Zealot (4 page)

This particular arch wasn’t actually stone, he realized as he got closer, just a clever simulation. And the opening in the
archway was barely taller than he was, probably only a fifth of its original scale—no hay wagon necessary to break the fall.
He admired the workmanship in the gilt statue on top of the arch—some triumphant Roman emperor in a chariot pulled by four
fiery steeds, their muscles rippling. He brushed off his Latin to read the inscription. Titus. This particular triumphant
Roman was Titus.

He tried to remember which one Titus was. “Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius,” he chanted under his breath. In the back of his mind,
he could hear Brother Paul chanting it along with him, night after night, all those years ago in the Monastery of St. Christopher.
“Caligula, Claudius, Nero …” Paul had tried hard to teach MacLeod about the history of the world he’d begun to explore, but
MacLeod had been so young then. So very young. He could name the kings of Scotland and those were the only kings worth knowing.

“Galba, Vitellius …” No, wait. “Otho, Vitellius …”

“
Ach, it’s no’ fair—four in one year!
” he could hear his frustrated younger self say, and Brother Paul had just laughed.

“Otho, Galba …” It was no use. He couldn’t keep them straight then, he couldn’t do it now. He gave up and walked on.

The floor plan had been deliberately designed in such a way that any visitor coming into the great hall was compelled to pass
through the Arch of Titus to enter the exhibition. As MacLeod walked beneath the arch, he noticed the light-beam sensor just
before he was about to trip it. Cautiously he reached out and broke the beam of light with his hand. Drums and horns blared
around him. He looked around for the source, on alert. Then, over the martial music, came chanting and cheering:

“
Ave, Caesar!
” “Hail the conquering hero!”

He stepped cautiously through the archway and found himself surrounded by the frenzied citizens of Rome. Life-size mannequins
garbed in Roman finery, caught in uncanny tableau as they seemed to cheer, applaud, strew his way with flowers. Each face
individual, expressive, filled with the emotion of their leader’s triumphal march into the city, of his glorious victory over
the barbarians. Lights and sound flickered, highlighting this group, that person, flash, flash, giving the Romans the illusion
of movement, almost giving them life. MacLeod turned quickly one way, then the other, taking in the crowd, receiving their
adulation, and for one brief instant perhaps, he felt it,
knew
what it was like to be a king. To be the Emperor.

Then, in mid-rapture, the crowd abruptly silenced. Marcus Constantine stepped from beside the Arch of Titus, a key in his
hand, and walked toward MacLeod.

“So? What do you think?” he asked, more than a little proud of his creation.

MacLeod caught his breath. “Impressive.” He looked at the curator, so comfortable in a suit and tie, at home in his museum
with his books and artifacts, so much the academic, and tried to see the legendary Roman general beneath it all. “Is that
what it was like?”

Constantine’s eyes shone bright, remembering, and he smiled. “On a good day.” Then he laughed. “On a bad day you were up to
your waist in swamp water trying to keep your provisions dry and the Emperor was trying to bribe your aide to poison you.”

“Office politics?” MacLeod remarked.

“Precisely.” Constantine pointed to the Arch. “He came after Vespasian, by the way. Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula,
Claudius, Nero, the Year of Four Emperors that ended with Vespasian, then Titus, Vespasian’s son.” In response to MacLeod’s
look, he said, “Don’t let it bother you, I can’t remember them either.” Then he winked at MacLeod and whispered conspiratorially,
“And I was there.”

MacLeod followed Constantine past displays arranged to give the museum visitor a quick foundation in the rise and power of
the Roman Empire. These exhibits, too, were full of light and color, with computer animation and games and plenty of buttons
to push to keep the kids amused. “A little sad, don’t you think?” MacLeod commented. “Those men were once the most powerful
men in the entire world, and now no one even remembers them.”

“We of all people know that power doesn’t guarantee Immortality, Duncan.” MacLeod nodded in agreement. “Which is, in fact,
part of the point of my new exhibition.”

“I thought you must have an agenda, Marcus. It’s not like you to glorify Rome like this.”

“Ah, no, no, my friend, just the opposite. Consider this exhibition as a tribute to the assimilated. A memorial to the societies
that were lost to history when the Romans came through like a giant steamroller, flattened their native cultures, carried
off their best and brightest, and turned everyone into second-class Romans.” Constantine stopped at one display in the center
of the next section of walkway. As far as MacLeod could tell, it was a waist-high circular railing about six feet in diameter
that enclosed nothing but floor. Constantine fit his key into a control box under the railing and turned it. “Watch,” he said.

Suddenly, a round column of light appeared in the center of the enclosure, filling the space from floor to ceiling. MacLeod
watched, waiting for something more to happen. After a moment, he prompted, “And … ?”

“Patience,” Constantine counseled, looking more than a little like a wizard conjuring a spirit as he gestured at the light.
“It takes a moment for it to warm up.”

MacLeod saw a word begin to spiral down the column of light. Etruscan. “Hologram?” he asked, and Constantine nodded. Then
there were more words. Samnite, Umbrian, Carthaginian, Sardinian. Faster. MacLeod realized he was watching a roll call of
the assimilated. The technology fascinated him. Corsican, Corinthian, Syrian, Numidian, Celtiberian, Cimbri, Teuton, Egyptian.
Like in a whirlwind, the names of vanquished peoples spun down from the ceiling, sucked into the floor. Samaritan, Dacian,
Thracian, Illyrian, Macedonian, Epirote, Parthian, Helvetii. Faster and faster the vortex spun, the names descending fast
and furious—Caledonian Maeatae Arverni Senones Nervii Galatian—so fast MacLeod could no longer read every one, could only
pick out random cultures before they disappeared without a trace. Insubrian, Gaesatae, Boii, Iberian, Belgae, Suebi, Iceni,
Parisii.

Finally the last name was consumed by the floor and all that remained was the column of light. Constantine turned off his
new toy. MacLeod shook his head in wonder, and asked, “Whatever happened to the days when museums were places with dusty relics
in big oak cases?”

“Just keeping up with the times, Duncan—we have to compete with EuroDisney now.” He gestured for MacLeod to follow him into
the next room of the carefully orchestrated exhibition. “We still keep a couple of cases around, for purists like yourself.”
A Plexiglas case taller than MacLeod filled the center of the cubicle, accessible from all sides. On a nearly transparent
pedestal, parallel to the floor, rested an Egyptian sarcophagus. Above it, apparently hovering as if by magic, several smaller
artifacts were suspended by fishing line. The arrangement seemed a little off, a large space left empty on the right side
of the display, but MacLeod’s attention was drawn to the sarcophagus.

“Marcus, that’s Nefertiri’s.” MacLeod remembered the day he’d freed the handmaiden of Cleopatra from her two-thousand-year
imprisonment in that sarcophagus. He also remembered the day he’d been forced to kill her.

“I guess you might call it a little selfish, wanting to get a curator’s exclusive, but I called in a few favors from some
of our kind. I wanted to bring a few pieces to the public that had never been on exhibit before. Pieces like this drinking
horn from my old friend Bato the Illyrian”—he pointed out a translucent vessel carved from alabaster—“some rare pieces that
could exemplify the beauty and sophistication of one of the cultures we destroyed or that in some way would symbolize the
brutality we were capable of.”

MacLeod had raised an eyebrow at Constantine’s “we.” Since his arrival he’d suspected that this exhibition was Constantine’s
way of trying to make amends, to atone in some small way for what he felt were the sins of his past. It certainly explained
the exhibition’s scale—it must have taken years to design. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Constantine’s own money
was funding it—he knew the modest Musée could never afford an installation so state-of-the-art. But MacLeod said nothing about
it, noting with wry sadness instead, “I don’t think Nefertiri will need it back. And I think she’d be pleased that her people
were being remembered.”

Constantine seemed a bit relieved that MacLeod approved. “Recognize this one?” he asked, pointing to one of the artifacts
“floating” in the case on hidden wires.

A Celtic torque gleamed in the case’s spotlight, the golden terminals at the ends of the elaborate neckpiece clasped together
to form a delicate ring, finely wrought and crafted by artisans whose skills had rarely been equaled. “Ceirdwyn’s?”

“How’d you guess? She rarely lets it out. I nearly had to pry it off of her. You should have seen the look she gave me when
I asked if I might borrow her sword, as well.”

“She brought it out when her husband Steven was killed.”

Constantine looked grim. “Sad business, that.” He was silent for a moment, then went on. “The Celts were such an amazing people,
Duncan. You should have seen them—they were passionate, they were spontaneous. They loved life with a gusto I’d never thought
was possible. And then the Romans came through and we made them…” Constantine seemed at a loss for the right words.

“English?” MacLeod ventured with a wicked grin, and they both laughed. He looked at the next item in the case. The footlong
piece of iron was flat black next to the gleaming torque, maybe an inch in diameter, and marked only with a ring of rusty
oxidation about halfway up the shaft. “What’s that?”

“Slave boy from the northern provinces was crucified by his Roman master because the master’s wife tried to seduce him.”

MacLeod looked more closely at the nail and shuddered. “Nasty way to die, even for one of us.”

“You should have seen the master’s wife.” Now it was Constantine’s turn to shudder. “Personally, I think crucifixion was the
better part of the deal. The slave kept one of the nails as a souvenir. Sick sense of humor, if you ask me.”

MacLeod pointed out the empty section of the case. “So what goes here? A piece of the One True Cross?”

“Actually, that’s why I asked you to come by.”

Ah, here it comes
, MacLeod thought. “Somehow I knew you wouldn’t make a lunch date just because you enjoyed the company, Marcus.”

Constantine, a little embarrassed, asked, “That transparent, am I?”

MacLeod smiled. “Whatever I have is yours. You know that.” He looked around the room. “But I don’t know what I have that would
fit in with all of this.”

“Paul Karros’s sword?”

“Karros?” MacLeod was intrigued.

“I tried to locate him and found out you had…taken care of him, as it were. I thought you might have kept the sword. It was
a
gladius
, an iron short sword, beautiful piece of work. He used it during the Spartacan revolt, you know. He was Thracian, like Spartacus,
trained as a—”

“I know, trained as a gladiator to fight in the Roman games. He must have told me a thousand times,” MacLeod explained.

“Really? I didn’t realize you were that close.”

“We were once,” MacLeod said quietly, and Constantine needed no further explanation. They’d all been there.

“So you
do
have the sword?” Constantine asked eagerly.

MacLeod nodded. “I know where I can get my hands on it. Tuesday soon enough?”

“Perfect. The exhibition opens on Wednesday.” Constantine looked pleased. “Well, that was simple enough—and I didn’t even
have to spring for lunch,” he added with a devilish look at MacLeod, who thought he could almost detect a small gleam of victory
in his eyes.

“Uh-uh, not so fast,” MacLeod said, shaking his head. “You still owe me, Marcus. And this time I pick the restaurant. I don’t
think we’ll be welcome at Chez Nous again.”

“What did you do, Duncan?” Constantine scolded with fatherly concern.

“It’s a long story. But no lame excuses about curation emergencies next time.”

Constantine acted shocked at the very notion. “Lame? Not lame at all, I assure you. Look at this.” He led MacLeod toward another
case, this one made of a tinted plastic. “I spent the entire day wrestling French Customs for this piece—you thought facing
Karros was tough. But if I hadn’t, it would have ended up in some bureaucratic warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant.”
MacLeod stopped and looked closely at Constantine for a moment, then decided it must just be museum humor. With Constantine,
you couldn’t always tell when he was kidding. “It will come as no surprise to you, I’m sure, that the Israelis don’t look
kindly on removing antiquities from the country. You’d better have your paperwork in order. In triplicate.”

Constantine flipped a switch at the back of the case and a dim light illuminated the contents. An old, worn fragment of papyrus,
apparently blank in the half-light. MacLeod looked at it for a moment. “Am I waiting for it to warm up?” he asked.

“No holograms here, my friend. This is the real thing. But I believe we can help it out a bit with the magic of technology.”
He flipped another switch, bathing the scrap in infrared light, and suddenly MacLeod could make out a tiny, delicate script
covering the papyrus. Hebrew, he realized, very old. He looked up at Constantine, questioning.

“A fragment of the Torah, Duncan.” Both Constantine’s voice and face conveyed a reverence MacLeod had not expected from a
man who could be considered an ancient relic himself. “Recovered from Masada. It just arrived today from my student, Avram
Mordecai.”

To get a better look at the delicate writing, MacLeod moved closer to the Torah.