The Coming of the King

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gessius Florus, Governor of the entire Roman province of Judaea, had dressed hurriedly and badly. His breath, he knew, smelled of sleep and the silvered mirror in his suite showed that his hair had been combed by a madman with a horse brush.

On top of these things, or because of them, he was in a foul temper, but too afraid to show it openly, which left him irritable and sweating and added a twitch under his left eye that had only afflicted him twice before. His father had beaten him the first time it appeared. The second time, Nero had given him governorship of his most eastern province, which post ought to have ensured his wealth for life. It ought not to have necessitated a desperate night ride across a haunted desert in the company of a king too weak to control his own counsellors.

Florus thought of saying these things aloud. The words crowded on the brink of his tongue, jamming up against his teeth, so that when the king’s latest favourite flung open the door to the governor’s private chambers — unannounced, no slave or steward in attendance — no words came out; he simply stood there, gaping, as this man, this nobody, this silk-clad, sleek, smooth, invisible, too-visible intruder stood on the threshold.

He was a spy; Florus was not an especially clever man, he knew that, but he was also not as stupid as his reputation claimed. So he had realized early that this man who could melt into a crowd and disappear faster than ice on a hot day was not all that he seemed.

Soon, it had become apparent that he was a favourite not only of the king, but of the Emperor Nero. In Florus’ experience, Nero had always favoured unusual men and Saulos was certainly that.

Florus had studied him harder after that; had found him fluent, voluble; he used his hands a lot when he spoke. He was excessively neat, always dabbed his lips with a clean patch of linen after eating, but physically he was still a nobody, of indeterminate height with indeterminately brown eyes that sometimes might seem to lighten to grey, with mid-brown hair cut to mid-length which curled, but not too tightly. He was terrifyingly indistinct. And he was here, in Florus’ room. And he was dangerous.

‘My dear Florus!’ Saulos offered a deep bow. Florus was compelled to return it, at least in abbreviated form, and when he rose again he found that Saulos had dismissed the half-dozen slaves that had been attending to Florus.

Even as he turned, the last remaining pair were backing out of the room, covering their faces with their hands to hide relief. Saulos held his smile fixed until they had gone, and then turned and thrust a fragment of something pale into Florus’ hands. He thought it might be a cloth to wipe his lips, then realized there was writing on it, and the emperor’s personal mark, and that Saulos was speaking.

‘This is the original message. It’s in code, as you can see. This’ — another fragment was pressed into his hands, this one neater, less fragile — ‘is the translation. I can show you how the one becomes the other if you wish?’

‘No, just let me read it.’

Since childhood, Florus had read with difficulty, moving his lips as if speaking the words aloud. Today, he moved them less than he had ever done before. His tutors would have turned cartwheels of delight. The thought calmed him.

From the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus to the Leopard, greetings and our good will on your endeavour. We learn that you are in Caesarea safely, and that you will shortly be in a position to uproot the enemy of our peace. Your reward is our blessing and our lifelong care. Daily, we await further news.

Florus lowered the paper. ‘Nero wasted a message-bird for this? It says nothing.’

Saulos smiled as if Florus were his student, and had successfully parsed some difficult point of grammar, or understood the finer points of geometry. He said, ‘My lord proves yet again why his appointment here was so well deserved. This was a test to see that the birds were reaching me untampered. We arranged the text before I left. Anyone trying to counterfeit a message would not say so little.’

‘They surely would not. When did you get this?’

‘It was waiting for me here in Jerusalem. Along with this…’

Saulos opened his hand to show another translated message. With dread pooling in his gut, Florus smoothed it open and read again.

From the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus to Gessius Florus, governor of all Judaea, greetings. You are ordered to aid us in our repair of Rome after the devastations of fire. Our treasury is sorely pressed. We require, therefore, that you relieve the Temple in Jerusalem of its funds, of which our need is the greater. Do this with all speed, by our order.

The paper fell from Florus’ fingers, a fluttering moth, ignored by them both.

‘We are to take the gold from the Hebrew temple?’ Florus asked. ‘All of it? This can’t be true.’

‘Not all of it. Not the sacred treasure, the many-branching candlestick, the table, the trumpets, the altar. Those can be left. If we take only the coins now, that should be enough. I am told there could be as much as fifteen talents in gold.’

‘ Fifteen talents? Why do they keep so much?’

Saulos’ vocal hands described a small, pious movement in the air. ‘Their god requires gold for his works, I imagine. But if Nero needs it to rebuild Rome… We would have to say his need is the greater.’

The sinking sensation in Florus’ lower abdomen became fluid and turbulent until he thought he might disgrace himself there, in front of this fastidious, smiling demon. He folded his arms over the small mound of his belly. Somewhere high in the walls, a rat twitched; even the vermin, it seemed, were appalled at what he had said.

He began to pace to keep his bowels closed, and, pacing, he spoke as he thought. ‘Nero wishes peace in Judaea. He told me so at every meeting before we set sail and he has sent message-birds to me three times already this year, saying exactly the same. After the bloodbath of Britannia, and after the fire, we cannot afford another war. Those were his words exactly; I have the messages yet if you wish to peruse them. And he is right; however poor the treasury, however stripped of funds, if the emperor orders us now to rob the Hebrew temple of its gold, the War Party will have their holy war and not a man in Jerusalem will stand against them. You must understand this. If we try to do as this asks, there will be war — and we may fail. If the High Priest stands against us, if he sets his holy men at the temple gates to block them…’ Florus closed his eyes against the image of Roman legionaries hacking their way through a wall of unarmed priests to gain access to the Temple’s wealth. ‘We can’t do it,’ he said, with finality.

‘Ananias won’t stand against you,’ Saulos said, as if that were consolation. ‘You forget that Rome has the power to command him, not the Hebrews or their god. He takes his orders from you and you take them from Nero. That’s why he’s High Priest. If he disobeys, then we find another to take his place who understands where true power lies.’

Florus found that his fingernails were digging into his palms. He forced open his hands. ‘Everyone knows that true power lies with the man who commands the largest army. Do you know how big the Jerusalem garrison is — or should I say how small? We have half a legion, all of them infantry.’

‘We have half a legion of solid Roman soldiers, not the Syrian trash who kept the peace in Caesarea. They are famed throughout the empire.’

‘Fame does not give strength of numbers. We have three thousand men, of whom five hundred are at Masada. In Jerusalem there are, at any given time, one hundred thousand Hebrews. If Menachem can rouse them all, if he can arm them against us-’

‘He can’t arm them all, he can’t arm even a hundred of them; it’s why he hasn’t attacked you yet. He has men whose only arms are a food knife and a big stick and he knows it’s not enough.’

‘Do you say so?’ Florus swept a hand through his hair. Discretion abandoned him. ‘You are a spy, your sources are impeccable of course, I bow to your wisdom, but if Menachem decides that a knife and a cudgel are sufficient, have you thought what will ensue? We will be outnumbered by fifty to one. I don’t care how famed your garrison is, they will lose, and we will die — and Rome will have lost all of Judaea.’

He turned on his heel. The room was placid, painted in pastel yellows, with flag irises in an urn faintly scenting the air. He wished he were back in Rome. Or Corinth. He had liked Corinth. Nobody had tried to kill him there.

At the turn’s completion, he came to a decision. ‘Get me a scribe. We will send a message to Rome. It may be that this was written wrongly, that a fault was introduced when the code was transcribed. We will ascertain-’

‘You will do as you are ordered, and you will do it now.’ Saulos was standing some distance away, fingering a fruit knife that looked longer than anything required to cut pomegranates. His voice was distantly cold. ‘I carry Nero’s seal. I am his representative in the east. You have no authority except what I lease to you and that lease is running out. I could appoint Agrippa as governor in your stead.’

‘Agrippa? Ha!’ Florus’ laugh was pitched higher than he intended. The skin under his left eye jumped. ‘Are you completely mad? He wouldn’t stand against-’ He stopped, like a man who has taken a wound, and only now knows himself dying. ‘He is yours, heart and soul and body. He will do as you say.’

Saulos smiled.

Florus looked away. ‘Have you planned a way to do this that will not kill us all? Or will it kill everyone except you?’

‘It will kill no one who matters. It will achieve the aims of the emperor, and there will be peace. The High Priest will play his part, you will play yours and the Hebrews will mutter and throw stones, but they will not dare revolt. They may be a hundred thousand, but they are an unarmed, disorganized rabble gathering in derelict houses and we will make sure that they remain that way.’

Florus said, ‘Someone, somewhere, will throw a stone at a legionary. Blood will be spilled.’

‘Of course. And so someone, somewhere, will be crucified. You will see to it, I’m sure. It won’t be the first or the last, and it will cool their ardour for long enough. Now, we must discuss-’ Distantly, a bell rang, silver-pure. Saulos snapped his fingers in irritation. ‘We have exceeded our time. It would have been good had you been able to rise earlier from your slumbers. As it is, I must leave.’

Florus let his gaze be caught and held. He sustained the contact longer than he thought humanly possible and in that time he decided that Saulos was, indeed, a ghul, one of the undead, sent to walk amongst the living. What else had eyes so utterly devoid of feeling?

Saulos recovered first, laughing softly. ‘I will leave now,’ he said. ‘We shall take a day to prepare. Tomorrow, we shall mount the steps to the Temple. Be ready then. And be more… clean.’

‘Gold! Gold and blood! I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.’

Kleopatra knelt on the floor of a small, disused attic room and stared down at fingers black with dust and grime. She wanted to sneeze and did not dare for fear they would be heard; two walls and a ceiling grille separated them from Florus, who stood in his chamber where Saulos had left him. She wanted to weep, but the world had become too difficult for that.

She raised her head and peered at Hypatia. The Chosen of Isis was staring at the wall, at the closed door that hid the long, hot listening tunnel that led to the governor’s room. Kleopatra said, ‘I moved when the governor read out his orders. I’m so sorry. If they find us, it’s all my fault.’

‘Nothing’s your fault.’ Hypatia roused herself. ‘They thought it was rats. They’re too busy planning how to take the temple gold.’

‘Why, though? Why would Nero want to rob the Temple? Does he not understand that the gold is given to the god?’

Hypatia shook her head. ‘Nero didn’t send that order. The emperor is strange and wild and uncontrolled, but he isn’t mad.’

‘So the message is a forgery?’

‘It has to be. If Saulos wants to destroy Jerusalem — which he does — he will need to enlist the power of the legions to do it. To get them to invade, he needs a revolt, and there’s no better way to rouse a revolution than to rob the Hebrew god of its gold.’

Hypatia stood with her fingers pressed to her temples. She was filthy. Dust smeared across her face where she had pushed her fine black hair out of her eyes. The nails on her left hand were broken where she had levered open the tiny trapdoor set in the tiles high in the wall. Her tunic was black where she had crawled along the tunnel and lain in the baking heat, high up, right under the roof, had lain listening to the planning of an abomination that was more than simply theft.

Kleopatra said, ‘If Saulos takes the temple gold, then the dream is happening, isn’t it? The dream of blood and gold and death.’ Her voice was too high, too querulous. She did not know how to change it.

‘It is happening. Our question now is which of the several possible outcomes will take place.’ Hypatia looked older, wiser, more distant; almost returned to the coldness of that first meeting when Kleopatra had stuck out her tongue, just to see if she could break the woman’s brittle shell. She regretted that, now.

She said, ‘Not all of the endings were bad ones. Can we make one happen and others not?’

‘We can try. Why else are we sent the dream, if not to know what is possible?’ Hypatia looked down at her hands, at the broken fingernails. ‘I need to tell Pantera what we’ve heard. But first…’ She turned, surveying the room. ‘We need to sweep the dust so that nobody knows we’ve been here. Help me.’

In a cupboard at the room’s far side they found brooms and cloths and used them. Where the track to the hidden door was too obvious, they moved a crate to cover it.

When they were done, Kleopatra dusted her hands, looking down at her ruined tunic.

‘You look as if you’ve been breaking horses in a dust yard,’ Hypatia said. ‘You should bathe again and then change your clothes.’

Kleopatra raised a brow. ‘Not just me.’

‘But you can go to the baths and say that you were in the market, whereas I must to go out into the city.’

‘To tell Pantera that the dream has started?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can he stop this?’

‘If anyone can. But only if he lives long enough to escape the gold and blood in the dream. If I were to leave the palace by the slaves’ door, can you lie for me and say you don’t know where I am, that you haven’t seen me since we returned from the market?’

Kleopatra grinned. ‘You have no idea how well I can lie.’