It took a heartbeat for Valerius to realize what Lucius was saying. He heard the shake in his voice. ‘You’re going to a meeting of these Christians?’
The benign mask fractured and the possibilities flew across his father’s face like a flock of disturbed partridge. Truth? Lie? Bluster? Each second of delay making an answer less necessary.
‘You can’t go, Father. I won’t allow it.’ Valerius placed his arm across the doorway to add a physical edge to the appeal.
‘Cannot? Will not allow it?’ The words emerged as a whisper of disbelief.
‘Must not. For all our sakes.’
‘You, my own son, think to forbid me? Are you mad?’
‘Not mad, Father.’ Valerius kept his voice low. ‘I am trying to save your life.’
Lucius hissed with suppressed anger. ‘My life is mine to spend where and when I wish, and I will not be dictated to in my own… in this house.’
‘Your life, perhaps, but not Olivia’s and not mine. Torquatus knows. They will take you and they will hurt you, Father, and you will tell them everything they want to know. Everything. I have seen it. You will give them your friends and your family to stop the pain. You will give them Petrus, and Seneca and the man Saul. I can’t let you go.’
The older man stared at him, and for the first time in his life Valerius saw contempt in his father’s eyes. ‘If you believe that, young man, then you do not know me. Perhaps you are not my son after all.’ He shrugged his cloak around him, raised his head and tried to push past Valerius. ‘Will you physically restrain your father? I think not.’
Valerius closed his eyes. What could he do? Short of wrestling Lucius to the ground he had no option but to let him go. Then he heard the sound of running feet behind him. Marcus!
He pushed his father back to clear the doorway. ‘Marcus,’ he called. ‘I need you in here. Send the others after Serpentius.
‘I can’t stop you, Father, but Marcus can and will. He will keep you safe here. Please do as he says.’ He reached out a hand to touch Lucius on the shoulder, but the old man flinched away from him like a child avoiding a blow.
‘Master?’ Tiberius, the steward, appeared from the kitchens and his frightened eyes flicked from Valerius to his father.
‘Do not concern yourself, Tiberius,’ Valerius reassured the elderly retainer. ‘It is only a minor disagreement.’ He nodded and turned to walk out into the sunshine.
‘But master,’ Tiberius insisted. ‘The dark-haired slave girl who was here earlier. She insisted I give you a message.’
Valerius froze. ‘Yes?’
‘She said “today, at the seventh hour”.’ Tiberius added the address of a street in the Seventh district and Valerius felt the world stop. He turned to his father. ‘Will Ruth be there?’ Lucius didn’t reply, but his ashen face answered for him. Valerius ran for the door.
By now it was past noon and he found his progress impeded by citizens returning to their families for the midday meal. His way took him beneath the palaces of the eastern Palatine, past the Temple of Divine Claudius, and towards the Forum, where he turned left through the familiar temples and pillars. When he reached the beginning of the Via Flaminia the road became more open and he was able to pick up his pace, but by the time he reached the gardens of the Campus Agrippae and turned up the hill, the streets had closed in on him again and he was forced to push through the crowds.
As he ran, his mind was filled with Ruth’s serene face and he prayed he would be in time. He tried to understand what would make his father take such a risk. Of course, one man would be more dedicated in his worship than another, and some gods demanded more dedication from those who worshipped them. But for most Romans the strength of devotion was in direct proportion to the magnitude of their need. If a trader was desperate for a big grain contract, naturally he would sacrifice a fine ram to Mercury to encourage his support. Each day, Julia poured a libation to the kitchen god to insure against culinary disaster. And Valerius would gladly go on his knees before any god he believed could help cure Olivia, even though he knew, deep in his heart, that such help was unlikely to be forthcoming. But why would a man who had spent his life in the service of Rome defy Roman law, betray his Roman friends and risk his life, and that of his family, for a condemned criminal and a band of ragged Judaean fishermen? It defied logic. He acknowledged that the offer of eternal life, qualified and flawed though it was, would attract those who despaired of their current circumstances, or were naive enough to enter into a pact that effectively sacrificed their free will for a place in some unlikely Elysian paradise. Ruth had been raised to believe, but his father? Perhaps Petrus was a magician who kept his supporters in thrall by spells or potions. Yet he had seen the Judaean in his guise as Joshua, the healer, and nothing would have led him to that conclusion. Lucina Graecina, a Roman to the tip of her exquisitely manicured fingernails, had been prepared to sacrifice everything in the cause of Christus, and Cornelius Sulla had stayed silent under the most excruciating torture. Lucina had been no fool, and neither, though he had acted one, was Cornelius. Eventually, Valerius was forced to give up on a puzzle to which his brain could find no answer.
‘Valerius, here!’ He turned to see Serpentius emerging from a side street, his narrow face flushed with concern. ‘We’re too late. The Praetorians have the place surrounded.’
The Spaniard’s words stopped Valerius like a hammer blow, and he fought the paralysis that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘How far to the bakery?’ he demanded. However bad the situation, there was always the possibility of salvaging something. If he had learned nothing else from the disaster in Britain he had learned that.
‘Just up here, but we will have to be quick.’
Valerius followed the Spaniard’s tall figure through the throng as Serpentius’s long strides carried him swiftly ahead. They were approaching an open market place when they heard the commotion. To one side, a crowd had gathered to watch a young black bear dance at the end of a chain. Serpentius quickly slipped into the anonymous fold, but Valerius stood transfixed. Dashing down the roadway was a slim figure holding her blue dress up around her knees to allow her to run more freely. It seemed she must be stopped by the wall of people ahead of her, but the power of her fear gave her passage. Now she ran directly towards Valerius, her long black hair flying, and he could see the panic in her eyes and feel the pounding of her heart.
Ruth.
Thirty paces behind and gaining with every step followed four Praetorians, their iron-shod sandals clattering on the cobbled surface and the swords rattling in their scabbards.
‘Stop her!’
Valerius’s heart stopped as he recognized Rodan’s voice. With anyone else he would have taken his chances and tried to talk her out of trouble, but he knew there would be no mercy from the Praetorian. Rodan would kill Ruth just to spite him. He lowered his head, but not before his despairing eyes had locked on hers for a fleeting second.
It was enough for the Judaean girl to recognize him, and through her wild panic Ruth felt an impossible surge of hope. The Christians had been waiting for Petrus to make his entrance when Rodan’s soldiers burst in. By good fortune, she had been standing in shadow on the stairs and the explosion of violence had frozen her in position. As the Praetorians lashed out with clubs at the small band of worshippers, she had recovered enough to slip quietly away to the upper room where Cerialis kept his grain. It was from there, through a narrow window, that she made her escape. She had been a few feet from safety when one of the Praetorian guards noticed and made a grab at her arm. Somehow, she’d managed to slip from his grasp, tearing her dress in the process, but his shouts alerted the others. She bit back the impulse to scream out Valerius’s name, knowing that it could condemn them both. The terror that threatened to explode her brain eased. Somehow she knew he would save her.