'Sister!' A moon-faced youth whose eyes were rimmed with green malachite bade her welcome. 'Join us, we beseech you, for the end of prayers.'
Typical fanatic. Entrenched in his own beliefs, not interested in anyone else. Didn't occur to him that she might want, say, the door of the goldbeater's assistant, or had he seen her missing tabby cat?
'Come.' In his pleated white kilt, held in place by a broad knotted sash, the boy beckoned for Claudia to follow. 'We make our devotions back here.'
Her eyes took in the sparse furnishings, the unpainted white plaster, the simple rush stools. Flavia had opted for this? Two tables and three plain wooden chests lined one wall, with a rough stove in the corner over which a variety of meat hooks and ladles hung higgledy-piggledy above cauldrons and skillets. Jars and pots stood askew on a shelf, their dribbled contents left to harden and stick in thick runnels, much to the delight of the flies. Her eyes swivelled to the five mattresses which lined the right-hand wall, two not slept in, and a washbasin full of water you could not see your reflection in, which stood guard at the end.
'Hail to thee, Ra, in thy rising,' intoned a voice from the room which had so far been obscured by choking incense smoke.
'Mine eyes adore thee,' answered the moon-faced youth, placing the palms of his hands together in reverence. A second acolyte, a girl, adopted an identical position, her eyes closed tight in piety, while the third member of the trio — the speaker — appeared to be sprinkling water on something with his fingertips. All Claudia could see clearly through the gloom was that his head, eyebrows and chest were shaven.
'Gladden,' said the priest, 'our hearts with the Vessel of Dreams, the Barque of One Million Years. Blessed be the Boat of the Morning.'
Boat? Halfway up the Viminal Hill, this man's talking boats? But incredibly, as her eyes adjusted to the darkened room and swirling smoke, Claudia realised that — yes, on the top floor of this six-storey apartment block and some half a mile from the river, there was indeed a boat filling up the whole of the back room!
And not just any old boat!
She coughed, perhaps from the fumes, perhaps from the vision which crystallised before her. Its high prow covered in gold and its ribs inset with amethysts and pearls and lapis lazuli, the vessel glowed luminescent in the darkened back room, and the curls of smoke from braziers which dotted the floor were like eddies of water, blue and swirling, carrying the boat on their tide.
'O Living Lord, rest thy rays upon thy servants.'
If Midas himself had owned a yacht, it wouldn't have been half as spectacular as this, and now she understood what had attracted Flavia. And it was not a life of rustic simplicity! Overhead, the star-spangled ceiling glittered with silver and gold, and the blue of the walls was so dark as to be almost black, highlighting reliefs of gilt and copper and bronze.
'The events depicted on these walls,' the bald priest explained,
'show Ra's journey through the dark Realm of the Night. Over here — ' a manicured hand swept to the left — 'his battle with the Great Serpent who waits nightly to devour him, and over here — ' the hand swept to the right — 'his journey through the Twelve Great Gates of the Underworld. I am Zer. Will you break fast with us?'
Claudia recalled the dirty jugs and bowl of filthy water. 'Love to.'
The female acolyte tossed handfuls of rose petals into the barque's prow, extinguished one by one the bowls of smoke and, reversing reverentially, closed the door of the back room behind her.
Zer pulled up a rush stool and indicated for her to be seated. 'You wish to join the Brothers of Horus, that you may enter the Fields of the Blessed through the path of resurrection?'
Whoever called life a learning curve was right. Claudia had just forgotten how steep it was in places. 'I do indeed.'
'You swear to abide by the laws and the customs of Egypt?'
'Yes.'
'To worship Ra, through his son on earth, Osiris, our own Pharaoh, Mentu?'
Talk about a man with a split personality! 'Naturally.'
'And you are prepared to renounce your life, your family, your friends, the Roman pantheon?'
'I am.'
Humility, she'd decided, was the key. Awed as she had been by the riches hidden away in the back room, she'd quickly noticed that the two acolytes, glowing with righteousness as they were, said nothing. The pair were content to watch the priest, mirror his actions and gaze adoringly at him, reminding her of dogs trained to perform tricks. Except there was a sinister feel to their adulation. That they would be prepared to go to any lengths to protect their lord. Any lengths at all.
At the priest's nod, the boy passed her a beaker of black, foaming beer and the girl handed round platters of flat bread and cheese. Despite his name and exotic taste in barbering,
Claudia suspected that Zer was not actually of Egyptian extraction. She glanced again at the soft, well-manicured hands, so much at odds with their simplistic surroundings. Zer was patently not averse to a bit of pampering from time to time! So then. Not Egyptian, not an ascetic and not a fanatic like these other two. Claudia sensed a sharpness about this shaven-headed priest. A probing quality. Assuming this building was the funnel for sending new recruits off to the commune, then Zer was the man doing the pouring.
'We are proud of the society we have built,' he said, tearing off a chunk of the bread, 'and the barque which honours Ra.'
Barque? I'll say you're barking!
'It is never too late to purge the heart of its sins, to fill it with goodness and truth.' He gulped at his beer, wiping the froth away with the back of his hand. 'I assure you, you will not regret joining.'
Damn right. The sooner I clap hands on Flavia and bring her home, the quicker Junius will be free of his death sentence. Already this was Friday. Executions were scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Time was fast running out.
While Zer explained about the council of the Ten True Gods, their role in the Judgement of both the Living and the Dead and how, through them, the heart would find purity to weigh light at the Balance, Claudia studied the transfixed acolytes from the corner of her eye. The boy's Caesar haircut marked him out as the scion of a well-to-do family, as did the girl's cosseted complexion and, as though a beacon had been lit, Claudia saw Zer's reason for targeting that particular corner of the Forum to sing Ra's praises. Coincidence? That this spot just happens to be where the young blooms of patrician families hung out to exchange news and gossip over an open-air goblet of wine? I don't think so!
'How quickly might I be able to join you?' she whispered.
'Sister.' Zer took both her hands in his and gazed deep into her eyes. 'It is obvious you have problems.' His voice was low and mesmeric. 'But once you devote yourself to Ra, these problems will be as dust upon the wind.'
'It's my stepfather. Since my divorce — ' she kept her lashes well lowered — 'he's been pressuring me to sign a contract to marry his own son, that he might get his hands on my inheritance.'
'Ah.' Something flashed in the priest's eyes, and he began to take a closer interest in the quality of her gown, the rings which decorated her fingers, the emeralds which hung from her pendant. 'I see.' He smiled, and she thought, I'll bet you do!