should have done so sooner. In the meantime, I hope you are not too uncomfortable? I see you have a curtain for some privacy.'
'It is not for privacy,' interjected Aulus. 'I erected it myself. She is another heretic, a follower of Apollos, a long-damned local heresiarch. The curtain is to prevent her spreading contagion to those of the true church confined here.'
Behind the curtain the child started to cry. The woman went to soothe it. Aulus laughed. Anger rising in him, Ballista turned on his heel and left.
Back in the civic agora, standing outside in the fresh air by the Bouleuterion, Ballista called the head gaoler over. The anger hot in him, Ballista spat out orders. No visitors were to be admitted to the Christians. No one was to take in food, drink, lamps, clothes, bedding; above all, no books. Let them live on prison fare, nourish themselves with prayer. Any gaoler found breaking these orders, found taking a bribe, would be treated as a Christian suspect. He would find himself on the rack, heading for the arena. The cells were to be searched; any luxuries, anything treasonous, was to be confiscated. Aulus Valerius Festus and the old fool who talked in tongues were to be thrown in the deepest dungeon.
Ballista paced furiously back and forth across the Stoa Basilica. The old man would probably die in there. Maybe the equestrian would too. Perhaps they all would. Good. Most likely it was what they wanted anyway. Fuck them. The Christian woman? Fuck her too. Fuck them all. Christians to the lion.
But the woman had a child. The boy must be what? About a year old. Two days earlier, news had reached Ballista from Antioch: he had a second son. Born five days before the kalends of December, the boy was healthy, the mother doing well. Imagine if the fates had been different. What if Julia and the boy were imprisoned? What – a more horrible thought than any – if Isangrim were in the dark hell of an imperial gaol?
'Wait!' Ballista looked away, beyond the civic agora, beyond the red-roofed houses climbing the slopes. He looked up to the bare mountainside above, where the grey slabs of rock thrust through the greenery. It was nothing like his homelands in the north, but it was untouched by the imperium. It was wild and free. It was clean. That bastard Corvus was right: Ballista hated this. It was not even as if the people he was persecuting seemed to belong to the same sect as the bastard who had betrayed him in Arete. He was caught between Scylla and Charybdis: on the one hand, the self-righteous intransigence of the Christians; on the other, the implacably cruel imperial orders and the inhuman gloating of the pagan mob. What was Ballista doing to these Christians? What was he doing to himself?
As he rescinded his orders, Ballista made a vow to himself. That very day, he would send the woman and child to a comfortable place of exile, one as safe as he could find. Then he made another vow to himself, a much more dangerous one: the persecution in Ephesus would stop. He could not order it. But there must be a way to make the process fail, to bring it grinding to a halt.
Ballista thought of the volatile crowd in the stadium at Ephesus. He thought of the riot in the hippodrome in Antioch. Yes, there was a way. The first duty of a governor was public order. He was the vicarius to a governor. Therefore, his first duty must be public order. He knew the sophistry would not save him if he were caught. It was ridiculously dangerous. But a man has to have a code to live by. A man has to live with himself. It was an upmarket brothel, just across from the library of Celsus in the centre of town. Maximus had chosen it. He had been there once or twice, not enough to be a regular. The high prices meant it was seldom very full, and he had wanted somewhere quiet to talk to Calgacus about the very dangerous thing they would do the next day.
'Do you know what she said to me?' Maximus beamed.
'No, I do not.' Calgacus' tone and demeanour showed a supreme lack of interest.
'She said' – Maximus drew himself up to his full height – 'she said I was the best she ever had.' He raised his arms from his sides, spread them wide. He half turned, first one way then the other; a victorious gladiator basking in the applause, waiting for the palm of victory.
'Interesting – her only speaking Aramaic, and you not knowing a word of that language.'
Maximus grinned. 'Oh, brother, I could tell – that is what she was trying to say in her funny lingo.'
When there was no response, Maximus dropped his trousers and undergarment to his ankles. Lifting his tunic, he took the next seat to Calgacus in the communal lavatory.
The brothel really was upmarket – it had running water. Maximus leant forward and picked up the sponge on a stick from the trough in front of him. He fidgeted with it. 'Sure, but I have almost got used to the Roman habit of having company when you shit.'
'I cannot tell you how happy that makes me,' Calgacus replied.
Although they were the only two in the privy, Maximus looked all round in an unconscious parody of shiftiness. Reassured that there was no one else there, he bent over to Calgacus and spoke quietly. 'Did you see your man?'
'Aye.'
'And…?'
'It was good.'
Maximus replaced the sponge. 'I still say it is a mistake of the Dominus to involve one of the factiones from the theatre.' He held up his hand to forestall an interruption from Calgacus that did not come. 'I grant you, the theatre gangs have the organization to get the numbers out. They are always up for trouble. There is never a riot in any city in the imperium and them not behind it – although why they usually get so worked up about some mincing dancers who have probably been taking it up the arse since they could crawl I cannot see. No, your problem is that they are too well known. Everyone knows who is the head of each factio. It makes an easy trail. The frumentarii find your man. He leads them to you. Then you lead them to Ballista. And then I am next to the pair of you in the palace cellars with someone dancing on my bollocks.'
'Aye, all life is a risk.'
'Until just now, only you, me and Ballista knew the plan. Not even Demetrius knew. Now, half the idlers in Ephesus must know.' He picked up the sponge again. 'And if we were going to a factio,' Maximus continued, 'it should have been me that talked to the head man.'
There was a horrible grating, wheezing sound. Calgacus was laughing. 'Wonderful, a half-witted Hibernian with the end of his nose missing – what could be more inconspicuous?'
Maximus bridled. 'And what about you, you old fucker? An ugly old Caledonian with a face that could turn milk at a hundred paces, fucking great dome of a head.'
'I wore a hat,' Calgacus said simply. 'Anyway, when do I get to leave the proconsul's palace? Next to no one in Ephesus knows me. My man has been well paid. How did you get on?'
With an instantaneous change of mood that even the briefest acquaintance revealed as quite customary, Maximus grinned again. 'As you would expect from a man of my qualities – wonderful. Five wild boys from Isauria. They would cut their own mothers' throats for a few coins. And, the best of it is, they sail with the evening breeze tomorrow.'
'If they are they still alive and the frumentarii have not got them.'
'Brother, your cup is always half empty.'
'Maybe so, but as we may well not be able to tomorrow – you know, us being dead or on the rack – tonight I am going to have a few drinks and a lively-looking girl.'
They both got up and began to clean themselves with two of the sponges.
'Poor girl, but sure, you have the right of it. And tomorrow is Saturnalia. Back when I was a gladiator, I always enjoyed myself the night before a fight.' Maximus tossed his sponge back into the trough of running water. 'I think I am ready for another – that plump little Syrian. It is good of you to offer to pay.'
'I did not.'
As they adjusted their clothing, Maximus spoke softly again. 'Just so it is fixed in my mind, when do we start?'
'How many times do you have to be told? When they bring Aulus Valerius Festus, the Christian with equestrian status, into the arena.'
XXI
