King Of Kings by Sidebottom Harry

Author:Sidebottom, Harry [Sidebottom, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9781590203552
Google: eA1YPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1441758844
Goodreads: 6698597
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Published: 2009-07-08T23:00:00+00:00

XVI

The heavy purple curtains erected to make the walls of the court hung down motionless. Although it was still quite early, it was already hot. There was no hint of a breeze. It was going to be another stifling day. It was 27 August. Ballista had been in Ephesus since the seventeenth of the month. Comfortably lodged in the luxurious palace of the Proconsul, he had been in no hurry to begin his work. But the scribe to the Demos, the earnest Flavius Damianus, had been most pressing. The vaguely distasteful task could not be postponed for ever. If nothing else, the prisons were full.

Ballista shifted on his curule throne of office. The court functionaries appeared to have ceased their scurrying about. They must be satisfied. He looked around. The statues of the reigning emperors, the Augusti Valerian and Gallienus, accompanied by that of the latter’s son, the Caesar Valerian, had been brought into the Chalcidium, the committee room at the east end of the Stoa Basilica, and set up in front of and below the permanent statues of the founder of the principate, Augustus and his wife Livia – both depicted seated, larger than life, and with severe expressions. In front, an altar had been placed on which a low fire burned, adding to the heat. The incense in the air was already cloying. All seemed ready.

‘Bring in the first prisoner,’ said Ballista.

The curtains parted, and a thin man flanked by two soldiers entered. His prominent eyes flicked round the room. He had a strange air of unstable hilarity, as if he had been celebrating a festival on his own.

‘Name? Race? Slave or free?’ Ballista rattled out the formula.

‘I am a Christian,’ the man replied.

‘You may well be, but that is not one of the questions I asked you.’

‘I am a Christ–’ The man staggered forward to his knees as one of the soldiers hit him across the shoulders with a cudgel.

The eirenarch, chief of police, stepped forward. ‘He is Appian son of Aristides, a Hellene from Miletus. He is of free birth.’ The soldiers hauled the prisoner to his feet. The eirenarch continued, without needing to consult the notes in his hand. ‘He was denounced last year, anonymously. That, of course, strictly speaking, is illegal, but in court he admitted he was a Christian, adding of his own volition that he was a priest of the cult, one they call a presbyter. He was exiled to the village of Kleimaka. There, in flagrant disobedience of last year’s imperial edict – the terms of which were made clear to him – he openly attended cult meetings and travelled to one of their burial places that they call a cemetery.’

He stepped back as he finished. The eirenarch, Corvus, had a heavy, not unintelligent face. He flashed an odd look at Flavius Damianus. There is bad blood there, Ballista thought, before giving his mind back to the case.

The prisoner was grinning, although his eyes still slid nervously around the court.

‘You were aware of the emperor’s orders?’ Ballista’s words were as much a statement as a question.

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