‘Flavia!’ Vespasian cried, running forward as the guard knelt down to lift her head from the cold marble floor.
‘What happened?’ the priest asked, looking anxiously over the guard’s shoulder.
‘I don’t know,’ Vespasian replied, concern written all over his face. He looked up to see Magnus approaching; Ziri had disappeared. ‘Magnus, send Ziri to get the chairs ready.’
‘He’s already gone, sir.’
‘Good, help me lift her.’
‘It’s all right,’ Flavia whispered, fluttering open her eyes, ‘I’ll be fine in a moment, I was just a bit overcome, that’s all.’ She eased herself up with the guard’s supportive arm around her shoulders.
‘I’ve seen this happen before,’ the priest said solemnly, ‘people get overawed just looking down through the tunnel at Alexander’s face.’
‘Being so close to him in the chamber was completely overwhelming, especially for a woman,’ Flavia said sweetly, ‘I would advise you not to let women down there into the presence of such a powerful man.’
The priest nodded sagely. ‘You might be right, lady; I shall form a committee of priests to review our policy on allowing women so close.’
‘You are most kind,’ Flavia said with sincerity, getting to her feet with the guard’s help. ‘I feel much better now; Alexander’s latent vigour has washed right through me. Vespasian, shall we go? I have an urgent need to feel a man’s arms around me.’
‘We shall, Flavia,’ Vespasian replied, hoping that would be the limit to her melodrama.
Flavia took his arm and looked at the guard with doe-eyes. ‘Thank you, my strong Guard of Alexander.’
The man’s mouth broke into a wide grin beneath his bush of a beard; Vespasian tugged Flavia forward with a fixed smile on his face. ‘Come, my dear.’
‘I shall pray to Alexander for your wellbeing,’ the priest called after them as they passed through the doors.
Felix was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps eyeing the small enclosure filled with geese next to the temple; he had an empty sack over his shoulder. ‘Is he in?’ he asked once they were out of earshot of the exterior guards.
‘Yes,’ Vespasian replied. ‘It was well done, if somewhat theatrical towards the end. We’ll see you later, Felix.’
‘Good. I’ll be in the boat below your terrace at the fifth hour of the night; the breastplate will be with me. I shall now procure the final two items that we need.’
‘That, my dear, was not theatre,’ Flavia informed him as Felix disappeared off into the fading light towards the geese enclosure. ‘That was done so that when those two men review the incident in their minds they will only see me. They won’t notice the fact that Ziri could never have been given orders by Magnus and then got out of the doors from where he was standing in the time between me fainting and Magnus saying that he’d gone, after you had so foolishly drawn attention to his absence.’
‘They would never notice that.’
‘They certainly won’t now, because I’ve made sure of it.’
Vespasian was not going to argue; she had shown spirit and they could not have achieved that part of the break-in without her. ‘And I’m sure that they will treasure the memory. Now, my dear, when we get back you should get your maids to finish packing and get them on board the ship as, with luck, we will be sailing at first light.’
‘I’ve already done that; I’m so excited about coming back to Rome with you.’
Vespasian looked at her and smiled. ‘I’m looking forward to it too, my dear.’
The night sky was aglow with flames as they approached the palace complex; the cries and screams of conflict could be heard rising from the Jewish Quarter beyond.
‘It seems to be getting worse,’ Hortensius called back as a gang of Greeks dragged a screaming Jew towards them. ‘I think that you should get out of the chairs and walk now, senator.’
‘Very well,’ Vespasian agreed, signalling his and Flavia’s bearers to stop.
‘Why must we walk?’ Flavia asked Magnus as he helped her down.
‘Because it will be easier to defend you if we’re attacked. We can’t have you getting hurt, can we?’ His estimation of her had greatly increased after her performance earlier that evening.
As they pressed on for the last few hundred paces to the palace, passing anarchic groups running to and from the fighting, Vespasian was unsurprised to see the streets bare of legionaries; Flaccus was evidently playing brinkmanship with the lives of the Jews and he was determined to win and bring them to heel.
Finally approaching the gates the street became quieter, the mob being wary of the heavy guard of legionaries in full battle order posted outside.
Hortensius saluted their centurion. ‘Optio Hortensius escorting Senator Titus Flavius Vespasianus.’
‘Ah, senator,’ the centurion said, ‘there’s a man here been waiting to see you this last half-hour, says his name is Nathanial — he swam along the coast from the Jewish Quarter.’ He pulled a bruised and bleeding man forward. ‘We didn’t believe that he knew you at first,’ he added by way of explanation for the man’s looks.
‘Senator, you must help,’ the man said, stepping forward into the torchlight.
Vespasian peered at him and recognised the man whose brother had been murdered on the Canopic Way a few days before. ‘What do you want, Nathanial?’
‘You said that you would bring my brother’s killers to justice because you owed a favour to the Alabarch. As you know, they were spared so you still need to repay that favour.’
‘What of it?’
‘The Alabarch and his sons are besieged in a temple not far from here; they have a few men with them but they can’t last much longer. That preacher has allied his followers with the Greeks. The Alabarch sent me here, just before the building was completely surrounded, to ask for your help; will you come?’
Magnus raised his eyebrows and looked at Vespasian. ‘Well?’
‘Well, I owe him and I’d hate the thought of Paulus making his sport with him and his sons; we’ll go. And besides, we may get the chance to finish off that odious little fanatic.’
‘If we’re going, you ain’t going like that; a toga never kept Caesar alive in Pompey’s Theatre.’
‘You’re right, we should get properly armed. Hortensius, wait here with this man and have your men sharpen their blades, we won’t be long.’
Hortensius snapped a salute.
‘You can’t take legionaries into the Jewish Quarter, senator,’ the centurion protested.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it would be going against orders; the prefect has forbidden it.’
‘I’m sure he has, but has he forbidden senators from going in?’
The centurion looked nonplussed.
‘I’m going, centurion, and if Hortensius and his men don’t come with me then he will be breaking the prefect’s direct order to him to accompany me everywhere I go in Alexandria.’
The sound of fighting grew nearer as Vespasian, now shielded and wearing his bronze cuirass, led Hortensius and his men at a quick jog through wafting smoke into the Jewish Quarter with Magnus and Nathanial at his side. Heat from the fires all around had already caused him to break out into a sweat and his scalp prickled beneath the felt liner under his plain legionary helmet. Marcus Antonius’ sword slapped against his right thigh and tension flooded through his body as he contemplated using it in anger for the first time in the city where it had taken the life of its first master.
The presence of a unit of armed legionaries probing into what had hitherto been an authority-free zone caused the groups of pillaging Greeks in their path to drop the larger items of their spoils, looted from houses before they were torched, and run for the safety of side alleys. The occasional rock hurled at the soldiers as they passed clattered harmlessly off their shields but told of hostile intent.