Her father! Oh dear Jupiter, if I die in here, she thought, I'll have to face my dad across the River Styx. He'll be furious that I've let the family down, brought the name of Seferius into disrepute — and Flavia daren't imagine what he'd say about her friendship with that smelly street urchin called Flea.
Tears began to roll again. They were hot and salty and tasted of the bitter charcoal. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to be home. Home and warm and safe, looked after by her slaves and wrapped in cool, fresh linen towels. She wanted What was that?
In the blackness, Flavia tensed. Someone was twitching at the lock.
'Help!'
She scrabbled over the slippery coals.
'Help me, let me out!'
Clunk! The bolt flew back. The hatch opened slowly, and she recoiled at the brilliance of the light which flooded in.
'So then.'
Flavia shielded her eyes. The voice was one she recognised, but she could not make out the face. That voice, though…
'That's where you've been bloody skulking!'
Flavia must surely be mistaken. Why would this person be the one to rescue her? It made no sense.
'Come on.' A firm hand closed around her wrist and jerked. 'Out you get!'
Junius winced when the crowd surged forward because someone caught him on the hip where that vicious Dungeon Master had landed several kicks. White fire thrashed behind his eyes, muzzing up his vision, but he hadn't told the doctor, let alone his mistress.
His throat constricted. When he arrived here, in the commune, he'd been worried that he might not find her among the herd, but — inwardly he smiled — it wasn't very difficult in the end. Who else marched around as though she owned the place, nose in the air and chin held high?
He was now convinced something bad was going on. Six girls had vanished to date, and he felt sure another girl, the little laundress, was a casualty.
Junius was worried for his mistress.
'Stay here,' she'd said. 'Watch for my signal. This way, we can all get out together.'
So here he had remained. Alongside the woman from Brindisi, whose grey hair would not obey the rules and coil up in a bun, and resisting her every effort to go and change his merchant clothing for Egyptian costume. But it wasn't his out of place clothes making Junius jittery.
It wasn't right, the bodyguard doing nothing while the mistress laid her life out on the line.
It should be him, who took the arrow for her. Him, who stopped the slingshot meant for her.
Around him, the crowd were cramming forward to give their praise to Ra, to strew petals on the temple steps and swear allegiance to Osiris, through his son on earth, Mentu.
Since leaving Gaul, Junius had seen some bizarre spectacles, but this was way beyond him, this business about worshipping a boat…
Where the hell was she?
His eyes roved round the commune, alighting that fraction longer on the supervising staff who had been coming and going with such regularity throughout the so-called resurrection. He distrusted them all — the hairy one, the shiny one, the fat one, the bony one. He paused. Hang on a minute. The weirdo, the one with the wonky teeth and the lip. He was missing.
And so was his mistress.
He chewed his thumbnail and shifted his weight from foot to foot. His mind heard again the command to stay put, the way it brooked no contradiction, and Junius rubbed his good eye. Which would be worse? he wondered. To stay while her life might be in danger, or disobey the order and try to seek her out in the crush?
'It's a miracle, isn't it?'
Beside him, Mercy's eyes glowed with fanaticism.
'Mentu dies and is reborn before our very eyes, he will lead us to eternal resurrection, and soon, when darkness falls, we'll celebrate his rebirth with the Festival of Lamps.'
She wrapped her solid arms around him and hugged him tight.
'Isn't this the happiest moment of your life?' she asked.
Junius said nothing.
Marcus lay on his back in the granary, unaware of the setting sun, the lamps which flickered round the temple compound, the heavy summer heat which throbbed, the sticky breeze which brought sickness to the city. Sprawled on the grain and wearing a dead man's clothes, he was unaware even of the bloodied bruise just above his ear from the blow which had laid him out, unaware of ribs which had cracked when he had pitched forward on a heap which was by no means as soft as it appeared — or as he would have wished.
In his unconscious state, he did not dream.
He did not know that, back in Rome, his faithful steward, Tingi, had tracked down the groom who had left his household six months before his wife sold off the slaves and was about to divulge some interesting revelations. Revelations that would lead, although Marcus did not know it, to the identity of the murder victim — a distant cousin of his uncle's who had come to stay before Orbilio had taken over the house. The groom, having fathered eight children of his own, had recognised the signs of the girl's — shall we say — condition straight way, and his wife mentioned rumours about the cousin's affair with the master of the house. How the cousin and the wife had had a blazing row one night, resulting in the cousin leaving shortly afterwards.
Neither could Marcus, in his cocoon of oblivion, know that his boss was sitting, at this very moment, in the theatre, unable to concentrate on the comedy by Terence, because it niggled him that any scandal attached to Marcus might blow back in his own face. Suppose Orbilio had killed his wife and bricked up her body in the plaster? How would that reflect on the Head of the Security Police, who had checked his references and found them impeccable? While the audience clutched their sides and howled, his boss was wondering whether he'd acted too hastily in drawing attention to the body in Orbilio's storeroom. Mopping at his brow, he glanced across to the box where Augustus sat with his wife and daughter and a few close friends. Suppose word got back to him? Presumption of guilt went very much against the Imperial grain and the Head of the Security Police must — like the late and Divine Julius's wife — be above suspicion. He shuffled miserably on his cushion. He had never found Terence funny, anyway.
Night fell and Marcus, lying on his back, snored softly in his coma and did not see the human shadow which fell over him.
Luckily for him, he hadn't heard about the fate of spies. That they were condemned to die by the Ordeal of the Lakes, first by being roasted in a fire. Then by being boiled alive.
Marcus did not see the figure which leaned over him.
He slumbered on…
All across the valley, the exhilaration and excitement generated by a whole day packed with festivals and games and culminating in their Pharaoh's proof of immortality slowly gave way to a different kind of optimism. Soon, the vigil would begin. Ten thousand tiny lights would flicker through the night, guiding Ra's boat through its perilous journey in the Realm of Dark. The flames would scare away the Serpent of the Void and navigate a safe route through the Twelve Gates of the Underworld.
Ablaze with these mortal illuminations, mummies would awaken from the dead and cast off their bandages. The lame shall walk, the blind shall see, the barren shall bring forth a child. Praise be to Ra, O lord of lords and king of kings, whose limbs are gold and emeralds are his eyes. Grant us peace in heaven, health on earth and acquittal on the final Day of Judgement.
The High Priest, with his ten priestesses, laid out flat dishes filled with oil and salt and his ten white-robed acolytes lit the floating wicks around the Barque of Ra. In the darkness, the gold prow glinted brighter than midsummer sunshine and as the hundreds upon hundreds of twinkling lights were lit, the Boat of a Million Years drifted on the waters of their hope.