In a second the water was all around him. He became one with the flood and entirely at its command. His mouth and nose filled and he began to first choke, then suffocate. He held his breath until it felt as if his chest was about to explode before finally giving in to the inevitable. The darkness all around crept into his body and his bones, an inner darkness that he knew preceded death. Suddenly it didn’t matter any more. He was free of responsibility, free of pain, free of life. The last time he had felt like this had been in the final moments of the temple. This time there would be no escape, and in a way he was glad.
He felt himself floating as the gods carried him off to whatever Otherworld the Fates had prepared for him. Then he wasn’t floating, but falling, and a second later the euphoria was knocked out of him as he smashed into something solid and his eyes snapped open to see a bright light. He lay on his back spluttering as a cascade of water battered his chest. Gradually, he realized he was lying in some kind of pool.
He knew he should get up, but his head didn’t seem to be connected to his body. And there was something else. Something he had to do. For a moment his mind continued to whirl, then everything came back in a burst of clarity. The cascade meant he was in the baptism chamber. He struggled to his knees and turned.
A ring of astonished faces stared back at him. He recognized a lawyer from the Basilica Julia and his plump little wife among the ten or so men, women and children his unorthodox arrival had scared into a frozen tableau of terrified eyes and gaping mouths. The room had been prepared for the ceremony, but they must still have been waiting for Petrus, the ultimate survivor. He saw with relief that there was no sign of his father or Olivia. An oil lamp flickered in one corner and the scent of some kind of burned spice hung heavy in the air. On a table in one corner a loaf of rough peasant bread lay beside a seven-branched candelabrum and an overturned flagon of wine which had stained the stone floor beneath blood red. The walls were windowless and bare, apart from a single device painted on the white plaster above the oil lamp. It was another of the pieces of symbolism the Christians were so fond of, a large X cut by a vertical stroke with a small half circle attached to the top:
The symbol stirred a memory in him and he recalled seeing it once before. It was the same as the one that had been scratched on the chest where Petrus kept his healing powders. This must have been part of the old baths complex, possibly a holding tank before the water was distributed to the caldarium and tepidarium. When the villa had been built it had been kept as a storeroom. At some point the outlet had been stopped up, but the owner, no doubt one of Petrus’s Christian converts, had re-opened it and somehow they had gained access to the water tower on the Cespian and restored the supply.
A moment of unnatural silence was followed by a clamour as they all started speaking at once. Valerius pushed himself to his feet and picked up the sodden bundle of his clothing, hauling the tunic over his head and wondering why he should be concerned about his nakedness when they were all likely to die in the next twenty minutes. Meanwhile, the flow from the inlet above him slowed to a trickle. Serpentius and Marcus must have heard the thunder of the water from the inspection shaft and signalled for it to be cut off again. By now they probably thought he was dead. But that wasn’t important — all that mattered was to get these people out of here. ‘Quiet.’ He used the soldier’s voice that had once cowed a legionary parade ground. ‘You are all in danger, but I’m here to help you. I need everyone to stay calm.’ The cries dropped to a subdued murmur. ‘Whose house is this?’
A wiry, balding man raised a hand. At his side, a woman clutched a half-grown girl who stared at Valerius’s wooden hand. His was another familiar face. Valerius searched his brain for a name. Probus? No, Pudens. That was it. Aulus Pudens, who had made a fortune supplying the arenas. A merchant notorious for cheating his suppliers and as unlikely a Christian as any man in Rome.
‘I’m leaving you in charge. Which way to the house?’
Pudens hesitated. For a moment it looked as if he was about to protest, but his wife whispered something in his ear. He pointed to what looked like an alcove in the far wall and pushed his daughter forward. ‘Praxedes will show you. Through there. It leads to a corridor.’
Valerius picked up his cloak and followed the girl. ‘This way,’ she said. She had long blonde hair and a sweet voice, made sweeter by the little whistle that punctuated her words through the gap in her front teeth. She explained what had happened. ‘Someone said the soldiers were here. We were praying to our Lord Jesus for salvation when you popped out of the pipe like a giant water vole. Everyone screamed, even Daddy. But I thought it was funny. Why is your hand made of wood?’
She led him to a door which took them through a storeroom into the villa. He left her playing with a doll and dashed upstairs where he could look across the square to where Marcus and Serpentius should be waiting for his signal. He dropped beside a window and opened the shutter just a crack.
And saw disaster.
Marcus had said the Praetorians had a guard on every corner. That had been an hour ago. Now the open area in front of the house was flooded with soldiers. A small army. It had never been a very good plan. Now it was exposed as a hopeless one. Rodan had the Christians in a sardine net. It was only a matter of time before he lost patience and sent his men to storm the villa.
Valerius slumped down by the window and closed his eyes. What had he got himself into? Think! There had to be a way out. He remembered the building as he had seen it from above. Could he climb the cliff? It was possible, but not with the fools he had left down in the baptism chamber. The idea burrowed into his brain like a tapeworm. Leave them then. What did they mean to him? He’d come for his father and Olivia. He wasn’t responsible for a rabble of sheep who hadn’t the wit to save themselves. Yes, he felt sorry for them, but that didn’t make him their keeper.
He heard a shuffling noise and looked up to find Praxedes standing a few feet away holding the doll out so he could see it. ‘This is my sister. Her name is Olivia.’
He shook his head at the madness of the world. When the gods called the tune there was really no option but to dance along. He reached out and took the little wooden figure with its black wool hair. ‘Does your father have any rope?’
By the time he got back to the baptism room the men had recovered some of their nerve. Valerius studied the wall of belligerent faces. He knew he had to take control, but he waited long enough for Praxedes to whisper to her father. The bald man frowned, but with a puzzled glance at Valerius he followed the girl from the room.
When they were gone, the young Roman called for silence. There was no point in shirking the truth. ‘This is an illegal gathering of a sect proscribed by the Emperor and if you do not do what I say you will all die.’ He met each of their eyes in turn as he spoke. ‘Have you any idea of the fate Nero has in store for you? There are a hundred Praetorian guards out there waiting. It would be better to throw yourselves on to their swords.’
‘We are not frightened to die for our beliefs.’ It was the lawyer. Of course it would be the lawyer.
‘I watched Cornelius Sulla burn.’ Valerius saw the man go pale. ‘Are you prepared to watch your wives burn, or your daughters? No? Then follow my orders without question if you want them to live.’
All eyes turned to Aulus Pudens as he returned to the room carrying several coils of rope. Praxedes had shown Valerius the thousands of fathoms her father imported from Gaul for the Circus Maximus, where it was used to haul in the great sails deployed to keep the sun off the customers.