Seen like that, a man might have thought her fragile, which would have been a mistake. Pantera had learned not to think thus in Alexandria and then Rome, when they had seemed to be enemies. He had come to be grateful for it since.
And then Agrippa had stepped apart from the rest, and drew all eyes, for he was no longer a mere man, but had become the blistering sun; dressed from shoulder to heel and beyond in tissue of gold with a filet of gold in his dark hair and diamond-studded gold on his fingers.
To a rising trill of pipe music, he stepped up on to a wooden pedestal placed at his feet by a kneeling slave. His flaring, dancing sun-fire robes hung down to the floor so that it seemed as if a far taller man stood there. Somewhere, a steward clapped his hands, once. The reed notes tumbled to silence.
As if released, the theatre hummed to quiet life again. Menachem leaned to Pantera and murmured, ‘Agrippa’s father died here in this theatre. He makes a point of dressing in gold, as did the old king, to silence those who say his death was an act of God, to punish his hubris. His sister is next to him, Berenice of Cilicia, who was married to the son of the Alabarch of Alexandria. When he died after a year of her marital bed, she married her uncle, Herod of Chalcis. When he died four years later, she married King Polemon II of Pontus, Colchis and Cilicia.’
‘Lucky man,’ said Pantera, drily. ‘How long did he last?’
A smile split Menachem’s long, lean face. He spread his palms in mock distress. ‘Polemon graces the world yet with his presence, but he no longer has the pleasure of her company. Berenice left him to return here, to Caesarea. Men say she has… unnatural relations with her brother and that they could not bear to be parted.’
‘Men often say such things of the women who rule over them,’ Pantera observed. ‘What do you say?’
‘That she is the granddaughter of Herod the Great, whose name is for ever despised, and she will for ever bear the stain of his blood; that she worships false gods, that she is given to Rome above all else, but that even so she rules Caesarea far better than does her brother and, the riots of the last half-month notwithstanding, Caesarea is more peaceful, more prosperous and more godly with her here. It is said-’ On the stage, the king had raised his hand. Menachem lowered his voice still further. ‘It is said that Agrippa sent to his sister four times begging her to come back and rule at his side. She came only after the start of the corn riots of ten years ago. They ceased within a day of her return and the city has known very little violence since. What happens here tonight may keep it at bay for some time longer. Watch now.’ He leaned forward. ‘This is what you have come here to see.’
The king’s raised hand had summoned forth a string of five blue-robed men from the front row of seats. They walked at a measured pace along the ground at the front of the raised stage. From his place high in the auditorium, Pantera saw little more than their heads.
‘Hebrew or Syrian?’ he asked.
‘Hebrew. They come to petition the king for the safety of their central synagogue, which lies now beset by scaffolding. You will have seen the harm that has fallen on it. Queen Berenice, of course, will hear them. Her response will carry more weight, but it must be given in private, and appear to come from the king.’
‘Where’s Florus?’ Pantera asked. ‘If something of import is happening, should Rome’s governor not be here?’
Menachem gave an eloquent shrug. ‘Our overseer doesn’t choose to involve himself in disputes between Hebrews and Syrians. In his view, Rome stands above such things. But if you look closely now…’
Pantera looked closely; everyone did. Across the theatre, silence fell in a thick, breath-held blanket. In it, a silver pipe sang three notes. At their dying away, the foremost of the Hebrew men left his fellows and approached the stage alone.
Seen from the height of the seating, the most obvious feature of the man who mounted the set of small wooden steps was the shining length of his beard, grizzled here and there with silver, so that he seemed sombre even when, as now, he smiled.
Beyond that, what set him apart, even from the royalty on stage, was the splendour of his robes. He wore a long-coat of midnight silk so thick it took the frantic coppered fires of the theatre and soothed them to stillness. Its luxury enfolded him, screaming wealth and restraint together, a thing rarely done here, or in Rome, or even in Alexandria, which prided itself on the subtlety of its riches.
Reaching the stage, the newcomer turned to face the king. With perfect pride, and perfect humility, he knelt, pressing his face to the floor. His voice welled out across the auditorium, carried by the magnificent acoustics of the copper-backed stage.
‘Yusaf ben Matthias salutes his king and his queen, and offers the salutations of his people, who are their people.’
Chapter Twelve
Mergus stood still and a torchlit tide of people passed him by. He was wearing an outrider’s tunic and plain sandals with a plain eating knife at his belt, given to him by Menachen to replace the one he had lost. It was sharpened along both edges to the point where he could use it as a razor, but outwardly it did not look like a soldier’s weapon.
Certainly, he had no gladius with which to run an opponent through, no nailed sandals to stamp on his skull and crack it open, sudden and satisfying as a hammered nut. Even so, the breadth of his shoulders, or the tilt of his head, or the flat line of his brows, marked him as a legionary and the citizens of Caesarea, men and women, Hebrew and Syrian alike, gave him a clear berth by lifelong instinct without ever knowing they’d done it.
He was free, then, to watch as Pantera stepped into the throng and was instantly lost, swept on towards the theatre by people who did not know him, but equally did nothing to avoid him. No halo of space marked him as different. Nobody paid him any attention at all until he reached the theatre door, where he had to haggle for entry exactly as did all the other strangers from outwith the city whose names were not known to the Watch.
And then, because the tide was still flowing, Mergus was able to see the other man in the living, heaving ocean about whom there was also a halo, not because he held himself with the bearing of a legionary but because he was too big to offend, and so clearly a fighter; a bull of a man with a head fully shaved, with bear’s shoulders and hams for fists and pegs for teeth, of which two were missing. He bore two short twin-headed axes, one at either side of his belt; if the passing men let their eyes rest on anything as they veered to avoid him, it was those.
Mergus hunched his shoulders, tucked his chin into his chest and cut sideways across the flow. He laid his hand on the big man’s arm, ready for a swing if it came. It did not. The man turned, his face open, ready, entirely free of guile.
Mergus bowed. ‘I am Appius Mergus, lately a centurion of the Twentieth,’ he said. ‘You, I believe, are Estaph the Parthian, whose daughter is named Eora. You helped a friend of mine to remove a pig’s head from unfortunate surroundings. He would want me to thank you keeping watch for his safety tonight.’
The bear-man’s face passed through a recognizable sequence from suspicion to contemplation to interest. It stuck at the last. ‘May I know how you learned my name?’
‘My friend spoke of a man with bear’s shoulders and a bare head, and of his infant daughter, of her beauty and intelligence; of the sagacity of her father, who is a merchant, but also, he thought, a warrior of some renown.’
That was the simple version, and almost true. Pantera’s description had been precise, complete and accurate but it was what he had added at the end that mattered. He looks bored. And bored men seek entertainment. If he’s with us, he will be useful. If he’s against us, he will be difficult. Talk to him if you get the chance, find out which.