Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 (39 page)

It was with that far-sight, therefore, that he saw Saulos emerge from the tunnel.

At Hannah’s murmured order, he walked between the pillars and came to kneel before the altar. There was nothing humble in his supplication. He was faint from hunger and still weak from his own terror, but in his own estimation he was a man who had successfully battled the Ferryman to win his passage across the Styx and he entered the chamber of the Oracle alight with his own power, as if he had just earned the keys to all its wealth of worldly knowledge.

Arrogance blazed from him, as peace had from Hannah. Pantera strove to see what lay beneath, but had no time, for a third soul was walking up the long tunnel that led from the Styx. Forewarned, Pantera lifted his head in time to see a third black-cowled figure enter the chamber, and knew that this was beyond all precedent; that even more than his own presence, that of the Ferryman changed the delicate balances of past, present and future.

To Pantera’s left, Hypatia hissed out a long, slow breath, like the exhalation of a mountain as the sun’s light leaves at dusk.

‘You come as a supplicant. Have you the incense of life and of death?’ Her voice was the raw essence of power, greater than any man might carry, however great his arrogance. It filled the temple to the furthest reaches of the roof.

Wordless, Saulos held up the two resins in his cupped palms.

‘Give to your left the Sense of Life and to your right the Sense of Death.’

Without any volition on his part, Pantera found himself taking a step forward. Saulos’ eyes flew wide. For the first time he looked uncertain. Moved by forces beyond his own control, Pantera stretched out his hands to accept the frankincense as it was offered.

His hands … that were not his hands.

If he had had any command of his own body, he would have fallen in fright, then. The hands cupped together in the red light of the brazier were old and mottled and the fingers were longer than his had ever been.

He stared at them even as he accepted Saulos’ offering, held the rich nugget high above the flames, crumbled it between finger and thumb, and, with a dexterity that amazed him, sent the fragments flowing down to the burning heart of the fire. To the Oracle’s left, Alexandros matched him grain for grain, spill for spill.

Two columns of white smoke streamed evenly to the ceiling. Saulos breathed in the new scent, coughing. His eyes streamed and his nose began to run. He stared open-mouthed at the visions that were sent him. Whatever they were, Pantera could not see them.

Presently, the Oracle’s ageless voice said, ‘You may ask one question. It will be answered with the truth.’

‘
Only one?
’

By a clear act of will, Saulos managed not to give voice to the panic that flooded his mind. Instead, he gathered himself and bent his considerable intellect towards finding a single question that would give him the answers he needed. Oracles were famed for their ambiguity; on the precise framing of a question, whole kingdoms prospered or died.

Pantera saw the shape of the words before they were spoken aloud, so that the hearing was an echo of something already asked and answered.

‘At what time of what day of what year must Rome burn to fulfil
this
prophecy as it was written?’

Saulos drew from his tunic the copied prophecy with all its gaps and ambiguities and promises and held it out to the Oracle.

Pantera could have recited it by rote, but in this place the power of the writing was made manifest, drawn as images across the veil of white smoke, and, this time, he could see where it led.

He saw Jerusalem drenched in blood, Rome scarred and burned, rising again from the ruins of a fire, saw men and women burned within it, and again, and again, in cycles of death and violence spreading down the centuries for a hundred generations and more.

The Oracle disdained to take the paper. ‘We issued this prophecy. We know where it leads. Are you sure that you do?’

‘Lady, I know only what is required of me.’ Dark passions curdled Saulos’ soul; arrogance, contempt, vengeance and a pure, unadulterated hatred, all of them hidden in daily life, all of them on view here, in the Temple of Truth. Ignoring them, he said, ‘If the Oracle issued these words, it must have been with a reason.’

‘We saw the beginnings of a great evil and sought to deflect it,’ the Oracle agreed. ‘If a god is drenched in blood, his kingdom will likewise be bloody, but a prophecy is only one path among many and, as men and women can bring it into being, so also can men and women prevent it. Such men and women as are here in this chamber today may not have it in their power to keep this evil from the world, but, knowing what may come, they can at least create a seed of hope to stand against the darkness. You have seen the bloodshed on which the new kingdom is built. Are you certain you wish me to answer your question?’

Saulos clasped his hands together, cracking the knuckles. His arrogance blazed. ‘Lady, for the sake of one man and one woman who stand before you, I must say that I am.’

‘Hear this then.’ The Oracle raised her arms. Her leaf-light voice drifted out across the smoke, carrying to Saulos, to Pantera, to Hannah and, last, to Ajax, dressed as the Ferryman, who stood by the entrance to the tunnel that led to the Styx.

‘
One comes who brings wrath and destruction, who brings death in the name of life, hate in the name of love, pain in the name of compassion. His time is not endless, but will seem so. And thus will it come about in the Year of the Phoenix, on the night when the Great Hound shall gaze down from beyond the knife-edge of the world, that in his sight shall the Great Whore be wreathed in fire and those who would save her will stoke the flames
.’

‘The Great Hound?’ Saulos closed his eyes in concentration. ‘Sirius, Hound of the Sky, known in Egypt as Sopdet? You have not given me a day or a date, nor even a year.’

‘You know already that this is the Phoenix Year,’ the Oracle said, not unkindly. ‘Sopdet rises this year over Rome on the eighteenth night of the month once known as Quintilis, but now named after Gaius Julius Caesar, who believed himself a god. You have until then to prepare – nearly four months. At least two of those months will, of necessity, be spent in a sea journey, but it will be no different for anyone else who strives to reach Rome in time.’

‘My lady, I offer my deepest thanks.’ Saulos’ bow was the lowest and most extravagant Pantera had ever seen. His relief rolled over them all.

‘You should leave,’ Hypatia said. The exhaustion in her voice was her own. ‘And you,’ she raised her head and looked directly at Ajax, ‘have a race to run.’

N
ero sat on a golden dais high up on the newly built stands at one end of the oval race track, under a banner of cloth of gold above it.

Immediately beneath, in a display of unmatched arrogance, Bronze was throwing himself back and forth in a frenzy, with Math on the end of the lead rope, fighting to bring the big colt past Thunder and into his place in the Green team, last to be harnessed, last before the race began, last because Math had to lead Bronze himself – last because Ajax wasn’t there.

Which meant he was truly going to have to drive the four colts in the race trial. Which meant, at best, he would lose, and at worst he would kill himself and his horses. If he lived long enough even to start.

At the moment, that seemed unlikely. Bronze screamed again. A front hoof split the air by Math’s head. He threw himself sideways. The leather reins sliced his palm.

‘Let go. I’ve got him. Let go of the reins.
Let go
. Well done. See? Nothing’s impossible with a tight hand on the reins.’

Math’s fingers relaxed their death-grip on the rope. His knees did not support him. Only the now-still head of his horse kept him upright.

He opened his eyes. Poros was there, holding Bronze; the only man besides Ajax who could hope to catch and hold the colt when he was lost in his rage and the need to fight.

Math stared at him in confusion. ‘Why …?’

‘Don’t ask stupid questions. Have you the racing bit in?’

‘Of course!’ That he could even ask such a thing gave Math the strength to stand straight.

‘Then get that flapping idiot away from the other horses, get the harness tied and get up on the rig before he breaks loose. I can’t hold him for ever.’

Nexos had heard himself being referred to as a flapping idiot. Actually, everyone within twenty yards had heard it. The boy flushed an ugly scarlet but let go of Thunder, smartly. At Poros’ signal, two of the Blue grooms ran forward. The lead horse was buckled into the harness faster than it had ever been done.

Math found he could tie leather and plait the reins and started to do just that.

‘No,’ Poros said, as he reached for the reins. ‘Mount first. I’ll pass you the reins once you’re up. After that, you’re on your own. We have one circuit to warm up, then slow as we come to the start line, and wait for the emperor to drop his white rag. For your horses’ sake if not your own, don’t cross the line early. You don’t want to have to set it all up again.’

‘I won’t.’ Math accepted a leg up into the fragile cage of the chariot. Planting his feet in the corner stays, he looked back down at Poros. ‘Why are you helping?’ he asked again.

The man frowned up at him. His hair flopped down over his eyes. His beard covered most of the lower half of his face like a fungus. Between them, ruddy cheeks lifted in a raw, angry humour.

‘Because I want this race over and won. Your entire team’s only here because Nero wants to bed you, not for your horses or the skill of your driver. Now you’re going to lose and I’ll have been seen to win honestly and fairly. I can wear the Red banners in Rome and nobody, not even the emperor, will be able to stop me. Now fix your reins and get ready before your bloody horse goes wild again.’

As he had predicted, Bronze went wild. Thunder went wilder, straining forward to reach his enemy so that, had it not been for Poros’ slur, Math would have been thrown from the bucking chariot before it ever reached the track.

Your entire team’s only here because Nero wants to bed you, not for your horses or the skill of your driver
.

If that had been false, Math would not have been so angry, but the truth spoken so baldly made him livid, and rage gave him a balance he otherwise lacked, so that he stayed upright, and kept his hold on the reins, and burst past the watching slaves in the first two strides.

Which was good except that he wasn’t on the track, but had cut across it and was heading straight for the central wooden spina around which they raced.

Throwing his full weight on the reins, Math hauled the team right, spinning it round Thunder as the outside rear anchor, then let them have two strides straight on the newly raked sand before he began the longer swing left, to follow the track’s counter-sun direction.

So far did his fury last, but no further. A battle raged in the traces and he was powerless to control it.
Watch their ears
, Ajax had said once.
Their ears show which way they’ll go. If you can change that, you have control. Use your body and your voice
.

Chaos had come to his chariot and their ears were everywhere; Bronze’s mane was plastered back against his head, so that he looked more like a snake than he had ever done. He was thrashing, trying to turn in the shafts, bucking, striking backwards, missing Sweat who was right behind him only because Ajax had thought to reset the traces so that they were too far apart for such kicks to reach their target.

Even so, Sweat was doing his best to retaliate, straining forward to bite at Bronze’s bucking rump, but it was Thunder who was causing most havoc; he struck and struck across the diagonal, in his desperation to draw first blood.

As a result, they were not racing at all, not even moving forward properly. All their energy was going upwards and outwards, more up and more out with each stride until they were moving no faster than a trot, but explosively, so that the chariot’s fragile wicker basket was shaken at every stride.

To underline Math’s incompetence for anyone who hadn’t noticed yet, Poros brought his Blue team on the long, lazy route round the outside at an easy canter, performing his warm-up by the book. It was as insulting as anything he had ever done; nobody passed to the outside even in a warm-up unless their horses were five times better than their opponent’s.

Over the screaming madness of his team, Math heard muted catcalls from the Blues and a collective sigh from the Greens. He was too afraid now to be angry, but fear was a goad of sorts and in the madness of his terror he conceived an idea.

With a swift prayer to the watching spirit of his father, he fixed one sweating hand on the reins, leaned forward, and with the other flicked his whip out over the lead pair.

Never hit them.
Never
. It was the one unbreakable rule.

Math broke it. With an accuracy born of desperation, he flicked the whip’s end directly at Bronze, drawing blood from his heaving quarters. The great colt screamed and bucked so high that the soles of his hooves showed cleanly to Math up in the chariot. The whole team nearly stopped.

Math did it again. Over cries of horror from the Green team, and of derision from the Blues, he did it a third time.

And didn’t die. In his new rage, Bronze slewed the chariot round so tightly that it tilted and nearly fell. Brass tumbled to his knees and was dragged along the sand. Sweat screamed at the pressure put on his hocks and his inside cannon. Thunder had to battle to hold his feet and had no strength left for fighting Bronze.

But they did it, all of them, and when the rig straightened out Math was on his feet and sent the whip singing forward one more time, not at Bronze now, but between the two lead horses, snapping them forward as they had been trained, so that their ears all faced the same way and the chariot surged ahead. It was ragged, and barely controlled, but they were racing at last – just nowhere near the track.

When he had time to take his mind from the horses, Math discovered that he was careering down the middle of the track, along the side of the Spina, heading in a straight line directly towards the solid oak palisade of the compound’s perimeter.