He walked over to the open trunk and looked inside. There was money. Lots of it. Gold, silver and gems. There were also scrolls. The scriptures of the so-called New Testament between God and man, comprised of four accounts of the life of Jesus by the disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the letters of Paul to the churches he established, and several from John, including the Revelation. Athanasius saw little use for them, so he set them aside and focused on three letters quite different from the others.
The first was on a heavy parchment, clearly official and with an imperial stamp. Athanasius read:
You will regard the bearer of this letter, my imperial interrogator, as my right hand, the hand of Rome, and do anything he instructs you without question, even so far as to take your own life.
His Excellency Flavius Titus Domitian
With a start Athanasius recognized the seal of Caesar, the same seal he recalled seeing at the palace only the night before. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Surely this was the key to open doors that Marcus had told him about.
But there was another letter, one written with symbols, the letter Galen had been trying to crack. The first line alone was unintelligible.
•> D• ^^ •| V D• > |•
This must be Chiron’s letter with his “further instructions,” Athanasius thought. Perhaps the real key unlocked this code.
But where?
He looked at his pouch with his knife kit and the elixir. He emptied it. There was nothing else there. Then he saw the tiny holes in the bottom of the pouch that he had first noted curiously back in the prison.
He removed the drawstring and flattened out the pouch on the back of a wax tablet. They created an odd pattern, as indistinguishable as the symbols on the letter from Chiron.
He picked up one of those poisoned little sticks and began to poke it though the holes of the flattened leather into the wax tablet. Then he removed the leather skin and stared. The dots were definitely set apart in groups.
• •
• •
• •
• •
• • • •
• •
• •
Staring at the pattern for a while, a pattern of space between the dots slowly began to appear. He drew a diagonal line between two groups, and then another intersecting line. The Chi symbol. But what of the grouping above? He drew the Ro and stared at the symbol of Chiron. The key.
Within an hour he was able to assign symbols to their counterparts in the Roman alphabet and translate the text. But upon reading it, he wished he hadn’t.
You are to direct the ship to make a stop on the island of Patmos. There you will present yourself with Caesar’s introduction to interrogate John the Apostle and then in private tell him what you know. He will then provide you with instructions and introduction to find sanctuary in the church of Asia Minor.
Athanasius was aghast. Go to Patmos? This was his mission? Escaping one prison in Rome only to march into the Roman garrison on the prison island of Patmos was not his idea of freedom.
Athanasius hoped Chiron’s last letter offered a better alternative. It was made of a flimsy papyrus and appeared to list several recipes and formulas. But they were not for food, Athanasius realized as he deciphered it, but for poisons and explosives.
Below are instructions on the poison and antidote favored by the Dei, assuming you have survived their first attempt on your life. Familiarize yourself with the smell, texture and even taste of these ingredients and compounds, if not for your own use then for your protection.
Athanasius felt light-headed. Surely this would not be his life.
One formula was for the Dei poison Galen had used on him, with various grades to delay the onset upon the victim by minutes or even hours. It appeared to be the standard formula found in Dei rings for suicide and on wooden sticks to quickly prick a target and kill him without a trace. The antidote, too, which Marcus had given him in advance, could be used as a prescription or remedy.
Most curious were the formulas for a flammable mud called maltha, which promised to stick to anything it touched, clinging to anyone who tried to flee, even to water, which merely made it burn more fiercely. Another compound, which combined quicklime, sulphur, naptha and saltpeter, promised to create a material capable of spontaneous combustion that could be thrown at enemies and explode on impact.
Athanasius put the last letter down and looked at the corpse of Galen on the floor and could picture his own face, his own end. He felt like falling to his knees and sobbing, but he was no longer prone to displays of emotion because he hardly had any left. The reality was that he had nothing more in life but these so-called presents from a dead tribune, given to advance him into a future of death. Yet they were all he had to work with, he knew. Somehow he had to put them to good use. Starting now, here on this ship bound for Ephesus.
Obviously, as Maximus and Galen had proven, he could trust no one in Rome or the Dei. If Ludlumus or Domitian figured out that he had in fact escaped and another man was executed in his place in the Coliseum, the Romans would surely go after his family in Corinth, if that order hadn’t been given already. He had to get to them first and warn them to flee.
Several hours later, just after midnight, Athanasius was pacing the deck under the stars and found Captain Andros talking to the helmsman in the tiller house, his face dark and brooding like the Ionian Sea upon which they were crossing.
“That was quite a show you put on for the officers at dinner, Tribune,” the captain said. “I didn’t know a knife could do so many things to a fish.”
Athanasius noticed the helmsman look away from him in fear and get back to his tiller. The Pegasus had a double-oar rudder system, with cables attached to the main tiller to allow the helmsman to turn both oars at the stern simultaneously. The system of levers and cables enabled him to control the Pegasus in strong currents and rough weather, although tonight it was smooth sailing.
Athanasius said, “I didn’t want the troops to think the emissary of Caesar stayed mostly to himself and took his meals in his cabin. And I wanted to get a good look at them all. Has Galen turned up yet?”
“No,” the captain said. “He must have grasped your suspicions and slipped overboard when we passed an island and swam for it.”
Athanasius shrugged. “Small fish,” he said. “I have bigger in Corinth. How much longer until we arrive?”
“Tomorrow morning we reach the Gulf of Corinth. But it will take another day to make our way through to the harbor,” the captain said. “Then it is a full day to cross the isthmus to the Saronic Gulf and begin the second leg of our journey to Ephesus. You will have only ten hours in Corinth if you plan on doing an interrogation.”
“A full day is more than enough time.”
“You know Corinth then?”
“No, not really,” said Athanasius quickly. He didn’t want to give the captain the impression he was overly familiar with his hometown. “Stopped over once before, like now. But the local garrison will have someone waiting to drive me where I need to go.”
“But, of course, Tribune,” the Greek said grimly before leaving him alone to his thoughts beneath the stars.
Athanasius waited until he was gone before heading back inside his cabin to drag out Galen’s corpse. He had wrapped him in a blanket and tied him to a two-handled amphora full of grain. He dropped him over the side, watching the Dei man quickly sink beneath the wake of the Pegasus to the bottom of the sea.