Magnus held out his cup for yet another refill as a slave entered with a platter of grilled diced lamb on skewers. ‘There is one thing that doesn’t fit: for all this to have worked, Agrippina would have had to know the timing of the Parthian embassy; how could she have known that?’
‘That’s the fact that proves her treason: she couldn’t have known about it unless she instigated it. It’s what Narcissus suspected but couldn’t prove: she’s been in contact with the Par-’ Vespasian was cut short by the auxiliary centurion who had allowed him into the city bursting into the room; Vespasian’s senior lictor was close behind him.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Sabinus almost shouted.
‘I’m sorry, sir, excuse me,’ the centurion puffed, his eyes darting around the occupants of the room, ‘but you need to come to the western gate; there’s been an attack.’
Vespasian and Sabinus walked at a dignified pace behind the centurion who was doing his best to restrain himself from breaking into a run. Vespasian’s lictors carried torches to light the way through the city that was now muffled by a blanket of snow.
‘I apologise for the meal; the cook is local,’ Sabinus said, trying to keep an air of nonchalance in his voice. ‘I left my cook behind in Thessalonike when I raced here a few days ago to round up those idiots who’d started a riot rather than make their annual sacrifice.’
‘What makes them think that they have the right to change their oath of loyalty?’ Gaius asked, gnawing on a skewer of lamb as he waddled along behind, evidently not sharing the same reservations as Sabinus about the local cook’s ability; Hormus followed him with some reserve skewers.
Sabinus sighed. ‘Paulus has convinced them that the highest power is not the Emperor — or his wife and freedmen — but this Yeshua and his father, who was the Jewish god but now seems to be everybody’s god. Anyway, after things had come to a head I gave them the choice between obeying the law or opting out of society on a permanent basis.’
‘And them that made the wrong decision are the ones hanging around outside the gates, if you take my meaning?’ Magnus observed, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders as Gaius handed a finished skewer to Hormus, receiving a new one in return.
‘Yes, about half of them made that choice. It’s beyond me; perhaps they like the idea of dying in the same manner as their beloved Yeshua.’ Sabinus shivered. ‘He was a hard man; I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody with such strong will. It was as if he could push you over with just one look from his piercing eyes. But somehow I couldn’t dislike him. I had to order that his death be hastened so that his body wouldn’t still be on the cross on what the Jews call the Sabbath, which is their sacred day every seven days; but rather than have his legs broken, I ordered merciful death and had him speared instead. I don’t know why but I just didn’t want him to suffer. Then I allowed his mother, wife and his kinsman Yosef to take his body even though the chief priest had sent his men for it, mainly just to annoy Paulus.’
‘But it also put Yosef in your debt,’ Vespasian pointed out as they approached the closed western gate, ‘and without him you would have died at the hands of the druids.’
Sabinus blew on his hands, rubbing them.‘True, but now I wish that I’d given it to the priests to bury in secret; then we wouldn’t be having all this rubbish about Yeshua coming back to life three days later, just as my Lord Mithras did, to show that death could be beaten.’
‘It would be a potent message if you could believe it.’
Sabinus signalled for the gate to be opened. ‘From what I’ve seen, it is a potent message for the poor who have nothing in this world.’
‘We’re promised all in the next.’
The gate swung opened but neither Vespasian, Sabinus, Gaius nor Magnus walked through; they just stared in shock at the source of the remark. Hormus lowered his eyes, his pallid face coloured.
‘Are you one of these, Hormus?’ Vespasian asked, recovering himself.
‘I know of them, master; there are growing numbers amongst the slaves in the houses on the Quirinal but I have not joined their sect.’
‘What do you know about the sect?’
Hormus held the lamb skewers close to his chest with both hands as if seeking protection from them. ‘Only that God loves us all, even someone as irrelevant as me, and the way to him is by following the teachings of his son, Yeshua, the Christus, who died for us.’
‘My Lord Mithras is the way to God,’ Sabinus asserted dismissively, turning and walking through the gate. ‘We follow his light and at the Lord’s Supper we are cleansed by the blood of a bull and nourished by its flesh.’
‘They are cleansed by the blood of Yeshua, the Lamb of God, and gain sustenance by eating his body.’
Gaius wrinkled his nose. ‘That’s disgusting.’
Vespasian shook his head as he followed his brother out through the gate. ‘I don’t think it’s literal, seeing as he died nineteen years ago; it’s symbolic. Magnus and I have seen it done.’
‘We have?’ Magnus looked puzzled.
‘Yes, with Yosef in his house on the Tor in Britannia. He filled a cup with wine, remember? He said that the cup had belonged to Yeshua.’ Vespasian looked up at the line of sillouhetted, occupied crosses. ‘Then he shared a loaf of bread and made us drink and eat. I thought that it was strange at the time but then I remembered in Alexandria someone saying that Paulus claimed to turn bread and wine into Yeshua’s body and blood, and I realised that Yosef had just done the same thing.’
‘Well, he didn’t do it too well, did he? I ate bread and drank wine.’
‘I know, you drained the cup. But the point is it’s symbolic.’
‘So what happened here, centurion?’ Sabinus asked, coming to a halt at a cross lying on the ground, its occupant missing; two bodies lay close to. He signalled to one of the lictors to come closer with a torch.
The centurion swallowed. ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. I had the gate closed at the sunset curfew as usual and left a couple of the lads outside just to keep an eye on the crosses.’
‘Just a couple?’
The centurion winced. ‘Well, what with the weather and all I didn’t think-’
‘No, you didn’t, did you.’ Sabinus bent down and looked at the bodies of the two dead auxiliaries. ‘They’ve both had their throats cut, so I suppose they were taken by surprise from behind by whoever took down this cross.’ He touched one of the wounds. ‘The blood’s drying so they’ve been dead for at least half an hour or so. When did you find them, centurion?’
‘When their relief went out. I came straight to you to report it myself.’
‘As if that would help excuse your slackness; a patrol of just two men outside the gates at night.’ Sabinus shook his head in disbelief as he looked at the empty cross; the nails had been wrenched out but their positions were marked by blood glinting in the torchlight. ‘Who did they take down?’
‘The young lad, sir; I don’t know his name.’
Sabinus took the torch from the lictor and walked along the line of crosses touching the flame to the torso of each victim; a few groaned but none showed any sign of strength, their breath was forced and shallow as the last of their life slipped away. ‘Well, he won’t survive the night and anyway he’d be a total cripple if he did.’ He looked back down at the vacant cross. ‘That seems to be wanting an occupant, centurion.’
‘Er, yes, sir.’
‘Get that woman Lydia and nail her up instead.’
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now! I’ll not have people interfere with Roman justice and I’ll show them what happens if they try to.’ Sabinus thrust the torch at the centurion and turned on his heel. ‘Just who do these people think they are? You’re the expert, Hormus, tell me, what do they really believe?’