Search the Seven Hills by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1692-7
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

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The practice was repeated annually at a fixed season. They [the Jews] would kidnap a Greek foreigner, fatten him up for a year, and then convey him to a wood where they slew him, sacrificed his body with their customary ritual, partook of his flesh....

Apion

MARCUS PASSED THE REST of the day as though numbed. He slept, heavily and amid dreams of racking pain. Twice he woke, to stare hopelessly at the blot of sunlight where it had moved upon the wall, tortured by blurred memories of last night’s opulent horrors and by the centurion’s brutal surmise. Both times someone spoke to him—Sixtus or Churaldin, he wasn’t sure which—and both times he drifted almost immediately back into a kind of stupor. The third time he woke it was late afternoon. The room, which faced east, was heavily shadowed. Through the window he could see the line of sunlight, yellow as summer butter, on the wall of the court. It was about the eighth hour. Sixtus still sat on the windowsill, reading Marcus’ much-battered copy of the Enchiridion.

“You still here?” Marcus mumbled, and the old man looked up and rolled up the book.

“I thought I’d remain until I was sure you were well,” he said. “Arrius sent a message about an hour ago—if you want to be part of the expedition to the catacombs, they will leave from the prison at a little before sunset.”

“All right.” He swallowed experimentally. The pain was not noticeably less, but his voice seemed to be coming back. “I’m sorry I deserted you last night—I thought if I followed them...”

“You did well,” said the old man. “After hearing all that passed between Tiridates and his bearers, had you wasted time coming to me first I should probably have hit you with my stick. My only fear was that you’d managed to get yourself devoured by Quindarvis’ lions.” He set the scroll on the sill, rose, and came over to stand at the foot of the bed, his game leg dragging stiffly behind.

Marcus sighed and shifted his gaze from the corner of the cracked ceiling to the old man’s face, which was scarcely less lined. “So you know about them?”

“Nearly everyone in Rome does. There are rumors that they are the reason for the extremely good behavior of his slaves.”

Marcus shook his head tiredly. “I’m afraid the rumors are wrong. It’s the fish, not the lions, you have to beware of.” He wondered whether it was only exhaustion, or if, like Arrius, he was becoming inured to the world’s horrors. For in truth, among everything else last night he hadn’t even given the poor little drunkard’s death a second thought. The noise of the music must have drowned out his screams, if he’d uttered any. “Other people must know about that,” he said at last. “You’d think somebody would—would at least denounce him.” But already he asked himself, to whom?

Sixtus shrugged. “On the whole, public opinion runs against that sort of thing, but there are ways and ways of dealing with public opinion.

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