‘And the others will know nothing of it?’
‘They have never heard the name Poppaea,’ he assured her. ‘Nor do they know exactly where they are. Only that I have been given the use of the villa while the owners are elsewhere. They will be taken into God’s keeping in a separate ceremony.’
She sniffed, blinking away a tear. ‘I still do not understand why they needed to be here.’
‘Because baptism carries with it duties and obligations.’ His voice was gruff but gentle. ‘By agreeing to share your salvation with others less fortunate, and allowing them to witness it, you have proved yourself worthy of inclusion in God’s church. By your willingness to place your life in peril, you have already become closer to God. We will be gone before sun-up and you may tell your steward that I vexed you in some way and you dismissed us all.’
Poppaea nodded. ‘Tonight then.’
He smiled. ‘Tonight.’
‘They like their privacy,’ Serpentius said.
‘That usually means they have something to hide,’ Marcus agreed.
Valerius studied the villa complex from the hillside. Serpentius was right. A high wall surrounded the buildings, but the owners had ensured they could not be overlooked from the hill by planting large trees at regular intervals around the inner perimeter of the wall. The combination looked daunting, but he knew it was an illusion. The twin barrier had been created to stop people from looking in, not breaking in. The three men were dressed in civilian clothing, with light summer cloaks to hide the fact that they were fully armed. Heracles joined them after leaving the horses, fed and watered, in the shade of a nearby olive grove.
‘How long to get us over the wall, Serpentius?’ Valerius asked.
‘About twenty seconds.’ The Spaniard grinned. ‘The trees mean we can’t see them, but also that they can’t see us. I can get us inside just about anywhere.’
Valerius focused on the little he could see through the trees. He guessed that every olive tree, barley field and vineyard between here and the town was owned by the people who lived in the villa and that was where most of the slaves would be working. A twinkle of reflected sunlight alerted him to a potential threat. Not the sun glinting on a blade or spear point, but on water. A pool. Which meant… Now he saw it, camouflaged against the same grey stone that formed the hillside, an aqueduct that cut through the trees about five hundred paces away. An aqueduct that supplied the pool and its waterfall.
‘We go over there.’ Valerius pointed to where the aqueduct met the wall. He looked up at the sky, which was a clear blue dome. ‘When the sun reaches its highest.’
As they rested in the shade, Valerius’s eyes never left the villa complex below. Somewhere down there, behind the white wall and hidden by the trees, Lucius and Olivia waited. He had cursed his father as a fool for getting involved with the Christians, but could he really blame him for doing what he believed was right to save her life? Whatever happened, he had to get them out safely. He reached for the boar amulet at his neck, then remembered he had given it to Olivia. Would he live to regret it? If Fabia had been wrong and Poppaea had brought her imperial bodyguard, the whole thing had the potential to turn into a bloody disaster.
XXXIX
Deep beneath the mountain, in a process which had begun many millions of years earlier, the western tip of one of the fourteen major plates which make up the world’s surface had reached a point where the pressure creating its momentum was insufficient to overcome the resistance of the crust through which the fifty-mile-deep slab usually travelled at a rate of one inch every year. Normally, the tip would have been pushed deep underground to be melted into fiery magma by the heat from the earth’s core. In this case it would remain locked in place until the pressure behind it could build up a force powerful enough to shift it into motion again. Already, the pent-up energy was making the earth’s crust creak with the strain. When the shift happened, the giant plate would cover in a single instant the distance it would normally take ten years to travel. That moment was fast approaching.
They made their way diagonally across the hillside. To Valerius’s left the mountain, with its coat of vines and olive trees, rose steeply until the peak was lost in a shimmering haze. To his right, the slope became gentler as it fell away towards a turquoise sea that had never looked more welcoming. The intense heat was suffocating. Even Serpentius, who had been brought up among the sun-bleached hills north of Astorga, complained that if it became any hotter he would melt away. Rocks scorched by the sun reflected and magnified its power until it seemed every drop of moisture was being sucked from their bodies. Sweat soaked their clothing and ran into their eyes, creating salty deposits that quickly turned to grit and made them squint all the harder into the unyielding glare. After what seemed like an eternity, they gathered in the shadow beneath the final stone arch before the aqueduct crossed the wall into the villa gardens.
Valerius turned to the others. He had come to a decision. ‘I’m going to do this alone,’ he said. ‘Wait here until I get back. If there’s any sign of trouble give a single whistle and go back to the horses. I’ll join you there if I can.’
‘But-’
‘This is my fight now, Marcus. You’ve risked your neck for me often enough already.’
Serpentius and Heracles made a cradle with their joined hands that allowed Valerius to boost himself to the top of the wall. He ran his fingers along the top course, half expecting to feel sharpened spikes or the jagged coral landowners sometimes used to protect their property. Satisfied it was clear, he used his elbows to lever himself up so he could peer through the trees. The elevation gave him a wonderful view across the villa complex to the sea beyond and the island of Capri, lying like a sleeping giant ready to wake and march off into the distant haze.
The villa made Seneca’s house look like a modest family home. A sprawling two-storey masterpiece of pale stone, white marble pillars and terracotta tiles extended for at least four hundred paces down the slope. The centrepiece, flanked by two separate colonnaded walkways, was an enormous rectangular pool of sapphire blue, surrounded by white marble dotted with equestrian statues. At the near end, just below him, an ornamental waterfall fed the pool.
The fall had been created by diverting part of the supply from the aqueduct across a wide marble step to form a foaming cascade. To his left, exotic trees provided shaded refuges among the geometric pattern of pathways. The rush of water apart, the only noise was the hum of insects struggling through the overheated air.
He slipped from the wall using the trees for cover and made his way down the slope. Now he was screened from the villa by the self-contained wings that flanked the pool. He stopped and listened again. He’d decided that his first priority must be to familiarize himself with the layout of the complex. Somewhere among the labyrinth of corridors, rooms and private gardens, Poppaea awaited her salvation at the hands of Petrus. He doubted the Judaean himself would be in the house. If he was right that the Christians had come in the guise of farmworkers, the area he sought was the slave quarters.
Ever since Fabia had revealed Poppaea’s secret he had been wrestling with the question of what to do next. At first he’d approached it like a military problem, but quickly realized that the situation called for subtlety, not strength. He could not go charging up to the door. Poppaea’s first instinct would be to protect Petrus. Even if he could get inside, she would deny everything and he’d be no closer to the Judaean, his father or Olivia. Somehow he had to reach them without her being aware. If the ceremony had taken place already, so much the better, but he doubted it. Journeying overland Petrus would only have reached Neapolis late the previous night or early this morning, giving Poppaea little opportunity to ensure the privacy they needed for the ceremony. No. It would be at night. Tonight.