M. Scott - The Coming of the King

‘And yet,’ said Berenice, ‘we have temples of Isis in our city.’

Hypatia gave a brief nod. ‘Your majesties are kind to your subjects, allowing them freedom in their worship. The world knows of your benevolence.’

Berenice tilted her head. ‘The world, I believe, considers benevolence, or its lack, to be the legacy of our grandfather. Would you say the world was wrong?’

Poppaea had promised a trap, and here it was, neatly laid and quite candid. There was a relief in seeing it so soon.

Hypatia’s choices were three: to agree, to disagree — or to speak the truth as she understood it.

With the colour still high in her cheeks, she chose the last of these.

‘I would say the world chooses kindly to ignore the fact that the Roman governor, acting as the hand of the emperor, decides the choice of worship in the city and has done so for the past fifty years. And that the current incumbent, like his predecessors, will not lightly offend the Syrians whose taxes fill his coffers by denying them their right to worship freely whichever god or gods they choose. I notice it has not kept their youths from their annual rush of blood to the head. It seems to have come this year rather earlier than might have been expected, and to have an unusual degree of violence.’

What she had sensed as she stepped off the Krateis had become increasingly obvious as she had explored the city. Only here, in the palace, was there a semblance of absolute normality, as if the outer world was unable to impose itself.

There was silence. Nobody moved except Drusilla, who turned, smiling, and said something softly to her sister, barely to be heard.

Berenice nodded her agreement. With care, she re-rolled the letter into its cylinder and wound the threads round it.

‘ An intellect few can match. Poppaea did warn us.’ Superficially, her eyes held the same warm amusement as her voice. The currents beneath were as mixed and complex as those that pulled ships to their deaths in the seas outside.

‘What gifts do you bring?’

‘A water clock of Alexandrian design and a pair of hunting hounds for her majesty’s kennels. I have taken the liberty of leaving them in the beast gardens to be fed and cared for. It is well known that the queen loves the hunt above all other pursuits.’

‘Indeed. Were the hounds Poppaea’s?’

‘They were, majesty. They were of Egyptian hunting stock, mixed with the war-hounds of the Britons that were sent to her as a gift after Rome’s fire. She believed them among the best in the world.’

‘Then perhaps tomorrow morning, when today’s duty is behind us, we shall discover if this is true.’ Berenice rose. Her spring-clad attendants rose with her.

Thus dismissed, Hypatia drew back to let the royal party pass her. Berenice paused, still on the dais.

‘We accept the gifts of our dear friend, now dead. You will be given a room in the palace. Polyphemos will see to it. You are free to spend your time as you see fit. Five days from now, however, we require your company at the theatre. The performance will be more tedious than you can imagine but what takes place before it may be worthy of your attention. We gather here at the afternoon’s sixth hour. A gown will be given. Do not take this to mean that your existing garment is considered unfit, only that we require conformity in those who follow us.’

Pantera woke before dawn, and left the inn quietly, but with no particular effort to keep himself hidden.

Even so, nobody followed him, which meant that he had to turn back, cursing, and retrace his steps along the silent street and up the inn’s shallow stairway, had to step over the four outriders who had drunk until late in the main room and slept there on bedding rolls, had to reach the door to the slaves’ quarters from which he had stolen the tunic, and lift the door catch and let it fall a fraction less softly than before, and step back, less carefully, over the sleeping men and scuff his bare foot on the edge of a bedding roll and bite back a curse, before he heard a catch in one man’s breathing, heard it stop and start again in a stiffer rhythm. An opened eye gleamed in the room’s faint light, but he couldn’t tell whose.

Leaving the inn for the second time, he felt his way forward slowly, as if the starlight were not enough to find his way along the wide, rule-straight streets.

Out here, the air was tense, as of a city holding its breath. Small fires smouldered and there were fresh signs of violence, but the gangs of youths had gone to their beds and only slaves were up now, few and sleepy, running morning errands.

To give his pursuer time to make his own way out of the sleeping room and down the stairs and out into the market square, he stubbed his toe and lost time hopping and swearing until he saw a shadow move on the lower stairs.

Still somewhat lame, Pantera led his follower, or followers, across the square and into the streets beyond. For a while, he thought there might be two of them, but it became clear that there was only one, making more noise than he should have done. Not Rasul, then; Rasul was as quiet on his feet as any man you could wish to meet; it was what made him a likely spy.

A foot scuffed on stone at the inn’s corner. Pantera cut through between two tall houses, past a garden of anemones, and turned south, towards the barracks. Twice, he passed men of the morning Watch come, yawning, to take their places on the tented podiums that filled each street corner. Some replaced night watchmen although they were fewer and stood only on the major intersections; the streets around them were clear of damage.

The follower hung back when the Watch was near, and had to be induced closer, step by slow, seductive step. At a corner where a wine merchants’ row crossed with some money-lenders, Pantera let himself slide too close to the night Watch lanterns and jerked away again. His shadow sliced a wide arc across the greying ground. Dawn had come a shade closer; he and his pursuer no longer walked in the night.

Some time later, he turned left, eastwards, towards the wall and, later still, the man following him made the same turn. And stopped. And turned in a slow circle on his heel and cursed aloud, in Greek.

Pantera lay in one of the storm ditches less than fifty paces away with his face pressed to the cold stone, his chin on his balled fist. The man who was not a spy stood near the light-wash from a window nearby. The rays of a single tallow lamp bled out, muffled, through a thin muslin curtain; not a vast light, but in the grey pre-dawn it carved valleys across a creased forehead, brightened the line of cheek and chin and temple, made a scimitar of a hooked nose so that Pantera, who had spent a month in the desert riding at this man’s left flank, recognized Kleitos, the big, black-bearded Cypriot who had been the outriders’ second bowman.

In the quiet of his mind, he apologized to Rasul, a man he liked and did not want to have to kill. He didn’t want to kill Kleitos, either; not because he liked him, but because a living spy was more useful than a dead one. He lay still in the culvert, breathing dust and old sea water and an occasional sharpness where someone had thrown a citrus rind.

Kleitos stood longer than most men, proving that he had patience to make up for his clumsiness, but he left before the sun splashed colour on the day and Pantera eased his knife back into its sheath. Standing slowly, he dusted himself off and joined the handful of slaves padding swift-footed through the morning.

Following instructions he had learned nearly thirty years before, Pantera worked his way back north through the Hebrew quarter. In due course, he passed the besieged synagogue, caught like an island in noble solitude with the heretic scaffolding cutting it off from the city on all sides.