The Last Disciple (34 page)

Hephzibah averted her eyes from those kneeling beside the bodies of loved ones. Because yesterday’s slaughter had continued until nightfall, it was only now that the survivors were in the streets.

As she neared the lower city, however, the streets became more alive. Crowds were beginning to move upward to the upper markets to gather in protest of the atrocities of Florus. More than once, someone had urged her to change direction and join them. Each time, she’d shaken her head.

And now, with the pool in sight and the royal gardens just beyond as a backdrop, she looked for a man carrying a water jug. Among all the women near the pool, she saw him immediately, as it was unusual for any man to fulfill the domestic task of collecting the day’s water for a household. He stood at the pool’s edge, the large clay jar at his feet.

Hephzibah hurried toward him. As she drew closer, she indulged her curiosity. Who was it that had the queen’s ear?

When she looked into his face, she thought she understood. He was a large man with an air of confidence—not the challenging aura of someone who wanted the world to know he was bigger and stronger and smarter than any other man, but a quiet confidence that spoke well to her soul. The scars on his face and the sadness in his eyes seemed to tell her that he had earned the right to this confidence. It was no wonder that her queen was drawn to this man.

“You are Maglorius?” she asked quietly.

“I am,” he said. They stood in direct sunlight, and he squinted as he studied her face.

“I am Hephzibah. The queen has sent me.”

“Forgive my lack of trust,” he said. “Word for word, what was my message to her?”

“‘Send someone you trust with a royal seal to the Siloam Pool to look for a man with a water jar.’”

Maglorius nodded. “You have the seal?”

“I do.” Hephzibah had watched Bernice warm the wax and press the royal symbol upon it. Hephzibah passed it to Maglorius.

“So you are one she trusts?” he said.

“I am.” Hephzibah pushed aside a tinge of guilt. The queen had been betrayed by many in her life—men, other servants, even her brother. It was to Hephzibah that the queen often confided those broken trusts, yet if the queen knew how Hephzibah had once been disloyal, no longer would that trust exist.

An image flashed in her head. Of the queen weeping in the days after an intruder had nearly killed her. Hephzibah felt her stomach tighten and hoped the man in front of her did not notice her pang of guilt.

“This intrigue,” he murmured, absently shifting the seal from one hand to another, “I am tired of it. I wish we lived in a world without spies. Or the need for spies. Even the Master Himself in this city faced intrigue in His last days. . . .” He stopped.

“Go on,” Hephzibah said. The Master? Dare she hope that Maglorius shared her faith?

Maglorius stared across the pool in silence, so Hephzibah, who much preferred to listen than speak, took a chance. “It was Passover,” she said to encourage Maglorius. “To ensure that no one, especially Judas, knew ahead of time where He had arranged for the disciples to have supper, the Master sent them to look for a man carrying water, a servant of the owner of the house who was providing a room for the Master that night.”

Maglorius turned his head sharply, a grimace obvious in the tightening of his lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I offend you?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “No. It hurts to move quickly.” A smile from him. “You’ve read the letters passed among the believers?”

“I have,” Hephzibah said. “So often that much of it I have memorized.”

“Does Queen Bernice know of your faith?”

“She does not. Someday, when it is right, I hope to share my belief with her.”

And then, Hephzibah thought, she would also confess that Matthias was her brother. Confess how she had helped him into the palace.

“I believe she hungers for it,” Maglorius said. “Her soul has a deep need for love.”

Hephzibah nodded. She grieved her brother’s death. Had not known he intended it. The last day had been horrible. Dealing with his death. Dealing with the aftermath of the riots. It was only through prayer and faith that she’d been able to find hope in this tribulation.

Noises from the upper city reached them. The crowd must have gathered already.

“Time is short,” Maglorius said. “Let me tell you what I request of the queen. But first remind her of her promise to me. She will understand.”

The wailing of great lamentations echoed through the city. The force of it startled nearby pigeons, and in a blur they rose from the cobblestones where they had been pecking for food.

“She regrets she cannot meet you herself.” The queen had emphasized this to Hephzibah, that she must tell this to the man. “In any other situation, she would arrange to see you herself.”

“I would not want to put her in danger.”

“She barely survived yesterday,” Hephzibah said.

“What!”

“You haven’t heard?”

“I was . . .” He stopped and rubbed the back of his head again. When he brought his hand down, Hephzibah saw that his fingers were flecked with dried blood. “No, I had not heard. Please tell me.”

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

“Tell me about the queen and Florus.”

He listened intently as Hephzibah did. The backdrop to her stories was the shouting that reached them, and the name
Florus
was audible here in the lower city.

“He is a treacherous man,” he said when she finished. “He sends trouble into every life in Jerusalem. And that is why I need any help that the queen can give. There is a lost boy. From the Bellator household. If the queen can arrange to send as many people as possible into the city to look for him, I would be in her debt. The boy’s name is Quintus.”

“The boy’s parents?”

Maglorius closed his eyes. “Dead.”

“I am sorry.”

“It was the soldiers sent by Florus. The boy escaped. At least, I pray he escaped. I’ve left one servant at the mansion, waiting should he return.”

“Among all the people in the city,” Hephzibah said gently, “and in the time of these riots, it may not be simple to find him.”

“He will be wearing a signet ring. He is a Roman citizen. And as the rightful heir, a wealthy citizen. He must be found.”

His intensity alarmed her. “Yes,” she said quickly. “I will tell all of this to the queen. But come with me. A woman named Sophia arrived at the palace, looking for you.”

As she fought to suffocate her tiny son, a voice reached Alypia from the courtyard below.

“Hello? Hello?”

Alypia cursed the gods and lifted the cushion. Sabinus began to wail with fright. Alypia ignored him and looked down into the courtyard. A man was calling, a man she recognized from her time in Rome.

Gallus Sergius Vitas.

She whispered a prayer of gratitude to her household gods. Who better to help her claim the fortune that she was owed as a widow than Gallus Sergius Vitas, a man she knew from different functions in Rome, where she had attended as the subservient and nearly invisible wife of Bellator?

Stepping away from the window, she yanked down the left shoulder of her dress to expose enough skin to verge on the point of indecency. It wasn’t difficult; hours earlier, at the first light of dawn, she’d already cut and ripped the dress in several places and trampled it to add smudges of dirt. She took a breath and pretended she was trying to compose herself in the way a woman would after surviving the assault of soldiers and an ex-gladiator.

Then she was ready.

She left Sabinus behind to wail alone and walked down to the courtyard. “Hello?” she said with the correct tone of fearful hesitation. “Hello?”

The man in the courtyard reacted immediately to the sound of her voice. He turned away from his inspection of the bodies of slaves and servants sprawled haphazardly where Roman soldiers had slaughtered them the afternoon before.

The peace of midmorning sunshine and the songs of the birds from the rooftop garden were a horrible juxtaposition against the obscenity of the aftermath of that violence. Yet all was not the illusion of peace.

Alypia knew she had the man’s attention. She swayed slightly, as if she were on the verge of fainting, ignoring Sabinus’s wailing from the mansion.

He moved quickly toward her. She pretended slight alarm and moved backward.

“I’m a Roman citizen,” he called to her softly. “I mean no harm.”

“Thank the gods.” Alypia found a bench and collapsed on it. “After yesterday, I’ve been so afraid. I’m alone with no one to help! My husband was killed!”

Cautiously, the man moved even closer. She watched his eyes carefully, waiting for them to be drawn to the exposure of her upper body. A seduction now would be very convenient, especially given this man’s family background and his power in Rome. Although she was disappointed that his eyes remained steadily on her face, she knew it was only a temporary setback. It was just the two of them here in the upper-city mansion, and she was a vulnerable woman appealing to a man’s protection. And she’d already let him know she was without a husband.

He looked briefly past her as the baby wailed again, as if seeking the source of the cries. “You are Alypia,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I am Vitas.” He sat on the bench but kept his distance from her. “Gallus Sergius Vitas.”

“Not the same who serves as one of Nero’s trusted advisers in Rome?” she asked, knowing the answer.

He nodded.

“Here in Jerusalem? Why?” This she did not know. Still, it was a gift from the gods. The only bad thing about his arrival was that he had heard the cries of the baby. Now she could no longer claim that soldiers had killed Sabinus.

“Yes, I am from Rome. To meet with your husband. On behalf of Nero.”

“You are—” Alypia’s voice caught in her throat—“one day too late.”

Vitas allowed her the silence of grief.

She milked it, annoyed that Sabinus’s renewed crying was a distraction from the portrait she wanted to present. She hoped Vitas would put an arm of comfort around her shoulder.

“The soldiers,” he said. He put his cloak around her, but to her irritation, discreetly kept his distance. “Did they attack you when they killed your husband?”

“No!” Alypia gave an outburst of anger.

This seemed to startle him.

“He was murdered by one of this very household.”

She had his full attention and enjoyed it. She turned to face him directly and bit on her knuckles. “An ex-gladiator named Maglorius. I’m afraid if he comes back . . .” She reached across, putting a hand on his forearm. It was important to touch him. “You do have a sword, don’t you?”

“Maglorius?”

“If you’ve heard his name in Rome, it is the same man.” She left her hand on his arm. “Once famed in the arenas.”

“Maglorius.”

“He was half dead after a sword gutted him in Asia, and when he arrived in Rome, too weak to return to the arenas, he was set free. Surely you heard that gossip.”

Vitas was watching her closely.

“He joined our family as a bodyguard.” Alypia wondered if Vitas had heard any rumors and decided to proceed as if he had not. No sense admitting to her affair with Maglorius until forced to. Especially now that it was so completely finished. What an impetuous period that had been in her life. But no longer would she allow love to affect her. It was only money and power that she wanted from men. “He traveled with us here to Jerusalem as part of his employment. And yesterday, after the soldiers were gone, he . . . he—” she sobbed—“it was terrible!”

“You are saying that he killed Bellator?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Just after the soldiers left. I’m sure he thought they would be blamed for it. But I saw it and—”

Alypia threw herself onto Vitas. “He murdered my husband! Help me. I’m the one who witnessed it. He’ll want me dead, too. I think he believes he can plunder this mansion and our wealth if we are both gone.”

“Was he by himself?” Vitas asked.

Alypia was not so lost in her acting that she was oblivious to the muscle of the man’s arms or the solidness of his chest. Vitas was a rich man. A powerful man. And extremely attractive. What a pleasure he could be after years with Bellator, who’d been a rich and powerful man but old and extremely unattractive.

“What kind of question is that?” Alypia said, beginning to stroke one of his biceps. “Who else would be with him?”

Vitas extracted himself. Stood in front of the bench. Then knelt to look directly in her face. “I will make sure you are protected.”

There it was again. The irritating cry of Sabinus.

She caught the look of concern in the glance that Vitas gave toward the sound again.

She knew the baby boy was frightened. The baby, however, was much more of a problem—a distraction to Vitas, whom she desired to seduce.

Now that Quintus had disappeared or been murdered, Sabinus alone stood in the way of Alypia inheriting the bulk of Bellator’s wealth. It wasn’t the fact that the boy was her son and only child that had prevented her from suffocating him during the night. She’d never been maternal anyway, and with her hatred for Maglorius added to the idea of the wealth she would gain with the murder of Sabinus, she would have had no hesitation blaming the boy’s death on the soldiers who had ransacked the mansion.