prayed then, for God’s help, as he had prayed every night since she had become ill.
He still felt the pain, like some half-healed sword wound, of the day he had disowned her as his daughter. Yet she was his daughter and she had walked from the villa without another word, her chin held high and with an expression he had believed was contempt, but knew now had been pity. The true contempt had come from Valerius, and how could he blame his son when he himself had been in the wrong? Yet still his pompous patrician concept of dignity would not allow him to admit it. He had withdrawn to his villa and his hills and his olives, an empty husk of a man; empty of feelings, of dreams, even of hope. There he had wandered aimlessly and become old.
He touched Olivia’s head and recoiled at the clammy texture of her skin. Of course, she could never have come to him. He had no right to expect it, but he had dreamed of it every night. Every night he would go to the door of the villa and she would be there, smiling and asking his forgiveness. And in the dream, he gave it. And each morning when he woke he would despair, because he knew that even if she came, his true self would never allow him to do what was right.
When news came of the sickness, his first thought had been to go to her. Yet as his horse was being saddled all he could see were the long-nosed, disapproving patrician faces of men he had called his friends, and he heard a voice telling him that if he went he could never again call himself a Roman.
That was when the girl Ruth had been sent to him. She was only a slave, but her presence had opened a door and he had walked through it into the light of God, where Petrus had taught him that to forgive was a strength, not a weakness. He was still too proud to reveal his change of heart to Valerius, but from that day onward he had visited Olivia whenever it was possible. He had been planning to ask Petrus to help her when Valerius had tracked the healer down. Lucius had felt certain the Judaean would be able to cure her. Yet even that had not been enough. Now all hope was gone. What did they have left but despair?
He bowed his head, listening to the laboured rasp of her breathing. As his tears stained her coverlet a thin shaft of sunlight moved across the wooden floor to spotlight the deathly ivory of her features. It was only then that he understood God’s message. When all else is lost a man will always have his faith.
He still had his faith.
And now he knew what he must do.
XXXIII
They arranged to meet back at the water castle early the next morning and Valerius hurried to look in on Olivia before he gave his orders to Marcus and his men. When he reached the house he was surprised to find a slave holding a scroll which invited him to call upon Fabia Faustina.
By the time he returned home the sun was coming up. For reasons he didn’t understand the encounter had left him with the same feeling a blind man has on hearing the final piece slapped into place on a gaming board, not knowing whether he has won or lost. He had learned long ago in Britain not to ignore these instincts, but within minutes of reaching the house it was driven from his mind by a new crisis.
Olivia was gone.
He found Julia weeping on the bed and at first he feared the worst. The slave girl saw it in his face.
‘No, master, not that. It is…’ She shook her head, almost overcome with emotion, but Valerius didn’t have time to allow her tears. He took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes.
‘Tell me, Julia. What has happened to Olivia?’
She sniffed and blinked her eyes clear. ‘Your father… took her. He said she would die otherwise. I didn’t know what to think. He said, “This way, we will both be saved and gain entry to the Kingdom of Heaven.” What did he mean?’
Valerius felt his face harden. The old fool. But he had to be certain. ‘Those were the exact words he used, Julia? We will both be saved? You are certain?’
She nodded. ‘Certain, master.’
The exact words. The same expression Ruth had used to describe the rite of baptism. Lucius must have been driven mad by Olivia’s plight if he believed that to dip her beneath a freezing waterfall would save her. Now he had even more reason to track down Honorius’s water thief.
By the fifth hour he was back at the water castle with Honorius glowering like a man who had better things to do. Valerius had been tempted to go directly to the site of the former baths, but when he considered the matter further he couldn’t see any reason why the water should not have been siphoned off before the Glabrian link ended, and several reasons why it should.
‘The water flows down through that closed channel just below the parapet,’ he told Marcus and Serpentius, whom he had asked to accompany him. ‘You can see that it runs above ground for about two hundred paces down the hill before it disappears among the houses. I’ve had a look and there’s no set pattern to its course. Sometimes it’s buried beneath the street and runs under the buildings, sometimes it’s a mini-aqueduct and passes over or even through them. It depends on the terrain. That’s why we have to follow it. The only way we’ll know if the water’s still running is to check at one of the inspection hatches.’ He showed them a key Honorius had given him to help lift the big capping stones. ‘So we’ll inspect at regular intervals when we get the opportunity. There has to be a fair chance that the channel has collapsed somewhere along the line, so it may be quite close. But if it isn’t we’ll follow it to the end.’
‘What happens when we get there?’ Serpentius asked. ‘Maybe it’s time to be Praetorians again?’
Valerius shook his head at the Spaniard’s sudden enthusiasm for what he had once despised. ‘We have no idea what we’ll find. If it’s what I think it is, it will be hidden in some kind of building, but probably not a public one. We may have to knock on doors or we may have to go through windows. You wouldn’t want to do that in armour.’
Marcus grinned. ‘I doubt he’d mind one way or the other. It’s never stopped him before.’
‘Honorius will have men here if, for any reason, we need the supply cut off. If we have time, we’ll send someone back with word, but if not we use the old legionary signal system.’ Valerius pulled a polished metal disc from the sleeve of his tunic and raised it in the air so that it caught the sun. ‘Very simple. One flash for off, two flashes to restore the supply. The people here will give one flash to confirm. Understand?’ They nodded. ‘The tower is in direct line of sight from the south slope of the Viminal Hill, so that is where we’ll make the signal. The two water men in the tower have been told to watch for it and they’ve rigged up a new mechanism to open and close the gate.’
With a bow to the commissioner they set off down the track that ran alongside the conduit. This was a mere side line of Old Anio, but it had been built to last, with arches of mortared stone ten feet tall carrying a single channel two and a half feet wide. It was also in remarkably good repair, with signs of recent masonry work that made Valerius ever more certain they were on the right track. They found it simple to follow the undeviating course down the slope of the hill, but then their problems started. Once among the houses the aqueduct maintained its line, but sometimes between the apartment blocks and sometimes directly through them, where the builders had made the water channel part of the structure itself. At last they came to a halt.
‘It’s gone,’ the Spaniard said, looking at the building in front of them as if he expected the aqueduct to make a surprise appearance. ‘It goes in the back, but it doesn’t come out of the front. Maybe this is it?’
Valerius studied the insula. It was one of the smaller blocks in the area. ‘I suppose it’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right.’ He walked to the rear of the building, where the aqueduct undoubtedly entered at first floor level, and returned to the front where there was no sign it existed. They were about fifty paces from the Vicus Patricius and he followed what he thought was the channel’s line out on to the street until he found what he was looking for. He took the key Honorius had given him and placed it in the hole in the stone block which covered the inspection shaft. It was heavy, but even one-handed he could lift it far enough to see the water flowing beneath.
For the next two hundred paces they moved from shaft to shaft, scrabbling on the ground among the stinking open sewers, random dog shit and rotting fruit for the next one, until, without warning, the Glabrian link took to the air again and marched in arched leaps to the lower slopes of the Viminal where it disappeared once more — directly into the hill.
‘You think these people are moles?’ Marcus asked.
Valerius didn’t reply. He led them through the alleys at the base of the hill and round to where Honorius had
