Robert Fabbri - False God of Rome

‘Just what the fuck have you been up to, senator?’ he bellowed, his face almost purple with rage.

‘What you should have been doing yourself instead of conspiring with religious maniacs: saving the lives of decent people.’

‘And how many Roman lives did that cost?’

‘None; now get out of my way.’ He pushed past the prefect, almost throwing him off-balance.

‘You’re confined to your suite, senator, until I decide what to do about you,’ Flaccus shouted after him. ‘All the guards will have orders not to let you out.’

‘Shit!’ Magnus spat. ‘Where does that leave us trying to get to the ship in the morning?’

‘We’ll have to take our bags with us tonight and go straight from the mausoleum.’

‘What about Flavia?’

‘Flavia’s in for a shock.’

‘Just another ten feet,’ Vespasian called softly up to the struggling figure of Flavia suspended on the end of a rope. Forty feet above her Magnus could be seen in silhouette on the terrace slowly lowering her down. Vespasian checked his balance as he fought to remain upright while the boat bobbed on the mild swell of the Great Harbour; Felix laboured with a single oar to keep it in a fixed position hard up against the palace’s sea wall.

After another few anxious moments Vespasian grabbed her ankles. ‘Got you; now stop kicking or we’ll all be in the sea.’

Flavia went limp as she was lowered the last few feet. ‘That, Vespasian, was the most undignified way to leave the Palace of the Ptolemies,’ she informed him as he undid the knot around her waist, ‘and painful.’

‘But necessary,’ he reminded her, giving the freed rope a tug. ‘Now sit down and stop complaining.’

Flavia shook her head with a wry smile and went to sit in the bow next to their large travel-sacks as Magnus, with his sack slung over his back, slithered, with surprising agility, down the rope.

He landed in the small boat and looked back up at the rope. ‘That’s going to be a giveaway when Flaccus finds it.’

‘Flaccus won’t think that we’ve done anything more than escape from his custody.’

‘And he’ll find that annoying enough,’ Magnus mused, unslinging his sack and stowing it next to Vespasian’s.

‘Are we all set,’ Felix asked, ‘or are there any more surprises?’

Vespasian sat down by Flavia. ‘No, Felix, once we’ve dropped Flavia off at the ship it’ll be everything as planned.’

Felix snorted and pushed against the wall with his oar. As the boat came round he deftly hauled up the triangular sail and took his place at the steering-oar; with a light snap, the soft breeze filled the sail and drove the boat forward over the moon-dappled water.

Magnus tried not to touch Flavia’s behind as he and Vespasian helped her up the ladder onto the stern of the ship but the task was impossible without doing so. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he muttered as he placed his right hand under her firm left buttock.

‘Help yourself.’ Vespasian grinned, his hand already wedged under the right cheek. With a co-ordinated shove they propelled Flavia, with a squeal, up the ladder and into the arms of the triarchus and Alexander. Her two maids came to her rescue, clucking in concern.

‘Be ready to sail in a couple of hours,’ Vespasian told the triarchus as he clambered aboard with his sack.

‘It’ll still be night then, senator; I won’t be able to get the port aedile to stamp our exit warrant,’ the triachus replied as Magnus appeared with the last two sacks.

‘Exactly, so do it quietly.’

The triarchus shrugged and gave orders to wake the crew, who were sleeping, wrapped in blankets, on the deck.

‘You will all have to come with us, Alexander,’ Vespasian said as he helped Felix up; over his shoulder was a bulging leather bag and in his hand a small cage containing two geese.

‘We can’t desert our people. We must stay and get back to them.’

‘That’s your decision. We’ll be back in a couple of hours; use that time to work out how you’re going to do that with three dead bodies and a wounded man.’

‘Where are you going?’

Vespasian smiled and, patting Alexander on the shoulder, moved off without a word.

Apart from the occasional sailor asleep in a drunken stupor where he had fallen, the docks were deserted. By the light of the quarter-moon, Vespasian, Magnus and Felix moved swiftly along the empty quays and climbed the steps up to the promenade, coming out next to the Caesareum. Vespasian paused as they passed one of the obelisks guarding the building; the crescent moon seemed to be balanced perfectly on its point as if it were a part of the monument. Wondering if it could be construed as an omen of any sort, he hurried after his companions as they flitted through the deep shadows of the colonnade surrounding the building.

‘We should walk from here,’ Felix said as they descended some steps onto a wide thoroughfare, ‘we don’t want to attract undue attention.’

Although most of the city’s population had sensibly decided to stay behind locked doors after dark, there was no curfew being enforced and there were a few people abroad. They slowed down to a brisk walk, crossing the thoroughfare into another street heading south. The night sky to the east still glowed with the fires burning in the ransacked Jewish Quarter, but there was no sign of the violence spreading and they pressed on for another quarter of a mile unnoticed until they came to the gate of the Soma.

The two Macedonian guards stood with their pikes crossed barring the entrance.

‘We’ve come to make an offering,’ Felix explained, lifting the geese in their cage.

‘It’s a busy night for the priest,’ one of the guards commented as they stepped aside. ‘You come to put a curse on the Jews too?’

‘Something like that,’ Felix replied with a grin as they passed through the archway.

Swathed in the thin light of the crescent moon the courtyard felt even larger than it had by day; the fire on the altar at its centre, silhouetting a cluster of people gathered round making their offerings, seemed far off.

While still in the shadow of the wall, Felix nipped away to the right; Vespasian and Magnus followed. Keeping close to the wall they made their way north towards the Temple of Alexander, skirting around the mausoleums of various Ptolemys. Without mishap they arrived in the shadow of the mausoleum closest to the temple, just thirty paces away; between the two buildings was open, moonlit ground. The two night-time guards could be just seen at the top of the steps in the gloom under the portico.

‘Look around for some stones,’ Felix whispered, setting down the goose cage, ‘half a dozen should be fine.’

‘What for?’ Vespasian asked, feeling the ground and immediately finding a couple of small pebbles.

‘To encourage the geese forward.’ Felix took a goose out of the cage and handed it to Magnus before retrieving the other one, holding it firm under his arm. ‘On the count of three, Magnus, hurl your goose as far as you can towards the temple and then when they land, Vespasian, throw your stones at them to move them forward.’

‘Won’t they fly off?’ Vespasian asked, finding the last few stones that he needed.

‘They’ve had their wings clipped; they can’t fly more than a few paces. All right; one, two, three.’

Felix and Magnus hurled their geese towards the temple; the birds flapped their wings and flew as best they could, hissing in outrage, until they landed heavily just short of the steps. With a couple of well-aimed shots Vespasian got them waddling forward, honking loudly. From within the building the geese could be heard taking up their fellows’ cries. The guards looked at each other and exchanged a few words before one handed the other his pike and started slowly to descend the steps. The geese eyed him suspiciously; as he got to within three paces of them they extended their necks, flapped their useless wings at him and hissed threateningly. He pounced and, much to his mate’s amusement, began chasing one of the honking birds in a series of twists and curves until eventually capturing it as it tried but failed to mount the steps. Gathering the goose in both arms he jogged, laughing, back up to his mate, who pulled a key from a cord around his neck and turned to the door.