A pandering fool, Gratus thought. How fitting that he arrived under the banner of the preening whores of the Curia.
With the unwelcome assistance of the lictor, Gratus made it to his foyer in time for the entry of the bald man and a pair of his guard.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Gratus said in a tone meant to convey that the visitors’ arrival was neither pleasurable nor welcome.
“The pleasure belongs only to the legate in Antioch, Valerius Gratus,” the bald man said with a presumption of familiarity that the prefect found infuriating.
“What word does he send?” Gratus grumbled.
“That you are to vacate this residence and return to Rome by the swiftest conveyance and shortest route you can manage,” the bald man said, handing a scroll tied with a purple ribbon to the lictor, who accepted it with gravity.
An Imperial decree. Gratus’s mind swung between anxieties over what being recalled to the capital upon orders from Tiberius might mean and a white-hot rage at the impertinence of this bold stranger in his fancy boots.
“And who shall serve as prefect in my absence?” Gratus managed a snarl.
“I shall take that station permanently as of this moment.” The bald man met Gratus’s gaze with cold defiance.
“And might I know your name, you brazen bastard?” Gratus squealed, his fear taking voice.
“Pontius Pilatus,” the man said with maddening authority.
51
Paris in the Now
An early snow fell like feathers from a slate-gray sky closing low over the city. The flakes melted within seconds of touching sidewalks and rooftops and were hardly noticed by pedestrians, except for a few who raised umbrellas purely out of reflex. Tires swished on the busy streets now made damp with melt. Passing cars created updrafts that lifted the flurries in swirls and eddies of white stipples. Drivers set their wipers at low to brush the swirling wisps from their view.
Daniel and Sydney Hochheiser of Alberta, Canada were wheeling a stroller past storefronts bright with the color and lights of seasonal decorations. Their son lay bundled and reclining in the basket of the stroller, looking up with wide eyes at the snowflakes dropping through the blinking multi-hued glow of bulbs strung over the street. Music blared from unseen speakers, playing songs of the season unfamiliar to the couple, such as “Petit Papa Noël” and others, like “Le Petit Renne au nez Rouge,” recognizable by melody.
“I always hated Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” Caroline said. “But it actually sounds lovely in French.”
“I know what you mean. But no one murders rock and roll like the Frogs,” Dwayne said.
She hugged his arm closer and pressed her cheek to his shoulder.
“You actually made good on your promise of pure vacation time in Paris,” she said. “And at Christmas.”
“I don’t remember ever making that promise. But we have a clean slate again. We’re brand new Canadians. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.”
“What do you think when you see the decorations and hear the carols?”
“I think mission accomplished.”
“Morris says that there’s really no way to tell if that’s true or not. We can’t know if events would have played out exactly as they did without the part the team played in it.”
“Your brother will find his stocking filled with coal one morning.”
“Morris isn’t what I’d call a believer.”
“I know. I’ve heard him and Chaz going round and round about it,” he said, levering the stroller gently off a curb. They crossed a broad avenue, the tourist crowd swirling around them at a brisker pace. Dwayne and Caroline moved in their own time.
When they reached the opposite curb, he tilted the stroller back. Stephen sat up, gripping the wall of the stroller to peek over the side. Caroline broke her grip on Dwayne’s arm to press him back and re-cover him with the blanket. The infant tore the knit toque from his head and threw it to the damp sidewalk with a laugh. Caroline stooped to retrieve it and brush it on her coat.
“He’s a terror,” she said, pulling the cap tightly on Stephen’s head and tying it in place under his chin.
“That’s my boy.” Dwayne grinned.
“Do you feel cheated? Stephen is eight months old. You missed all that time with him.”
“I missed his first words. That sucks. But I knew married guys on deployments so long their kid was nothing but a belly bump when they left. By the time they got back, the kid ran to meet them at the airport.”
“Do you think it matters at this age?”
“To me? Hell, yeah. To him? Time means nothing.”
“You can make almost any mistake right if you try hard enough. But you can never make up lost time,” she said.
“You see that on a t-shirt?” He glanced at her.
“I heard someone say it. It stuck with me.”
“Sounds like some gloomy shit, Caroline.”
“Language,” she said, nodding to the baby.
“Sorry. Gloomy merde. That better?”
They turned onto Avenue Bosquet and mid-block, Caroline stopped before Number 33.
“This is the place you told me about?” Dwayne said.
The ground floor was a storefront for a mobile phone store now. A second entrance had been added to allow access to apartments or condos on the floors above. A row of mailboxes was visible through the heavy glass of the entry door. A pair of bicycles leaned against a wall of the tiled hallway.
“It’s not the same,” she said. “Everything changes. That’s the way it should be, I guess.”
“Unless we have to change it back.” He smiled, but she didn’t see it. Caroline could not turn to him, could not let him see her face. She knew it would betray her thoughts of the last time the two of them stood here, a time Dwayne would not recall as it had not happened to him yet.
“Excuse me,” a voice addressed them in English. “I hoped to find you here.”
They both turned. Dwayne stepped forward to place himself between the stroller and the
