Wrath of Rome dd-2 Read online

  “Your coming to this holy place is not chance in your life, Athanasius. God, who wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth, who directs all things for man’s spiritual benefit, has guided you here for you to listen, deep within yourself, to the secret echo of the words that Jesus spoke to the seven churches of Asia.”

  “Words that have been ignored.”

  “Yes, the light has been extinguished because their faith in God grows cold. But I know that you have seen in your mind’s eye the heavenly vision revealed to me. I can see God’s sovereign work in your life even if you do not. And if what you say about the Dei is true, it must be exposed to the churches of Asia Minor.”

  “So you will come with me?”

  “No,” John said, shuffling to his desk of stone. “But I will write a letter for you to take to the church leaders in Ephesus. They can decide for themselves if they want to help you.”

  This was not what he wanted, but it was clear he would get no better at this point. He had told John about the Dei, and the old man was writing in his own hand a letter acknowledging such for him to give to the leaders of The Way in Ephesus.

  “And how can your disciples help me?”

  “They can hide you in one of the churches in Asia, away from Rome’s legions.”

  “You mean one of those seven problematic churches you address in your Book of Revelation? Some help.”

  “I did not address them, my son. Jesus did. And there is an eighth church I have in mind.”

  “An eighth church?” Athanasius repeated.

  “Yes,” John said, finishing up and signing his papyrus, folding it and sealing it with wax and a symbol. He handed it over. “If you open it, you can see I used the Caesar’s own cipher. You know it?”

  Athanasius knew it. The key was a square containing the 24 letters of the Roman alphabet across the top and 24 numbers down the side. Each numbered row or “shift” was its own alphabet, beginning with the next letter of the alphabet from the shift above. So alphabet 1 began with the B, which translated “A.” Alphabet 2 began with a C, which also translated to an “A.” And so on down the line for 24 alphabets.

  “I know it,” he told John.

  “Then you know that neither you nor the Romans nor the Dei can break it without knowing the secret keyword.” John handed him the letter.

  Athanasius placed it in the pocket beneath his breastplate. “So what is the keyword?”

  John smiled. The old man wasn’t going to tell him.

  Athanasius sighed. “Then who is my contact in Ephesus, and where do I meet him?”

  Again, John was indirect in his reply. “You’ll take the letter and go to the town library. There you will request the eleven-volume memoir titled Miracles in Asia Minor: My Life and Times. It is by Gaius Mucius Mucianus, who was once governor of Syria and traveled throughout Asia and wrote about it.”

  Athanasius vaguely recalled the name Mucianus from his lawyer Pliny’s uncle, who apparently drew from this memoir in his own geographic text Natural History. “And then?”

  “You will place the letter inside the eighth volume and return the collection. The following day you will return to the library and again check out the collection. Inside the same eighth volume you will find further instructions.”

  Athanasius didn’t like it. John was proposing one of those drop-offs the spies used, and not direct contact. The old man really doesn’t trust me, Athanasius thought. “So I’m to fend for myself for a night in Ephesus? What if the Romans get me?”

  John shrugged. “They haven’t yet. This is all in God’s hands.”

  “And you’ve just washed your own hands clean like Pontius Pilate did with Jesus, is that it?”

  John nodded. “You’ve been reading your Scriptures.”

  Actually, he remembered that one from the imperial Roman accounts of the trial of Jesus that he had read long before this nightmare. “How do I know you aren’t instructing them to kill me or turn me in?”

  “How do they know you aren’t an assassin of Rome or the Dei to kill them all? They may not even recognize my handwriting. My secretary Prochorus comes by day to write my letters.” John sighed. “I can’t make them do anything, and Jesus won’t make them do anything. This isn’t the Roman army or empire. Each can do as he likes, and as you’ve read with the seven churches, most do. I can remind them of the true gospel of Jesus, warn them of false gospels, tell them to love each other. But I cannot offer them worldly wealth or comfort. We’re all volunteers.”

  “I was conscripted.”

  “Yes, you were, weren’t you? I told you, I see hatred in your eyes, if not for the Lord then for Rome. That in itself is a danger to The Way.”

  “Yes, quite,” said a voice, and out of the shadows emerged the commander Barbatio, sword at Athanasius’s throat. Somehow he had slipped in silently. He stared at Athanasius. “To think I can now have both the head of the church of Asia and the head of the church in Rome. I can only imagine Caesar’s gratitude for your capture. How is this for a proposal, Tribune: You stay here, and I get off this rock and return to Rome?”

  Athanasius nodded. “There is only one problem with your proposal, Commander,” he said. “This little stick.”

  Athanasius held up a wooden stick to Barbatio’s sword, and the commander laughed. “What do you think you are going to do with that?”

  “This,” said Athanasius and thrust his hand forward, driving the poisoned tip of the stick into the soft flesh beneath Barbatio’s chin.

  “Ah!” the commander gasped, clutching his throat.

  Athanasius quickly grabbed him by the hair and threw him face down on the floor at John’s feet, where he writhed in agony.

  The last apostle threw his hands to his head. “This is not the way of Jesus!”

  “Nevertheless, you said I’m God’s servant,” he said. “And right now this is the only way I know how to get out of here. So say your prayers. Silently.”

  He ran out of the cave at the same moment Cornelius and the two guards ran in with torches to see their commander face down on the cave floor with a halo of blood around his head.

  Cornelius drew his sword and took a swing at Athanasius as he shouted to the others outside. But Athanasius blocked it with his own sword and smashed the hilt on the aide’s helmet, sending him to the ground. Then Athanasius ran out.

  Already a unit of archers was rushing toward the cave, brought on by the shouts.

  Athanasius dashed around the hill, racing through rocks at the back, jumping into a trench and down toward the quarries below.

  Arrows began raining down as he wound this way and that, not knowing where he was going. Once again he had blown his way of escape, just like he had in Rome, only this time it was worse: Unlike the dark slums of Rome, he was out in the open with no cover and no ship to go back to, because surely more legions were now waiting at the Pegasus. He had met the last apostle and had gotten a letter of introduction of sorts to open doors in the church, much like the letter from Caesar opened doors in the empire. But he had failed to take John with him, had killed the garrison commander of the island prison, and thus sealed off any way of escape for himself.

  I’m going to die here before the last apostle, he realized as he ran.

  An arrow glanced his calf and he went down, tumbling over and over until he hit a fig tree. He jumped up and darted into a grove of trees. Suddenly he came upon a break in the grove, where a narrow road cut across. He slid down through the brush and started to cross to the other side when a golden litter carried by four dark slaves stopped in front of him.

  The veil opened to reveal the spitting image of Cleopatra. It was the madame from the Sea Nymph, the queen of the whores. “Need a lift, Tribune? Or do you want to stay here and die? Get in!”

  VI

  As the litter moved off into the dusk, Athanasius and the woman dressed like Cleopatra sat cross-legged facing one another. “You’re dirtier than all the prisoners here, Tribune.”


  The way she said “Tribune” told him she knew exactly who he was, or rather who he was not. “Why are you helping me, Cleopatra?” he asked her, using the same tone on her name that she had used with him.

  “Call me Cleo, mistress of the Sea Nymph,” she told him. “And who says I am helping you? I am helping John. My pleasure barge pays regular visits to Patmos. My girls service the guards, well, most of them. Some of the guards come aboard and slip my girls secret letters that we take to other ports of call.”

  “Like this one?” Athanasius showed her the letter that John had given him.

  She looked it over and then nodded. “Exactly. I was waiting to receive something like this from Cornelius before you assassinated Barbatio.”

  “It wasn’t an assassination,” he insisted. “It was more of an accident.”

  “Too bad. He terribly mistreats my girls. I was going to have to do the honors of serving him tonight until you spared me.”

  Athanasius studied her as he pondered this unusual arrangement she had with the last apostle and his key leaders in Ephesus. “If you’ll pardon my asking, Cleo, why would a man like the last apostle trust you?”

  “A whore?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “For the same reason he probably trusts you. I tell him what his bishops and acolytes won’t: the truth. Now you’ll have to trust me too. Quick, crawl under my ass.”

  Athanasius cocked his ear to make sure he had heard correctly, then pulled back the veil of the litter slightly to see that they were entering the harbor. Night had fallen, and the torches were lit. Cornelius, awake and alert now, barked orders for the ranks to form lines. The last of the garrison’s pleasure seekers were quickly disembarking the Sea Nymph and putting on their helmets.

  He dropped the curtain and looked at Cleo. Her knees were drawn up to her heaving bosoms, and she had pulled back the cushion underneath to reveal a secret compartment. It was only a Roman foot or so deep but ran the length of the litter and was wide enough for him to crawl in and lie flat. She then rolled the cushion back and sat on him.

  “Easy does it, my slaves,” he heard her call out.

  The litter stopped. Then came the sound of approaching boots and a voice.

  “Madame, you are safe,” said a loud voice, which he recognized as belonging to Cornelius. Perhaps he was playing to the troops. “There has been a tragedy. Commander Barbatio has been assassinated.”

  “Have you found the assassin?”

  “We are turning the island over now. We have a centurion from the assassin’s ship who can identify him. The captain refuses to help.”

  “Have you searched my ship? My girls could be in danger. I won’t board until you’ve searched it from top to bottom.”

  “Search the whore barge!” Cornelius shouted, and Athanasius heard the thunder of boots going up the gangway to the boat.

  There were holes in the bottom of the litter, through which Athanasius could see the ground and breathe quietly, but not without some struggle. Cleo had made a good play. The troops were bound to search the ship at some point. Better now than after he was on board.

  A short time later there was more thunder as the troops came back down the gangway, and a voice said, “I have searched the whore ship from top to bottom, sir. There is nobody but the whores and crew on board.”

  “Very well,” said the voice of Cornelius, and as the sound of boots faded away he addressed Cleo. “Such a tragedy, Madame.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said in a droll tone. “Barbatio hadn’t consummated our deal, and my girls only serviced the first round of the night. Barbatio had ordered five rounds. I expect to be paid in full. We made a special trip to Patmos. I have Nubian oarsmen, sailors and marines to pay, and girls to feed.”

  The voice turned stern as it addressed Cleo, again, it sounded to Athanasius, for public consumption. “You will be content to leave with your lives and return at a later visit to finish our business and get paid. Now be gone, and take your whores with you.”

  And with that Athanasius could see the stone of the quay give way to the wood of the gangway as the litter carrying him and Cleo was walked up to the deck. Minutes later he crawled out of his secret hold and stood at the rail of the Sea Nymph gazing back upon the dark waters. The black cutout of Patmos slowly began to fade into the night until it disappeared.

  “Oooh, how it must hurt, Pharaoh.”

  Seated on a small divan in Cleo’s private cabin aboard the Sea Nymph, Athanasius tried to relax as a girl named “Nefertiri” bathed his cuts in oils, dabbing them gently with a cloth. She seemed genuinely concerned for each and every scratch, blowing on and kissing them.

  She offered him wine. “Medicine for your stomach, Great One, as we cruise the Nile on your royal barge?”

  Athanasius, recalling his last experience with wine offered to him from Galen aboard the Pegasus, was inclined to decline, but took a small sip anyway, his bones and muscles feeling crushed and not wanting to spoil this little fantasy Nefertiri had created.

  Then Cleo spoke from the door in Greek. “Phyllis, back to your quarters.”

  Phyllis sheepishly scooped up her assorted comfort potions and tools, then bowed before him and Cleo. She smiled at Athanasius on her way out.

  Cleo entered and poured herself a cup of the wine. “Cornelius will see to it that the logs on Patmos will show that the Sea Nymph is going to Alexandria. But first we’ll stop at Ephesus for you. We’ll anchor offshore, and you can go in by boat. You will have to watch yourself going in. I think your Pegasus will beat us with its two additional decks of oars. Consider your career as a tribune over for now. You will have to put away your costume.”

  Athanasius nodded. He knew as much. “I don’t suppose you have any other disguises for a man in my position?”

  “Wigs, beards and dyes for your hair, too,” she said as she drank her wine. “Everything you could want. We could even make you a woman, although I’m afraid you might draw even more unwanted attention from some men than you already have with the assassination of Barbatio. I can’t imagine old John is happy with you. You must be somebody special if he trusts you.”

  “He doesn’t trust me,” Athanasius said. “He thinks I’m a spy from the Dei sent to destroy the Church.”

  At the mention of the Dei the blood drained from Cleo’s face and her hand holding her cup froze in mid-air. For a wild moment Athanasius worried he had said the wrong thing and might not reach Ephesus after all. Women like Cleo could be quite cunning, and she did have a deck full of Nubian strongmen at her call. But instead she laughed and put the cup down, then lay on top of him on the bed.

  “I can look into your eyes and tell that you are not one of them.”

  “And how is that?” Athanasius asked, shifting beneath her.

  “You don’t have the empty, dead eyes of the Dei that are devoid of any humanity.”

  Athanasius could see that he didn’t have to worry about her killing him, although he did begin to worry about where this evening in bed was going. He could only think of Helena, and how important to his survival it was to hold onto his hatred of Domitian and Ludlumus. To let up for even a moment might deprive him of the full venom he needed. “So you know the Dei?”

  Cleo nodded soberly. “Who do you think runs the church in Ephesus?”

  Athanasius bolted upright in her bed. “You’re lying now.”

  She sat back, startled. “I thought that is why John is sending a man like yourself, to do what his acolytes in the Church cannot and smoke out the Dei.”

  “Who told you that the Dei was evil?” he pressed her. “I thought the Dei defended The Way and the helpless, and only attacked Roman power.”

  She said, “The Dei preys on the weak and helpless, on the least of these, to make itself more powerful. And it has compromised the church in Ephesus.”

  Athanasius said, “According to the Book of Revelation, Jesus lauds the church in Ephesus for its sound doctrine, for not falling into apostasy.”

  “Its doctrine i
s fine,” Cleo told him. “In practice, however, it has been hopelessly compromised. John knows it. But Bishop Timothy, who is a disciple of Paul’s, and his second, Polycarp, who is a disciple of John’s, apparently don’t. I suspect John is sending you to Polycarp because he doesn’t trust Timothy’s disciples, who are thick with the Dei. I know these men, because they run me too.”

  Athanasius looked her in the eye. “Tell me everything.”

  For the first time since entering her cabin, Cleo smiled.

  Over several hours Cleo explained to Athanasius what she knew about the Dei, working backward from her own experience aboard the Sea Nymph to the opium dens and whore houses the Dei operated in ports all around the Great Sea, to the flesh they shipped out of Ephesus—women to the temples, and men to feed the galleys, the mines and the Games in Rome.

  “But where do these people come from?” Athanasius asked.

  “There are caves in the hinterlands of Asia Minor,” she told him. “Vast, endless caves where the Christians hide in underground cities. Tens of thousands of them. Most live there because they have nowhere else to live, and they crawl out into the day to work as field laborers if they can find work. Many others have moved there for protection from Roman troops, who have better things to do than crawl into holes in the ground. And a vast majority are convinced the world is about to end and have shut themselves in with their families and food stores in preparation.”

  Athanasius listened carefully. He had heard rumors of these underground cities, much like the urban legends of catacombs beneath Rome, where a growing army of Christians were breeding to one day surface and overwhelm the city like locusts. But he had chalked that up to Domitian’s propaganda machinery, which always seemed to go into full motion just before the start of the Games every summer.

  “What do the caves have to do with the Dei, Cleo?”