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“He’s very neat, I’ll say that for him.”

Arrius dumped a dipperful of watered wine into a cup and brought it over to Marcus’ bed. Sixtus, perched on the windowsill, broke a chunk from the halfpenny loaf he’d brought with him that morning and threw it across to Marcus, who caught it wearily and began to sop it in the wine.

Though the Christians had seen him to his door with every evidence of concern for his health, Marcus had not slept much the night before. His neck felt even worse than it looked—the bruise across his windpipe had begun to blacken already. He was almost wholly unable to swallow. Past Sixtus’ shoulder the big window was blinding with morning sun, and the cries of children at play floated up from the courtyard below.

“It was timed to the minute,” went on the centurion, seating himself on the foot of Marcus’ narrow cot. “The patrols were at their farthest from the holding jail when the stables were broken open, so naturally the guards from the jail itself ran to help round up the horses. Half the guards and grooms at the stables themselves had been drugged, it turned out later; they were found sleeping like dead men in the straw. Mithras alone knows what caused the whole herd of horses to stampede past the jail...”

“They were driven with blankets,” whispered Marcus painfully.

“What?”

“Groups of Christians stood in the alleyways near the stables and flapped blankets at them, to run them past. I met a band of them—the Christians, that is. Two bands, really.” And he gave a brief account of his adventures of the previous night, concluding with, “And they said Papa wanted them there on time, and by the gods they were. I have to say I was impressed.”

“So was I,” added Churaldin, who sat blinking in the sunlight like a satisfied tomcat at his master’s feet. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such confusion in my life.”

“Were you there?” asked Marcus in a kind of breathless croak.

“I was coming back from paying a visit on the Caelian Hill in time to catch the tail end of the show,” smiled the slave. “I admit it beats any put-up beast-hunt in the amphitheater I ever saw.”

Arrius growled deep in his throat, like an annoyed lion. There were blue smudges under his eyes, from a night badly spent. “What it does,” he said after a moment, “is knock your theory over the head, Sixtus, about the Christians being too disorganized to take concerted revenge for the massacre of their comrades by Varus. Whatever their stupid quarrels are about, there’s somebody who can make them act as a unit.”

“True,” sighed the old man. “In which case we may be up against more than we know.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and gazed abstractedly into space for a moment. He looked nothing the worse for last night’s orgy; in fact, Marcus would have bet everything he owned that the old man was the only member of the supper-party on his feet this morning.

“Sixtus,” said Marcus hesitantly. “If—if they did kidnap Tullia to sacrifice, would it be at a set time? On a holy day, like the ides of April or the seventh of June? Because Tiridates spoke of a sacrifice...”

“I still refuse to believe that as cheap as children come in this city, the Christians would have gone to the trouble of kidnapping a sacrifice that could cost them all their lives.”

“We don’t necessarily know that Tertullia Varia is going to be the victim,” said Arrius slowly. “Is there a Christian feast coming up, Sixtus?”

The old man shook his head. “None that I know of. In fact, as far as I know the Christians can’t even agree on the date they celebrate the rebirth of their savior—they drew blood over it, at Antioch. I know that some of them celebrate his birth in December, like the Mithraists... Some say,
very
like the Mithraists. But I’ve never heard they celebrate the summer solstice.”

“The summer solstice?”

“Midsummer Eve,” said Churaldin softly, and there was a sudden glow in those dark Cymric eyes. “That my people celebrated with the pyre of the Green Man and the dancing among the standing stones. The shortest night of the year.”

Arrius looked down at the Briton for a long moment; in the stillness, the heat of the little room was like a bake oven. “And when is the shortest night?”

The Briton said, “Tomorrow night.”

Marcus gasped, tried to sit up, and sank down again with a groan. He had grossly underestimated the effects of a three-mile run upon a totally untrained body. Moreover his cracked ribs were smarting again.

Sixtus mused slowly, “I suppose that the Christians could celebrate the solstice. The part of the world they come from—Syria and Palestine—is heavily imbued with the effects of Chaldean astrology, though it tends to crop out in other religions far more noticeably. In which case—”

“In which case we have only tonight and tomorrow,” whispered Marcus.

“We’ll find her,” said Arrius grimly. “I have informers out all over town. We’ve been watching Tiridates’ house for him since he refused to let me talk to those two Arabs.”

“For all the good it’s likely to do you,” commented the old scholar. Arrius raised an inquiring brow. “Oh, come! If there’s a secret passage connecting the cellar to another cellar, or to the sewers, your men could sit all night watching an empty house. Don’t you know you can cross Rome from the Quirinal Hill to the Aventine without ever coming above the ground?”

The centurion was silent for a moment. “In which case she could have been taken outside the city altogether.”

“It’s possible, but I doubt it. The Christians are a city folk; whatever they’ll do, they’ll do in Rome.”

“It doesn’t mean they’ll hold her in Rome until it’s time,” returned the soldier. “We’ve turned up no sign of her...”

“It hardly means she isn’t here.” Sixtus glanced sharply over at Marcus, who was following this conversation with anguish in his eyes. “Who lives upstairs from you here? I’ve heard them walking back and forth all morning.”

Marcus shook his head. “I know there’s a Syrian family named Baldad and a—a girl named Delia, but other than that...”

“She could be up there, then. They could have rented a room, kept her drugged... What’s that square building down the alley from here? The one with the black walls and the boarded-up porch?”

“I think it used to be an old temple of Dagon, before the cult was proscribed,” said Marcus, puzzled. “But...”

“Ever been in it? In its cellars?”

He shook his head, mystified.

“Rome is a city where you can do anything, centurion. You could kidnap the entire College of Vestal Virgins and conceal them all within a mile of the Forum and no one would be the wiser. Old buildings, warehouses, temples, caves in the banks of the Tiber...”

“But there would always be the risk,” said Arrius quietly. “But outside the city—in a place where fear will keep eight people out of ten away... I think they’ve got her at the catacombs.”

“The catacombs?” croaked Marcus hoarsely. “You mean the old Jewish burial grounds?”

“Christians bury their dead in catacombs as well,” said Arrius. “There are two that I know of, and Mithras knows how many more. One of my informers tells me there’ve been rumors of the Christians using the old one down on the Ardeatine Way as a hiding place as well. It’s where we’re going tonight.” He dipped out a cup of wine for himself and stood for a moment in the hot bright bar of the window light, gazing into distance.

“Arrius,” croaked Marcus after a time. “Is it possible—do you think that Tiridates might be Papa?”

The centurion was a long time silent, thinking this over. At last he said, “It’s perfectly possible. It would be the best reason I can think of for his attending Quindarvis’ supper-party last night. When the Christians were broken out of jail, he was nowhere in sight. And that’s exactly what he’ll say if we make a move against him without red-handed proof. He could have given all the orders beforehand; in fact, he contrived to be on the spot when the Christians were transferred to the holding jail. We saw him there ourselves. Would he really have gone all the way down from the Aventine to the amphitheater, just to kiss his boyfriend?”

“But then why did the other group of Christians rescue me?” asked Marcus, confused. “I would have thought they’d let me be killed.”

Arrius turned back with a short laugh. “Never think it. They said themselves they didn’t get a look at the bearers, didn’t they? Communications can get crossed like that in any operation. In Germany I’ve fought tremendous battles in the snow against what turned out to be the other half of my own scouting party.”

“But if Tiridates is the head of the Christians,” protested Churaldin, “why would he attack the woman he was going to marry in the first place?”

Arrius shrugged. “Part of the setup.”

“You mean the whole betrothal was to get her in his power?” demanded Marcus, aghast. “But why go to the trouble? Why not simply kill her?”

Sixtus’ voice was deep, quiet against the clatter of pans, the rising babble of Aramaic and Celt from the courtyard below. “Perhaps because, like lovemaking, revenge is the sweeter the longer it is spun out.”

Marcus met his eyes, blue as cold water in their shadowed pits, and looked away, slightly sick at the thought.

“Or perhaps,” suggested Arrius softly, “her death isn’t what they intend at all?” He drained his cup, set it with a small soft
chink
on the table, and turned around, the sun seeming to drench his soldier’s cloak in new blood. “Have you thought of that?” His leather-hard face was as calm and detached as it had been in the darkness under the Flavian, when he’d cut the Christian’s throat. “D’you seriously think any man in Rome will marry a girl who’s been kidnapped by the Christians, Marcus? Who’s been living among them for days—weeks, maybe, by the time she’s found? Who’s been subjected to every perversion from murder and cannibalism on down?”

Marcus looked away, staring fixedly into a corner of the ceiling, and did not reply.

The grating voice went on, “You think any man will have her? Or any man’s family? Knowing old Varus, do you think even her own family will have her back?”

“Shut up,” whispered Marcus.

“Some philosopher you are,” snapped the centurion brutally. “Have a look at the truth for once. Under those circumstances Tertullia Varia would have no choice but to remain with the Christians—to become a Christian herself. And in that case, do you think as long as Tullius Varus holds prefectural powers in Rome he’d permit any kind of general persecution, such as they’ve been talking about for years, against the Christians?”

“Yes!” shouted Marcus, his ripped voice burning like Greek fire in his throat. “Yes, he would, the stiff-necked, jealous, dirty old bastard! He’d cut her throat with his own hands!” And he turned his face away, sobbing, his body aching as though he had been beaten.

A shadow crossed the glare of the light. The soft heavy wool of a toga brushed against his arm, and a strong hand pressed his shoulder. Sixtus’ deep voice spoke quietly, “We’ll find her.”

Beyond him, Arrius rasped, “You’re the gods’ own optimist, old man.”

Marcus felt him look up, meeting the centurion’s cynical eyes; he felt the serenity flow from him, as warmth flows from a fire on a freezing night. “We’ll find her,” he repeated, and there was no question in his voice.

“You sure we want to?” And he heard the soldier’s heavy tread pass from the room and tremble through every board in the rickety building as he strode down the stairs.

The practice was repeated annually at a fixed season. They [the Jews] would kidnap a Greek foreigner, fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood where they slew him, sacrificed his body with their customary ritual, partook of his flesh....

Apion

M
ARCUS PASSED THE REST
of the day as though numbed. He slept, heavily and amid dreams of racking pain. Twice he woke, to stare hopelessly at the blot of sunlight where it had moved upon the wall, tortured by blurred memories of last night’s opulent horrors and by the centurion’s brutal surmise. Both times someone spoke to him—Sixtus or Churaldin, he wasn’t sure which—and both times he drifted almost immediately back into a kind of stupor. The third time he woke it was late afternoon. The room, which faced east, was heavily shadowed. Through the window he could see the line of sunlight, yellow as summer butter, on the wall of the court. It was about the eighth hour. Sixtus still sat on the windowsill, reading Marcus’ much-battered copy of the
Enchiridion.

“You still here?” Marcus mumbled, and the old man looked up and rolled up the book.

“I thought I’d remain until I was sure you were well,” he said. “Arrius sent a message about an hour ago—if you want to be part of the expedition to the catacombs, they will leave from the prison at a little before sunset.”

“All right.” He swallowed experimentally. The pain was not noticeably less, but his voice seemed to be coming back. “I’m sorry I deserted you last night—I thought if I followed them...”

“You did well,” said the old man. “After hearing all that passed between Tiridates and his bearers, had you wasted time coming to me first I should probably have hit you with my stick. My only fear was that you’d managed to get yourself devoured by Quindarvis’ lions.” He set the scroll on the sill, rose, and came over to stand at the foot of the bed, his game leg dragging stiffly behind.

Marcus sighed and shifted his gaze from the corner of the cracked ceiling to the old man’s face, which was scarcely less lined. “So you know about them?”

“Nearly everyone in Rome does. There are rumors that they are the reason for the extremely good behavior of his slaves.”

Marcus shook his head tiredly. “I’m afraid the rumors are wrong. It’s the fish, not the lions, you have to beware of.” He wondered whether it was only exhaustion, or if, like Arrius, he was becoming inured to the world’s horrors. For in truth, among everything else last night he hadn’t even given the poor little drunkard’s death a second thought. The noise of the music must have drowned out his screams, if he’d uttered any. “Other people must know about that,” he said at last. “You’d think somebody would—would at least denounce him.” But already he asked himself,
to whom?