David Epperson - The Third Day

A stack of towels sat on a nearby table, so I jumped out and dried myself off. I tossed the first towel into a wicker basket, wrapped another around my waist, and placed my ear bud back into position.

“What do you want?” I heard her say — and not to me.

“Sharon?” I called out.

I stepped out of the frigidarium but instead of walking into one corridor, I found myself at the intersection of three.

“Sharon?”

I listened intently, but heard only a soft murmur.

Then I heard a shuffling sound: the toadying slave appeared in the right hand corridor and signaled for me to follow him.

I glared at him. “Where is she?”

He couldn’t understand my words, but I suspected he knew their meaning.

The worm motioned me forward again. This time, his manner reminded me of the pimps I had once seen all over the Far East — obnoxious pests who followed me everywhere touting ‘I have deal for you my friend.’

Right.

Since he was rushing me to go in one direction, I obviously wanted to go in another. But which one?

I pretended to stumble and reached down to grab my ankle. When he stepped closer to assist me, I grabbed my folding knife from my bag, whipped it open and held it to his throat.

“ Where. Is. She ?” I said.

The words weren’t important. He knew exactly what I wanted.

He pointed down the center corridor, and somewhat foolishly, I backed toward it, intending to turn around and push him through in reverse.

I never made it. A second later, I felt a thump and my world went completely black.

The next thing I remembered, a man was shaking me awake. I instinctively recoiled and reached for my knife, then felt several sets of arms holding me down as I flailed about.

It took me a few more seconds to fully come to. As I did, I could see three men, bald, clean shaven and dressed in identical white tunics, standing around me.

One of them spoke. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, though as my vision improved, I noted the look of concern in his eyes — all of their eyes, for that matter. Whoever these people were, they weren’t part of the crew in the baths.

Once I was completely conscious, the three of them took a step back and watched as I reached behind my pounding head to feel for blood.

Fortunately, I found none, and after minute or so, two of them reached down and helped me stagger to my feet.

I gestured my thanks as best I could and then glanced past them to take in my surroundings. The tallest man pointed to a spot just outside the city wall and gestured that he had found me there. He had then recruited his colleagues to carry me to my current location, a shady spot beneath an olive tree about a quarter mile to the northeast of the Antonia.

Why, I couldn’t tell. Maybe they were Good Samaritans — perhaps even the original ones.

I could see from the position of the sun that it was only mid-morning, so I hadn’t been out all that long. I also noticed, for the first time, that a boisterous crowd had gathered around a colonnaded structure a hundred yards to the north.

There, several groups of men, each carrying stretchers, attempted to push their way through the southernmost entrance. However, those already inside closed ranks to block their passage.

My benefactors watched the burgeoning drama with a sense of concern. One of them, evidently the leader, ordered the other two to deal with the situation.

As they hustled away, their boss gestured for me to follow him, but I just held my hands up, silently asking to remain in place a little longer.

He stared into my eyes for a few seconds and then shrugged, as if to indicate that I was no longer his responsibility; then he ambled up the path to join his colleagues.

I still couldn’t figure out what was happening. The stretcher-bearers continued to jostle for position without success, until a couple of them finally set their loads down and turned on the crowd blocking their way. I watched half a dozen men fall to the ground, where they grappled and threw wild punches as bystanders cheered them on.

My rescuers did nothing for several minutes. Finally, they shoved the crowd back, and after another brief interval to let the brawlers tire even further, they pulled the combatants apart, like modern policemen breaking up a bar fight.

Knowing the Roman tendency to pounce on the first inkling of trouble, I glanced back to the Antonia, half expecting a squad of soldiers to come charging up the road. Neither sentry, however, paid the commotion any mind. Apparently, this sort of thing wasn’t unusual, at least not here.

After they broke up the altercation, the man in charge glanced back in my direction and once again signaled me to follow.

I hesitated briefly. My first inclination was to return to the Antonia, and if I could have been certain that Publius was there, I would have. He’d sort it all out, I was sure, probably first by seizing that slave and flogging him to within an inch of his life.

But the more I considered it, the less reasonable this plan sounded. For one, I couldn’t communicate properly. Making matters worse, my attackers had dressed me in a tunic so old and worn out that the sentries would perceive me as just another member of the swarm of disheveled beggars mobbing the city gates. They would surely turn me away.

Whatever this place was, it was my best bet at the moment. For some reason, these people seemed inclined to help me, and if nothing else, they might at least let me wash my clothes.

I was pleasantly surprised to see my bag lying on the ground next to where my rescuers had placed me. My knife, of course, was gone, as was the sack of coins that Bryson and Lavon had so painstakingly assembled in Boston; but the rest of my kit appeared to be intact.

If only the thieves knew.

***

It was only then, as I felt for the pendant hanging from my neck, that I realized with a horrible sinking feeling that my attackers probably hadn’t been thieves.

I stuck my earpiece in.

“Sharon,” I called out. “Sharon, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Sharon, come in.”

I heard a whooshing sound, then an unintelligible voice.

“Sharon?”

“Bill?”

I sighed with relief. “Sharon, can you hear me?”

“Yes, where are you?” Her reply was louder this time; her tone anxious.

“I’m still trying to figure that out. All I know for sure is that I’m northeast of town, outside the city walls. I got walloped on the head and just came to a minute ago. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I’m in a litter. They’re taking me somewhere.”

“A litter?”

“Yes, just like those old movies. It’s like a queen sized bed mounted on poles. Four guys on each side are carrying it. There’s the curtain; the whole works.”

Litters had always puzzled me — surely the most impractical mode of transportation ever devised, suitable only for a culture with vast pools of expendable labor and little desire to go anywhere in a hurry.

Still, this was encouraging. Someone intent on hurting her wouldn’t be transporting her in that manner.

“I heard another voice. Is anyone with you?”

A pause.

“They can’t understand you,” I said. “Just look up at the sky like you’re praying or something. At worst, they’ll think you’re half crazy.”

Another pause.

“There’s only one man. He’s dressed pretty nicely, compared to the others we’ve seen. The material looks like silk. Do you know if they had silk in the first century?”

I wasn’t sure. I only learned later, from Lavon, that the Roman upper classes had such a voracious appetite for the stuff that a succession of emperors had attempted to ban the trade in order to keep the empire’s gold reserves from flowing to China.