‘Have one of these then,’ called a rough voice from the far side of the crowd. A stone the size of a hen’s egg smashed the boy in the mouth, drawing more blood and making it difficult for him to speak.
‘Jesus came to offer you everlasting life.’ The words were thick with pain and as mangled as his lips. ‘He died for you. Will you not live for him?’
‘Jesus?’ Valerius looked to Serpentius.
‘Must be his pet name for this Christus.’
‘If he died for me why haven’t I had anything from his will?’ The voice of the rock thrower was accompanied by cackling laughter from his friends.
‘He-’
‘The Guard!’ A cry from the direction of the Vicus Patricius interrupted the speaker. The street led directly towards the Castra Praetoria and the Praetorians were never gentle when breaking up an illegal gathering. The crowd quickly dispersed into the surrounding streets. Valerius saw the bleeding boy dart up a nearby alleyway and ran after him. After a few minutes his quarry slowed to a walk and Valerius took step beside him.
‘You spoke well,’ he said.
The boy looked up suspiciously, the blood still dripping from his mouth. ‘You are following me. I saw you with the watcher at the back of the crowd.’
‘Yes,’ Valerius admitted. ‘But I mean you no harm. I am not like them.’
The young Judaean managed a semblance of a smile. ‘Do not judge them too harshly. They know not what they do.’
‘You would forgive those who hurt you?’
The boy looked surprised. ‘Of course. It is our Lord’s teaching.’
Valerius took him by the shoulder. ‘I am looking for a man called Petrus. He is known as the Rock of Christus. Do you know where I can find him?’
The boy glanced down at the wooden hand resting on his arm. ‘If you seek the Rock of Christus for the right reasons, you do not have to look for him; he will find you.’ With a twist of his body he wriggled from Valerius’s grasp and ran off down the alley.
Valerius saw Serpentius slip after him and merge into the crowd. He turned to look for Marcus and found himself staring into the eyes of Ruth, his father’s slave girl. She quickly averted her gaze and walked in the opposite direction. But not before he recognized a look of pure hatred.
XV
‘It has happened again!’ Valerius turned, ready to defend himself, but it was only old Honorius, the water commissioner, bearing down on him from the direction of the Circus Maximus, rheumy eyes bulging in a face the colour of a ripe plum. ‘It can’t go on!’
‘No,’ Valerius said reassuringly, not quite certain what couldn’t go on.
‘Thousands of gallons a day from the water castle up on the Cespian Height. A veritable river siphoned off somewhere between there and the Subura. Stolen from the state. Larceny on a grand scale. It must be stopped.’
‘It will be.’
Honorius glared at him. ‘But when? When will you prosecute our case?’
‘I need a little more time.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Imperial business.’
Honorius’s outraged expression softened. ‘Ah,’ he said knowingly. ‘State business.’
‘Two weeks? Perhaps a month?’
The water commissioner sniffed. ‘Two weeks then.’
Valerius watched him go. The man was like a hunting dog; he would never lose the scent. All he thought about were his aqueducts and his pipes, his water castles and his springs. But without the aqueducts and men like Honorius to ensure they were maintained Rome would be a desert, and a stinking one at that. Not only did water from the Aqua Claudia and the New Anio and their like slake the thirst of a million people through private supplies and public fountains, it also served to flush out the sewers into the Tiber, taking the threat of disease and plague with it. During the preparations for the case, Honorius had hammered into him the history of Rome’s waters. How the city had been supplied by the Tiber and local springs until three hundred and fifty years earlier, when the censor Appius Claudius Crassus had brought to Rome the waters of a spring on the Lucullan estate eight miles outside the city. Aqua Appia was the first of the nine, and was followed forty years later by Old Anio, which took its supply from above the falls of Tivoli. Then, more than a century later, came Aqua Marcia, the first to be carried above ground and her waters travelling an astonishing fifty-four miles to reach Rome; Emperor Augustus had given Rome the Julia, the Tepula, the Virgo and the Augusta, used mainly for irrigation; Gaius Caligula had begun the Claudia, which was completed by the uncle whose name it bore, and Claudius had also ordered the construction of the New Anio, the most modern and technically advanced. If the water castle the commissioner spoke of was on the Cespian Height between the Viminal and Esquiline hills, it must be on a spur of Old Anio which entered the city close to the Porta Viminalis.
But Valerius had more pressing concerns. He was certain he was being followed.
During Suetonius’s campaign of retribution in the wake of Boudicca’s rebellion, Valerius had lived with the constant threat of ambush from defeated British tribesmen with nothing more to lose. He had developed an instinct for survival akin to a third eye. The alarm signal was a prickle at the back of his neck and it had been prickling for days now. He’d tried all the usual methods to detect his watchers: backtracking when it would be least expected, stopping suddenly as if he’d changed his mind about something, turning off into some narrow alleyway where a follower would be easier to identify. Nothing. Today he’d been more subtle.
When he reached the house he walked straight through the atrium and the kitchens to the garden. Marcus waited with his backside perched on a stone cabinet where the winter vegetables were stored, crunching a pear from one of the trees that lined the walls. The old gladiator grunted a welcome.
‘You weren’t seen?’ Valerius had installed the five men in a rented house about a quarter of a mile away, beyond the city wall.
Marcus shook his head. ‘I came by the servants’ entrance. Anyone spying on you would watch the front door. They’re not interested in the slaves, but I was careful in any case. We stayed well back. Knowing your route and the timings helped a lot, although the old boy with a beetroot for a nose almost caught us out.’
‘Honorius, the water commissioner.’ Valerius smiled. ‘I couldn’t get rid of him.’
‘Well, he did us a turn. They were good. They kept their distance and switched places often enough to make sure you wouldn’t mark them.’ He described three men, and Valerius hadn’t noticed any of them. ‘I thought there were only the three of them, but with you stopped for so long they got a little confused, eyeing each other up as if they didn’t know what to do. Next thing they’re having a conference in a doorway with this fourth fellow. Stocky lad, looked as if he knew how to handle himself. He had that aware look, if you know what I mean?’
‘Anything to distinguish him in a crowd?’
Marcus pondered for a few seconds. ‘At first I thought he was just another hired thug. But there was something about him that didn’t fit. Maybe the way he walked? Then I got a proper look at him. You can tell when a man’s been knocked about, even if it was a while ago. The left side of his face looked as if someone had shoved it in a furnace.’
Valerius smiled at the perfect description of Rodan. So, he’d been right, but what to do about it? ‘If I need to, can I lose them?’
Marcus considered the question. ‘There’s nobody better at starting a fight than Serpentius.’ He nodded towards the far corner of the garden and Valerius noticed with a chill the slim figure standing motionless in the shadow of one of the trees. ‘He’ll start on one of them. Their friends will come running. You slip off up the nearest alleyway and I’ll cover your back. We can meet up later if you need us again. Where are they now, Snake?’
The Spaniard didn’t hesitate. ‘One watching the house from across the street, the other two in the bar on the corner. The ugly one left as soon as he saw you home.’