Rome: The Emperor's spy

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They had caught the stink of pain and burned flesh even before Shimon eased open the door. Pantera stepped ahead of him into a hot, bright courtyard full of men and threw both knives. The first missed. The second struck a guard in the chest, catching him on the angle as he spun round, and he fell backwards. The space where he had been revealed a tableau from Pantera’s worst nightmare: a crucified man and Hannah tied to a pillar and Akakios standing between them, ready to kill.

‘Hannah!’ he shouted.

Akakios grinned at him. His knife shone at her cheek.

‘Math needs us first.’ Shimon caught Pantera’s arm, wrenching him round. ‘By the far pillar. The guard has him.’

The guard held Math in front, like a shield, twisting the boy’s arm up behind his back with his sword blade under his chin. He was backing towards a door on the far side of the courtyard. Math was limp as a kitten, staring down at the sword with the numbed terror of the condemned.

Shimon had spoken in Aramaic, which none of the guards understood. There was a moment’s confused hesitation, then Pantera, who did understand, dived forward, rolling, and scooped up the first knife that had missed and lay now on the floor.

Coming upright again, he hurled the blade before his mind had time to tell him it was an impossible throw, that he might as easily hit Math as the guard, that the man was a war-scarred legionary and could duck a blade in his sleep, that His knife hit the guard’s left eye, striking so hard the tip pierced his skull at the back. He crumpled where he stood, dead too fast to cry out. Even as he fell, Pantera was tumbling across the floor like a circus acrobat to sweep Math out and away from the killing blade that shaved the skin on his throat.

They rolled together, Math held close in Pantera’s arms, spinning and spinning, close as lovers, as father and son, heartbeat to heartbeat, both of them afraid. Blades passed them close. None of them hit.

A fourth guard fell nearby, his throat a bright fountain. His blood glued them tighter together.

One left, then, and Akakios. And Hannah.

In his measured Aramaic, Shimon said, ‘Akakios has gone. Hannah is alive. We have one man left to kill.’

A shadow passed over Pantera. He stopped rolling, released Math and stood up. The last living guard was caught between him and Shimon, his head swinging back and forth like a cornered lion’s. He had a sword in one hand and a knife in the other. Neither Pantera nor Shimon was armed any longer; their knives were lost in the bodies of dead men.

Pantera put Math behind him. The blade dropped by the guard who had held Math was an arm’s length from his right foot. In his own rusty Aramaic he said, ‘If you claim his attention, I’ll get the blade.’

‘He’s wearing a mail shirt, you’ll have to take his legs or his throat. Are you ready? Go — now! ’

Pantera felt the bruises as he rolled this time, but he came up with the sword’s bloody hilt clutched in both fists. The guard was doing his best to kill Shimon, stabbing at him alternately with his left and right hand, so that when Pantera, sliding sideways, hacked at the backs of his knees he didn’t jump as he might have done, but only twisted away, so that the blade bit deep into one calf, cutting the muscle through to the bone, taking that leg from under him.

Pantera lost the sword again; the hilt was too slick to hold. The guard’s knife slashed at his face, seeking his eyes. Screaming the war cry of the Dumnonii, Pantera leapt forward, grasped the man’s head under the chin and behind the crown and, using his own body as a lever, broke his neck.

Pantera stood slowly, lowering the body to the ground. The courtyard swayed around him, the shimmering colours nauseatingly bright. The sweet-iron smell of blood clogged his gorge.

‘My life for yours. I had not thought to have another fight like that, so late in life.’ Shimon was standing an arm’s reach away, looking drawn and satisfied in equal measure. He offered Pantera his hand and they grasped, fist to elbow, in a grip that spanned continents and cultures, and spoke of the brotherhood of slaughter.

It helped to make the world still, and to steady Pantera’s stomach, so that the clarity of battle went away, and he was left slow again, and able to think.

Hannah was on the floor, sitting with her back to the pillar, regarding him with glazed eyes as if he were as monstrous as the men he had killed. Ptolemy Asul hung dead from his makeshift crucifix. A neat wound less than a finger’s width across to the left of his sternum showed how he died.

Pantera said, ‘I had not thought Akakios had any mercy in him.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Shimon said. ‘Look what she’s holding.’

Hannah’s hand was wrapped around a small-bladed woman’s knife. Her knuckles were white and shaking.

‘Hannah…’

Pantera walked the ten feet between them slowly, no longer certain what he read in her eyes, afraid that she might turn the knife inward on her own breast before he could reach her.

‘I’m sorry we were too late to save him. But Math’s unhurt, and you…’ He didn’t know what they had done to her. He crouched at her side, not too close. ‘Can you give me the knife?’

She shook her head, but let it slide into his palm. Tentatively, he took her hand. She was shaking lightly all over, like a horse in a thunderstorm. Her eyes were on Math.

Shimon was with him, talking to him as an equal, explaining how well he had acted, how he had the capacity to be a fighter one day if he chose, but that there were better ways to live if he didn’t. The colour was returning to his cheeks. Hannah’s glance skipped across Math’s face, as if seeing him whole was as much as she could bear.

She said, ‘Will you take him down, please? He should have dignity now.’ She didn’t look round at the man whose life she had ended. Pantera thought perhaps she couldn’t.

‘Of course.’ He had already selected which irons from the brazier would best lever the nails from the dead man’s arms.

Shimon, who had more experience of taking down the bodies of crucified men, came to help. They laid Ptolemy Asul on the bench at his feet, with his arms crossed on his breast in the Egyptian way. Pantera found a dagger and cut away the tunic from a dead guard to lay over and cover the worst of his wounds, and took pennies from his own purse to lay on the still-open eyelids.

When he was done, he turned back to Hannah. ‘Can you tell us why they did this? What question was it that so badly needed an answer?’

Hannah stared past him. ‘Can’t you guess? They asked for the date on which Rome must burn to fulfil the prophecy. Ptolemy told them he didn’t know it, that he was the copyist, not the maker of the prophecy. He told them that the Oracle of Hades, which lies in the Temple of Truth beneath the Serapeum, could tell them what they need to know.’ She drew a hoarse breath. ‘I said I would take Akakios there.’

‘You can’t do that,’ Shimon said. ‘With what he has done even here, he would die before he ever reached the Oracle. And you with him.’

But Pantera had seen where her gaze was resting. Math was standing between two columns with the wreckage of a broken brazier at his feet and his wide, grey eyes fixed on Hannah’s, as hers were on his.

‘She has no choice. Akakios holds Math and Ajax as hostages to her good behaviour. Am I right?’

‘Yes. He’ll kill them if I don’t take him in. At least if we both die, they will be free.’

Saying it broke something, so that Hannah could stand up at last, and, slowly, turn round to look where she had not. She said, ‘He died to protect us, even as he lived.’

‘No.’ Pantera caught her hand. ‘Ptolemy Asul died because of a prophecy he was made to copy. Akakios’ men were hunting it, and so found this place. I knew of the danger, but came to late to save him. If there’s a blame, it’s mine.’

‘Ptolemy knew they were coming. I think he’s always known it would end here, even when we were young.’ Her eyes were closed. ‘He opened his house to us when we wanted to be alone. He made us his sisters. He would have done anything, I think, that we asked of him.’

Pantera lowered her hand. ‘We?’

‘Hypatia and me. We came here together. We were lovers.’ Hannah opened her eyes. ‘He lied,’ she said, in wonder. ‘Even after all they’d done to him, all they were doing, Ptolemy Asul lied to Akakios.’

‘What was the nature of his lie?’ Shimon was the one to ask it. Pantera could not.

‘He told them I was the only one who could petition the Oracle. That I alone could lead a man to the Styx.’ She smiled, thinly. ‘They don’t know that Hypatia exists. She can do more than I ever could, but Ptolemy didn’t tell them.’

‘Why?’ Pantera had found his voice, and wished he had not. A cold weight was settling on him, becoming more solid by the moment.

‘They wanted you to go to the Oracle, too. He and Hypatia.’

‘Why should I have any greater chance than Akakios of crossing the Styx alive?’

‘Your soul is… less damaged than his.’

Pantera closed his eyes. ‘How will I find Hypatia?’

‘Put a garland of wild irises on the idol of Hathor at the alley’s entrance. She’ll find you.’ Hannah spoke to Pantera, but her eyes still rested on Ptolemy’s blue-grey body. ‘We should burn him. It would have been his choice.’

There was very little wood in the garden. Pantera looked about. ‘We could break up the bench he’s lying on, but-’

‘Math and I will find wood and things to burn if you and Shimon get the brazier ready. There’s more charcoal in an iron bucket by the outer door.’

With a kiss and a gentle shepherding, Hannah gathered Math into the house while Pantera and Shimon built up the brazier again to an orange heat. Hannah returned presently, bearing linens to make a shroud. Math followed, bearing wood for a pyre.

‘We’ll burn him here, near the pool, so that the house is not destroyed,’ Hannah said. ‘You two should go to the library and read the note on his desk. He has left you each a gift: to Pantera, the dancing Cleopatra in gold, and to Shimon the Scroll of Life. You each know how to find what is yours.’

They did. In the face of her authority, they went without speaking and took the things they had each noted before. If Shimon was pleased with his gift, it did not show.

Pantera found the candlestick that had once belonged to Julius Caesar. It was, indeed, a thing of astonishing beauty. He brought it back to Hannah. ‘I can’t keep this. In Alexandria, I’m a labourer. It’ll be found and taken and I’ll be hanged as a thief.’

She had built the pyre so that it covered all of Ptolemy Asul’s body. Too many old things were on it that should have been saved, but she was working automatically, as if under orders that couldn’t be questioned.

She paused, frowning. ‘Lift the elephant in the library. Under it, a tile is loose, and beneath that is a locked box. If you can open it, the candlestick will be safe in there. It has protections that will keep any others away. Take nothing else when you come to retrieve it, unless you wish the Sibyls to mark your name on their scrolls.’

He could think of little he would like less. In the library, beneath the stool carved in the shape of an elephant, he found an oak box banded in iron. The lock was easy to pick. Inside were treasures he could not name and did not have time to explore. Not gold, but scrolls and icons and amulets that sang their power. He nested the dancing woman in their centre and locked the lid.

Coming back, he found that Hannah had lifted Math and was holding him close. ‘I know you hate Gaulish singing,’ she said. ‘But will you go with Pantera and Shimon back through the back rooms of the Gaulish inn? I’ll change clothes here and follow you when the pyre is burning well. We can meet in the market, near the nightingale-seller. Then we have to find Saulos and pretend that none of this has happened. It’ll take every part of your learning, but I know you can do it.’

Math hadn’t spoken since the mouth of the alley. Hannah waited until he had nodded, then kissed his brow and sent him gently to Pantera.

‘The Oracle will speak on the day of the new moon,’ she said, ‘which is nine days from now. We have a lot to do between now and then.’