M. Scott - The Coming of the King

‘You saw that?’

‘I saw you move it.’ Estaph made a cleansing motion with his hands. ‘It won’t stop them.’

‘Whom will it not stop?’

There was a silence in which Estaph cradled his daughter in one massive arm, stroking her fine, reddish hair with the other hand.

Presently, looking up, he met Pantera’s eyes. ‘Here in Caesarea, it used to be that the Syrian youths fought the Hebrews and the Hebrews fought the Syrians and neither side needed encouragement. But this year, there are men who meet in basements and quiet corners, who worship a dead Galilean rebel as if he were Israel’s messiah. They eat flesh and drink blood in his name and they hate the Hebrews more than any men I have met. They put the pig’s head in the synagogue. And it is they who are stoking the street fights so they are earlier, harder, more savage than before.’

Pantera closed his eyes. There were times when Saulos was so close he could smell him, taste him, feel the air shudder where he had been. He said, ‘Rome was burned by such as these.’

Estaph spat. His daughter watched him with round-eyed interest. ‘Sewer rats masquerading as men,’ he said. ‘But they will destroy Caesarea if no one stops them.’

Pantera asked, ‘Will you leave?’

‘Soon. When my business is done. I’m going to Jerusalem next. There, the War Party is fighting the Peace Party but at least it’s all out in the open.’

Pantera looked up at the sky, at the scribble of fine cloud, burning away in the advancing morning. ‘Hebrews fighting Hebrews.’ He shook his head. ‘If they stopped, if they came together, if they asked themselves who is the common enemy…’

‘Hebrews will fight each other over the price of a dried date, you know this.’ Estaph spread his spatulate fingers in a shrug that spoke more than any carrier-bird’s message, however well crafted. ‘In Jerusalem, they have a nation to fight over, its survival, the survival of their god and their people. Menachem’s War Party will go to war if necessary to rid their nation of the Roman oppressor. More, they want war, they desire it, they think their god is asking for it. Gideon’s Peace Party is set against violence of any kind, at least against Romans. They think the way to be rid of an emperor is through prayer and talk. And they know that if Nero sends in the legions, their people will be crushed for ever. They’re right, of course. It’s madness. Maybe if their messiah did come and was able to lead them all together it would be different, but Hebrews don’t like one leader, they like being set one tribe against the next. It’s what has kept them in slavery for a thousand years.’

Delivered of this philosophy, Estaph spat gravely on the palm of his hand and held it out. ‘I’ll leave in five days’ time. If you are looking for employment then, I might be hiring.’

‘There are two of us,’ Pantera said.

‘I know. I watched you ride in yesterday. And I have heard Ibrahim’s tale of your battles in the desert. Your Roman brother is welcome also.’

‘Thank you. If you leave early, send word to Ibrahim at the Inn of the Five Vines. He’ll know where to find us.’ Turning to leave, Pantera delved into his waist pouch. ‘For Eora,’ he said, and laid a copper coin in the girl’s open palm as he left.

Morning had not yet coloured the day as Pantera passed north into the neighbouring quarter where the houses were but a single storey, and no temples graced the road ends.

There, at an unmarked junction, was a house notable chiefly for the lack of flowers in the forecourt, and the soft whirr of feathers above. A chalked sign hanging over the lintel proclaimed that the doves bred therein were the greatest delicacy to be found in Caesarea, fit to grace the tables of any king, and that thirty were ready for slaughter with some squabs also available at a good price per half-dozen. Standing beneath it, Pantera gave a precise knock on a wooden door.

The youth who came to answer was not yet grown into the man his father might wish him to be. His beardless skin bore the silken sheen of a woman and his brown eyes were big as gazelles’. His face was a long oval, alive with the naivete of youth. He frowned as he opened the door and saw a man there he did not know.

‘The grey horse I bought at market yesterday is lame.’ Pantera spoke in Greek, enunciating carefully.

The boy stared at him a moment, uncomprehending, then his eyes flew wide. ‘Father isn’t here,’ he said, which was not the right answer at all.

‘The grey horse-’ began Pantera again.

‘Yes, yes! I heard. Then you should… you will… you must have it seen to immediately. I know of a man. Please come in.’ The boy finished in a rush, blinking back his fear. He made no effort to step back and let Pantera in. ‘Father isn’t here,’ he said again.

‘It doesn’t matter. I wished only to use your services. What’s your name?’

‘Ishmael.’

Syrian then, and not Hellenized like the rest. It was useful to know. ‘Thank you, Ishmael. May I come in?’

The boy’s eyes grew larger by the moment, but still he showed no sign of letting his unexpected visitor cross the threshold until, losing patience, Pantera shouldered his way through the doorway.

Inside, the single room was small and everything in it was white, except for the wool rugs on the floor, which were striped in all the colours of the sheep from pale sand through to wet-oak brown. It smelled of a morning’s cooking layered on a night’s sleep.

The door closed, jarring the quiet. The draught pushed open a door at the room’s far side. Pantera walked through it, checked the small courtyard and, when he was sure there was nobody to witness, stepped back in, pulling the door shut.

‘I am the Leopard,’ he said. ‘I believe — I sincerely hope — you may have a message for me? From Rome.’

‘The Leopard!’ A shy smile bloomed across Ishmael’s face. Men and women, Pantera thought, would kill for that smile, one day. ‘Father said you might come. He’ll curse that he missed you. Two messages wait for you. The first has been here since before I was born. The second came this year.’ His smile faltered. ‘The Teacher sent the first, but he is dead now. The second came with one of his red roan doves and the message was in his code, but the hand that wrote it was different.’

‘The Poet has stepped into the Teacher’s shoes,’ Pantera said. ‘That is who will have sent it.’ And then, because the boy was still waiting, ‘We who served Seneca until his death are loyal to the emperor, and to the memory of our Teacher. It is possible to be both.’

‘Yes!’ All doubt dissolved, the boy’s white teeth shone. He tapped Pantera lightly on the arm. ‘Wait here and I will get the scrolls.’

Mercifully, the papers were not secreted in a chamber beneath the cooking fire which was the first place a competent search team would have looked, but hidden in a concealed compartment within the water tank that sat atop the roof of the house.

Steps led up from the outer walled courtyard in which stood the dovecote, source of the household’s legitimate income. Pantera sat guard on the bottom step and watched half a hundred buff-rose doves coo and preen and flit in feathery leaps from cote to roof to wall and back again.

The birds were well handled, with no fear of men, so that he was able to stand among them and search out those of different colours; the six or seven whose feathers shimmered in an oily turtle green, the black pair with white flashes that looked like magpies, the pure white singleton with the pink eyes. None of them was the red roan and white of Seneca’s Roman carrier-birds, but it was clear that in this flock such a bird would readily be lost in the multitude of colours.