False God of Rome (39 page)

Vespasian had decided to bed her the moment that he saw her again; and the feeling had seemed to become very mutual, especially once he had explained to her that he had found Capella and had
brought him back out of the desert; he had not let her down. She had not seemed too distressed at the news of Capella’s savage death and was genuinely surprised to learn that he had not been
trading for camels. Vespasian did not, however, tell her what Capella had really been doing, and when she had pressed him on the subject he had just alluded to imperial business and it was better
if she did not know; which, indeed, it was. Admiring his high connections, which she had evidently found irresistible, she had started to work her charms on him to the full, quite unnecessarily but
much to Vespasian’s enjoyment and the other guests’ embarrassment. When the dinner broke up Flaccus appeared most aggrieved and a triumphant-looking Laelia did not even bother to ask
Flavia if she wanted her litter called.

The orange glow of the newly risen sun filtered through the shutters and Vespasian was spent; he climbed off Flavia and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I should be going; I’ve got
business to attend to.’

‘What sort and how much?’ Flavia asked, resting her head on her hand.

‘Private and a lot.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No; you just be here when I get back.’

She sighed and lay back down on the pillow. ‘I can’t see that as being a problem.’

‘Dinner was successful by the looks of it,’ Magnus commented as Vespasian appeared from his bedroom.

‘Very,’ Vespasian replied while Ziri began to drape his toga around him.

‘Well?’

‘Well, we’ll go to see the Alabarch first and then on to the Forum to Thales and then try and find Felix.’

‘I know what we’re going to do; I meant: well, who is she then?’

‘You won’t like it.’

Magnus thought for a moment and then slapped his palm on his forehead. ‘Venus give you the strength to resist her: Flavia!’

‘A small world, isn’t it?’

‘Too small; you’re just about to cash a draft for a quarter of a million – she’ll have that off you in no time.’

‘Not if I marry her.’

‘The last time you thought about that a whole load of people ended up dead. Why don’t you just be content to have her as a bed-toy while you’re here?’

‘Because I’ll be twenty-nine this year and I need to have sons; my parents write of hardly anything else in their letters.’ Vespasian examined the folds of his toga draped over
his left arm; he nodded with satisfaction. ‘That’s perfect, Ziri, you’ve finally mastered it.’

Magnus frowned. ‘So you’re going to take her back to Rome?’

‘I’m not going to live here.’

‘She might not want to come.’

‘Oh, she’ll come; it’ll be the best offer she’s had since she got here. Anyway, how was your evening?’

‘Much the same as yours, but without the long-term commitment to a very expensive woman.’

‘How come you both got a fuck last night and I didn’t?’ Ziri asked resentfully.

‘Because, Ziri, you’re a slave,’ Magnus said, clipping him lightly around the ear, ‘and besides, I haven’t noticed any camels around the palace. Now stop moaning
and go and get Sir’s box.’

Optio Hortensius and his men were waiting for them at the palace gates, sitting in the shade of an outsized sedentary statue that reminded Vespasian of the image of Amun in the
temple at Siwa but was, according to the Greek inscription, a representation in the Egyptian style of the first Ptolemy.

‘You can guide us to the Alabarch’s house near the Canopic Gate, optio,’ Vespasian said, getting into the chair that Magnus had ordered, ‘seeing as we’re saddled
with you.’

Hortensius saluted and his men fell in.

‘You could make yourself useful and give us a guided tour as we go,’ Magnus said with a grin.

Hortensius ignored the jibe.

‘Don’t antagonise him,’ Vespasian muttered, as they passed through the palace gate and into the enclosed Royal Harbour, ‘he may prove useful.’

‘I can’t remember the last time that anyone in the Twenty-second Deiotariana did anything useful; the legion hasn’t seen proper action for ages.’

Clearing the Royal Harbour they entered the city itself and passed by the side of the old Macedonian barracks, two storeys high and now used for housing legionaries on duty within the city
– the Roman military camp being situated outside the eastern walls. Turning left they walked along the length of its drab, two-hundred-pace, square-windowed facade, with their escort clearing
the way through the crowd, and then turned right, into the Jewish Quarter.

Immediately there was a change of atmosphere; it was still busy but there was a sullenness in the air and, as they walked down the middle of the street, Vespasian noticed many a resentful glare
at not only the legionaries but also at the thick, purple senatorial stripe on his toga. He kept his head held high and, disdaining to look either left or right, progressed with all the dignity
befitting a Roman senator in a part of the Empire that belonged to the Senate and people of Rome.

As they got deeper into the quarter the people began to move aside less willingly and their escort were forced to draw their swords as a warning and occasionally push a more stubborn obstacle
out of the way with their shields.

‘Maybe it weren’t such a bad thing to be given a guard,’ Magnus said from behind his right shoulder, ‘we don’t seem to be too popular.’

They carried on for half a mile past rows of Greek-style houses – two-storeyed and built around an oblong central courtyard with a couple of small windows and a plain wooden door in the
whitewashed facade – before turning east onto the Canopic Way. Nothing in Rome had prepared Vespasian for this sight: three and a half miles long and sixty paces wide, lined with temples and
public buildings for all its length, it ran from the Canopic Gate in the eastern wall straight as an arrow’s flight to the western wall and out into the Necropolis. Vespasian tried not to
stare like some hill-farmer – which, he reflected, he was.

The going became easier as the width of the street and the more multicultural make-up of the pedestrians played their parts. Between the buildings to his left and right Vespasian noticed, out of
the corners of his eyes, small areas shaped like the Circus Maximus with one open end, seating up to a hundred people, mainly Greek, listening to a speaker at the curved, far end. As they
approached the fourth area the noise emanating from within was not what one would expect of a group of students listening to a philosophical debate.

Getting closer Vespasian could see that the audience was not only Greeks but Jews and native Egyptians as well. They were all involved in a fierce shouting match with scuffles breaking out and
the two sides were not split by racial divides; a minority of Jews were taking issue with the majority of the audience – which included many of their race – who seemed to be supporting
the main speaker, a short, balding man standing at the far end trying to make himself heard. Vespasian almost did an undignified double-take as he recognised the bow legs and imperious voice of the
speaker shouting over the arguments: Gaius Julius Paulus.

‘What the fuck’s he doing here?’ Magnus exclaimed as he too noticed Paulus.

‘What he seems to do best, by the looks of it,’ Vespasian replied. ‘Causing fights and spreading discord.’

‘Loathsome little shit!’

‘This is the house of Alexander the Alabarch, senator,’ Hortensius informed Vespasian as they approached a large house on the northern side of the street – the edge of the
Jewish Quarter. It was Greek in style but built with a grandeur that fitted in with the Canopic Way’s architecture. ‘Me and my lads will wait for you out here, senator.’

‘Thank you, optio,’ Vespasian said, getting down from the chair and taking Ataphanes’ box from Ziri. ‘You and Ziri wait here too, Magnus; I’ll be as quick as I
can.’

‘I still have some correspondence with that family, senator,’ Alexander the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews assured Vespasian, ‘and I can promise you that
it’ll be no problem getting this thing to them. There is a caravan leaving for Parthia at the next full moon in three days’ time, its owner is a cousin of mine; you can trust him. May I
see what’s inside?’

Vespasian lifted the lid of Ataphanes’ box, which stood on the desk between them. They were sitting in the cool of the Alabarch’s study on the northern side of his house away from
the threat of direct sunlight. The room was filled with many scrolls, labelled in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin, giving it a musty smell reminiscent of a library storeroom. The only light came
from two slatted windows in the wall opening out onto the central courtyard from whence came the sound of two young men reading aloud, at great speed, in unison.

‘Your freedman was wealthy,’ Alexander commented, fingering the gold coins and trinkets inside. ‘How much is here?’

‘I’m afraid that I don’t know exactly.’

‘Then I shall weigh it.’ Alexander got up and retrieved a large set of scales from a wooden chest in the corner of the room. ‘My fee, which will cover all expenses including
those of my cousin’s, will be eighteen per cent of the weight of the gold. I won’t take into account the value of the workmanship; would that be agreeable to you?’

‘Ten.’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Twelve.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Eleven.’

Alexander smiled beneath his full, sand-coloured beard. ‘You bargain strongly considering that it is not your money. Very well, twelve it is.’

‘Done,’ Vespasian said. Alexander started to weigh out the gold.

The Alabarch’s appearance had surprised Vespasian; he had expected a wise-looking, old grey-beard with rheumy eyes, a dripping nose and, perhaps, a slight stoop. The reality had been far
different: Alexander was a fit and powerful man in his late forties with alert, piercing blue eyes and long, almost blond hair with a beard to match. The only things about him that fitted in with
Vespasian’s stereotypical ideas of Jewishness were his clothes – very typical – and his pronounced nose – averagely so. He had the calmness about him of a man at ease with
himself and his position in life and Vespasian could tell immediately that he was a man he could trust.

‘Six minae, twenty-four drachmae and three obols,’ Alexander said eventually.

‘Which makes your percentage one obol short of seventy-five drachmae,’ Vespasian said after a moment’s thought, ‘or, almost exactly, one Roman pound in gold.’

Alexander did some quick calculations on a wax tablet and raised his eyebrows. ‘I can see that you would be a hard man to cheat.’

‘Not that I believe you would try, Alexander.’

Alexander began to weigh out his share. ‘I was brought up to be honest and truthful in all things, something that I hope I’ve passed on to my sons.’ He indicated to the voices
in the courtyard. ‘That’s them at their Torah studies, which, I’m afraid, they resent as much as I did at their age, but I insist upon them doing it because otherwise, when they
come of age, how can they make an informed decision as to whether they believe in the religion or, like me, do not?’

‘You’re not a Jew?’

‘Of course I’m a Jew racially, I’m just not a practising Jew. Why else do you think that I’m the Alabarch? With me Rome gets the best of both worlds: it has a Jew running
the Jewish community here in Alexandria and collecting its taxes, which makes it acceptable to the Jews.’

‘Even though you don’t share their religion?’

Alexander chuckled. ‘Oh, I do enough to be seen as a righteous man in their eyes. I recently paid for the nine gates of the Temple in Jerusalem to be gilded, so they have to accept me; but
at the same time Rome has an Alabarch who isn’t swayed by religious dogma. Rome can see me as being even-handed.’

‘That’s not the impression that Flaccus gave me,’ Vespasian said, realising that he was talking out of turn. ‘He said that you had been making too many demands
recently.’

‘There is an ongoing issue of Alexandrian citizenship and whether Jewish citizens are allowed to live outside the Jewish Quarter, not to mention the statues of the Emperor in the temples.
But I’ve also been trying to mediate between the elders and the prefect on another matter: they want him to crack down on this new sect that they see as preaching heresy and consider it to be
a Roman attack on their religion.’

‘But that’s ridiculous, there’s nothing Roman about it at all.’

‘The main preacher is a Roman citizen.’

Vespasian frowned. ‘Paulus? Surely not; he’s trying to eradicate it.’

‘He was trying to eradicate what was known as The Way; four years ago he was here doing some very unpleasant things to anyone suspected of being a member of the sect.’ Alexander
indicated to the perfectly balanced scales.

Vespasian nodded his approval of the twelve per cent. ‘Yes, I came across him in Cyrenaica; he was ruthless. I had him arrested and put on a ship back east.’

‘A pity that you didn’t have him killed.’ Alexander tipped his gold into a bag and placed it in a drawer. ‘Well, he claims to have had some sort of spiritual
enlightenment since then while on his way to Damascus. He appeared out of the desert a couple of months ago, having lived there by himself for three years, and started preaching without permission.
He claims that he has God’s authority and it’s not a Jewish matter at all; and in a way he’s right. He’s not preaching a reformed version of Judaism along the lines that the
followers of The Way claimed that Yeshua bar Yosef preached to the Jews alone; he’s preaching a completely new religion to Gentiles as well as Jews centred on our God but not the Torah. He
claims that Yeshua bar Yosef is God’s son who came to die for the sins of the world and redeem all mankind. Only through him, Paulus professes, can those who truly repent of their sins hope
to live with God in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not of this world, rather than wait for resurrection in an earthly paradise at the End of Days as most Jews believe. He also adds fear and
urgency into his message by claiming that the End of Days, or the Day of Judgement, as he calls it, is close at hand. Paradoxically he blames the Jews for having this Yeshua crucified even though
it is a Roman form of execution, and if he hadn’t been executed Paulus wouldn’t have anything to base his incoherent religion on. You can understand why the elders and my people are
angry.’