The stillness was abrupt and for a moment all was quiet, even the wails of despair from the other cells. But the lull did not last for long and the next sound surprised Vespasian: it was a shout of exhilaration, a shout from close by. And then he remembered the story that Sabinus had told him, the one about the earthquake tumbling down the gates of the prison in which Paulus of Tarsus had been incarcerated, and he wondered vaguely if his guardian god, Mars, had come to his aid in the same way that it had been said that Paulus’ god had come to his. With that thought he looked around and saw a sight that he had not seen since he had been placed in the moment in which he lived: he saw a dark grey rectangle in the otherwise Stygian black, he saw the dim outline of an open door. He stared at it incredulously until he was able to form a prayer in his head to Mars for his deliverance.
Vespasian got to his unsteady feet and, with his hands outstretched before him, moved towards what to him seemed like a beacon of light. Through the doorway he went, stepping over the fallen door, and out into the corridor in which a few dim figures scampered towards the steps at the far end. The shouts of those not fortunate enough to have had their confinement ended by the earthquake were ignored by the lucky few fleeing up the steps and on through the broken door at the top and out into the dark beyond.
Vespasian shuffled as fast as he could down a dark, debrisstrewn corridor, not knowing in which direction the outside world lay but aware where he had come from and wary of returning there.
Dust stung his eyes and fallen masonry threatened his ankles but the earth’s convulsions had stilled and he felt a glimmer of hope, a thing that he had denied himself for so long, grow within him and he dared to think beyond the moment. He dared to think of escape.
Suspecting that his fellow escapees had as little knowledge of the subterranean geography of Arbela as he, he decided not to follow them up a narrow spiral staircase and, instead, to use his own instincts. On he went turning left and then right, using his nose as a guide, sniffing for the cleaner air, always taking flights of steps up if they presented themselves and were not blocked.
And then there was other life, other people and Vespasian realised that he must avoid them for he was vaguely aware that his appearance and stench would mark him for what he was. He pressed on with caution, ensuring that he never got too close to anyone, through what was evidently chaos in the aftermath of a massive shock, all the time heading up towards lighter, sweeter-smelling levels.
With gut-wrenching realisation as he strained weakened muscles pulling at a door-ring there was, suddenly, nowhere to go; suddenly he was trapped. The corridor ended in a locked door and he had no key; he began to panic, he had allowed himself to think of escape and now he was trapped. He knew that he must calm himself; it was only one locked door. He must think, yes, think; and it was obvious: he must turn around. And so he began to retrace his steps to find another corridor that did not have a locked door at its end. Now he seemed to be going against the tide of people but he did not care for he knew that he was going away from the locked door and they were going towards it. He took another left turn and shuffled along a passage in which a guttering torch burned; he passed through its glow, shielding his eyes as he did, and then on to the end to meet only with another door: it too was locked. Panic welled ever higher within him and he turned and began to jog back through the torch’s glow, back the way he had come. He tried to think but he could not; every thought he had seemed to end in a locked door. He tried another and then another; all seemed to be locked. He became increasingly frantic as he dashed from door to door up and down corridors that all seemed familiar and then, as the shout of ‘There he is!’ pierced his panic, followed moments later by a fist flying towards him, he realised that they were, indeed, all familiar because they were all one of the same two corridors.
Vespasian opened his eyes unsure of whether he had just been addressed as ‘proconsul’ or whether it had been a dream.
He was lying face down on a marble floor.
‘Proconsul?’
There it was again and it seemed to be real enough. He looked up, squinting against the light.
‘Ah, proconsul, you are back with us.’
Vespasian focused slowly and the architect of his torment, King Izates, materialised, smiling cheerfully despite the fallen columns around him.
‘This is a most fortuitous occurrence,’ the King carried on, beaming happily around the heavily damaged room. ‘I expect that you thought the earthquake was a part of your supposed gods’ plan to free you?’
Vespasian had but he was not about to admit as such to this man; he did not want his first conversation for however long to be a religious discussion. So he did not respond.
‘But you didn’t escape, did you? According to the gaoler he found you running backwards and forwards up and down two corridors. But the one true God does have the power to help those who worship him and follow his laws. Tell him, Ananias, tell him of Paulus, the man you baptised in Damascus.’
A man appeared in the corner of Vespasian’s vision; he groaned as Ananias started to tell the same story that Sabinus had told about the earthquake breaking open Paulus’ gaol, but with much embellishment and exaggeration. Vespasian was in no mood for it.
‘So you see, proconsul,’ Izates said with annoying cheerfulness once the tale was over, ‘just how fortuitous this earthquake has been for you and for me. All you have to do is accept baptism into the Way of Yeshua and I can say to my nobles that God sent this earthquake to spring you from the deepest dungeon in order that you could follow him. Just think of it: my nobles would flock to the baptismal river if they knew that they could have a power like that on their side. And you would be free, free to live here as a permanent witness to the power of the one true God and his son, Yeshua. Free, proconsul, free and saved.’
Vespasian closed his eyes; he wanted none of the bewildered old King’s freedom at the price of rejecting Mars. If Mars indeed had a destiny for him then it would be Mars who eventually would lead him to it, not some jealous god who would brook no other and insisted on men mutilating their penises. He heard the King shouting at him but took no notice as he slipped back into his tranquillity that had been so disturbed by the anger of the gods below. Soon he felt himself being dragged away and he knew with certainty what he would see when he next opened his eyes: it would be the same thing that he always saw in the moment.
And it was so as the hammering on the door to his cell, fixing it back into place, disturbed his peace and forced him to open his eyes. He was back in the moment; his brief surge of hope dashed. He pushed away the offer of consolation from despair, the would-be companion who had been locked out of his cell with the repairing of the door, left in the corridor to whisper through the grille. Back he went to his blanket and his gruel, forbidding all images of his brief foray into the outer world; more and more he played scenes from the past with his inner eye, chewing slowly on his bread and sucking on bones, occasionally nodding in the dark when certain images pleased him.