, yet he’d been haunted by vivid pictures of the horrors that his children might be facing.
Those images left him too afraid and heartsick to be angry or vengeful toward whoever had taken his children. Had he been an analytical man, he would have realized that any anger at this point would have been self-centered, a focus on his incapability to take action against the unknown foe. Instead, the fear that dominated his every waking moment resulted from wondering what his children faced.
Both dogs instantly became alert as the approaching sounds woke them. Jerome was on his feet before the dogs moved, and when the animals smelled a familiar scent, they relaxed and dropped their heads on their paws.
For it was Marcia, with their daughter Helvia’s arms wrapped around her neck. Helvia was singing a familiar lullaby in the little-girl voice that always brought joy to Jerome.
He ran to them both and hugged them hard, wrapping them completely in his large grasp.
A moment later, he pushed back and gently lifted the hair from Helvia’s ears. Both were intact.
“She’s fine,” Marcia whispered. “So are both of the other children. The ear must have belonged to someone else.”
Jerome made a sound in his throat, ending it on a higher pitch. An unspoken question.
“Just as dawn broke,” she explained, “Attius and Arrius came running into our quarters. Without Helvia. They pulled me outside and led me to the gate. A man was standing there, holding her. He wouldn’t give me Helvia until I agreed to deliver a message to you.”
Jerome took his little girl from Marcia’s arms and held her to his chest. Relief brought tears. He felt weak and suddenly very tired.
“It was the same message as before,” Marcia said. “You must do as instructed.”
Jerome grunted another questioning sound.
“He said our children can be taken from us again at any time,” Marcia said. “He said the body parts we receive next time will belong to them, not someone else.”
She was ramrod straight now and very determined in tone and expression. “I don’t care what it takes,” she told Jerome. “You do what you must to protect our children.”
“I’m told you came for the children last night,” Tigellinus said.
Helius nodded.
“Where are they?” Tigellinus looked around Helius’s private suite as if Helius had actually hidden them somewhere.
“Delivered back to Jerome.”
“What!”
Helius flinched. He had expected this reaction, but Tigellinus was such a physical presence that his anger was capable of filling a room.
“Because,” Helius said quickly, “keeping them would alert Damian that something unusual had happened.”
“We did not discuss this previously. Our plan was—”
“—to keep them hostage until Jerome did what was needed.” Helius shook his head, half expecting Tigellinus to step forward and grab him by the throat. “But how long might that be?”
“Until we killed them,” Tigellinus growled. “Which is what I’d like to do to you at this point.”
Helius knew he was safe again. If Tigellinus really wanted him dead, Helius would get no warning.
“If Nero heard about us keeping three children hostage,” Helius countered, “he’d have questions we don’t want to answer. But if we kill the children too soon, we have no leverage over Jerome.”
Tigellinus grudgingly agreed.
“We’ve already made our point with Jerome,” Helius said. “An entire night wondering about his children has given him a taste of what he has to lose and how easily he can lose it again.”
“I already said you were correct. Stop beating a dead horse.”
Helius smiled. “When that dead horse is you, I never tire of it.”
“Who are you, Jew?”
Vitas sat on a crate at the front of the deck. He’d been here since dawn, thinking about the scroll, staring at the southern horizon and the band of distant low mountains that marked the eastern tip of Sicily and the whirlpool at the Straits of Messana between Sicily and the mainland. The clouds had broken during the night, and the sun was already warm, casting a clear light that bounced off waves that seemed to run ahead of the ship.
John was carrying bread and cheese. He ignored the question and offered the food to Vitas.
Vitas broke the bread and gave half of it back to John. It hurt, holding himself upright, but he was determined not to show the extent of the effort it cost to pretend the whipping the day before had not happened. Just rising and placing the tunic over his body had taken ten agonizing minutes. Walking to the crate, another ten minutes of similar pain.
“Who bound you in rope and made you a prisoner before this ship’s departure?” Vitas continued. He was famished—a good sign that his body was healing. Yet he made no move to eat his food, instead holding it with his hands resting on his lap. “What had you done to d
eserve it?”
“May I examine your wounds?”
“The captain said you are a Christian,” Vitas said. “I knew this, of course, because of that night in Nero’s garden. But how did he know?”
Members of the crew were busy farther down the deck, but they all ignored John and Vitas. Undoubtedly captain’s orders.
John had lifted the back of Vitas’s tunic. “It could be worse,” John said. “Much worse.”
He dropped the tunic and stood beside Vitas, staring, too, at the southern horizon. Seagulls circled the ship, another indication that they were nearing a landmass.
Then came the unexpected.
John lowered himself to his knees beside Vitas. He placed one hand on the back of Vitas and raised his other hand high.
“Our Father in heaven,” John said softly, so softly that Vitas had to strain to hear, “ease the pain of the stripes this man withstood on my behalf, and heal him now that he might experience Your mercy, and open his heart that he might glorify the holy name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.”
John stood again.
Vitas had an impulse to mock the man for asking an invisible God for something that could not be delivered, but he knew enough about the followers of the Christos to understand they did not worship as the rest of the empire did.
Besides, Vitas wanted answers. There was no sense in antagonizing the man. “Why are you on this ship?” Vitas asked.
“As I told you the night we departed,” John said, “a friend wanted me away from Rome.”
Vitas remembered his own first moments on the ship. Seeing John bound and captive, on the deck of the riverboat. Remembered John’s ambiguous statements. “All of us marked by the Lamb are hated by those marked by the Beast. . . . If you are on this ship, perhaps you, too, are fleeing the Beast.”
“Friend? What kind of friend has you taken captive and forced on a ship?”
“One who knew I did not want to leave Rome.”
“If you didn’t want to leave Rome, then you did not believe as he did. That your life was in danger.”
“He was not mistaken,” John said. He still stared at the horizon. “A slave hunter had begun pursuit of me.”
Vitas lifted his arms slowly to take a bite of bread, grateful that at least this small movement did not send knives of pain through his body. He used the pause in conversation to think through the answers John had given. Each seemed to lead to more questions. If John knew his life was in danger, why had it taken force to remove him from that danger?
“You are an escaped slave then,” Vitas said, coming up with a logical answer.
“No,” John answered. “A free man. But like many in Rome, my faith makes me a fugitive.”
Vitas wondered if John was being deliberately obtuse. Despite the open answers, so much remained unsaid. “Slave hunters, however, are not hired to pursue the other Christians.”
“I cannot speak for them,” John said. “Only myself.”
“Then speak for yourself. Why was the slave hunter in pursuit of you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess then.”
“It would be fruitless.”
“And equally fruitless that you won’t,” Vitas said with a touch of irritation. “You’ve answered questions, but I haven’t really learned anything about you.”
John turned to him and grinned. It showed a flash of handsomeness on the elderly face. “And you have been forthcoming about yourself? Tell me, Roman, why have you dyed your hair so recently?”
Vitas reached up and rubbed his hair, wincing in preparation for the knives of pain that would come with the movement. He looked at his hand. Smears of a light color were obvious on his palm.
A thought began to run through his mind. What happened to—?
“Who beat your face but left your body untouched?” John asked. “Why didn’t you know where this ship was headed? Who placed you on this ship? Why won’t you even tell me your name?” John grinned again. “I prefer straightforward talk, but if needed, I can play the game too.”
Vitas found the grin disarming. “My situation has forced me to trust no one.”
“Then let me be straightforward first,” John said. “Your questions tell me you hope to learn enough about me to know how far you can trust me.”
Instead of answering, Vitas took a bite of cheese. The Jew was not a stupid man.
“What does the scroll say about me?” John asked.
This startled Vitas. He flinched slightly, expecting spasms of pain across his back.
“Roman,” John said, “you’re not the only one to spend time wondering about our situation. I doubt it is coincidence that you and I are on the same ship. You arrived on board with a sealed scroll. Now you show your first real interest in me only after reading the scroll.”
“Are you able to read and write?”
John nodded. “Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.”
“Not just Latin?”
John nodded again. “Jews live at the crossroads of the world. Necessity makes for a broad education.”
Had the writer of the scroll known this? Vitas wondered. There was only one way to find out.
Damian was still stretching and rubbing his eyes to find some degree of wakefulness when Castinus approached his bedroom, holding a sack in his right hand.
“I found this inside your property, near the wall,” Castinus told Damian. He had to lean around Jerome to speak, because the giant slave stood guard directly in the center of the doorway. “It looks like someone threw it there from the street during the night.”
“I’m not interested in garbage,” Damian grunted. He made a waving motion for Castinus to leave. Damian didn’t like mornings. Food didn’t appeal to him until noon. He didn’t like early conversation either. That was another reason he kept Jerome nearby this early. Along with Jerome’s eternal vigilance, the slave’s silence was a balm.
“It’s not garbage,” Castinus said. “I think you need to see it.”
Castinus blinked and smiled and blinked again. It was an irritating habit.
“What I need to see is you walking away to gather at least a dozen slaves. We’re going to a part of Rome where even Jerome might need reinforcements.”
“There’s a head inside,” Castinus said. “A human head.”
Damian stopped halfway through the beginning of a yawn. He snapped his mouth shut with an audible click of teeth.
“There was a message with it,” Castinus said.
“A human head,” Damian repeated, almost stupefied at the unexpectedness of it.
Castinus made a motion to pull it out.
“I’ll believe you,” Damian said sharply. Why would Castinus think he’d want to see a human head at this hour—or any hour? There was a reason Damian had avoided military service. Unlike most Romans, Damian saw nothing agreeable about severed body parts—especially the possibility of his own.
“This message,” Damian said. “Dare I hope the head was intended for someone else?”
Castinus shook his head.
Damian took a deep breath. In his business, any number of people could have been responsible for sending a head with a message.
“Tell me then,” Damian said without enthusiasm.
Castinus smiled and blinked. “The message says that the head belongs to the man executed in the arena in place of your brother, Vitas.”
Damian became very still and attentive. In place of Vitas.
“It says Helius has discovered that Vitas is still alive,” Castinus continued, “and that Helius has started pursuit of Vitas and intends to have him captured or killed.”
Vitas? Still alive? Damian put up a hand to silence Castinus. He needed to think.
Who had delivered the head during the night? And why? Was the message true? Who was close enough to Helius to betray this information? What was the motive?
“Anything else?” Damian finally asked.
“Just the head and the note,” Castinus said. “Could it be true?
That Vitas escaped the arena and is still alive?”
Damian saw that Jerome’s impassiveness had disappeared. That Jerome was staring hard at Damian, as if wondering too about Vitas.
“It’s true or it isn’t,” Damian said. He was thinking aloud, speaking more to himself than to Castinus. “If Vitas is dead, this is just a cruel hoax and something I should ignore. If Vitas is alive and hasn’t sent word to me for help, obviously he doesn’t need it. In that case too, I should just ignore the note.”
“What about Helius?” Castinus said. “If Vitas is alive and Helius has begun pursuit . . .”
“Whatever Vitas did to escape proves he can outsmart Helius at any time. I’m not worried about that.” Damian smiled. “What about that? Vitas, still alive. If that’s the case, I’ll bet Helius is ready to do anything to keep Nero from finding out.”
It was time for Vitas to place some trust in the Jew. He took a deep breath.
“My name is Gallus Sergius Vitas. I once served Nero as one of his trusted advisers. On Venus—only four days ago, yet it feels like a lifetime—in defense of my wife, I tried to strangle Nero. I was unsuccessful. In the prison, after I was beaten across the face, a man visited me and helped me escape. The dye in my hair was to ensure I would not be recognized.”
Vitas did not want to tell John the purpose of that beating. Or what price the man had paid to help him escape.
“I am truly sorry for your troubles,” John said.
Vitas sensed the truth in this man’s compassion and appreciated it, but did not show it. This would be weakness.
“Your wife,” John said. “Did you prevent Nero from—?”
“Yes,” Vitas said quickly. Then realized how quickly he’d said it and how much the intensity of his anger reflected the fear and worry he didn’t want to face.
Vitas rubbed his eyes with one hand, took a deep breath. “I was told that Nero did nothing to her.”
And, Vitas thought, I’m clinging to that belief as if it were driftwood and I were drowning.
The Last Sacrifice Page 12
