The Last Sacrifice (9 page)

Five of the ship’s crew faced Vitas. Three others held the cross, balancing it on the edge of the ship’s railing. One quick shove, and it would fall into the water.

“Back to your sickbed,” snarled the largest of the crew members. He was built like a bear, with dark, greasy hair and yellowed teeth.

Vitas glanced at the cross, where John was lashed securely. John’s eyes were closed, his face serene. Who was this man?

“What you are doing is murder,” Vitas said. The swaying of the ship made it difficult to keep his balance in his weakened state. “If you drown him, I’ll see you are all sent to the arena.”

The leader of the crew grinned widely when Vitas staggered, suggesting he knew how little strength Vitas had. “So you’ve brought an army aboard and not a miserable old slave?”

“Rome enforces its laws,” Vitas answered. “There is no place in the world for this ship to land that doesn’t have Roman law and the army to back it.”

“Shut your mouth,” another said. “If we don’t make a sacrifice, this ship will never make it to land.”

There were nods and grunts of agreement. Although this was a small group of men, it was rapidly forming the mentality of a mob.

“The captain is aware of this?” Vitas asked.

“We gave the captain a choice,” the first said. He picked up a short piece of lumber and slapped it against his opposite palm. “We told him one of you would pay the price for making us set sail without a sacrifice or omen. He gave us your slave.”

The large man advanced on Vitas. His grin became a snarl as he raised the improvised club. “We can always put you on the cross instead.”

Vitas was a former soldier, a former general, a man who had faced his share of street fights in his younger days. His mouth was dry, his body vibrant with adrenaline. He took a step backward, remembering that there was a knife among the tools on the deck.

He squatted without removing his eyes from the man with the stick. A quick glance down showed him the knife. He grabbed it, stood, and marched forward, knowing that offensive tactics were the most effective move against bullies who expected their opponents to show fear.

The large man stopped, uncertainty flickering across his face.

“Set the cross down,” Vitas commanded. If he could bluff their leader into delaying an attack, perhaps the others would listen. “I’ll talk with the captain myself.”

“Go ahead,” came a voice from behind him.

Vitas half turned. He wanted to keep the crew leader in the corner of his vision.

“I’m the captain,” the voice continued. “Drop the knife. Speak to me now.”

The captain, a large man too, spoke with an accent that clearly placed him from Sicily. Beneath sparse dark hair, he had a narrow face with the surprising juxtaposition of a flattened nose, obviously broken more than once, obviously healed badly.

“You will let your men commit murder?” Vitas said. He lowered the knife to his side but did not drop it. “Knowing the Roman court holds a captain responsible for the actions of his crew?”

The captain smiled, his arms crossed, posing for his crewmen. “Tell me, my friend. Who arranged for you to be on this ship?”

Vitas did not answer because he could not answer. He did not know who had arranged for his escape from the amphitheater. Or why. The answer was in the scroll, which perhaps lay somewhere in the captain’s own quarters.

“Who arranged for you to be on this ship?” the captain repeated.

This was a question Vitas wanted answered far more badly than the captain did. He glanced to his left at the crew member with the stick. The large man had dropped the stick to his side, seemingly no longer a threat.

“You should know,” Vitas said. He wished he could think more clearly. He felt dizzy, and his thirst made it difficult to concentrate, but it seemed too dangerous to reveal that he could not answer who had placed him on the ship to escape Rome. He continued his attempt at a bluff. “And you’ll have to answer for the actions of your crew.”

“I’ll have to answer for your safety,” the captain said. “If my crew is happy, you’ll reach Alexandria. That’s far more important than the life of a Christian whose presence aboard my ship puts me at the risk of Nero’s wrath.”

The captain nodded at the man with the stick. “Hit this Roman. Not hard enough to seriously hurt him. But enough to keep him from stopping you.”

The movement from Vitas’s left was a blur. The blow across his left thigh, just above his knee, was a crack of agony that sent him sprawling across the deck.

Vitas rolled twice, losing the knife and tumbling to the side of the ship. He bit back a groan and tried to struggle to his feet. He made it upright, balancing on one leg. The other was numb. The bone felt shattered, but Vitas knew better. He’d broken bones before.

“No,” Vitas said as the men moved the cross closer to the side of the ship.

The captain merely shrugged at Vitas and winked.

Before Vitas could take a step, the captain nodded at the men holding the cross balanced across the railing. They lifted the end up and over.

An instant later, the cross splashed into the water.

Vitas clutched the rail and looked downward.

The cross had landed with John beneath it, and it bobbed in the ship’s wake. It receded from the ship with the man bound, trapped facedown in the water.

“I am Crito,” a disembodied voice said from the steam. “I am here about the Jew from Patmos.”

This was barely moments after the little man from the senator with gambling debts had stepped outside.

“The one named John, son of Zebedee.”

Damian, who had hunched forward for an Ethiopian slave to scrape his back with a bronze strigil, eased upright again. The Ethiopian immediately stepped away and disappeared. Over the previous months, this slave had learned quickly to read Damian’s body language for signals that indicated he wanted privacy. Jerome, of course, stayed.

“Why should I care about your name?” Damian put boredom into his voice. “And why should I care about a Jew from Patmos?”

Jerome stood and loomed over a man who in other circumstances would have appeared large.

Jerome’s bulk, however, did not appear to deter the visitor. Although it was difficult to make out his features in the steam, his appearance suggested a young street thug. Dark, well-groomed hair. Solid muscles. The posed stance of a man who believed himself invincible and wanted the world to know it.

“This Jew,” Crito continued. “You’ll pay to know where he’s gone.”

It was posed as a statement. Damian wasn’t surprised. Senators and lawyers and other notable citizens walked down the streets surrounded by clients and did business in courtyards and near public fountains, relying on receiving and giving favors. Damian did the same, except in this public bathhouse, receiving information as favors and giving money in return. It would be strange if the man in front of him didn’t expect money.

“Perhaps a few days ago,” Damian agreed. He’d put word out many days earlier, and by now it was common knowledge in the circles that he traveled among the lower-class residents of Rome. “But no longer.”

“He was kidnapped. Don’t you find that of interest?”

Damian shifted to speak to Jerome and contemptuously snapped off a common quip, emphasizing it with the use of formal grammar.
“Malleum sapientiorem vidi excusso manubrio.”
I’ve seen hammers with the handles off more clever than him.

As Damian expected, Crito’s posture immediately changed to a stiffened stance of threat.

“Go away,” Damian said in a tired voice. “Whatever you might tell me is old and secondhand and utterly wrong.”

A rumor had reached this man already. Someone had seen Damian and Jerome force a man into the litter they had used to take him from the market. Others had known Damian was looking for John. Whispers had spread and distorted the matter more, until now the thug didn’t even know that it had been Damian doing the kidnapping.

“Old information?” Crito’s fingers were still clenched because of Damian’s insult. “This happened only two days ago. Just before sunset.”

“Old,” Damian repeated. “Secondhand. Wrong. Go away.”

“Secondhand? Wrong? I was there.”

“Liar,” Damian said. If the man had been there, he would have seen Damian. That fact alone would have kept him from approaching Damian with obviously false information. “Go away.”

“I am not a liar!” Crito took a step toward Damian.

It did not appear that Jerome had moved, but suddenly Crito was off his feet and gurgling for air. Jerome had spun him and wrapped a forearm around his throat. The man kicked but it was futile. Jerome didn’t even grunt with effort as he held the man off the tiles of the steam room.

“Verbera eum,”
Damian told Jerome.
Thrash him.

Damian was within his rights to order a different fate for the informer:
“Neca eum”
—
kill him.
This man had tried to attack a citizen. No jury would find fault if Damian’s bodyguard was overzealous.

Yet a dead man would not be able to return to the streets and let it be known that Damian would not tolerate those who tried to play him for a fool. Damian would take no joy in the beating; neither would Jerome. But this was the Roman way: lavishly reward loyalty, and punish disobedience with extreme severity. Nothing between.

“Verbera eum,”
Damian repeated.

Without releasing his forearm from the man’s throat, Jerome used his other fist to smash the sides of the man’s ribs.

Damian winced at the sound of those dull thuds, glad that the steam hid his reaction. Romans were not supposed to be queasy about violence. But Damian’s lifestyle had led him to his share of beatings at the hands of angry gamblers, and he knew too well the pain that Jerome was inflicting on this man.

“He’s on a ship!” Crito managed to gasp.

Damian wasn’t sure if he heard correctly. “Jerome!” he barked.

Jerome stopped the beating.

“Let the man speak.” Damian addressed the street thug. “What did you say?”

“He’s on a ship,” Crito groaned. “I kidnapped him and put him on a ship.”

“
You
kidnapped him?” This was so unexpected that Damian thought there would be no harm in listening. He could order Jerome to resume the beating at any time.

“Not alone. Four of us kidnapped the Jew.”

“Tell me more,” Damian said. Cautiously. If this was true, then who had Damian captured?

“Four of us,” the man repeated, his words hardly more than painful gasps. “Hired to kidnap a man and take him to a ship. No questions asked.”

The man gestured at the bench beside Damian, a silent request for permission.

Damian nodded absently, trying to make sense of the man’s statement. “You say you kidnapped John.”

Crito sat, slowly and gingerly. “I didn’t know then that he was the Jew you are looking for. But as we threw a hood over his head, he called out to the man beside him.”

“Where were you?”

“In an alley.”

“Where?”

“Via Sacra. Just outside the center of Rome.”

Exactly where Damian had kidnapped the man who refused to speak. Damian began to tingle with anticipation, feeling the sense of the hunt. If the man Damian had captured truly was not John, it might explain his determined silence.

“And what did the Jew say to his companion?” Damian asked, not hinting that he was prepared to believe this man to be telling a true story.

“‘Ruso, are you there? Have they hurt you?’ Those were the Jew’s exact words.”

Damian snorted. “Based on that, you come to me asking for money?”

Some of the young man’s cockiness returned. “Four of us were hired. I had a—”

“Who hired you?”

“A slave.”

“You agreed to kidnap a man at the request of a slave.”

“No, I agreed because of the money.”

“How did you know he was a slave?”

“The brand on his forehead.”

“Did he give you his name?”

“No.”

“Unlikely, then, that you know the name of his owner.”

“I do know it,” Crito said. “I followed him back to his owner because I thought there might be more money in it later. That’s what you will pay me for. And the rest of what I know.”

“Don’t guess at my intentions,” Damian snapped.

“The slave belongs to a senator. The same man with the Jew when he was kidnapped.” Crito paused, as if sensing victory. “In other words, the senator named Ruso paid us to kidnap his companion. How much will you pay me for the rest of my story?”