sisters are still being tortured and killed.’
Cornelius smiled fatalistically. ‘A few years ago we were rounded up for being Jews. Now we’re rounded up for being Christians. Unless we kiss the Emperor’s ass and pray to Jupiter, we’ll continue to be rounded up.’
‘What pretext are the authorities employing?’ Peter asked, munching a piece of bread.
‘There’ve been some killings. Citizens have been found cut to pieces with our symbols and monograms discovered nearby.’
Peter sighed and put down his bowl. All eyes in the room were on him. ‘We all know that such atrocities can have nothing to do with the followers of Our Lord. Ours is a religion of love and peace – only one sacrifice has been made for it, that of the Christos Himself, and His cruel death has atoned for our sins for all eternity. No, this slaughter must be the work of some evil force at large in this world of conflict and torment. Let us say some words in prayer now. Tomorrow we can begin to discuss what must be done.’
In the cattle stall the two brothers lay close to each other under their blanket on the straw.
The younger boy began to cry, softly at first, then louder.
Quintus opened his eyes. ‘Shut up! What’s wrong with you? I was asleep!’
‘I’m scared,’ sobbed Sextus.
‘Quiet! Someone might hear you.’ The boy’s sobs continued unabated and Quintus took a different approach. ‘Of what?’
‘I’m afraid witches will get us.’
‘Don’t be silly. Everyone knows witches only live in the countryside. They won’t come into town. The soldiers would hunt them down and kill them.’
‘What about the Lemures?’
Quintus became defensive, as if he wished his brother hadn’t reminded him of their existence.
Lemures, the ones with tails, the kinless and hungry ghosts which skulked around houses and feasted on humans.
‘You’re a little idiot,’ Quintus said. ‘Lemures don’t hang around cattle pens. Settle down and sleep. We have a long journey tomorrow.’
‘You promised we had a short journey,’ moaned the child.
‘Short, long, don’t think about it, just go to sleep!’
Sextus was in the midst of a nightmare. He was desperately trying to run through a swamp to escape a demon. He frantically struggled from the wraith’s grasp and floundered in the muck. As sticky warm mud splashed his face, he felt the demon grabbing at his legs, pulling him under. Swamp water covered his face. He gasped for air but a coppery liquid coursed down his throat.
Mercifully, he awoke.
Then the true nightmare began.
He turned his head. A man was straddling his brother’s chest plunging a dagger into him. A crimson jet spurted from a great rent in his neck. It was spraying hot blood over Quintus’s face and was dribbling into his own mouth.
‘Quintus!’
There was enough moonlight to see the attacker’s cloak and tunic bunched and riding up his waist. Something was coming out of his back, dancing and flicking in the air.
A great weight compressed him and stifled further cries. A man was on his chest too. A man with dead eyes. When he saw the knife slashing towards his neck he clenched his eyes shut, praying he was still asleep.
The dismemberment and butchery was done quickly. ‘Put their heads under the straw but don’t hide them too well,’ Vibius commanded. ‘Wrap everything else in burlap. Make eight parcels and be sure that each contains a hand or a foot.’
The assassins moved down an alleyway toward one of the shops adjoining the cattle market, toting the gruesome products of their work. They stopped at an open windowsill which during the day became a waist-high counter. It was a butcher shop, the only one in the alley marked with the Christian dove.
Vibius stepped onto the cupped hands of a compatriot and was boosted up and over the counter. He dropped soundlessly to the rough-hewn floor and crept toward the rear of the room, stopping in his tracks when he heard loud, guttural rasps.
He inched forward slowly until he was able to peer past the curtain at the back of the shop. The butcher was snoring loudly, an empty jug of wine tipped over beside his bed. Vibius eased his grip on his sword.
Assured that the wine-sodden man was well asleep, he retraced his steps to the window.
He unlatched the door of the meat safe set into the stone wall under the counter, reached inside and began passing cool wrapped packages out the window to waiting hands.
He replaced them with parcels of warm, fresher meat. When was done he vaulted through the window and found the shadows again.
It was dawn when Balbilus finished his fresco but underground he was untouched by the winter sunshine. The oily vapors from the lamps burned his lungs but it was a small price to pay for the satisfying night of work. Vibius had reported back with the news that blood had indeed been well spilled. The Christians would be accused of the massacre of Rome’s finest, a couple of Praetorians. And even more heinously, they would now also be accused of killing Roman children and selling their flesh. In addition, the fresco was to his liking.
Could the new day be more auspicious?
Again, the thud of iron on stone.
At the top of the stairs Vibius opened the hatch and whispered something down to him.
‘Agrippina? Here?’ Balbilus asked incredulously. ‘How is that possible?’
Vibius shrugged. ‘She’s in a wagon. She wants to be carried down to the tomb.’
‘It’s unbelievable! What a woman! Make sure her wagon is hidden from the road.’
Julia Agrippina. Great-granddaughter of Augustus. Incestuous sister of Caligula. Wife of the Emperor Claudius. The most powerful woman in Rome.
Agrippina was borne on a stretcher by her attendants and taken carefully down the stairs and placed gently on the floor. Balbilus knew her people. They could be trusted.
Agrippina was swaddled in blankets, her head resting on a silk pillow. She was pale and haggard and wincing in pain, but even in her fragile state her beauty shone through.
‘Balbilus,’ she said. ‘I had to come.’
‘Domina,’ he replied, falling to his knees to reach for her hand. ‘You should have summoned me. I would have come to you.’
‘No, I wanted this to happen here.’ She turned her head to the wall. ‘Your fresco – it’s done!’
‘I hope it’s to your liking.’
‘All the zodiacal signs. Beautifully drawn, and by your own hand, I see,’ she said, looking at his paint-stained fingers. ‘But tell me: this sequence of planets – what does it mean?’
‘It’s a small personal tribute, Domina. Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. This was the alignment of the planets on the day I was born thirty-three years ago. I now question my decision. I should have chosen
‘Nonsense, my good seer. This is your tomb.’
‘
‘I insist that you keep the fresco as it is.’
There was a faint cry from under her blanket.
‘Domina!’ Balbilus said. ‘It’s happened!’
‘Yes. Only two hours ago,’ Agrippina said weakly. ‘After all these years, and all these fucking men, finally: my firstborn.’
One of Agrippina’s maids pulled back her blanket to reveal a tiny pink baby. Agrippina pulled the infant’s blanket aside and said proudly, ‘See. It’s a boy. His name is Lucius Domitus Ahenobarbus.’
‘This is wonderful,’ Balbilus crowed. ‘Truly wonderful. ‘May I see?’
She turned the baby over. There was a perfect pink tail, wriggling energetically.
‘Your bloodlines are strong,’ Balbilus said with admiration. ‘I assume the Emperor doesn’t know?’
‘That bumbling, pathetic old man doesn’t even know
