The Gods Help Those

by Albert A. Bell

  “Yes, my lord. I’ll speak to the owner and ask him to take care of you.”

  “He’s a very nice man,” Mother said. “His name is Callicles. We’ve eaten there. He’s not a Jew.”

  As we walked down the Esquiline, following the street called the Argiletum into the Subura, I tried to imagine my mother eating with slaves and Jews in a taberna in the worst section of Rome. It seems to me the natural order of things that children grow up and develop into adults who are different from their parents. But my mother was growing away from me.

  Phineas did as he had promised when we arrived, and the owner of the taberna gave us a table where we could watch the entrance to the synagogue.

  “Are there always squads of vigiles on patrol?” I asked as he seated the four of us and made a perfunctory swipe at the table. A unit of six watchmen was keeping an eye on the crowd.

  Callicles, whose face was marked by the scars of a childhood disease, draped the rag over his shoulder. “They always have someone here when the Jews are worshipping in the synagogue like this. The group called Christians insists on coming when they’re not welcome. When Claudius was princeps he drove all the Jews out of Rome because the Christians were creating such disturbances in the synagogues. Now the Jews are back, and so are the Christians.”

  “Are you one of them?” Tacitus asked. “One of either?”

  “No, sir. I prefer to see what I’m worshipping.”

  I turned my attention to the street. Naomi and my mother chatted with other women on the steps of the synagogue. Several of them appeared to be Greek or Roman, judging from their blond or light brown hair. My mother apparently wasn’t the only “god-fearer” among the women of Rome. None of these women was dressed lavishly. Phineas had told me that their tradition forbade excessive display of clothing or jewelry in the synagogue.

  Watching Mother talk with the other women, I thought she seemed more…vibrant. She smiled more than I was accustomed to seeing. I seemed to learn something new about her every day, and I had no idea how much some things in her life meant to her. I watched her pull a veil up over her head as she went in with the group of women. A frightening feeling rushed over me, the feeling that I was losing her, that she was walking into some other world where I could not follow.

  “It’s certainly not an impressive temple,” Julia said.

  “It’s not a temple,” I corrected her. “As Phineas would be quick to tell you, the Jews had only one temple, which Titus destroyed at the end of the war, fifteen years ago.”

  “Then what is this?”

  “As best I can understand, a synagogue is a kind of lecture hall or school. They read and discuss their holy books, sing and pray.”

  The synagogue was a two-story building, unadorned on the exterior, except for the plaster covering the stonework and some sconces for torches. People in the neighborhood must have respected the place, or had some superstitious fear of it. There were no graffiti on the walls and no evidence of frequent cleaning and repainting, which one finds on many buildings in Rome. Having been inside the synagogue once, I knew it must have originally been a market building, open on the first floor for merchants’ stalls, with rooms on the second floor. Each upper room opened onto a small balcony.

  Aurora nudged me. “Gaius, isn’t that Berenice?”

  I looked where she was pointing and spotted Berenice, dressed much more plainly than the last time I saw her, going into the synagogue with only two of her male attendants. As she approached the steps, her face was turned so that we could see the left side, with the identifying mole.

  We ordered some food and settled down to wait. The food was surprisingly good—baked fish with leeks, a decent wine, and honeyed dates. As the time passed, though, I couldn’t keep my mind off what was going on in the synagogue. Perhaps I should have gone in and observed their worship. It might help me understand what my mother was thinking.

  Darkness, deepened by the narrowness of the street and the height of the surrounding buildings, had set in and torches were appearing here and there when the crowd emerged from the synagogue. Men and women begin mingling, regrouping in the narrow street.

  “I didn’t realize there were that many Jews in Rome,” Julia said.

  “They’re not all Jews, my lady,” Callicles said as he cleared our plates. “The beggars and hangers-on flock here. People seem to be in a generous mood when they come out.”

  “I believe I saw Berenice in that direction,” I said. “Let’s see if we can find her before the crowd gets too heavy. There are still some things I want to ask her about.” I left money on the table and we started out the door.

  “What about your mother?” Tacitus asked.

  “I think Phineas and the servants with them can get her home safely. They always have before.”

  Tacitus, who is a head taller than I am and taller than many men in Rome, said, “You’re right. I just saw them on the edge of the crowd. They’re walking with some other women and their attendants. They turned onto the Argiletum.”

  I was relieved. That meant they had a large enough entourage to discourage thieves and they were out of the way, well on their way home.

  People were stopping to chat, so the crowd wasn’t moving much. With some difficulty we edged our way toward where I had seen Berenice. Everyone stopped moving when a woman screamed, somewhere in the direction we were trying to move.

  “She’s been stabbed!” a man shouted. “Call the guards!”

  People panicked and started running in all directions, pushing and shoving. Several people fell to the ground and were in danger of being trampled.

  “Get back in the taberna!” I told Aurora and Julia.

  With the crowd dispersing from the place where the woman had screamed, Tacitus and I were able to make our way to her. We arrived at the same time as the vigiles, who were herding a small group of people along with them, and found Berenice lying on the pavement.

  “Stand back, sir!” their captain ordered, with his sword drawn.

  As Tacitus and I stepped away from Berenice, I was puzzled by something I didn’t see—there was no blood on her clothing or on the street around her.

  Julia and I stood just inside the door of the taberna, peeking out to see what was going on. “It looks like they’ve rounded up some suspects,” I said. “We’d better get down there and tell them what we saw.”

  Julia took my arm and held me back. “What did we see?”

  “I saw a man running in that direction.” I pointed toward the Argiletum. “He had dark hair and a black beard.”

  “There were lots of people running in that direction. Almost every one of them had dark hair and a black beard.”

  “But this man kept looking back. I think we ought to tell the vigiles, before they arrest the wrong person.”

  “You keep saying ‘we.’ I didn’t see anything.”

  “Uh-oh, they’re starting to search people.”

  Julia grabbed my arm again.” Are you wearing your knife?”

  “Yes, of course. That and the Tyche ring. I’ve always got them with me when Gaius and I go out.”

  “What if they search you?”

  “Well—”

  “A slave carrying a knife, when somebody’s just been stabbed? Aurora, you need to take that thing off.”

  “And do what with it?”

  “I don’t know. Leave it here. Come back and get it later.”

  “But it’s got Gaius’ dolphin symbol on it, just like on his signet ring. They’ll know it’s his.”

  Julia thought for a moment. “Give it to me.”

  “What?”

  “If I’m carrying it, they can’t do anything to me. They won’t even search me. Hurry up. They’re looking in this direction.”

  We stepped back from the door. I untied the knife in its sheath from my right thigh and handed it to Julia. Stepping out of sight, she strapped it on under her gown.

  “Put this in just the right place,” she said, “and it could produce a
…well, a marvelous sensation.”

  I could feel my face reddening.

  “You’ve already done that, haven’t you? You naughty girl!”

  “Get those two women hiding in the taberna,” the leader of this unit of the vigiles told a couple of his men.

  “They’re with us,” I said. “They were sitting at a table with us when this woman was stabbed. They have no part in this.” I couldn’t let them search Aurora and find her knife.

  “If you would bother to look down,” Berenice said at my feet, “you would find that no one has been stabbed.” She turned over so she was on her back. “Is that maniac gone? Is it safe for me to get up?”

  I knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”

  “I believe so. If one of you gentlemen would be kind enough to help me up, we’ll find out.”

  Tacitus and I each gave her a hand and pulled her up. She dusted herself off and straightened her gown.

  “I don’t understand,” I said in absolute amazement. “How did you—”

  Berenice took my hand and placed it on her side. I felt something hard under her gown. “It’s a linen cuirass,” she said. “Alexander the Macedonian and his men used them. Titus made me wear one whenever I went out in public. He knew how much people hated me. It’s more flexible than bronze and just as effective against a blade. But if I get knocked down, it’s difficult to get up without some help because it’s rather stiff.”

  The captain of the vigiles looked confused. “So no one was stabbed?”

  “Oh, someone tried to stab me,” Berenice said. She pulled at her gown until we could see the hole the assailant’s knife had made. “But, as you can see, he did no damage.”

  Tacitus smoothed the gown out so we could see where the blade had gone in and would have entered her back. “That’s about where your son was stabbed.”

  By now Aurora and Julia had joined us.

  “Do you think it was the same person?” I asked.

  “I would say so,” Tacitus said, “or someone using the same technique.”

  Malachi stepped out from the shadows cast by torches mounted in the sconces on the front of the synagogue. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  I turned to the captain of the vigiles. “I don’t think we need your help any longer. And you can release these people. They’ve done nothing. Thank you for being so prompt.”

  Aurora cleared her throat. “My lord, I need to talk—”

  “Just a moment,” I said.

  “May I have your name, sir,” he said, “for my report?”

  Tacitus, who prefers to carry his own money pouch, took it from under his tunic and gave him enough coins to distribute among his unit and an aureus for himself. “Nothing serious happened here. A few people got knocked down, but no one was injured, so I don’t think you’ll need to make a report,”

  The captain touched his helmet in a salute. “No, sir, I guess not. Makes it that much easier for me. All right, men, let’s go.”

  When the vigiles were out of sight, I turned to Malachi. “Is there somewhere in particular you’d like to talk?” Even though he welcomed “god-fearers” into his synagogue, I suspected the presence of people he considered outright atheists would offend him.

  “Let’s go to Callicles’ place. He knows our law enough to make it all right for us to eat and drink there. He even learns Hebrew a little.”

  Malachi and Callicles exchanged greetings in Hebrew. It sounded like they were clearing their throats. Then they switched to Greek. We got a table in the back of the taberna. Berenice’s two attendants stood by the door, surveying passersby and blocking access to the part of the taberna where our table was. The four servants Tacitus and I had brought with us were given places at a nearby table. As we sat down, Aurora pulled up a stool behind me, as befit a servant. Berenice scooted over to make a space. “Sit here, dear,” she said in Greek.

  Aurora looked at me for guidance. I didn’t quite know what to say. I could see confusion on the faces of Tacitus and Julia as well, but I nodded to Aurora. When we were situated, Berenice said, “So you are the Aurora I’ve heard so much about.”

  “My name is Aurora, my lady.” She kept her voice quiet, her head down.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “how have you heard about her?”

  “Your wife is a friend of a friend of Sempronia’s. Livia has been telling all sorts of tales about your ‘goddess of the dawn.’ Seeing her in the flesh, though, she’s much prettier than I’d expected. And not nearly so much of a hulking Amazon as I’d been led to believe.”

  I was seething. Livia and I supposedly have an agreement. I will not flaunt my relationship with Aurora and she will not say anything derogatory about us. As much as I try to avoid contact and confrontation with my wife, this was something we would have to talk about.

  Trying to calm myself, I directed my attention to Malachi. “What did you want to tell me?” I asked, with more of a snap in my voice than I intended.

  Malachi gave Berenice a stern glance. “I believe the man who killed Berenicianus and who tried to kill this lady was part of a group called the Sicarii.”

  “The knife-men?” Berenice’s face grew somber, as though she had put an actor’s mask over it. “I thought they were all wiped out by the end of the war.”

  “Yes. Many of them die at Masada, at very end of war,” Malachi said. “We thought all of them. No one hears of them since, but these two attacks fit how they worked.”

  “Who were they?” Tacitus asked.

  I could see that Malachi’s halting Greek was making Berenice nervous. Like a queen, she took over. “They were a group of fanatics dedicated to inspiring terror among the people of Jerusalem. They would skulk through the streets, stab someone, then melt back into the crowd with their weapons concealed beneath their cloaks.”

  “Whom did they kill?”

  “It could be anyone at random. Or they would target Jewish leaders who they believed were collaborating with the Romans. And they killed a few Roman officials. They drove the Romans out of the city before the war began.”

  “Was your son involved with them?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Berenice replied. “He hated the Romans, I know, but I wasn’t aware that he was involved with the Sicarii.”

  Callicles brought us some more wine, bread, and a plate of dried apricots and dates. Berenice daintily bit off a small piece of an apricot.

  “At the time of the war,” she said, “my son was twenty years old and a hothead. At first he despised me because of my relationship with Titus, so I did not see him or have any contact with him for several years. He did come to see how that connection could be beneficial to both of us. After Titus died we exchanged a few letters—mostly his requests for money and my refusals—but when he appeared at my door a month ago, I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d found a god standing there.”

  “And he did not tell you why he sought you out after all those years?”

  Berenice shook her head. “As I told you earlier, all he would say was that I would be in danger if he told me anything.”

  “Somebody must have thought he did tell you something,” Tacitus said.

  Callicles came to our table and said something to Malachi, who excused himself and went out to meet someone on the steps.

  “Well, I can’t tell you anything else, Gaius Pliny,” Berenice said, “and I must get home before the bandits and thugs take complete control of the streets.” As she stood she seemed to lose her balance and put her hand on Aurora’s thigh to steady herself. “Hmm, is it on the other leg then?”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady?” Aurora said.

  “Your infamous knife. Which leg do you wear it on?”

  Before Aurora could say anything, I stood up. Berenice had touched her on the very spot where she wears the knife. “You must be referring to another malicious lie that my wife is spreading. I would never allow a servant of mine to go out armed. That’s against the law.”

 
; Berenice chuckled. “All right. If that’s your story, stay with it.”

  Without my asking, Aurora pulled her gown up to show her bare thighs.

  Berenice shrugged and bade us good night. She and her two servants set out for home.

  As soon as she was out of sight, I collapsed back onto my seat. “Where is it?”

  “It’s right here,” Julia said, patting her leg and smiling. She explained why she and Aurora had made the switch. Concealing her movements under the table, she untied the knife and passed it to Aurora, who put it in place just as discreetly. “It felt really good,” Julia said, “and it made me feel…powerful. I may start a new fashion. It might make you men respect us women a bit more to know that we could emasculate you in the blink of an eye.”

  “That thought is never far from our minds, my dear,” Tacitus said.

  “Let’s get serious,” I said. “One thing bothers me. Malachi and Berenice said these Sicarii assassinated people at random in crowds, but Berenicianus was obviously murdered in a way that took planning. We know he was killed outside my warehouse and then his mouth was filled with coins and sewed shut. That could not have been done spontaneously, in the middle of a crowd, by one person.”

  “And what was he doing at your warehouse?” Tacitus asked. “It’s not exactly a place people gravitate to.”

  “The baby,” Aurora said. “The baby was the bait that drew him there.”

  “You don’t think he brought the baby with him?” Julia said.

  Aurora took a dried apricot. “I really don’t. Somebody wanted to kill Berenicianus in a…spectacular way. No, a symbolic way. I think it was one person, or a very small group. They had to lure him to a secluded spot because there weren’t enough of them to attack him in the open. They had to get him in an isolated place and away from any guards he might have.”

  “They had to make him come to them,” Tacitus said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “And the only way to do that was to have something he wanted very much. They must have told him where to come and to come alone. But why choose my warehouse?”