Fabia had said Poppaea would complete the journey overland, while Nero stayed in Neapolis to prepare for his performance the following night. She would travel with only her own personal retinue, stay at the villa for two nights, then return to celebrate his triumph with him. If Valerius’s calculations were correct, that meant she was already at the house.
They walked back to the harbour through narrow streets that sloped down towards the sea, stopping for a drink at a public fountain close to a bakehouse. The water burbled and trilled as it fell from the pipe into a cistern and Valerius drank deeply from a cup scooped from the pool. His nose caught the scent of baking bread and he bought two loaves and handed one to Marcus.
As they emerged from the arcade into the sunshine he felt a slight tremor. ‘What was that?’
Marcus felt it too, but he only shrugged. ‘They must be milling the grain. Sometimes you can feel it in the next street when one of those big grinders is working.’
As they walked away they didn’t notice that the flow from the pipe supplying the fountain had slowed to a trickle.
The steward stared suspiciously at the travel-stained, bearded figure in the thick robe. If his mistress wished to speak to the man alone there was little he could do about it, but what she had to say to an impoverished wandering labourer was entirely beyond him.
Petrus allowed himself a smile as the man bowed low and backed out of the room. ‘Am I really so repellent?’ he asked Poppaea.
‘You said no one would be aware of your presence, yet the first thing you do is ask for an audience.’ Poppaea tried to hide her anger. Her feelings for Petrus alternated between something close to worship and intense irritation at the casual way the Judaean played with other people’s lives. ‘That was hardly the act of someone who wished to keep his existence here a secret. Remember, you do not only place your own life in danger, but mine and many others.’
He bowed in acknowledgement of the rebuke. ‘I merely wished to pass on my thanks for your hospitality.’
Poppaea frowned. She would never accuse Petrus of lying, but sometimes omission could be just as great a sin. What he didn’t say was that his presence in this chamber increased his hold on her, and her reliance on him, in equal measure. She could never deny knowing him as long as the steward lived. Once, that complication might have been swiftly dealt with, but Petrus taught that all human life was sacred. ‘When will you carry out the ceremony?’
‘Your mother and father…?’
‘Are already on the way to Neapolis to greet the Emperor.’
‘And the servants?’
‘I have made arrangements. Only one or two remain and unless I call for them they will not dare to come near the pool.’
‘Then the ceremony will take place once the moon has risen. You will be baptized and brought into the community of God and your soul will be taken into his keeping. God will live within you and you will live for ever with God’s blessing.’ Poppaea closed her eyes and a wave of relief washed over her. Never again would she need to fear Nero.
‘And the others will know nothing of it?’
‘They have never heard the name Poppaea,’ he assured her. ‘Nor do they know exactly where they are. Only that I have been given the use of the villa while the owners are elsewhere. They will be taken into God’s keeping in a separate ceremony.’
She sniffed, blinking away a tear. ‘I still do not understand why they needed to be here.’
‘Because baptism carries with it duties and obligations.’ His voice was gruff but gentle. ‘By agreeing to share your salvation with others less fortunate, and allowing them to witness it, you have proved yourself worthy of inclusion in God’s church. By your willingness to place your life in peril, you have already become closer to God. We will be gone before sun-up and you may tell your steward that I vexed you in some way and you dismissed us all.’
Poppaea nodded. ‘Tonight then.’
He smiled. ‘Tonight.’
‘They like their privacy,’ Serpentius said.
‘That usually means they have something to hide,’ Marcus agreed.
Valerius studied the villa complex from the hillside. Serpentius was right. A high wall surrounded the buildings, but the owners had ensured they could not be overlooked from the hill by planting large trees at regular intervals around the inner perimeter of the wall. The combination looked daunting, but he knew it was an illusion. The twin barrier had been created to stop people from looking in, not breaking in. The three men were dressed in civilian clothing, with light summer cloaks to hide the fact that they were fully armed. Heracles joined them after leaving the horses, fed and watered, in the shade of a nearby olive grove.
‘How long to get us over the wall, Serpentius?’ Valerius asked.
‘About twenty seconds.’ The Spaniard grinned. ‘The trees mean we can’t see them, but also that they can’t see us. I can get us inside just about anywhere.’
Valerius focused on the little he could see through the trees. He guessed that every olive tree, barley field and vineyard between here and the town was owned by the people who lived in the villa and that was where most of the slaves would be working. A twinkle of reflected sunlight alerted him to a potential threat. Not the sun glinting on a blade or spear point, but on water. A pool. Which meant… Now he saw it, camouflaged against the same grey stone that formed the hillside, an aqueduct that cut through the trees about five hundred paces away. An aqueduct that supplied the pool and its waterfall.
‘We go over there.’ Valerius pointed to where the aqueduct met the wall. He looked up at the sky, which was a clear blue dome. ‘When the sun reaches its highest.’
As they rested in the shade, Valerius’s eyes never left the villa complex below. Somewhere down there, behind the white wall and hidden by the trees, Lucius and Olivia waited. He had cursed his father as a fool for getting involved with the Christians, but could he really blame him for doing what he believed was right to save her life? Whatever happened, he had to get them out safely. He reached for the boar amulet at his neck, then remembered he had given it to Olivia. Would he live to regret it? If Fabia had been wrong and Poppaea had brought her imperial bodyguard, the whole thing had the potential to turn into a bloody disaster.
XXXIX
Deep beneath the mountain, in a process which had begun many millions of years earlier, the western tip of one of the fourteen major plates which make up the world’s surface had reached a point where the pressure creating its momentum was insufficient to overcome the resistance of the crust through which the fifty-mile-deep slab usually travelled at a rate of one inch every year. Normally, the tip would have been pushed deep underground to be melted into fiery magma by the heat from the earth’s core. In this case it would remain locked in place until the pressure behind it could build up a force powerful enough to shift it into motion again. Already, the pent-up energy was making the earth’s crust creak with the strain. When the shift happened, the giant plate would cover in a single instant the distance it would normally take ten years to travel. That moment was fast approaching.
They made their way diagonally across the hillside. To Valerius’s left the mountain, with its coat of vines and olive trees, rose steeply until the peak was lost in a shimmering haze. To his right, the slope became gentler as it fell away towards a turquoise sea that had never looked more welcoming. The intense heat was suffocating. Even Serpentius, who had been brought up among the sun-bleached hills north of Astorga, complained that if it became any hotter he would melt away. Rocks scorched by the sun reflected and magnified its power until it seemed every drop of moisture was being sucked from their bodies. Sweat soaked their clothing and ran into their eyes, creating salty deposits that quickly turned to grit and made them squint all the harder into the unyielding glare. After what seemed like an eternity, they gathered in the shadow beneath the final stone arch before the aqueduct crossed the wall into the villa gardens.
