Defender of Rome by Douglas Jackson Page B

in you.
    ‘Petrus is in his sixty-third year, of medium height with the strong features typical of the easterner. He wears a full beard, not to mask them, but because it is his custom. He walks with a slight limp, and he has a reputation as a healer. You will know him when you look into his eyes.’ He raised a hand. ‘No, I can explain no further. You will understand when the time comes.’
    Valerius somehow kept his face emotionless. ‘If I have news, how can I get word to you?’
    ‘I will have a man watch your house. Place a lamp in the window above your door at dusk. That will be a signal for a meeting at noon the following day at the north corner of the Castra Peregrina.’
    Now it was Valerius’s turn to frown.
    ‘Where better for two conspirators to meet than on the doorstep of a nest of spies?’ Seneca chuckled at his own genius. The Castra Peregrina, as its name implied, was the base for foreign soldiers posted to duties in Rome, but also the headquarters of the Emperor’s frumentarii , messengers who often acted as the Emperor’s spies, occasionally as his assassins. Seneca saw that Valerius wasn’t convinced. ‘If you wish we can appoint another meeting place?’
    Valerius shook his head. ‘No. One place is as good as another and the busier the better.’
    ‘The Emperor will demand a swift resolution, but despite what I have told you Petrus will not be an easy man to find,’ Seneca warned. ‘In six months Torquatus and Rodan have not even come close. Your investigation must be taken one step at a time. This will be your first step.’ He gave Valerius a name which surprised him. ‘You will wish to begin as soon as possible.’
    Valerius knew when he was being dismissed. He had a dozen questions he would have liked to ask, but he doubted Seneca would answer any of them. They embraced as if they were father and son and as Valerius rode off towards the Via Salaria he pondered the astonishing name Seneca had given him.
    And the biggest surprise of all: the description of Christus’s Rock, the man called Petrus, who sounded exactly like Joshua, the doctor in whom he had placed his faith.
    Seneca was still standing in the doorway when Valerius passed out of sight.
    ‘Do you think he suspects?’ The quiet voice came from the shadow behind him.
    ‘No. He is an honest, straightforward young man. He will complete his task or die in the attempt.’
    ‘Then may he live long enough to complete it.’
    Seneca turned to face the man who could have been a younger version of Petrus. ‘You realize what this could cost? Nero will have no mercy.’
    ‘We must all make sacrifices. Those who die will have died for Our Lord. Petrus is a good man but he is too soft to lead us to the Promised Land.’
    ‘And he favours a different path?’
    ‘Just so.’
    ‘You are a hard man.’
    ‘Just so,’ Saul of Tarsus said again.

XII
    POPPAEA FOUGHT THE familiar animal squirm of panic. Everywhere she went she felt Nero’s eyes on her. But he couldn’t know, because if he truly knew she would be dead. Or worse. Yet even that was of no consequence, because soon she would be free and nothing they could do to her would matter. Just one more step. One more simple act, and it was done.
    Loneliness and fear had been her lot ever since her father had married her off at the age of seventeen. She had been young and naive, a pretty plaything who knew nothing of the natural bounds of marriage or the power a wife might hold if she only understood her strength. Instead, she had submitted because her husband said she should, even when she knew it was wrong. Each night she would endure the pain and self-loathing that went hand in hand with the acts she was forced to perform for him. Each night she would cry herself to sleep. That should have been enough, even for him, but of course it was not. She thought she had married a strong man, but events had proved that what she had taken for strength was mere bravado, and what she had thought