and tucked inside urns in the tuff walls. It was newly finished. The columbarium was awaiting its first inhabitant.
Tiberius Claudius Balbilus put down his paintbrush. He disliked interruptions but he was used to them. Many sought him out.
He was in his thirties, a powerful-looking man with the olive skin of his half-Egyptian, half-Greek heritage, a large nose and a well-tended beard which was trimmed to a sharp point and made his face look like some sort of weapon or chisel tool. He had let his tunic go loose for comfort but before he climbed the stairs he cinched his belt and donned a cloak.
Balbilus entered the mausoleum by pushing open a concealed trapdoor. The walls were lined with the tombs and shrines of the wealthy. A fresh corpse, no more than a few weeks old, linen-wrapped and stuffed into a loculum, made the place reek of death. The mausoleum had been in his family for a few generations. It was a good, steady source of income, but because of his recent secret excavation it now had another purpose.
When his time came, he would rest there for eternity, not above ground with these so-called citizens but underground, among his own kind. His followers would rest there too. For the sake of space most would be cremated. But he and his sons and his son’s sons could be laid out – all their flesh, all their bones – in all their glory.
There was a solitary figure waiting for him, his face concealed by a hooded cloak. He bowed slightly to Balbilus and said, ‘The others are outside.’
Balbilus, together with this man, Vibius, emerged from a rear door into the cold December night. They were within a grove only a few paces off the Appian Way. The mausoleum was a rectangular building with a barrel- vaulted roof made of the finest bricks. Balbilus’s lavish villa lay on the other side of the grove.
The quarter-moon reappeared from behind a shroud of purple clouds. Five cloaked figures moved away from the darkness of the fruit trees. Balbilus lined them up like a military unit in front of the mausoleum wall.
‘I’ve studied the charts, and the stars favor action,’ Balbilus said, addressing the men. ‘Tonight we light a fire. Although it will be small at first it will spawn another one, and another and another until, one day, there will be a great conflagration that will consume the city. And when that happens we will gain wealth and power beyond our dreams. It is in the stars and I know it to be true. Tonight we will set the Romans against this new Christian cult. I can see in the stars that they will become powerful one day. Their message is seductive, like bread and circuses for the soul. The masses will, I fear, take to it like sheep. If we allow them to become too powerful they will be a formidable enemy. Vibius has my instructions. Tonight you will spill blood because …’ he took a breath for effect then spat out the rest ‘
And the men answered in unison, ‘
Balbilus left them and went back underground where his paintbrushes awaited him.
The six men moved out in silence. Making use of the concealment provided by the tombs and foliage bordering the Appian Way they headed north toward Rome.
After a while they came upon a dim radius of flickering light cast by pitch torches on either side of a broad postern gate. They flitted from shadow to shadow, getting closer.
The two Praetorians peered dispiritedly into the feeble pool of light and stamped their feet to keep warm.
Vibius made his move. He weaved onto the main road, garbling the words of a drinking song. The sentries became alert and stared as he emerged from the darkness, swaying gently. He stopped to take a swig from a bulging wine-bag.
Resuming his unsteady approach, he came to a stumbling halt, just beyond arm’s length from the stockier of the two sentinels.
‘Eh, lads, let me pass, will you?’ he slurred.
The soldier seemed to relax but he still kept his hand on the pommel of his short-sword.
‘It’s curfew hour, you drunken fool – all passage is forbidden.’
Vibius staggered a bit further forward, offering the wine sack. ‘Drink, my lords, as much as you want. I will pay you for entry. All’s I want is to get home.’
With his left hand he waved the bag in the guard’s face and when the soldier raised his arm to swat it away Vibius suddenly thrust his right hand upwards, gripping the long dagger he’d concealed beneath his robe. The blade pierced the underside of the guard’s chin and with a grisly crunch its point exited through the top of his head.
The second Praetorian didn’t have time to draw his weapon. Another cloaked man had crept through the shadows, clamped an arm around the guard’s chest and reached for his jaw with his free hand. With a violent motion the cloaked man jerked hard and there was a loud crack as the Praetorian’s vertebrae gave way.
Both corpses twitched on the cold ground, then went limp. The rest of the cloaked men converged on them and joined in a savage choreography.
When they were done with their sharp work, body parts floated in pools of blood like pieces of meat in a stew. Vibius reached inside his cloak and pulled out a silver medallion on a broken chain. It was the chi-rho monogram, the symbol of Christ. He dropped it into the blood and waved the men forward through the Porta Capena into the city of Rome.
The slums at the base of the Esquiline Hill were never quiet. Even late at night there was always enough shouting, drunken brawling and noise from crying babies to disturb the peace. Against this din, the clip-clop of donkey hooves and the clatter of cart wheels on cobblestones went unnoticed.
The cart driver hauled on the reins outside a seedy apartment block on a narrow side street where much of the plaster had fallen from the facade. Had they not been bribed into silence, the city engineers would have condemned the structure years ago.
The driver hopped down between the cart and the building and whispered, ‘We’re here.’
The straw heaped in the cart moved and an arm appeared, then a bearded head. A tall man climbed down and brushed the straw from his cloak. He looked haggard, much older than his thirty-eight years, his long hair liberally flecked with grey.
‘Up these stairs. Knock thrice at the door,’ the driver said and with that he was off.
The stairway was pitch black and the man had to find his way by probing with the tips of his sandals. At the top landing he reached out until he felt the rough wood of a door. He banged it gently with his fist.
He heard voices from inside and the sound of a scraping latch. When the door opened he was surprised at how many people were crammed inside the small candlelit room.
The man who opened the door stared at him and called over his shoulder. ‘It’s all right. It’s him.’ Then he took the visitor’s cool hand and kissed it. ‘Peter. We’re overjoyed you’ve come.’
Inside, Peter the Apostle was showered with goodwill as men and women sought to kiss him, give him water, make him comfortable on a cushion.
His visits to Rome were infrequent. It was the home of the enemy, too dangerous for casual travel. He never knew what mood the Romans might be in and whether he had a price on his head. It was only four years since Jesus’s murder but the Christians, as they were beginning to be called, a name Peter much preferred to ‘the Jewish cult’, were growing in numbers and were becoming an annoyance to Rome.
Peter took a bowl of soup from his host, a tanner named Cornelius, and thanked him.
‘How was your journey from Antioch?’ the tanner asked.
‘Long, but I enjoyed many kindnesses along the way.’
A young boy, no more than twelve, drew near. ‘You must miss your family,’ the tanner said, looking at his son.
‘I do.’
‘Is it so, that you were there when Jesus rose from the dead?’ the boy asked.
Peter nodded. ‘The women, they were the ones who found His tomb empty. I was called and I can bear witness, lad, that He did rise. He died for us and then God called Him to His side.’
‘How long will you stay among us?’ Cornelius asked, shooing the boy away.
‘A fortnight. Perhaps less. Just time enough to meet with the Elders and get the measure of this new Emperor, Caligula.’
Cornelius puckered his mouth. If he’d been on the streets, he surely would have spat. ‘He’s bound to be better than Tiberius.’
‘I hope you’re right. But in Antioch, travellers have told me the persecutions persist, that our brothers and
