Defender of Rome (32 page)

‘In the name of Jesus Christus cleanse these unworthy souls of their sins and take them into your house, in keeping with your Covenant. Write your law upon their hearts, place your almighty spirit within them and take their immortal souls into your keeping.’

His life had changed for ever.

XLVI

NERO FROWNED AS
he studied the dark-haired figure kneeling before him in the throne room of his commandeered Neapolitan palace. Poppaea had sent word by messenger of the troubling news and now she was here to provide him with details of Rodan’s treachery and Torquatus’s late-flowering and ultimately fatal heroism. It was perplexing, but he would not let it spoil his mood.

‘The Praetorian centurion planned to abduct you and sell you to the pirates of Sandalion?’

‘Just so, Caesar,’ she said quietly. ‘He admitted as much before good Torquatus killed him.’ Her voice choked as she spoke the Praetorian prefect’s name and Nero could see it distressed her.

‘Rise, my dear. You must not kneel before your Caesar. A chair for the Empress,’ he ordered.

Strange that Torquatus had shown such concern for Poppaea after so many years of enmity. Then again, perhaps not. He had hinted at some great coup in the offing. This was undoubtedly it.

He waited until she was seated before he resumed his questioning. ‘And the traitor’s accomplices?’

‘All dead, Caesar. The Praetorians who rode with Torquatus were most thorough.’

‘Of course,’ he mused. ‘They must be rewarded for their diligence. A pity, though, that none was spared to be put to the question.’

A second figure had been waiting in the shadows. Now Nero waved him forward. Valerius marched across the marble floor and knelt before his Emperor.

Nero’s tone changed. Imperious and harsh. Each word a challenge. ‘You accompanied Torquatus here in search of the traitor Rodan? Why, when I had given you such an important mission to complete? You understand it is death to disobey your Emperor?’

Poppaea drew in a sharp breath. Valerius raised his head and Nero felt a shiver of unease as he saw the angry reddened eyes and the raw scar that disfigured the drawn features. Here, for the first time, he was seeing the Gaius Valerius Verrens who had stood before Colonia and defied the hordes of the rebel queen.

‘My Emperor honoured me with the title of Defender of Rome.’ The voice was as hard as the face from which it emerged. ‘What is Rome if she is not the man who rules her? A threat to Caesar’s wife is a threat to Caesar himself. When I discovered that threat I did what any soldier would do and moved against it with all the forces at my disposal. If that means death, so be it.’

Nero scowled at the provocation and wriggled in his golden chair. He was already becoming bored with this conversation. All he truly wanted was to let his mind return to the triumph of the previous night. He had defied the earthquake to entertain the people of Neapolis even as they fled in terror from the crumbling theatre. As the rest of the world panicked, he alone had stood firm and his sweet voice had never faltered. It had been the finest performance of his life. For the first time, he knew that he no longer needed to stand in the shadow of the gods. That knowledge allowed him to view the events Poppaea had just related, and Valerius had confirmed, with more equanimity than might otherwise have been the case. In Torquatus he had sensed a growing problem; a boil which might, at some point, require to be lanced. There were questions, of course, but they could be kept for another time. However, there was one more matter to be resolved.

‘You were tasked with finding this … Rock … and the time you were allocated ends at sundown. You are aware of the consequences of failure?’

Valerius nodded slowly. This was the true reason for his presence and now the moment was here his throat felt as if it was filled with sand. Twenty thousand lives depended on his next words. ‘I plead for Caesar’s indulgence.’ He saw Nero’s eyes harden but he kept his voice steady. ‘The man called Petrus, known as the Rock of Christus, is in my custody in Rome, to be presented in chains at the Emperor’s convenience.’

This was the great gamble. If he delivered Petrus to Nero at the same moment Poppaea announced that Rodan had turned traitor and Torquatus had died, the Emperor would undoubtedly link the events. Yet, by not doing so, he risked Nero’s insisting that his deadline had not been met and ordering the massacre of the Judaeans in any case.

Nero’s cold eyes studied him intently and Valerius felt sweat break out on his brow as he saw the calculations going through the other man’s mind. He would never realize his good fortune. From the moment the Emperor had announced his decision to a trusted group of officials he had been bombarded by concerns about the inconvenience and the expense of the massacre. Rome’s Judaeans formed a small but crucial element of the city’s economy, and their loss would have a significant negative effect on imperial finances at a time when the financial forecasts were already poor. Twenty thousand executions would necessarily require to be carried out by a full legion, so the victims must be gathered and marched to the circus, with all the organizational and security implications that entailed. And did he understand the effort required to dispose of twenty thousand bodies?

‘I am inclined to be merciful.’ Valerius felt the room spin. ‘The Judaeans will be spared. You will deliver this man to me on the nones of June …’ It was only when the Emperor’s voice rose that Valerius realized he hadn’t heard a word of the rest of the speech. He looked from Poppaea to the man on the throne.

‘I said Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome, has the Emperor’s thanks and is free to return to Rome.’ Valerius rose shakily to his feet and bowed. He walked towards the sunshine and freedom and a day he had thought would never come. ‘And Verrens?’ He froze. ‘Perhaps it would be wise if you took up the offer from my friend Vitellius. A spell in the provinces might be beneficial to your health.’

Nero turned away, and Valerius found he could breathe again.

‘Come, my dear.’ The Emperor led his wife towards the scale model of Rome which had accompanied them to Neapolis. ‘I will show you my plans for our new home.’

Poppaea smiled sweetly. She immediately noticed a change in the landscape between the two hills of the Palatine and the Esquiline. In the valley, the land currently occupied by ten thousand Romans was buried beneath the largest palace the world had ever seen.

Nero saw her startled look. ‘Do not worry, my love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The gods will provide.’

XLVII

FOURTEEN MONTHS LATER
, on a hot August morning with the scent of old smoke still heavy in the air, Valerius stood beside a sombre, dark-haired woman, close to the place where Cornelius Sulla had died. They were on the far edge of a large crowd who had gathered to witness another execution.

He had last seen Petrus on the day he delivered him up to Nero. Now he watched as a team of executioners erected an inverted cross in the soil of the Vatican fields and placed the elderly Christian against the rough wood. Valerius flinched when he heard the old man’s shrill cry as the first of the iron nails pierced the flesh and fragile bones of his feet. There was a moment of consternation as the executioner realized a single nail would never hold his victim in this unheard-of position. The crowd hooted as further nails were added, before Petrus’s hands were fixed likewise to the arm of the cross so that he hung upside down with the blood running down his bony white legs.

‘It is cruel,’ Olivia whispered. ‘He was a good man. He does not deserve this.’

Valerius looked at his sister. She was still pale, still thin, but she had insisted on riding from the estate to Rome and showed no sign of fatigue. The house on the Clivus Scauri had been burned along with thousands of others in the great blaze in July which had consumed seven whole districts of the city and incinerated thousands of men, women and children. Fires were a common enough occurrence in Rome, but Nero and his officials quickly found evidence that the Christians had been to blame for this one. Petrus’s execution was only the beginning.

‘He asked for it to be this way.’ Valerius placed an arm round her. ‘He said he was not worthy of dying in the same manner as his Lord. He is an old man. It won’t take long.’ He knew that the head-down position in which Petrus was hanging meant his inner organs would slump down and crush his lungs and heart. No man of his age could live for more than a few minutes in such agony. But he had underestimated Petrus’s resilience. It was forty minutes before the fisherman who had watched his Lord walk on water died with the name of Christus on his lips.

Valerius thought he heard a whisper in the air, and for a moment he had a vision of the tall man beside Poppaea’s waterfall. He realized that if he did not have faith, at least he had hope.

Historical Note

The story of the early Christian church is a very murky one indeed. If history is written by the victors, the earliest history of Christianity has almost certainly been moulded and sanitized by those with a vested interest. The church was torn by disputes over its future direction and a number of different sects developed which were only reconciled at the First Council of Nicaea in ad 325. One of the earliest arguments was over the conversion of Gentiles and was between St Paul (Saul) and St Peter (Petrus). Both are said to have been in Rome in the early 60s and Saul is recorded as meeting the philosopher Seneca’s brother. They undoubtedly lived an underground existence in a time of fear, persecution and betrayal. Single-minded individuals with hugely different characters, Paul, a Roman citizen and former soldier, was a pragmatist who had initially persecuted the Christians before joining them, while Peter, a simple fisherman, was driven by his absolute faith in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Could Paul have betrayed Peter?
Defender of Rome
is a work of fiction and it is a novelist’s privilege to bring out the worst in his characters, but there is some evidence, admittedly circumstantial, to suggest the possibility. Apart from their dispute, in ad 80 Bishop Clemens (later St Clement) wrote:
Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death … Peter through unjust envy
. Envy and jealousy are emotions which develop within a structure, not without. It would not be the first time one leadership rival took advantage of an opportunity to get rid of another.

Galilean, Judaean or Jew? Jesus and Petrus had their origins in Galilee, and would have been brought up in the Judaic or Jewish religion, so all three are applicable. But in Rome, Petrus would have been bracketed with the city’s Judaeans, so I have used Judaean as the generic term to avoid confusion.

Nero was the first Roman Emperor to take the threat of Christianity seriously and his response was typically brutal and imaginative, even before the Great Fire of Rome. There is no historical evidence that his wife Poppaea, who died either in childbirth or from Nero’s abuse while she was pregnant, depending on which source you choose to believe, was linked to the Christians, but the true story of Lucina Pomponia Graecina suggests that Christian influence did reach the highest levels of Roman society even at that early stage in its development.

Valerius meets many interesting historical characters on his travels. Seneca was the most influential man of his time before he fell out of favour and was eventually forced to commit suicide. Aulus Vitellius, who may or may not have been commander of the Seventh legion, was flattered into accepting the imperial purple during the Year of the Four Emperors and paid the inevitable price. Nero’s Praetorian prefect, Offonius Tigellinus, survived his reign so I have taken the liberty of replacing him with a fictional character, Torquatus, so that he could meet a suitably satisfying end.

The cities of the Bay of Naples were struck by earthquakes several times before they were buried in the Vesuvian eruption of ad 79, including one during Nero’s visit to Neapolis. You can still see the effects today in the shops and bars of Herculaneum, and at the Villa Oplontis, which is well worth a visit for a glimpse of true Roman luxury.

Acknowledgements

Thanks once again to my editor Simon Thorogood and his wonderful team at Transworld, my agent Stan at the Jenny Brown Agency, and most of all to my wife Alison and my children, Kara, Nikki and Gregor, for the unfailing support which sees me through the toughest times. Special thanks to Lorna Sherman and Ross Leitch for giving me an insight into how an earthquake happens. Philip Parker’s brilliant
The Empire Stops Here
was an impeccable source for Valerius’s venture into Dalmatia, Moesia and Dacia, and Martin Goodman’s
Rome & Jerusalem
was one of many excellent books which helped me navigate the choppy waters of early Christian Rome.

About the Author

Douglas Jackson is rapidly developing a reputation as one of the best historical novelists writing today. He turned a lifelong fascination for Rome and the Romans into his first two novels, Caligula and Claudius. Defender of Rome is the second title in his series featuring Gaius Valerius Verrens; the first,
Hero of Rome
, is available now.

Douglas Jackson was born in Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders and now lives in Bridge of Allan.

Also by Douglas Jackson

CALIGULA

CLAUDIUS

HERO OF ROME

For more information on Douglas Jackson and his books, see his website at
www.douglas-jackson.net

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First published in Great Britain
in 2011 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Douglas Jackson 2011

Douglas Jackson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409011262
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