But a slave is still property. A slave can be thrashed. A slave can be scourged. A slave can be raped. Or, rather, a slave can’t be raped, not by their master. It is the master’s right and therefore it is not rape. A slave is their master’s to do with as he wishes. Even to kill, if he wills. A waste of a valuable asset, but it happens. More slaves achieve manumission than are murdered, but it happens …
And, of course, a slave who runs away is a challenge to the Roman state. Thereby receives the penalty reserved for those crimes and those crimes only: the lingering, gasping agony of crucifixion. The body left on the tree, so dogs can chew the blood-scabbed toes and crows can peck away the face flesh and claim the soft marrow eyes. Useful heard of a man who took nine days and nights to die on the cross. Nine days spent hanged from a tree, shoulders and wrists dislocated from the strain of hauling up on the holding ropes, bereft of hope of reprieve or release, without even the means to end it himself: his final right removed.
The master’s new god was crucified, apparently. It’s a strange sort of god that lets himself be crucified by the Romans. But, then, Philemon is a strange sort of master.
He’s in the cloth and robe business, Philemon. Travelled frequently the length of the coasts, from Mysia to Cilicia, in his day, making the connections that still serve him well.
When Useful was growing up, Philemon had a shrine of figurines and idols he’d collected from all the great cities he’d visited. Carved from wood, moulded from clay, cast from bronze and then silver, the homely family gods echoed not just his travels but his rise in wealth. He smashed them all with a splay-ended tent mallet in the end, though. His new god doesn’t like other gods, except maybe this Jesus.
Even later, in relative dotage, Philemon still journeyed, when business required it. Sometimes he’d take Useful with him, hoping he might prove himself worthy of his name. He didn’t. They’d camp on the damp-dilated planks of the deck by night. By day watch the shores; rarely allowed out of sight; sometimes close enough to count the cliff-top flocks. Hair clogged with salt from the spray. Legs shaking from the roll of the waves. And, though he knew he was just a slave, Useful always felt a bit more than that, on those voyages. There will be no more of such trips. Not him and Philemon together. Not after what Useful has done.
Useful is on a solo journey now, compounding his first crime with two more: the theft of the gold coins required to make his escape and the escape itself. But this is his only hope. A slave has just one legal chance for life, when he has committed an act his master deems worthy of death: he can flee to the sanctuary of a higher-status friend or patron of his master, plead his case to them and hope they see fit to intercede. There is only one man Useful knows of whom his master respects to that degree and who might, just might, believe that Useful deserves his life. So Useful is on his way to Rome. The ambling foundling from the shambles on his way to the greatest city on earth: the centre of the empire. He could weep for the fear of what he’s done and what he faces, but tries to stay cold and calm as a carved idol. For fugitivarii — slave-hunting bounty-killers — wait at every port, on the lookout for strangers who might be runaways. And any fellow passenger or traveller on the road would likely be ready to turn him in, for reward and through duty. The outlaw slave lives a knife-edge life of desperation and trust-less torment. Useful keeps a blade under his cloak, but doesn’t know if he would have the strength or skill to kill, if it came to it.
The coins Useful stole, they tell you a lot about this world: minted with images of different deities. Rome rules over all, but embraces all; there is no such thing as heresy. Every god is accepted and welcome to mingle in the imperial pantheon. But the master’s god won’t have that: the master’s god says you can praise no god but him. Indeed, he says there is no god but him. It seems a bit selfish somehow, to Useful, a bit childish. Did no one ever teach this god to share?
Ten Days before the Crucifixion
Mariamme’s eyes drop demurely when she sees Saul. But he catches the flush on her cheek. It casts a sharp, scarlet shadow beneath her cheekbone, accentuates her fine-bred features. A tiny scar on her upper lip, vestige of some baby tumble, no doubt, for post-blossoming she does nothing so ungraceful that could create such an injury. Her wrists are as slight as cyclamen stalks, drooping gently in the sun. But her eyes — it is those eyes that draw Saul in. Like the twin gates of the Temple, they beckon, but they bar those who are not purified; those without permission. A girl such as Mariamme cannot even be approached without the consent of her father. So Saul must find the perfect moment, when he is certain he has demonstrated his worth. Saul is in no doubt that Mariamme loves him. But, then, Saul is not really a man of doubt at all.
She nods in a slight bow and Saul returns it. Then she hurries off, small feet pattering, little ghost rabbits on the mosaic. She finds it uncomfortable to be near me, Saul thinks, so great is her love. But soon they will be united. Soon he will ask her father. They are separated by station now, but her father must be aware that great things are destined for Saul.
Many men would feel nervous and cowed, on their way to see the high priest; not Saul. He strides the corridor on feet of confidence. His legs are a little bowed, but only, he thinks, in the way Roman cavalry equites’ often are. Now in his thirtieth year, Saul’s hair is beginning to thin and recede, but surely this serves to show the world his fine brow. His forehead is broad and strong-boned. And fronts above expressive features, his face can transmit charm or anger into the watcher, a useful skill for a guard. Or not a guard, but a chief of guards, a captain of the Temple Guards. The police of the high priest. The bulwark against blasphemy and disorder. The guardians of the Holy City. If they do not carry out their duties flawlessly, then the Romans will take over entirely and Jerusalem will be lost. The Pharisees can debate fine points of faith in street-corner assemblies; the Zealots can die pointlessly, flailing against the unconquerable might of Rome; the people can flock to every fool who calls himself a messiah; but it is Saul who is at the sword-point of preserving Judaism. If revolt occurs, then Roman boots will again soil the Holy of Holies and the crucified will spike the hills like porcupine quills. Two thousand men were nailed at once, when Jerusalem last rebelled against Rome. What joy did the learning of the Pharisees bring then? To be a Temple Guard is surely a grander path.
‘I don’t want any fuck-ups this year,’ the high priest says. ‘It damages my position when the streets stink of disorder.’
Actually, technically Annas no longer has a ‘position’: he is not really the high priest at all. He was deposed by the previous Roman prefect for having too many people executed, an overindulgence the Romans reserve for themselves. But in Jewish law the high priesthood is for life, so Annas is still called high priest and still feels able to command the guard. Legally his son-in-law Kayafa is in charge, but he looks to Annas for instruction so often that Annas almost rules in his stead. Saul has every hope that he, too, will soon count Annas as father-in-law and wield some power in his name.
Annas has a noble head. If he were Roman he would doubtless have busts of himself scattered about his mansion. But such things do not do with the Jews, who disdain as blasphemy all depictions of man and beast. Saul can make out in the high priest’s face the shadows of his youngest daughter. Dark eyes, a little downturn at the edge of the mouth, perhaps even the same gentle curve to the chin, though that is hard to tell beneath Annas’s grey-splashed beard. His robes are made of fine linen, with perhaps just a little less purple than Saul would choose if they were his own. And one day such robes will be his own, of that there is no doubt. Saul has always felt a powerful sense of his own destiny.