False God of Rome (47 page)

A short bout of honking greeted them as they reached the temple level but it was half-hearted as most of the geese seemed to be intent upon settling down for a nap while they digested their
bread and grain.

Ziri clambered up the rope first, scaling the fifty feet in surprisingly quick time; Vespasian followed, though not quite so nimbly.

‘Did it go all right?’ Felix asked as he helped Vespasian out of the hole.

‘Fine,’ Vespasian replied, looking at Ziri who was urinating prodigiously.

‘Fuck me, I needed that,’ Ziri said with evident relief, ‘hours I’ve been waiting.’

‘No wonder you climbed the rope so fast.’ Vespasian grinned. ‘So, Felix, back the way we came?’

‘No, you three go straight over the Soma wall from here, then I’ll throw the rope down to you and make my way back down the ladder; if I get caught in the Soma’s grounds all
I’ll have on me is an empty bird cage.’

Once Magnus was up, Felix undid the rope and, keeping low, they moved to the rear of the temple roof. Felix wrapped the rope around him and threw it down over the Soma wall. Ziri and Magnus
quickly descended into the street below.

Vespasian clasped Felix’s forearm. ‘Thank you; come and see me when you’re back in Rome, Felix, I’m in your debt.’

A loud disturbance at the Soma gate prevented a reply. They looked back; a unit of legionaries was running towards the temple led by a centurion with a flaming torch; next to him ran a
priest.

‘Cybele’s flabby arse!’ Vespasian exclaimed. ‘Flaccus must have guessed.’

‘Go, quick, I’ll be fine, they’ll go straight to the temple.’

Hitching the leather bag over his shoulder, Vespasian slipped over the parapet as Felix braced himself against it taking the weight of the rope.

Burning his hands, Vespasian slid down and landed with a jolt in the street below; the rope quickly followed.

‘What’s the panic?’ Magnus asked, collecting the rope.

‘Just run!’

Taking the steps three at a time Vespasian hurtled down to the docks followed by Magnus and Ziri. Ahead he could see the ship; its furled sail had been hoisted ready for
departure. Sprinting along the stone quay he hurdled a coil of rope and a drunken sailor before turning sharply left onto the jetty to which his ship was moored. Although there had been no sign of
pursuit during their dash across the city he was desperate to sail as soon as possible for fear that their theft of the breastplate had been discovered.

‘Triarchus,’ he shouted, running up the gangplank, ‘we sail immediately!’

‘You seem to be in quite a hurry,’ a familiar voice said as he jumped down onto the deck. ‘Now, why would that be, I wonder?’

Vespasian turned and saw Flaccus leaning against the mast. The rescued Jews and Flavia were huddled behind him guarded by two soldiers.

‘When I found your rope dangling from the terrace I thought that you’d just decided to run,’ Flaccus said, walking forward as Magnus and Ziri ran aboard. ‘So I rushed
down here only to find that you’d given orders to prepare for sea and would be back in an hour or so. Been doing a little late-night burglary before whisking the lovely Flavia and your new
Jewish friends back to Rome, have you? What’s in that bag?’

‘Nothing that concerns you, Flaccus.’

‘Oh, but it does concern me. If you’ve done what I expressly forbade you to do then it concerns me deeply, so I would be much obliged if you would open it.’

‘Prefect, I would remind you that this is an imperial ship.’ Vespasian pointed at the imperial banner on the masthead. ‘It is therefore under the direct command of the Emperor
himself, you have no jurisdiction here. Whatever may be in this bag is the property of the Emperor.’

Flaccus gave a half-smile and tilted his head. ‘That may be so, but no matter, I’ve sent one of Alexander’s priests to go and check his tomb; if he finds a certain item missing
then we might review where my jurisdiction ends.’

‘You can review it all you like but it would be unwise to interfere with Caligula’s property.’ Vespasian handed the bag to Ziri. ‘Take that to the cabin, Ziri.’

‘It wouldn’t be Caligula’s property if Caligula’s thief hadn’t stolen it, but we shall find out soon enough – I can see our priest approaching.’

Vespasian turned and saw the priest running along the quay with his legionary escort.

‘He can come on board, but the soldiers stay on the jetty.’ Vespasian put his hand on his sword hilt. He felt Magnus take a pace closer to him.

‘Very well,’ Flaccus agreed, walking to the top of the gangplank, ‘I have no need for military muscle, yet. Centurion, keep your men there, but have them ready to board if I
shout. Send the priest up.’

The priest who had escorted them down to the chamber made his way onto the deck.

‘Well?’ Flaccus asked him.

‘I don’t understand it,’ the priest said, shaking his head. ‘Someone has been in there; they must have got in through the roof, the soldiers found a puddle of fresh urine
up there. There was grain and some bread scattered on the temple floor that they must have used to keep the geese quiet. The guards said that they had seen and heard nothing except that a couple of
the geese that had escaped turned up and they caught them and put them back inside.’

‘Yes, but what about the breastplate?’ Flaccus pressed.

‘That’s what I don’t understand; it was still there. I had the soldiers lift the lid off and I examined it; it was the real breastplate, I can swear to it, there is a stain on
the left-hand side. Nothing else was missing but someone must have taken the lid off earlier.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because there was a drop of fresh blood on the neck of Alexander’s tunic, it was still moist.’

Flaccus glared at Vespasian. ‘Just what have you done, senator?’

Vespasian shrugged. ‘Quite evidently nothing, prefect; now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Rome. Triarchus, we sail as soon as the prefect and his men have
disembarked.’

‘Fine, you can go but I’m taking those Jews.’

‘If you do then my report to the Emperor will be even more damning than it already is, and believe me, Flaccus, no matter how much money you have he will have you found and hideously
despatched. He’s mad, don’t you know?’

Flaccus looked at Vespasian, uncertainty in his eyes, and then, spitting at his feet, stormed off the ship.

‘If you know what’s good for you,’ Vespasian shouted after him, ‘then you should pull the Greeks off the Jews and get the Emperor’s city back under control.’
He walked over to the two soldiers left guarding the Jews. ‘You two, off!’

‘What a terrible man,’ Philo commented as the legionaries left. ‘I shall write such a diatribe about him that his name will be blackened forever.’

‘Try not to make it too rhetorically flowery like the rest of your works, brother,’ Alexander said with a sad smile. ‘Just the facts.’

Philo snorted.

‘We shall have to bury your dead at sea,’ Vespasian said as the gangplank was hauled up and the mooring cables dropped.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Alexander replied, ‘we’ve decided to go back.’

‘How? We’re sailing.’

‘In that boat that you came in; once we’ve left the harbour we can sail back to the beach bordering the Jewish Quarter.’

‘Flaccus will kill you if he finds you.’

‘No, he won’t, he’ll be needing me to broker a peace. If my people see that I do not ask for revenge for my murdered wife then they may be able to forgo their demands for
retribution.’

‘And Flaccus gets what he wants?’

‘Maybe; but we cannot afford to fight any more, we would be exterminated. However, we will never forgive Flaccus. Once we have peace my brother will lead a delegation to the Emperor to
complain about his treatment of our people.’

‘And Paulus?’

‘Our only condition will be that Flaccus at least expels him but preferably executes him, then we will be prepared to go back to how things were before. We’ve realised that we are
not strong enough in the city to make demands, we should be content even if that means being second-class citizens and having a mad emperor’s statue in our temples.’

Guided by the blazing light of the Pharos the ship glided out of the harbour under sail and oars as the first glow of dawn broke in the eastern sky.

Once clear of the mole it heaved to for the Jews to disembark into the boat. The flayed corpses were lowered in and the survivors quickly followed.

‘Thank you, Vespasian,’ Tiberius said as he prepared to go over the side. His torso was heavily bandaged and blood stained his back. ‘I owe you more than my life, I owe you my
hide too. I will always be in your debt.’

‘One day I will call it in,’ Vespasian said, helping him over the side.

Alexander was last to go. ‘We overheard your conversations with Flaccus and then with the priest; tell me, did you get the breastplate?’

Vespasian slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Alexander, my friend, let me put it this way: if you had to choose between giving the man who has the power of life and death over you what he asked
for or a replica of the thing, which would you choose?’

Alexander nodded. ‘It makes me feel better to know that the Greeks have lost something precious to them, even if they aren’t aware of it.’

Vespasian looked over Alexander’s shoulder at the scores of fires still burning in the Jewish Quarter and shook his head at the wanton destruction. ‘For my part, Alexander, I’d
rather it stayed here with them. Now that I’ve got it, I’m loath to take it back to Caligula. Who knows what new madness possessing it will push him to?’

R
OME AND THE
B
AY OF
N
EAPOLIS
, A
UGUST
AD 38

T
HE DOCKS AT
Ostia were strangely quiet; gone was the frenetic bustle of activity, to be replaced by a languid indolence
that was not at all in keeping with a busy port at the height of the sailing season. Apart from a couple of gangs of dockworkers unloading two small traders, the quays were almost empty with only
the occasional food vendor or whore attempting to sell their wares to sporadic, uninterested passers-by. Even the seagulls seemed to have lost motivation, and instead of cawing overhead or diving
for scraps they sat in long lines on the warehouse roofs looking down balefully at the inactivity below that brought with it, for them as well as the citizens of Rome, a shortage of food.

‘Do you think that the plague could have broken out again?’ Magnus asked as the trireme came to rest alongside one of the many deserted jetties.

‘They wouldn’t have let us dock if it had,’ the triarchus informed him as the gangplank was lowered.

‘We’ll soon find out what’s happening,’ Vespasian said, watching the anxious-looking port aedile walking briskly towards them accompanied by a scurrying clerk.

‘Is the senator Titus Flavius Vespasianus aboard?’ the aedile called out as he mounted the gangway.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Thank the gods, senator, I am so pleased to see you; now perhaps we can get this madness over with and get back to normal.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The Emperor’s bridge, of course. Trade has come to a standstill and the people are getting hungry; he’s requisitioned every ship that’s arrived in the waters around
Italia and sent them down to the Bay of Neapolis. There’re thousands of them down there all chained together and he won’t let them leave until he’s ridden across them and he
won’t ride across them until he’s got whatever you’re bringing for him. I hope for everyone’s sake, especially yours, that you have it because he’s getting very
impatient. He sends messengers two or three times a day to see if you’ve arrived.’

‘Well, I do have it.’ Vespasian lifted the leather bag in confirmation.

‘It’s as well for you that you do; I’ve orders to have you sent to Rome in chains if you come back empty-handed. As it is, you’re to ride to the Emperor immediately; I
have a fast horse waiting for you.’

‘I’m accompanying a lady.’

‘She’ll have to follow behind in a carriage – I’ll organise one. And triarchus, as soon as those two merchantmen are offloaded you’re to sail with them down to the
bay to become an integral part of that fucking bridge.’ With that he gave a harassed look, shook his head disbelievingly and quickly disembarked.

‘What was that, my dear?’ Flavia asked, appearing from the cabin.

‘I’m to present myself to the Emperor at once. Magnus and Ziri will accompany you back to my uncle’s house. With luck I’ll already be there when you arrive.’

‘I don’t think that it will have anything to do with luck,’ Magnus observed darkly. ‘It’ll be more to do with an insane man’s whim, if you take my
meaning?’

Vespasian scowled at Magnus and then briskly walked down the gangway.

‘He refused to let you have it?’ Caligula was outraged and shook his trident threateningly at Vespasian. Behind him a long line of Rome’s urban poor shuffled
incongruously through the grand atrium of Augustus’ House watched over by Praetorian Guards. ‘Why didn’t you just take it?’