The Thief (5 page)

“Give me a real Roman bathhouse instead of this falling-down pile of bricks.” Silvanus slapped two bronze quadrans in the slave’s hand. “But at least we don’t have to bathe like these Jews, out in the open.” He clouted Longinus on the back. “Although I don’t mind seeing the women stepping out of their holy pools. Wet clothes can’t hide much, eh?”

Longinus gave the slave his two coins and followed Silvanus into the frigidarium. He wasn’t in the mood to trade complaints about the provinces or stories about women. Yes, the bathhouse was primitive, but he’d volunteer for latrine duty before he’d agree with Silvanus.

A gaunt slave helped them out of their armor and tunics and gave them each a pair of wooden sandals. He carefully folded their garments and took a stance in front of their belongings.

“Keep a watchful eye, or you’ll feel the sting of my whip,” Silvanus growled at the man, who paled and nodded. Silvanus smirked at Longinus. “Can’t be too careful with that sword of your father’s, eh?”

Longinus grimaced. After only two weeks, the bathhouse slaves were terrified of Silvanus. Their weapons and armor would not only be safe but also cleaned and polished by the time they returned. He passed the slave an extra bronze coin and hoped he’d use it for a good meal.

Longinus followed Silvanus past the cold plunge baths and into the dry heat of the tepidarium. He took a seat on the wooden bench and poured olive oil on his chest and legs.

Silvanus sank down on the bench beside him. “I’m ready to get out of this dump.” He grunted at a hovering slave to pour oil on his back.

Longinus poured more warm oil into his hand and slicked it over his shoulders and arms. Going back to Caesarea sounded good, but Silvanus was too satisfied. He knew that look. What odious duty would Silvanus assign him this time? Scouting duty in the desert? Digging ditches? He massaged his aching shoulders. “We’ll be gone in ten days.”

Silvanus smiled, slow and mean. “Not you.”

Longinus’s hand didn’t stop its circular motion. He kept his face smooth, but his temper flared as hot as the glowing brazier in the corner. Warmth from the hot stone floors seeped through Longinus’s wooden sandals and into the soles of his feet. “Are those my orders from Pilate, then? To stay here?”

Silvanus nodded. “You know how superstitious Pilate is. He hates to be around these Jews with their incessant talk of their god. But he needs two centuries here to babysit until Passover. I volunteered yours and Cornelius’s.”

Passover? The whole winter in Jerusalem? He clenched his teeth. Sweat trickled down his face and stung his eyes. When had this happened? While he was off chasing that little thief? He chose a strigil from a tray and scraped the oil from his arms, then took a deep breath of the moist air. “What are we supposed to do here?”

Silvanus shrugged. “Drill. Harass the Jews. Keep the
pax romana
.” He presented his back to the slave for scraping. “Maybe
you should try to find the little thief who made such a fool of you today. I told Pilate about that show of Roman strength in the market. He wasn’t happy that his favorite centurion failed again. Especially after he sent you after the Samaritan and you came back with nothing to show for it. I told him he never should have promoted a mutt like you, eh?”

Longinus threw the strigil down and plunged into the hot water bath. Silvanus had hated him from the moment he’d received his plumed helmet. He should be used to his insults by now. Longinus couldn’t care less about the two thieves roaming the upper market. But the Samaritan . . . that stung. If it hadn’t been for the Samaritan, Scipio would be alive. Scipio was the better legionary, better fighter, better leader. He’d know how to stop Silvanus from telling tales to Pilate.

Silvanus stepped into the other hot bath. “Cornelius said the men were taking bets on whether you’d come back empty-handed today like you did after your trip to Capernaum.” He turned with a sly smile. “Face it, Longinus. Pilate only promoted you because your father was his friend and saved his life in Britannia. A half-Roman like you shouldn’t even be a centurion.”

A rush of anger burned through Longinus, hotter than the swirling water. Half-Roman? His mother might have been a barbarian, but his father was a legend. He took a breath and ducked his head under the water.

He came up gasping for breath. “I’ll find them.”

“Like you found the Samaritan . . . and lost him again?”

Longinus gripped the edge of the bath hard enough to crumble tile.
I’d like to wipe that smile off his face.
“I’ll get them,” he growled. “You and the men can bet on that.”

“Bet on it?” Silvanus pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. “What will you bet, eh?”

Longinus ground his teeth together. He’d forgotten Silvanus’s love for a wager. But if that’s what it would take to get Silvanus off his back, he’d do it. He had plenty of silver gathering dust in the legion’s treasury. His pay had tripled when he became
a centurion, and he’d spent little of it since he’d given up wine and women. “Name it. I’ll have those thieves caught and scourged before Saturnalia.” Whatever Silvanus wagered, he’d lose it.

The skinny slave entered the room, his arms full of well-polished armor and both their swords. Silvanus’s beady eyes fell on Longinus’s gleaming sword.

A chill crept up Longinus’s back. His father’s sword, passed on just before he died in the wilds of Britannia.
Not my sword.
But it was too late.

Silvanus smiled like a snake that had cornered its prey. “Your sword, then, if you’re so sure you can find the thieves. And just because I like you, I’ll give you until I come back at Passover.”

That son of a jackal.
Longinus wiped the water from his face.
Silvanus has had his eye on my sword for ten years.

Longinus climbed out of the bath, his skin tingling, and let a waiting slave wrap him in a dry linen sheet. He picked up the sword, its weight familiar in his hand. The lamplight gleamed over the polished blade and the silver hilt set with gold. The sword of his father: primus pilus of the fifth Macedonian legion and best friend to Pontius Pilate. If he lost it, he’d never live it down.

Silvanus climbed out, water and steam streaming off his body. He eyed the sword like a hungry man watching meat roast over the fire.

Longinus couldn’t back down now, not without losing face. But he could make sure Silvanus was the one to regret this wager. What would Silvanus do for a chance to own the sword?

“If I don’t have the thieves by Passover, my father’s sword is yours.” Silvanus reached out a hand to the gleaming hilt, but Longinus pulled it back. “But if I win—and I will win”—Longinus stepped closer to Silvanus, his voice hard and cold—“you get me out of this province.”

Silvanus’s brow furrowed. “Where to? Rome?”

Longinus narrowed his eyes. Rome, with its gladiators and
chariot races? Its crowds and palace intrigues? Or somewhere else? Somewhere peaceful, where he wasn’t reminded each day of Scipio’s death and his own fears. “To Gaul.”

“Gaul?” Silvanus snorted. “There hasn’t been a battle in Gaul in fifty years. You’ll be stuck talking to diplomats and sending reports.”

Longinus tilted the sword, and lamplight glittered along its razor edge. “If you can’t do it—if you don’t have the pull with Pilate . . .”

Silvanus eyed the sword again. “I can get you to Gaul—with Pilate’s help and plenty of silver.” He smirked. “But I won’t have to.”

Longinus turned the sword over in his hands. Gaul, with its quiet villages and deep forests, where he could finish his service in peace. “Then it’s a wager.”

Silvanus looked at him sideways as the slave dried him. “How do I know you won’t pull two beggars off the street and call it done, eh?”

Longinus snorted.
That’s what Silvanus would do.
“Cornelius saw them.” At least, he saw the tall one and caught a glimpse of the Mouse. “He’ll vouch for me.”

Silvanus’s lips curled into the semblance of a smile. “Your father’s sword if you don’t find them, a transfer to Gaul if you do?”

Longinus nodded.

Silvanus held out his dripping hand. “Hercle, I won’t pass that up.”

Longinus clasped the other centurion’s thick forearm and squeezed. Passover was almost half a year away, surely enough time to find two worthless thieves. He’d find them, mete out their punishment, and get away from this stinking province that had brought him nothing but failure and death.

Chapter 4

L
ONGINUS WOKE TO
a rumble in his belly. He’d returned too late last night to get more than a hard crust of bread and the dregs of the venison stew.

On the other side of the room, Silvanus’s cot was already empty. At least Longinus wouldn’t have to smell him this morning. The two rooms he shared with Silvanus were spacious compared to the tents they called home during a campaign, but still, the sleeping room was just big enough for two cots and a low table holding a lamp. High square windows let in the morning light and a cool breath of air.

Longinus changed into a clean tunic, kirtled it at his waist with a cord belt, and tied on his hobnailed sandals. He fit his armor over his chest. The polished iron bands mounted on a leather frame were expertly crafted to his body. The armor was light and strong and had cost him plenty of silver, but it had saved his life in battle more than once. A ribbon tied under his breastplate indicated his rank as centurion and reminded him of his wager last night.

He buckled his sword onto his belt. The faster he found the little thief and his partner, the sooner he’d get to Gaul. After his father died, his mother had gone back to her people. She’d be glad to see him. He could spend the rest of his service keeping the pax romana there, then retire. He’d get his pension, a piece
of land—maybe even some goats and a wife. His spirits lifted for the first time since Scipio’s death.

He passed into the second room. On his side sat a chair, a cedar-and-leather chest holding scrolls and tablets, and a neat stack of clean tunics; on Silvanus’s side, a jumble of dirty tunics and a few empty amphorae smelling of sour wine. He picked up his
vitis
, a centurion’s vine-wood staff, on his way out the door. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to look at Silvanus’s mess for much longer.

The glow of early dawn edged over the eastern wall of the barracks. Smoke drifted over the camp as legionaries hurried to the cooking fires or stumbled toward the latrines. Longinus would need to check in with his prefect before inspection, but first his hollow stomach demanded food.

Longinus made a quick round of the barracks along the outside walls where the eighty men of his century bunked. Most were sitting on the ground outside their quarters, breaking their fast amid the clatter of brass bowls and wooden spoons. Longinus helped himself to a loaf of hot bread, just pulled from a beehive-shaped oven, and a hunk of cold meat. He crouched next to a group of his men with a grunt and a nod.

Soon, the men would assemble for orders. They’d need a full cohort on duty today at the temple—the Jews would be packed inside like pickled fish, and they’d smell just as bad. Later, he’d find spies—people who knew the city and its people—and track down the little thief and his partner. Next time, they wouldn’t get away.

He wiped the grease from his hands and cut toward the middle of camp. The garrison at Herod’s palace matched those in every other Roman province, from the misty shores of Britannia to the deserts of Numidia. He walked the Via Praetoria, the main road that bisected the camp, passing the granaries where men stood in line for their rations of wheat and the hospital tent smelling of dysentery. All was in order, every man at his assigned task.

At the center of camp, past a wide assembly square, sat the headquarters, the
principia
, where administrative officials kept the cogs of the empire turning. Longinus approached the heavily guarded doors. Inside, he would find his prefect ready to pass out the day’s duties, more legionaries guarding the cohort’s shrine to Mars, and—even more precious—the locked casks that held his men’s pay and pensions.

A legionary on duty stepped forward. “Silvanus is looking for you.”

“Already?” Couldn’t he avoid Silvanus for one morning?

The legionary lowered his voice. “It’s Marcellus.”

Alarm prickled up the back of Longinus’s neck. “What now?”

The legionary didn’t meet his eyes.

“Tell me.”

His words were clipped and quick. “Fell asleep on guard duty.”

Longinus pressed his lips together.
Not again.
“Who found him?”

“Silvanus. He took him to the
carcer
.”

Next to the principia sat a squat, low building, probably used by Herod the Great to store his more costly wines. Now the cohort used it as the camp’s carcer, a lockup for the occasional prisoner awaiting sentencing or the more frequent drunken legionary.

Longinus pivoted and pushed through the door of the carcer, cursing Marcellus under his breath. Some men weren’t meant to be legionaries. Marcellus, quick-witted and clever, would have excelled as an innkeeper or merchant—anything that didn’t require strength, stamina, or common sense.