after the murder of Caracalla? Of course, the fool had turned it down.
Yet, as with everything, Censorinus' meteoric rise had had its price. The glow of self-satisfaction died as he moved the papers and reached for the book he had been reading. In the exalted circles that he now inhabited, it was necessary to grasp any allusion to the poetry of Homer. Reluctantly opening the commentary on the Iliad for children, the Princeps Peregrinorum again began to painfully unpack the nearly 16,000 lines of arcane dactylic hexameter verse. The early morning on-shore breeze had almost blown the smell of corruption from the port; almost, but not quite. It was getting on for three years since Ballista had been in Seleuceia in Pieria. He had passed though there on his way to Arete. Some things had changed since then. The collapsed jetty had been rebuilt. The naval ship sheds had been given a lick of paint. There were far more vessels, both warships and merchantmen. It was no longer a backwater. It had a bustle to it. Yet the presence of the imperial court just up the road at Antioch had not changed everything. The wide polygonal harbour was still full of decomposing rubbish. It bobbed and floated up against the docks, entangled the buoys. There was one dead dog there, and any number of deceased rats. Presumably, Ballista thought, the long, dog-legged canal that connected the manmade harbour to the Mediterranean prevented the sea getting in to cleanse it.
The two men were standing on the military dock next to the warship that would take them to Ephesus. She was called the Venus and, near her ram, boasted a well-rounded figurehead of the goddess, naked. The Venus was a trireme, a long, narrow galley rowed by nearly two hundred men seated on three levels. Crowded and uncomfortable, less than seaworthy in a storm, the Venus was designed with just one purpose in mind: to catch and sink other ships. She was ordered to cruise up the Aegean to Byzantium looking for pirates from the Black Sea – Goths, Borani, Heruli. On her way she was to deliver the new vicarius to the Governor of Asia to Ephesus. From the ship came intermittent barked orders and a steady undercurrent of swearing. Ballista watched the men swarming over her decks, stowing away spare oars, cordage and tackle, and generally getting her ready for sailing. Maximus ran his eye appraisingly over the figurehead.
A particularly florid burst of swearing, and a large, domed skull rose up the gangway. A moment later, Calgacus' thin, pinched face appeared. As usual, the Caledonian's muttering was perfectly audible. 'No, no… it's quite all right. You two just stand there and take it easy. No way I need a hand with all your kit and forty fucking attendants to get onboard.' Then, in a somewhat different tone but at exactly the same volume, 'One of the sea- chests is missing, but most of the attendants are in their quarters.'
'Well done,' said Ballista. 'You are not overdoing it, are you?'
Instead of answering, Calgacus gave Ballista a withering stare and turned to stump back on board. 'Ha, fucking ha,' floated behind him.
The Caledonian had been exaggerating wildly. Ballista had tried very hard to keep the numbers down. But Roman ideas of what was fitting had not let him get away with fewer attendants than he had possessed when he was Dux Ripae. So there were six viatores to run messages, four scribae, two praecones to announce him and two haruspices to read the omens in the pecking of chickens and the livers of slaughtered animals. Fourteen in all. Two of them, the North African scribe and a messenger from Gaul, had been with him since he first left Italy for the east. As was his custom, he had appointed Demetrius accensus, to run his staff. Presumably that was where the Greek boy was now.
'Here they come,' said Maximus.
Ballista turned but did not see them. His eyes were drawn upward by the zigzagging alleys and staircases flanked by jumbled houses which climbed towards the acropolis and the stark Doric temple which dominated the city of Seleuceia. Behind were the scarred, grey-white slopes of Mount Pieria.
'No, over there,' said Maximus.
They were much nearer than Ballista had expected. The blue litter was flanked by the two ex-gladiators still employed as household guards. It was carried by eight porters. Ballista felt a flick of irritation. Possibly Julia was reverting to type – the senator's daughter who could not even walk the few minutes down from the house where they had stayed to the dock.
The porters grounded the litter. A hand pulled back the curtain. Ballista stepped over to give his wife a hand. Julia stumbled slightly as she got out. Steadying her, Ballista was surprised by her weight. It did not trouble him. He had always liked his women rounded. He reached in and lifted out his son. He was not in the least surprised by his weight as he swung him through the air. He was well aware that Isangrim was big for six. Ballista kissed him on the forehead and, with a slight grunt of effort, set him on his feet. Allfather, how many more of these partings? Ballista had asked permission for his family to accompany him to Ephesus. Denying it, Valerian had stated that women and children might be upset witnessing the rigours of a determined persecution.
Ballista still had no more idea why he had been chosen than he had had in the consilium. Julia, well-versed in the ways of the court, had not been able to find out either. Even Cledonius professed himself unsure. No one could fathom the warmth with which Macrianus had urged the appointment. Ballista had begun to mistrust the intimacy between his wife and the ab Admissionibus slightly. As they walked along the dock, he put the thought aside. Julia and Cledonius had a shared background, he was married to one of her many second cousins, and they understood the inner circles of the imperium in a way the big northerner knew that he never would.
They reached the ship. It was time to go. Ballista crouched down by his son and hugged him, burying his face in the blond curls. He breathed in the smell of clean skin and hair, willing himself to remember it. He whispered in the native tongue he had been so insistent Isangrim should learn. 'Be brave. Look after your mother.'
As Ballista went to stand, Isangrim held out a hand. The boy unclenched his small fist. Inside, rather crumpled, were two leaves. 'We can put them in our wallets.' His solemn blue eyes looked up at his father. 'We can look at them to remember.' Not trusting himself to speak, Ballista looked down and busied himself putting his leaf away safe.
Ballista drew Julia to him. He kissed her gently on the lips. This time he spoke in Latin. 'Take care. I will be back as soon as I can.'
She leaned close. 'You take care.' Her lips were close to his ear. 'When you come back you will be a father again.'
Ballista felt the strange lurch that all men feel when told that. 'When?'
Julia smiled. 'Towards the end of the year.'
For a moment Ballista nearly said that he would kill the Christians quickly, but stifled the inappropriate and probably ill-omened words. He looked into her eyes. 'Good. Take care,' he said simply.
It was time to go. He turned and walked aboard the ship, his boots ringing hollowly on the gangplank.
XV
The theatre of Ephesus can be seen from miles out at sea. The Venus came out of the early morning mist and there it was, directly ahead, its marble cladding gleaming white, its geometrical simplicity drawing the eye from the architectural complexity that surrounded it.
It had been an unexceptional and unhurried voyage. As was the preferred way with oared warships, each night they had moored, for the crew to eat and sleep ashore. Only when crossing from mainland Syria to Cyprus, then later from that island to Rhodes, had they been forced to sail in cramped discomfort through the hours of darkness. They had lingered for several days in New Paphos, the provincial capital of Cyprus, and again in the decorous city of Rhodes.
Ballista was in no hurry to reach Ephesus. It was not that he had any grave doubts about the rightness of persecuting Christians. As Valerian had said, they were dangerous atheists, and their continued existence threatened Roman defeat in the coming war with the Sassanids. Ballista himself had found out that the members of the cult were not to be trusted. Yet it was not the same as a military command. To be a vicarius, deputizing for the governor of an unarmed province and chasing civilians, was a different matter entirely – no matter how vile and depraved the civilians, no matter how very deserving of persecution – from being a Dux on a wild frontier, commanding troops and facing a daring enemy in arms.
And there was what Julia had said. No matter how settled, how emotionally and financially capable, how ready one was, it took some getting used to the idea. Ballista wondered if he had the capacity to love another child as he loved Isangrim.
