The Sacrifice Stone (26 page)

A low chanting began from behind us. At the signal we took our places on the benches either side of the central aisle and watched as the Pater slowly walked up to the altar.

It was a long ceremony, and sometimes I had to fight a restlessness that would have had me jumping up and rushing out to look for Theo, had I not sternly ordered myself to be still. The god had promised to help me, I knew it — the least I could do was show my gratitude and my faith in his support by concentrating on his rituals.

It was easier when the time came for me to play my part. The more senior of the two Soldiers — not the one whose bull we would sacrifice later, the other one — took his place at the altar and called me in the prescribed way: ‘
Melichristus!
Melichristus!
’

Honey-anointed.

I stepped forwards and held my hands out over the sacred vessel, my sleeves pushed back to the elbow. The Soldier settled the kitbag on his shoulder — it symbolized his willing bearing of his burden, and I knew how heavy it was — then slowly and deliberately began to pour the thick golden honey over my upturned palms.

As a Lion, my element is fire: not only was this why I had to be cleansed with honey, water being hostile to fire, it also meant it fell to me to burn the incense. When the Soldier had wiped the honey from my hands, he went back to his bench and I stepped forward alone to the special pillar where the incense had been placed in its stone bowl.

Chanting the prayers, I reached behind me to where I knew the Courier of the Sun would be waiting with his lighted spill. I felt him put it into my hand. Without turning, I thanked him. Then, while the flame still burned high, I touched it to the black cones of incense.

It was a crucial moment. If they lit, the god was with us. If they didn’t ...

I turned my mind from that prospect. I knew the god was with us — this was no time for doubt.

From the tips of the cones rose tiny flames. Watching, waiting until I felt they had taken hold, slowly I leaned forwards and, very gently, blew.

The flames went out.

But the tips of the cones went on burning, spots of bright orange in the darkness.

And a thankful sigh went up from my Brothers as the sweet-sharp smell of sandalwood filled the temple.

*

We were another hour in the temple. As the clouds of incense floated down the aisle and over the Brothers on their cushioned benches, the Pater spoke his dedicatory prayers. Our eyes closed, we followed the sound of his voice as he put us under the god’s spell, leading us down mystical pathways and telling us of wondrous things we could only strive to understand.

When it was over, it took us even longer than usual to descend from the heights. Not that we were required to, totally, for the sacrifice was still to come. As the spirit slowly receded from us, one by one we got up from the benches and went quietly back to the antechamber. There was little point in disrobing yet; most of us merely paused to remove our masks before going out into the night air.

The Soldier went off to collect his bull. One of the Brothers offered to go with him — it was the Persian — but the Soldier said he was better alone, a stranger might make the young creature nervous. He was a considerate man, clearly keen to give his bull as easy a time as possible: if the animal didn’t realize until the very last minute what was in store for him, he would suffer less anticipatory fear.

Which would, of course, also make it easier for his handlers.

I stood at the edge of the glade and watched my Brothers. The Pater and the Courier of the Sun were still inside the temple — they would pray in there until the moment of the sacrifice. My Brother Lions were talking to the two Nymphs, the Persian was helping the other Soldier rearrange the weights in his kitbag. The Ravens had seated themselves on an outcrop of stone, heads together in conversation. They were the only Brothers still masked.

There was under an hour to go before the midnight sacrifice. Hardly the best moment to make my move — I stood and debated with myself for a long time before I made up my mind. Then, moving across to their rock as unobtrusively as I could, I went and stood in front of them.

The two masked faces stared up at me. Through the eye-holes I saw two pairs of eyes. Neither pair were friendly.

It was dark in the glade, the brilliance of the almost-full moon blocked by trees and overhanging rocks; the only light came from a torch flaming over the temple entrance. I stared at the eyes, but they shone so brightly in the reflected torchlight that it was hard to see their colour: it looked as if one pair were darker.

Was this Flavius?

I said to him, ‘Why don’t you take off your mask, Brother Raven? It’s allowed, and it’s refreshing to breathe freely while we may.’

Slowly he raised his hand, unfastening the restraining strap and removing the mask. The hooded eyes were expressionless as he said, ‘Well met, Brother Lion.’

I wanted to kick him for his nerve. ‘You have never told me your name,’ I hissed, bending towards him, ‘but you know mine. You know much else about me, too, and I resent your interference.’

‘Interference?’ He laughed shortly. ‘Is that what it is?’

‘You are taking payment from another to act against me,’ I said deliberately — I was only guessing, but he wasn’t to know that. And wasn’t it the only explanation, that he’d kidnapped Theo on Gaius’s behalf? There was no reason, other than a financial one, why he should want to deal me the immeasurable hurt of arranging for Theo to be thrown to the beasts.

‘And just who, do you imagine’ — his tone was silky with sarcasm — ‘is paying me?’

‘Gaius.’

He burst out laughing, quickly suppressing the inappropriate sound as several of the Brothers turned to stare. ‘Gaius!’ he whispered. ‘You think he has the sort of money I would charge for such a service? Think again!’

‘The Procurator, then.’ He had me on the run and I didn’t like it. ‘Gaius has told the Procurator he can provide him with a young boy he wants to be rid of, and your good friend the Procurator has detailed you to bring him in. I tell you, it won’t work, you —’

‘Fool.’ The single word was alive with contempt. ‘You have no idea, have you? Too worn-out to put two and two together, as well as too old to guard a prisoner.’

‘Theo was never my prisoner! He —’

The furious words choked in my throat.

Too old to guard a prisoner. Wasn’t that one of the many things I’d berated myself for last night, that I’d let Varus Severus escape because I was past my prime?

Mithras help me, but finally I saw what I should have seen all along.

The clues were all there, only I’d been too stupid to pick them up. Varus repeatedly referring to his love for his father. ‘No one could have lived up to my father. He was the best.’ ‘You robbed me of someone I loved.’ In my smug certainty I’d made up my mind that, for some reason best known to himself, he was deceiving me. I’d overlooked the obvious answer.

And he’d said, before he slugged me with my own Mars statuette, ‘Where were you hit before?’ He’d known about that, then. And there was only one way he could have found out.

My Brother Soldier, all those months ago, had been right, far more so than he could have guessed. ‘Perhaps having a Brother his own age will stop him lurking round the Procurator’s Office,’ he’d said of Flavius when the new Raven from Gaul had come to join us.

The one whose face I’d never seen.

Not till he’d stood in the road outside my house one night and pushed back his hood.

I tore my gaze from the unmasked Raven and stared down at his Brother. Who, as if he knew as well as I did there was no more need for pretence, began to take off his mask.

The bright blue eyes were full of malicious amusement as Varus Severus smiled up at me.

And, very softly, Flavius said, ‘I believe you have met my elder brother?’

25

I’d speculated over Flavius, worried about him being so pally with the Procurator. Gods, I’d been convinced he had to be behind the threats to Theo and me, for all that I’d never managed to work out what he had against us.

But he wasn’t the only Raven: there were two of them. Both of them plotting against me, and I hadn’t made the connection. It was all my own fault, for taking it for granted Quintus had only had one son.

Flavius was the child born posthumously, the baby who had swelled his mother’s belly when I’d seen her after the execution. Varus was his elder brother — no wonder he’d spoken with love of his father, he hadn’t been deceiving me, he’d truly known him. And, apparently, grown to love him.

I could only conclude that Quintus had been a better father than he’d been a soldier.

I stood there staring down at them, my mouth open. I must have looked as stupid as I felt. They sat on their rock, totally relaxed, supercilious smiles on their faces. Now that I saw the pair of them together, I could make out a faint resemblance. But it was only slight: nowhere near as strong as that between Varus and their father. I remember thinking it was a shame the younger brother hadn’t inherited Quintus’s looks too, because if he had I’d have noticed the likeness straight away. And I wouldn’t now be in this mess.

On the other hand, if they’d been so alike as to be unmistakably brothers, they’d have concocted a different plot.

When they’d enjoyed the moment long enough, the dark-eyed one said, ‘I am Flavius Severus. It is good that we are formally introduced at last, Sergius Cornelius.’

That was a matter of opinion. Flavius, I thought. If Varus had unwittingly gone down-market in selecting for himself the name of a disgraced general, his brother had chosen something far more grand: his famous namesake had given rise to one of our better imperial dynasties.

The shock was receding: a far more vital preoccupation rushed into the vacuum.

‘You took Theo,’ I said urgently to Flavius. ‘Where is he? What have you done with him?’

That smile spread over his face again. ‘He is in safe hands.’ He appeared to consider. ‘Or do I mean
secure
hands?’

Varus laughed softly. ‘You do,’ he said.

He looked up at me. I remembered the tracks I’d followed. Remembered watching that stocky figure as he made his cautious way along the Glanum road. ‘Gaius,’ I whispered.

Oh, Mithras.

They’d brought Theo here, or rather Flavius had. And Gaius had turned up, primed and ready, to take care of the lad while we got on with our praying.

For a moment the soldier in me protested. I should have been out here, fighting for Theo’s life, I thought wildly, what good did I do him, lighting incense in the temple?

The god spoke in my head, calmly reminding me Theo wasn’t dead yet.

I sent him a quick word of gratitude for the reassurance. And for his presence, which I felt as powerfully as if he stood beside me, Phrygian cap on his head, flowing cloak brushing the ground. Loving smile on the serene face.

No. Whatever had been going on outside, I’d been in the right place.

‘Where are they?’ My calm voice surprised me. It seemed to surprise them, too — Varus gave me a look of grudging admiration.

‘They are close,’ Flavius said. ‘Gaius awaits our signal.’

For what?, I wondered. But I wasn’t going to fall into their trap and ask. ‘I’d imagined you would have him locked in an Arelate dungeon by now,’ I said conversationally. ‘Delivered to the Procurator all ready for the next games. Wasn’t that the plan?’

He laughed shortly. ‘It was the plan we allowed Gaius to believe.’ His scathing tone indicated with admirable clarity just what he thought of Gaius. ‘It was, we decided, the best way of ensuring his loyalty. He didn’t make a good stepfather, our Gaius — the woman might have fawned round him, but the boy made no attempt to hide his hatred. Gaius used to beat him, but never enough to vent all his anger. Then the boy ran away. Gaius has been itching for another chance to get at him ever since.’

I hardly heard his last words. Stepfather, he’d said. As if Zillah and Gaius had been legally married. And, he’d said, she used to fawn around him. I felt sick, betrayed.

The foolish gullibility left me almost as quickly as it had come. They hadn’t been married. And she wasn’t a woman to fawn on anyone, especially a stupid, brutal ex-gladiator like Gaius.

Either Flavius had been trying to poison me against her — which was unlikely as I could see no way he could have been aware that I knew her, certainly not of the depth of our relationship — or else he was simply repeating what Gaius had told him. On reflection, that was far the more credible alternative.

‘You have a different plan, then.’ It was too early for relief — not that I’d have shown it, anyway — since the alternative might be worse. If anything
could
be worse than death in the amphitheatre.

‘We have.’ It was Varus who spoke this time. ‘A further refinement — Theo was not in our original scheme, which was simply to kill you. Discovering your...’ he paused, as if taking care to select the right word,
‘attachment
to the boy allowed us to devise a further twist. And certain facts which we have discovered have led to the final version. More appropriate, under the circumstances, as I am sure you will agree.’

There was a heavy pause. ‘Well?’ I said eventually.

They glanced at one another. Almost imperceptibly, Varus nodded. The gesture seemed to indicate that he was the dominant brother; he was the elder, after all.

Flavius said, ‘Have you discussed religion with Theo?’

For the life of me, I couldn’t see the relevance. ‘No,’ I said shortly. ‘It never occurred to me,’ — I couldn’t help the sarcasm — ‘he’s hardly the sort of boy you associate with any degree of spiritual fervour.’

‘The outdoor type,’ Flavius agreed. ‘Nevertheless, it may surprise you to know he is a Christian. Nominally, anyway, for I don’t suppose he is a regular worshipper.’ He paused. ‘However, his mother is.’

Zillah a Christian? A regular worshipper?

The concept took a while to sink in. This time, though, somehow I knew he was telling the truth. Gods, it had been even more courageous of her to come to me, given how we were persecuting the Christians.

Amid all the anxiety, I had a moment’s joy that, knowing all that divided her people from mine, she’d overlooked the differences and seen only herself and me. Two individuals who needed each other. Who had something to offer each other.

I pulled myself back to the present. ‘What relevance has all this?’ I said sternly. ‘Had you still been pursuing your absurd plan to throw Theo to the beasts, then the fact of his being a Christian might have been significant. As it is ...’

‘It’s of the utmost significance,’ Varus interrupted. ‘As you’re soon to find out.’

Whether or not he would have told me then, I don’t know: at that moment the quiet of the night was shattered by the angry lowing of a bull-calf. The Soldier was on his way up the hill, and, from the nearness of the sound, he’d almost reached the glade.

Several things happened at once, or so it seemed in the heat of the moment. Varus leapt to his feet and, surely before anyone but I could have noticed, disappeared behind the great rock on which the two of them had been sitting; immediately afterwards, there was a sound like the screeching peep of a little owl, swiftly answered from some unseen point close at hand. I heard a cry, quickly curtailed — all my senses told me it was Theo, but in truth there was no way of knowing, it could have been anyone.

Flavius was still sitting on the rock, innocently staring out across the glade, when his and everyone else’s eyes turned to watch the Soldier lead his bull into the clearing.

If the screech had been Varus’s signal, immediately answered by the waiting Gaius, then they must have rehearsed what happened next till it was faultless. There came a crashing from the undergrowth below the glade as if someone were hurrying towards us, then, from a slightly different direction, a great shout.

It might have been Gaius’s voice — who else
could
it have been? — but people’s voices are notoriously difficult to identify when they’re shouting.

Whoever it was wanted to make quite sure we heard, because the words were repeated: he cried, ‘They’re coming! They’re coming! The Christians from Glanum have come to destroy the temple!’ Almost immediately came the repeat, almost like an echo, ‘Destroy the temple!’

It only occurred to me afterwards that, given all the rocks, caves and deep gullies in the vicinity, it was probable he actually was making use of an accidentally discovered echo.

My Brothers stood irresolute, shocked into immobility. Then, as if they’d been prodded, as one they all took off, racing down the hillside, their thundering progress sending up a great racket of breaking branches and dislodged rocks. Gods knew what they had in mind — the charitable interpretation was that they’d gone on the offensive in defence of their sanctuary and their god, although, since none of them was armed with anything more weighty than an ornamental lance or a tin sickle, it was much more likely they were simply panicking.

The Pater and the Courier of the Sun had not emerged from the temple: the shouting must have been audible, even in there, so I guessed they were too deep in the trance-like rapture that preceded the sacrifice for it to have penetrated.

I spun round to face Flavius. The Raven mask was still lying on the rock beside his brother’s, but he had gone.

The Soldier was standing on the edge of the glade. His young bull, bored, was idly pulling at the sparse grass, trying to get a decent mouthful.

The Soldier said helplessly, ‘What do we do now?’

He wasn’t going to be much use for anything, even if he tethered his bull and offered to help; he looked totally bemused.

‘Stay with your bull,’ I said. ‘The most useful thing you can do is keep him calm. We’ll soon send those Glanum Christians packing — this is only a temporary interruption in our proceedings, I’m quite sure.’

I wasn’t sure at all, but fortunately he was innocent enough to be convinced by my confident tone.

Leaving him standing dejectedly beside his bull — I half-expected him to start cropping grass as well — I removed my scarlet cloak and hid it behind a rock, then set off down the hillside after the others.

*

Some time later, when I’d searched every track I could find and found precisely nothing, I realized we’d played right into the brothers’ hands. For some reason they’d wanted to disrupt our ceremony, an aim they’d achieved with total success; that loud and unexpected cry, ‘The Christians are coming to destroy the temple!’ had made my fellow worshippers run like hares. Even if they came sheepishly back, the mood was broken — it might be better to abandon the whole thing and perform our sacrifice another night.

Trudging back up the hillside, I almost hoped I’d find that everyone had gone home.

Then I remembered that tonight was special: it’d be no good sacrificing the Soldier’s bull tomorrow or the next night — tonight was the beginning of winter, and tonight was when the ceremony must happen.

But wasn’t the sacrifice the very thing the brothers had been trying to prevent?

I didn’t know.

Belatedly it occurred to me that I ought to be on the lookout for them, as well as hunting for my fellow worshippers; moving as quietly as I could, keeping to the shadows wherever possible, I crept up to the glade.

There was nobody there.

Swiftly crossing it, I peered inside the temple. That, too, was deserted.

Where was everyone?

Had the Pater and the Courier of the Sun discovered the absence of their followers and gone to look for them? Had the Soldier got sick of waiting and taken his bull home?

Perhaps I should go home, too.

A voice in my head said, stay. Stay and watch.

He was still with me.

It was no good watching from the glade — it was too well sheltered, both by tangled undergrowth and by the great rock that rose up above the temple, to provide a lookout in any direction. I set off down the track again, following it until, almost at the bottom, I found a hiding place from which I could see both the track up to the temple, the road back to Arelate and the one to Glanum.

I climbed the bank and crept in under the deep shadow of an overhanging rock. I tried to make myself comfortable: I fully expected to be in for a long wait.

*

Deep silence covered the hillside: the land was fast asleep. There was no sound from Glanum, just up the valley, although the breeze that blew from that direction bent the conifers so that their long shadows wavered against the moonlit ground beneath them.

It was as if I was seeing a scene I’d watched before: one minute I was looking at the waving shadow of a juniper tree, the next, part of the shadow detached itself and moved on to another tree. One nearer to me.

It was exactly what he’d done before, on the slope before my house.

Pushing myself right to the back of the cramped space — he wasn’t going to spot me, not this time — I waited.