Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 (48 page)

Breaking off, Saulos cast his arm out, staff-straight, over the crowd and the moth’s giant shadow fell forward, kissing the back of his outstretched hand, his arm, and his brow.

Hannah didn’t know if he had seen the moth before he moved, or had guessed it was there, or somehow had control of it or was simply monumentally lucky; anything seemed possible. What was clear was that every one of the men in the room believed they had just witnessed a sign of divine favour.

They began to kneel. First was Poros, who stood directly in front of the dais, and then another, younger man, and another; and then row upon row, in a susurration of rumpled linen, they were all on their knees, bending forward to touch their brows to the ground.

Saulos prayed over them, in a voice that rose to the rafters and beyond. His fervour lit his face. His voice was a risen flute, played for his god, played
by
his god, bewitching his men.

He raised his arms to the heavens. His voice sang back and forth across the crowd, naming men and their families, speaking to them personally. Somewhere in the centre, a youth barely in his first beard fainted.

Hannah alone remained standing, at her place in the doorway, between the candlelight and the greying dusk of the courtyard. A small flame of outrage blossomed and grew as Saulos spoke of her father, taking his name in vain. She fanned it until her anger at least matched her fear.

Out of nowhere, she remembered Math’s face in the dark of a Gaulish night as he spoke of
his
father, and the sooty taste of his forehead as she kissed it, flavoured with smoke and boyish sweat.

‘Math.’ She spoke the name aloud, a final gathering point for her courage.

Nobody heard her. Outside, a cicada chirruped. Inside, the moth bumped against the back wall, lightly. Saulos widened his spread arms, gathering the crowd into his embrace. ‘… in drinking the wine which is his blood and eating the bread which is his flesh, we thereby remember the anointed one, our saviour, who gave himself for our sins, who died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day—’

‘No, he didn’t.’

Her words fell as a hammer’s blow across the crowd. Saulos froze in mid-sentence, his arm beckoning to the sky.

Hannah stepped half a pace sideways, so that the remaining light from the courtyard might cast her shadow across him.

‘He didn’t,’ she said succinctly, ‘and he didn’t and he wasn’t.’

T
he warehouse door shut behind Pantera, letting him into the dark. Saulos’ voice filled his ears, echoing. Hannah was at the back, standing in shadow by the door. Ten rows of kneeling men separated him from her.

Saulos was speaking to his god. Shimon tugged his sleeve. Harshly, he whispered, ‘
Kneel!
’

Pantera knelt. More slowly, making the most of a supposed arthritis, Shimon did the same. The men around them were bowing. Pantera followed their lead and, with Shimon, pressed his head to the beaten earth, noses full of dust and old wool and stale urine.

Like that, kneeling in candlelit darkness, trying not to sneeze, Pantera heard Saulos invoke a dead man’s name, and heard Hannah’s voice cut past him like a sliver of glass.

‘No, he didn’t.’

The man to Pantera’s right jerked as if hit, and lifted his head.

‘He didn’t, and he didn’t and he wasn’t.’

The words fell each apart, shocking and hard as hail from a summer’s sky.

Nobody moved, not even Saulos.

Pantera reached for Shimon, who turned towards him, haggard in the poor light. His hands flashed a brief and unmistakable message. It wasn’t a good plan, but it was all they had. Pantera counted to three and pushed himself upright.

Saulos turned to Hannah with dream-like slowness, his eyes full of hurt. Speechless, he waited for her to speak again, while his men shuffled restlessly in their kneeling lines.

Hannah didn’t step up on to the dais; the grey-gold evening light from the back door was still her ally. She didn’t shout, either; the Sibyls had taught her how to be heard in a crowd. Lightly, distinctly, she cast her voice beyond Saulos to the front wall, where the door-keeper still knelt and the last few men had just drifted in.

‘The Galilean, whom you have claimed as your saviour, did not die for your sins; he would never have chosen to do such a thing, nor was it ever asked of him. Who would knowingly serve a god who requires the death in agony of one man for the supposed sins of many?’

Whispers flew in the dim light. She went on, a little louder.

‘He didn’t die on the day of his execution at all; he was taken down at the procurator’s orders after only six hours. You’ve all seen crucifixions. No man dies that quickly unless he is already dying or his legs have been broken. Neither of these was the case. He lived. He was taken to a nearby tomb. Later that night, his friends removed him under cover of darkness.’

‘That isn’t—’ Saulos began.

She glared him to silence. ‘Your “saviour” was
not
resurrected on the third day as Saulos teaches, because he wasn’t dead. He lived for another forty days, cared for by Mariamne, his wife, in the caves at Masada until his blood turned sour and he couldn’t be saved. He died peacefully then, surrounded by those who loved him and had fought for him. He died for what he believed in, which was that Rome and all things Roman should be driven from Judaea for ever. He died for his men, not for a god who revels in torture. He—’

‘Hannah.’ Saulos’ eyes burned into her, lacking all soul. His voice was smooth as honey. ‘This is completely untrue. The Lord God has spoken to me. I have been our saviour’s apostle for nearly twenty years, preaching his word. I have known—’

‘You know nothing. What colour was your messiah’s hair?’

‘I—’

‘What colour were his eyes?’

‘How could—’

‘Where was he born? Who were his parents? What were the names of his brothers and sisters? When was he married? What were the names of his children? Answer me any one of these!’

‘Why?’ Frustration cracked Saulos’ voice. ‘Why do they matter?’

‘Because you don’t know the answers! Not one. You know
nothing
about this man you claim to revere. Not a single thing about his life except his death, which you have twisted for your own ends!’

Hannah had to raise her voice now; two hundred and thirteen men were all speaking at once. ‘If you don’t know how he lived, how can you possibly know why he died? You never met him. You never spoke to him. And you are
not
his apostle. You despise and are despised by the men who fought at his side; Shimon the zealot, Yacov his brother, his grandsons, his nephews, all those who shared his life. He was dead before you had ever heard of him. You’ve built a temple on your own fantasy, and gulled these men into believing you. Tonight, they will give their lives for your lies.’

‘Hannah, he was dead before you were born. You have no better way of knowing how he lived than—’

‘
He was my father
.’

Silence fell, hard as an axe. Saulos’ mouth snapped shut.

‘I was born five months after his death,’ Hannah said. ‘His eyes were the same colour as my eyes. His hair was my hair. I know this because my mother told me. My mother, who was his wife. She bore him two sons before me, either of whom would have killed you on sight for what you have done to our father’s name.’

‘Is it true?’ a voice shouted from the crowd, muffled by cloth, but distinct. ‘Is it true that our lord did not die for us?’

‘Of course it’s not true.’ Saulos shouted louder, as if volume made the truth. ‘This woman wasn’t born when he died for our sins. His resurrection—’

‘He did
not
die for your sins!’ Hannah’s voice cut across his. ‘He was
not
resurrected. He was carried living from his tomb and died in Masada.’

She had no intention of getting into a shouting match, but the Sibyls had taught her the power of simple repetition. She watched the words course through the crowd, snagging more men with their meaning each time.

Saulos saw it as well. The effort it took to rein in his anger was both remarkable and clear.

‘Hannah.’ He was the soul of reason. ‘In this assembly, you have no credibility. It’s my word against yours. Unless you have some proof, can bring forward someone who shares your view—’ He spread his hands, in invitation. As if on his signal, Poros and the Blue team began to shout a single word.

‘Lies! Lies! Lies!’

Just as when they had knelt, the men took their cue from these at the front. Others took up the chant and others, until it thundered to the roof.

‘
Lies! Lies! Lies!
’

Saulos raised a brow. Under the growing chaos, so that only Hannah could hear, he said, ‘You’ve lost. Retract it all and I’ll let you live.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘A shouting rabble doesn’t make truth into lies or lies into truth. You
know
I’m right.’

‘But without support, you have no way of—’

‘She is not lying! I will testify to the truth!’ A single voice, pitched high above the mob, cut over it.

It was the man who had called out before. He was scything through the crowd towards her, shoving his comrades to left and right, clearing a path to the front, where, in a move as ostentatiously dramatic as anything Saulos had done all evening, he sprang on to the podium and threw back the hood of his cloak, revealing a shock of old-snow hair and the beaked shelf of a nose.

The chant faltered. The man raised his arms as Saulos had done. ‘I am Shimon of Galilee, zealot and follower of the man you call your saviour. You know me, and know I am given only to the truth.’

He didn’t control his pitch as Saulos and Hannah had done, but there was a powerful honesty in his words. ‘Many of you have met me on my travels. The rest of you have heard of me. You know that I served the Galilean, and fought with him against the tyranny of Rome. So you know I speak the truth when I testify that Hannah of Alexandria is his daughter and that he did not die on the day he was crucified.’

His voice felled them with its power. Each man looked to his neighbour for courage, for direction. Shimon spoke into a new silence, raw with indecision. ‘Know now that Saulos, whom you follow, is the Apostate. He was excommunicated from the Assembly for his lies. He has spent years spreading lies against the man I served and I swear to you now in the name of the god of Abraham that what he says is untrue. If you know me at all, you know I would suffer any death before I would defame an oath made in the name of our god.’

His hot old eyes roamed the crowd. His arm struck out, pointing to the fourth row. ‘Mattathias, you know me. Have I ever lied?’

Mattathias had no choice. He shook his head mutely, his eyes flaring with alarm. Others around him were picked out with the same forensic accuracy.

‘Abraham? Philotus? David? Antonius? Manasseh? You all know who I am and that I speak the truth?’ Man after man nodded as his name was called out.

Hannah saw a movement in the front row. She reached up to the dais. ‘Shimon! Watch Poros—’

‘Don’t listen to this man! He lies! You know he lies!’ Saulos screamed, drowning out her warning. The crowd buzzed like a kicked hive at his words. ‘He has no proof! God himself has spoken his truth to me. Can you doubt his word over a mere man of flesh and blood? Nobody here can give credence to these lies, to this—’

‘I can. I was twelve years old when two men and a woman carried a living man from a tomb in the garden above Jerusalem. My father was a guard there. I lay hidden in the gardens and saw it. I swear now that Shimon of Galilee, zealot in the service of Yaweh, speaks the truth.’

Pantera!

Hannah heard a choking noise from the dais and spun round in time to see Saulos’ face pass from grey terror to scarlet fury, even as he raised the arm with the knife.

‘Pantera! He’s got a—’

And then Poros was there with a knife in each hand and vengeance wrought across his face. ‘Murderers! Traitors! These are the men who tried to kill me!’

Saulos leapt off the dais. Hannah jumped back—

And was slammed against the wall as Pantera and Shimon each hurled himself between her and the danger.

Crushed in the hot sweat of their dual embrace, Hannah couldn’t speak or hear or think. But she saw the blistering half-moment when Pantera’s eyes met Shimon’s and something utterly private passed between them, beyond words, or fear, or bravado. A thing that only men who lived on the edge of death might know.

Each of them looked across at Saulos, at Poros, at the candlesticks and back again. Each nodded to the other. And then turned in, shoulder to shoulder, with her behind them and Saulos, Poros and a mob bent on murder in front.

F
ire blossomed in the warehouse, the colour of marigolds. In the moment’s held breath before violence broke out, Pantera had toppled the nearest candlestick, sending fire across the floor. Shimon had hurled a broken bale of old, tired wool after it. A curtain of flame kept the mob back for a heartbeat, two, three …

‘Poros!’ Hannah saw him through the sudden brightness, blades like living flames in either hand. She remembered the courtyard, and the debris near the door.

She backed out. A rusted iron bar as thick as her wrist rested against the wall. In more prosperous times, it had been needed to bar the door. She grabbed it with both hands and prised it free of the mess around it.

Inside, Pantera had thrown at least one of his knives. A man lay dead across the band of fire, damping it down; one of the Blue team. Poros was at his side, screaming obscenities, trying to push through the gap in the flames.

Shimon stood in front of him swinging his oak staff in a complex arc, with such a look of wild glee on his face that Poros recoiled a step and then another. Shimon followed him up, shouting past him in Aramaic, naming men and listing Saulos’ crimes.

In those first moments, Hannah couldn’t see if he was having any impact; in the crowd, men were flinging water on the spreading fire, raising clouds of white smoke that snaked sideways and up, filling the warehouse from floor to rafters, obscuring the shouting, fighting mob.