The Sacrifice Stone (31 page)

I don’t know if I was really concerned about those dangers. What I do remember is a sudden weariness, an urgent need to leave it all behind me. To start again.

With Zillah and Theo.

‘Where shall we go?’ Theo asked eagerly. He was bright-eyed, full of the excitement of setting out.

Several possibilities flashed through my mind. None of them were any good. I realized with a sinking of the heart that I didn’t have an answer.

She had gone to stand beside Theo. Both of them waiting for me to tell them what to do, and I didn’t have a clue. Wherever we went someone would notice us — a man, a woman and a boy stood out more than a solitary traveller. Whichever way we went we had several hundred miles of Roman Empire to cross before we would escape into anyone else’s territory. Not that I’d have suggested we went towards the wild lands beyond the Rhenus — even Flavius would have been better than warring tribesmen.

Could we get hold of a gipsy caravan and join the migrant people of the delta? No, we’d be spotted in no time. Someone would betray us, sooner or later — there would be a price on our heads, before long.

‘Shall we go to Cassius’s farm?’ Theo said.

‘No.’ I looked at him, aware that I was dashing his hopes. ‘If anyone came after us and found us there, Cassius would get into trouble for harbouring us.’

‘Oh.’

I’d never realized how much sadness could be expressed in one short word.

Despair spread through the little room like a bad smell. I tried a few more possibilities, seeing us on the road, hiding, searching for food, shelter. I saw a troop of soldiers hunting for us, sweeping down across the delta until we had our backs to the sea and there was nowhere else to run.

It wasn’t a good picture.

Theo said suddenly, ‘Why don’t we take a boat? Father’s boat is still tied up at the Saints’ Village.’

‘And just where would we go?’ I regretted my tone, but somehow I couldn’t help it.

‘The two Marys came from over the great sea!’ he cried, his hopeless idea taking firm hold. ‘They came in a boat with no sails and no rudder, all that way, and they landed here! We can sail off somewhere too!’

I said patiently, ‘Theo, do you know how to navigate?’

‘No, but —’

‘Neither do I, beyond working out which way’s north. And where would we be navigating
to
, anyway?’

‘I
don’t know!’ His tone seemed to suggest he’d had the brainwave, the details were up to me. ‘You could take us somewhere safe.’

I hated to do it, but I had to squash his bright optimism. Before it really got a hold on him, and he started resenting me for not adopting his plan. I loved him and his mother far too dearly to risk taking them off out to sea in some dubious craft that had been neglected for gods knew how many years and probably leaked like an old bucket. It would be better to stay here and somehow face whatever was coming to us.

He was still going on about the Marys, how they’d trusted to their god and he’d protected them.

‘Theo, it’s just a legend,’ I said gently. ‘Things like that just don’t happen in real life.’

But I heard his words in my head, over and over again. They trusted to their god and he protected them.

Theo and Zillah had a god. He was different from mine, but apparently they trusted in him.

I trusted in my god, too. He’d been guiding my steps for a long time now. He’d guided dear old Maximus, too, and the Pater. Deliberately I emptied my mind to let him speak.

I saw again the image of the three of us, Theo, Zillah and me, on the shore. A circle of guards was closing on us. A man with a sword was coming up to me.

Flavius stood laughing in the background.

Then I saw a small boat, its patched sails filling with the offshore breeze as it curved in a wide arc away from the land.

I said to Theo, ‘Just how long do you think it’d take us to get to this old boat, then?’

*

We left at dusk. I let my horse go free: patting his neck one last time, I said a silent prayer for his safety. There was plenty of grazing on the delta — plenty of other horses, too. Perhaps he’d summon the energy to add something of himself to the stock.

Zillah had prepared two large packs, clothing and food wrapped inside blankets. They weren’t very heavy; she didn’t have much. Outside one of the outbuildings I found a water butt which I sawed in half; we’d need to catch every drop of water to supplement what we could take on board.

Nobody was about. We had an uneventful journey, and Theo led us straight to his father’s boat.

We untied and cast off before anyone had a chance to spot us. Before any of us had a chance to think, too: it seemed best.

As the land fell away to our stern, I felt the god beside me.

I could see him in my mind’s eye. He seemed to be smiling.

30

Beth’s lasting impressions of the Gargano peninsula were that it was as rich in saints and holy legends as most places of a similar quiet nature are in corner shops and postboxes, and that it had little sleepy towns where the roads were so narrow that the traffic jammed up; she and Adam had to wait an impatient twenty minutes in their hire car when a huge load of tomatoes was spilt from a lorry negotiating a tight corner.

Like everyone else in the immediate vicinity, they’d got out of the car and helped themselves to a kilo or two. In later years, when something happened to remind her of those hectic two days, she would taste plump, sweet tomatoes.

A new side of Adam revealed itself as she watched him slip into working mode. In a way she regretted the loss of the man she was just beginning to love; a more sensible part of her recognized that this efficiency — which seemed to allow little time for anything but pursuit of the Roman’s trail — was the only option.

They’d caught an early flight, arriving in Rome in time to collect the car before everything shut down for lunch. She had navigated, somehow managing to guide Adam out of the city and on to the Naples
autostrada
. That was the hard bit — she wondered if the Roman had been lending her a helping hand. After that, it was simply a matter of telling Adam when to turn off at the junctions which, along successive motorways and minor roads, finally got them to Gargano.

Again and again, she wished she’d brought
The
Canonization
of
the
Early
Christian
Saints
with her. But, she consoled herself, I’ve remembered the most important fact.

The name of the town where a saint called Teodoro had lived.

The priest of the Church of St Teodoro had not only answered all their questions, but also found them lodgings for the night in his sister’s small hotel. Adam had introduced Beth and himself to the priest, giving their full names, Adam Gilbert and Beth Leighton. This had naturally meant the priest’s sister had put them in separate rooms.

Beth, who had been so worn out that she’d fallen asleep the moment she’d lain down, reflected in the morning that to have pretended they were married and asked for a double would have been a complete waste of time.

On the flight back to Marseilles, they put together what they had found out. It had been easy: in the small port whose name she’d remembered from Joe’s book, not only the priest but everyone else had known about St Teodoro — he was as popular as St Spiridon was in Corfu, and, judging by the number of times they heard people calling out the name, there were as many local Teodoros as there were Corfiot Spiros.

‘Listen to this and see if I’ve left anything out,’ Adam said.

‘Go on, then.’ She closed her eyes, partly as an aid to concentration, partly because she enjoyed listening to his voice without any visual distractions.

Adam read from his notes.

‘ “Legend has it that, on a dark night with a howling storm battering the coast, a small boat was cast up on the shore of the Gargano peninsula, on the only safe spot beneath a cliff face. In the boat were three passengers, a middle-aged couple and a young boy. All were far gone in exhaustion, suffering terribly from exposure and dehydration; their rescuers had all but given them up for dead when the boy spoke, saying that God had guided them.” ’

‘You didn’t say about the little chapel that was built on the spot where they landed, the one which we saw.’

‘It’s not relevant.’

That shuts
me
up, she thought, smiling to herself. ‘Carry on.’

‘ “The people were tended by the villagers, and slowly they recovered. The boy, whose name was Teodoro, claimed they had come from what is now Provence but was then the Roman Provincia; they were, he claimed, fleeing from persecution.” Okay?’

‘Mm.’

Taking that for assent, he continued. ‘ “Little more is recorded of the man and the woman. Once Teodoro had grown to manhood, they seem to have slipped quietly into the background. The young Teodoro was a great animal-lover, and —” ’

‘Wasn’t it great when we found that animals’ corner in the church by the market and the priest told us about Teodoro blessing the creatures in his preaching?’ she interrupted.

‘Yes. It was another bit of evidence, wasn’t it?’

‘Circumstantial, a policeman would say.’

‘What a good job we’re not policemen. Shall I go on?’

‘Please do.’

‘ “Teodoro acquired a reputation as a healer and protector of all life. In his case there is evidence for the reputation being justified and not, as with St Francis of Assisi, a subsequent sentimental addition.” ’

‘The Establishment won’t like that,’ she remarked.

‘They won’t like any of this. Isn’t that the whole point?’

She thought of Joe and his certainty. Of the Reverend Derek, to whom she’d taken a dislike before even having met him. ‘It is.’

‘ “In maturity Teodoro became a champion of the oppressed, a protector of the persecuted. And, unusual in his day, he showed remarkable tolerance of other faiths; a devout Christian, nevertheless he had the width of vision to accept that other gods were as deeply loved by their followers as was his own.” ’

‘Are you going to put in what we thought, that it could be because he’d lived with and grown to love the Roman, who wasn’t a Christian but a Mithraist?’

‘I could add a footnote.’ He did so. ‘ “In old age he — Teodoro — became an advocate of the doctrine — many called it a heresy — that all gods were ultimately united in the one Godhead. He died peacefully around the year AD 255, at an advanced age, a loved and honoured figure. He was canonized in 284, and has been commemorated and revered ever since.” ’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘That says it all.’

‘It says enough to make us believe St Teodoro of Gargano and St Theodore of Arles are the same person. Whether or not we’ll be able to convince anyone else remains to be seen.’

‘Let’s assemble our argument.’ The steward had just gone by, and Beth and Adam had ordered gins and tonics. ‘The accepted story of Little Saint Theodore says he was murdered by a Roman officer.’ She poured tonic on what looked like a huge gin, taking a large sip. ‘The child’s body was found by the local Christian community, who broadcast the details of the boy’s slaughter far and wide, holding it up as an example of brutal Roman persecution of the young Christian faith. Roman tolerance finally ran out when the Christians began to attack the sites sacred to the Roman gods, at which the Romans rounded up the Christians, put them on trial and executed them.’

‘The Gospel according to Joe,’ Adam said. ‘So, how do we make a convincing case for showing it’s all wrong?’

‘That’s where Teodoro and Gargano come in. If the Roman didn’t kill Theodore, either the Christians made up the story of finding the body or else the body was that of someone else. But the Roman was the killer — he’d killed
someone
— that was fundamental to their tale.’

‘So if the Roman was innocent and being framed, what was more logical than that he’d try to get both the boy and himself away, considering he’d gone to the trouble of saving the boy from being a sacrifice?’

‘The woman went too, whoever she was. Perhaps she was the Roman’s wife.’

‘Hold on a minute.’ Adam sounded worried. ‘This is a Roman we’re speaking of, a Roman in a Roman province. Why should he have been on the run from a group of Christians, when they were in the minority then and already the subject of persecution?’

‘Damn,’ she muttered. Then, rallying, ‘Maybe he was afraid some sort of Christian resistance movement would get him.’

‘That’s possible. Or maybe he was worried that his own people would think he was just too much trouble, and quietly dispose of him.’

She was silent for some time. Eventually he said, ‘What are you thinking?’

‘You’re going to think it sounds sentimental and silly.’

‘Don’t mind me.’

‘Well, I was just picturing him. Imagining him caring for the boy he’d saved. Perhaps he ran away with him because he loved him.’

‘There speaks the scientist,’ Adam remarked.

She said loftily, ‘The best scientists have imagination.’

‘Perhaps you’ve just experienced another prompted hunch.’

Although he said it with a laugh, she didn’t think he was so far from the truth.

She finished her gin. ‘All that’s left is the Saintes-Maries connection.’

‘That has to be pure speculation,’ he objected.

‘So what’s new? We ought to think about it — it’s fuel to our argument.’

‘Only just!’

‘If those people could get from the Holy Land to Provence in an open boat, then Theodore and co. could get from Provence to Gargano. The whole bloody Mediterranean was probably constantly criss-crossed with bands of people helplessly drifting about in open boats.’ She wondered if the gin was going to her head.

Adam took her empty glass from her so that he could hold her hand. She thought he might be suffering from the gin, too, because he flopped against her lovingly and said, ‘My darling, you’re pissed.’

It was late afternoon by the time they’d collected Adam’s car at Marseilles and driven back to Arles. The priest’s sister’s hotel hadn’t had very luxurious washing arrangements; Beth was longing for a shower and a change of clothes.

‘Back to my place?’ Adam suggested as they were held up for the umpteenth time by heavier than usual Arles traffic.

‘Yes please. We must have at least a couple of hours before sunset — that ought to be long enough to freshen up and get out to Our Lady of the Marshlands. Provided this traffic lets up, that is.’

‘I’ve only seen it as bad as this on bullfight days. Perhaps there’s one today, and ... Oh, hell.’

‘What is it?’

Silently he pointed, and she looked where he was indicating. It didn’t make any demands on her French to translate the huge banner strung across the road:
Come
to
Our
Lady
of
the
Marshlands
!
Witness
the
miracle
for
yourselves
!

Now that they were alerted, they could see that the whole town was stirred up. Newspaper headlines screeched of Little Saint Theodore and Little Chantal Bordanado, stalls which had suddenly sprung up where they hadn’t been before were groaning under the weight of plaster effigies of the saint, plastic rosaries, postcards and bundles of carrier bags with Theodore’s sickly face crudely copied on them.

The whole of Arles was dressed in its best, women in national costume and starched headdresses, men in dark suits, girls in their first communion dresses, whiter than white, as if proud mothers had hoped that a daughter in pristine, virginal white might be rewarded, like Chantal, with a vision.

Adam said, ‘So much for the trusty sympathetic journalists. One of them’s let the cat out of the bag.’ He turned to Beth, grinning. ‘Ready for the fray?’

She replied firmly, ‘You bet!’

The traffic was so thick on the road to the Church of Our Lady of the Marshlands that they abandoned the car and walked the last mile. As they entered the village, deep in a throng of elated people and already over-excited children, the sun was just touching the distant horizon.

Although the road was full of shuffling people, a vehicle of some sort was trying to get through, from the direction of Arles. Incongruously, a public address system somewhere was blasting out ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Turning, Adam said, ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

She turned too. Through the crowds an ancient Renault truck was gently nosing, its open back festooned with white ribbons and flowers. Among the sombre-clad clergy, clutching on to its rail and vainly trying to maintain a vestige of dignity, stood Joe.

Beside him was a short tubby man wearing a sleeveless pullover over his dark shirt and clerical collar. He was joining in with ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ with a strong Birmingham accent, encouraging the bemused French faithful to sing along.

Beth wanted to laugh. ‘The Reverend Derek, do you think?’

‘Without a doubt. He —’

Joe had spotted them. Beth saw him lean across to say something to the Reverend Derek, who nodded.

‘Beth! Adam! Over here!’

The Renault paused while they made their way across to it. Helping hands dragged them up on to its back, then they were off again.

‘I said I wanted you standing beside me, didn’t I?’ Joe was looking very smug. ‘I thought I’d missed you in the crush.’ Then, flinging out his arms, he bellowed, ‘It’s a miracle!’

Beth caught Adam’s eye. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he murmured.

Joe was making introductions. The Reverend Derek gave them each a sweaty handshake. ‘The little girl is already in the church,’ he explained, ‘with her escort of priests. Roman Catholic priests —’ he lowered his voice, glancing over his shoulder at the French clergymen behind him — ‘which I suppose is only right and proper. Although on an occasion of such import as this will surely be, one might be forgiven for wishing for a greater spirit of ecumenicalism, mightn’t one?’