other. Neapolis was within a day’s drive and the villa an hour beyond it. Another bump made him groan. His aged bones were not suited to this primitive form of travel. He thought of Petrus, and the Judaean’s burning eyes immediately relieved the pain that racked every part of his body. Petrus would be waiting for them.
Lucius didn’t fully understand why they were travelling to the villa, but Rome had become increasingly dangerous for a Christian. Would he have the strength to die for his faith? When he was in the presence of Petrus and worshipping with the other members of the sect he drew courage from them. Alone, he found it more difficult to be brave. Ruth had helped him to understand his weakness and to fight it. He didn’t realize how much he had needed her until she was gone. Seneca had sent her to him; he was fortunate to have the philosopher as a friend. At first Ruth had been just another slave, but goodness and beauty shone from her like the light from the sun, the moon and the stars combined. He had become infatuated with her, but he would never have admitted it to anyone. Now he was alone again and death frightened him. He smiled sadly. Not quite alone. Valerius was a good son who cared for his father. If it were not for Valerius he would have died along with Ruth. At one point he had even believed his son might be brought into God’s community, and saved. But the day of Ruth’s death had revealed a Valerius he could never reach. A man estranged from every god, Roman or Christian.
His son would have prevented him from making this journey, if he could, and might even now be attempting to overtake him. That was why he had ordered the driver to avoid the main route from Rome. Tomorrow, God willing, they would reach the villa, Olivia would be saved and his own soul placed for ever in God’s keeping.
Twenty-five miles to the west, Poppaea Augusta Sabina struggled to conceal her nerves. She had been sick twice already, but her illness had nothing to do with the motion of the enormous Liburnian galley. The ship was the fastest vessel afloat and could outrun any pirate who decided that the riches of an imperial convoy were worth the risk of taking on the heavy naval escort. No, the problem was what she had agreed to do. Was Nero really studying her with concern, or did the pale eyes hide a more sinister interest?
Fear made her mouth dry and she took another sip of wine. She lay on one of a pair of ornate cushioned couches in the shadow of a wide awning of gold cloth, cooled by the gentle salt breeze created by the ship’s motion. All she could think of was Petrus. Was he becoming reckless? Bad enough that the most hunted man in Rome had somehow infiltrated her quarters in the guise of a dealer in fine jewellery, but to ask her to host this ceremony… She had pleaded with him, but his voice and his eyes were so persuasive. Only by testing our faith and our courage can we truly come to God, he had said. Only by sacrifice will we gain the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. And she had agreed. It was as if he had hypnotized her with his talk of a new and better world, beyond the pain of this one.
She so wanted to be brave, but all she felt was trapped. Even if she went on her knees and confessed Nero would kill her along with the rest. He would do it quietly, out of the public eye, but she remembered the Christians, her Christians, being torn apart by the wild beasts. The girl trying in vain to save her child. At least that monster Torquatus wasn’t accompanying them. He had stayed behind in Rome to deal with some crisis, but that didn’t mean his spies would stop watching her.
‘You are very pale, my dear. Perhaps you would like to sleep?’
Poppaea flinched at the voice, even though this was Nero at his most charming. She declined his offer to have the sides of the pavilion dropped to give her privacy. She preferred to see the sun sparkle on the waves like a million tiny diamonds, watch the yellow-eyed gulls squabble over scraps in the wake and feel the soft breeze on her skin. Suddenly each second of life seemed more precious than before. How had it come to this?
Nero studied his wife with the detached interest of a collector of fine statuary. Torquatus had hinted at a dark secret, but with Torquatus it never did to accept denunciation without proof, unless, of course, it suited your own ends. One had to admire the Praetorian prefect’s commitment to the destruction of others. At another time he might have found the power struggle between them quite entertaining, but in his own way he had grown fond of Poppaea. Perhaps it was an effect of becoming older, but increasingly he found it difficult to maintain his enthusiasm for a life of constant excess. All he truly wanted was to sing upon a stage and receive the adulation he deserved. Instead, the gods had burdened him with responsibility for an Empire that encompassed more people than the census takers could count. Or perhaps not the gods. It was his mother who had set him on this path with her limitless ambition. The galley and the sea reminded him of Agrippina, and he felt that familiar twinge of regret that she was gone. Not guilt — the fault was her own — but, yes, regret that she was no longer here to guide him. If only she had supported him instead of trying to control him it would all have been so different.
Agrippina would have recognized the Christians for the threat they were. Foul creatures spreading their filthy philosophy across the land like so much manure, each dropping encouraging a new crop of rabble-rousers. What was it that drew people to them? How could men risk their lives at the behest of an obscure criminal whose words should have died with him on the cross? He had personally questioned Cornelius Sulla in an attempt to understand them better, but instead of begging for his life the man had tried to convert him. It was a kind of madness for which there was only one cure. The soldier, Valerius, had been given his opportunity to find the leader of the sect, but he would fail. A strange choice of investigator, but Torquatus had been most persuasive in urging his appointment. These Christians lived among the Judaeans like diseased cattle hidden in a herd, so the Judaeans would die and the Christians would be wiped out with them. Without the leadership of the Judaean Christians the sect would undoubtedly wither and die, but he intended to make an example of the Roman converts. He would squash them one by one the way a beggar crushes lice between his fingernails.
Poppaea, lying back pale and beautiful on the padded couch, watched as he resumed his place in the bow and took up the first of the songs with which he would astonish the people of Neapolis. She preferred the screaming of the gulls.
XXXVIII
White smoke wreathed the rocky headland a mile to the east and for a few moments it looked as if the whole length of the peninsula was ablaze. The captain of the small cargo ship noticed Valerius’s interest.
‘The Fields of Fire,’ he said morosely. ‘A terrible place where people say giants walk at night. A good landmark for a sailor, though. Even when you can’t see it for the mist you can smell the sulphur a mile away.’
Valerius thought the bay beyond the headland must be one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. A sweeping crescent of rugged cliffs and sandy inlets stretched almost as far as the eye could see, dominated by an enormous, steep-sided cone of a mountain clad in a ragged cloak of greens and browns. At the foot of the mountain nestled the city of Neapolis, a glittering ribbon of cream and ochre surrounded by the scattered white dots that represented the grand villas of rich Romans escaping the furnace of a Roman summer. Beyond the mountain, rugged peaks stretched into the distance and formed an imposing backdrop that glittered in the heat of the morning. The sea around the ship was a restless blanket of blue and aquamarine, broken by the outline of three islands which dotted it like jewels laid out on a piece of shimmering silk.
To Valerius’s surprise they sailed past the main port. ‘Too many tax collectors,’ the captain grunted. ‘See that floating brothel?’ He pointed to a golden ship larger than any other craft moored in the harbour. ‘It means your master’s in town and the place will be crawling with his guards. That’s the place you want over there.’ He pointed to a spot on the shoreline directly ahead where a river flowed into the sea, creating a natural harbour. ‘Oplontis.’
They landed thirty minutes later and Serpentius and Heracles unloaded their gear while Valerius and Marcus walked from the harbour into the town to find horses. They were directed to a stable beyond the walls, where Valerius negotiated the hire of four reasonably sound mares and asked directions to the villa owned by Poppaea’s family.
‘A mile south on the Pompeii road overlooking the sea. Big place. You’d have to be blind to miss it.’ The stableman laughed, eyeing Valerius’s expensive tunic. ‘They might even offer you a job, it being harvest time.’
Harvest time? Of course, why hadn’t he considered it earlier? All the way south Valerius had been trying to work out how Petrus would get his Christians into the villa unnoticed. Now he had his answer. Groups of itinerant farm workers would be travelling up and down the country from estate to estate supplementing the work of the local slaves. Petrus could turn up at Poppaea’s gate and her overseer would allow them in, feed them and house them in the slave quarters. It was perfect. They could pass Olivia off as a wife who had been taken ill on the journey.
