Rome: The Emperor's spy

Chapter Forty-Five

Two men followed Hannah through the hot, dry morning as she left the warehouse and walked up the hill towards the high, white wall of the goose-keeper’s garden halfway up the Aventine.

A lumpen, gap-toothed merchant lounged against a wall opposite Juno’s gardens, peering at her from under the hat’s brim. Hannah knew him and he knew that she knew him. His presence made no sense, except in the context of a warning Pantera had offered in Gaul.

If you know of one person following you, then there’s at least one more, probably two. The first is a decoy. If you’re arrogant, you’ll believe yourself clever to have seen him and not look for the others.

He had been talking to Math in the strange light of a fire-washed Gaulish meadow, with a dead man lying at peace beneath an oak tree. It had been the first of the promised tutorials, a small nugget, given out of mercy to a boy who was drowning in mourning.

At the time, Hannah had barely listened. Now, she tensed her abdomen and slumped against the wall in apparent pain, cursing just loudly enough to be heard.

The lumpen spy opposite spat into the dust and looked away, but not before he had locked eyes with a sour-looking boy inexpertly fingering bolts of coloured linens in the doorway of the cloth merchant a few doors down.

Two then, at least.

Hannah levered herself from the wall and, looking round, appeared to notice the weathered oak gate for the first time. Hesitantly, she smoothed down her tunic, ran her fingers through her hair and pushed the gate inward.

‘Hello?’ The shout was designed to be heard from the street outside, not inside. ‘Do you have any water?’

The geese came to greet her, nuzzling her hand. She had no crusts to give them, but picked grass and let them tease it from her fingers.

The cottage stood at the very back of the garden, down the length of the wall. Thick-walled and ancient, it lay slumbering in the sun with its windows half shuttered against the sun and its only doorway curtained by a hanging hide. No windows from neighbouring buildings overlooked the garden either; it was not considered either wise or lucky to look down on the gods’ geese.

Hannah was halfway there when she heard a woman’s voice, raised in anger. ‘ No! ’

She began to run, and then stopped as a man spoke, calming, his voice so soft that it was lost in the stream’s song.

The woman’s answer came sharply again. ‘How can you say that, you who gave up love for the sake of a man who escaped early into death?’

And so Hannah knew who it was, and that Hypatia must be truly shaken to use such knowledge as a weapon.

She moved neither forward nor back, but stood frozen, listening, as from the cottage Shimon said mildly, ‘I wouldn’t call crucifixion an escape, but you’re right, I gave up love for the Galilean and would do so again. And I will die to preserve what is left of him if I must.’

‘Hannah is all that’s left of him,’ Hypatia said.

‘I know.’

A chill raised the hairs on Hannah’s arms. After a long while, Shimon went on, ‘You will die for her too, if you have to, when the time comes. Why else are we here?’

‘What if I fail?’ Hypatia sounded close to despair. ‘My courage isn’t like yours, able to give my life for a dream that may never be real.’

‘Then do as much as you can. It’s all that is asked of us. If I get you water, will you drink?’

There was a murmuring of quiet conversation. Water splashed into fine clay and a cup was set down.

Hannah backed along the path to the bleached oak gate through which she had entered. There she rattled the handle once, and then again louder until the geese hissed alarm and, at last, someone in the cottage pushed open the door.

Shimon came to greet her as she walked along the path. Before he could speak, she said, ‘I’m here with menstrual pains, seeking help from the goose-keeper. Saulos doesn’t trust me fully yet. Two of his men followed me up the hill. They’re outside now, so I don’t have much time. Is Pantera here?’

Shimon shook his head. Gently, he said, ‘He’s with Mergus, organizing a fire drill. But you should know Hypatia is here. You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.’

His compassion, as much as anything, moved her to tears. ‘I’ll come,’ Hannah said. ‘The world is bigger than my grief.’

The cottage was mercifully cool after the noonday heat. Hannah stood in the single sparse room, looking out at the pond. Older goslings sported in the noisy water, racing each other to the island behind the weeping alder.

She said, ‘I have to leave before the men outside start to ask what I’m doing here.’

Hypatia came forward from the shadows by the fireplace. ‘You can tell them that the keeper of Juno’s geese gave you something for your condition,’ she said. ‘And you could take this, which would make it true.’ She held a mug of foaming sherbet balanced on her hands. Shreds of marigold petals clung to the crease across her palm that marked her heart, her spirit, her life. It was as deep and long as Hannah remembered it.

Hannah is all that’s left of Judas the Galilean. You will die to preserve her…

You will too.

Hypatia misread her hesitation. ‘I wouldn’t drug you.’

‘I know.’ Hannah took the mug and set it on the table. ‘I’ve just spent a morning soliciting the company of the man who killed Ptolemy Asul. I feel filthy and murderous together. Would you…?’ She opened her arms. Hypatia stepped forward to meet her.

There was no passion in their embrace, but a world of kindness, and strength. Hypatia showed no sign of her earlier grief, and presently Hannah rested her forehead on her cool shoulder and let go the weight of the morning’s deceptions.

Shimon stood at the window watching the goslings with his back turned to them. Hannah studied him over Hypatia’s shoulder. Her mother had spoken often of this man who had been her father’s lieutenant; how he was the most savage in a fight, and the most loyal to her father’s cause. In Gaul he had seemed a threat, sent to drag Hannah into a life and a conflict she didn’t want to be part of. Over the past six months, he had become a friend without her noticing.

‘Thank you.’ Hannah pressed a kiss to Hypatia’s neck and stepped back. Hypatia offered her the sherbet again and she accepted. Her mouth ached at the memory of flavours. She said, ‘When will Pantera come back?’

‘I don’t know,’ Shimon said. ‘He left after you did. He’s still got Mergus’ century of the Watch at his command. He’ll bring them when we have the location of Saulos and his ninety.’

‘Two hundred,’ Hannah said.

‘Two-?’ Shimon’s mouth snapped shut. ‘Where?’

‘In the old wool warehouse that backs on to the river below the Palatine market. It’s the central one of the line and Saulos has filled the ones on either side with traps. His men know at least sixteen ways out but anyone trying to get in would lose ten men for every one that got through. A frontal attack is almost impossible; the only entrance is down a narrow alley that won’t take more than two men side by side and his door-guards are all ex-legionaries, so he-’

‘He has legionaries in his group?’ Hypatia gave a sour laugh. ‘Are they believers?’

‘They believe in the power of his gold,’ Hannah said. ‘What else they may believe will become clear tonight when he preaches. He’s planning a Dionysian rite, with bread as flesh and wine as blood.’

‘Cannibalism.’ Shimon spat on the floor.

‘But powerful. When he’s finished, his men will believe themselves god-filled and immune to danger. It will be… interesting to watch.’ As she spoke, Hannah backed towards the door until her hand lay on the latch. ‘The warehouse could be destroyed by fire,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘If it was done properly, with men ringing it, you might be able to trap Saulos and his two hundred, but the alleys are so narrow there the fire would surely spread.’

‘It would be unfortunate if Rome were burned by those trying to save it,’ said Hypatia.

Hannah nodded. Her fingers worked the latch, easing it up. The geese crooned from the meadow outside. ‘There’s an alternative that might work,’ she said. ‘But it needs someone on the inside. I’ll go back now and do the best I can. If I haven’t come out to you by sunset, then burn the warehouse and do what you can with the water towers to stop the fire spreading. Make a firebreak first. Pantera will know what to do. Tell him this is for Math: the living matter more than the dead.’

Hannah stepped smartly back, pushed the door shut and dropped the oak stave across that barred it from the outside. It wasn’t impossible to escape; Shimon was already climbing out of the window as she reached the gate in the wall, but it stopped either him or Hypatia from asking what she was going to do, or trying to stop her when she gave the answer.