The Last Temple Read online

  Augustus had proven that a dynasty worked best. The previous three emperors—Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—had proven that a dynasty was only functional if the ruler was competent, instead of self-serving and unjust.

  And so the empire had come to this point. As Galba waited in Spain and verged on committing suicide and effectively ending the rebellion, Nero verged on losing support within Rome. The victor would be decided in days, if not hours.

  Vitas could not waste time by attempting to return on a different day. While this task was not as important as serving Vespasian or finding the mysterious letter that threatened Nero, it was a matter of life and death.

  Vitas made his decision. He stepped forward, carefully watching the center of the young slave’s chest.

  If indeed the slave had been captured in battle, he could be physically dangerous. And it was going to come down to a physical confrontation. Inexperienced fighters looked for the hands to move. But a punch began much earlier, from the core of the body.

  “Step aside,” Vitas said.

  “What?” The slave lifted the cudgel and began to poke it at Vitas’s chest.

  Vitas gave no warning. With a quick, rotating move of his upper body, he threw an elbow outward and upward. Not a fist. The human skull was built far stronger than the fragile bones of the hand, and the force that Vitas put into his blow would have crushed his own fingers with solid contact against the slave’s head.

  His elbow caught the slave across the upper cheekbone. The slave opened his eyes wide but was too stunned to manage a sound. He slid to the side, and Vitas caught him as he was falling, kept him from crashing onto the marble floor. He pulled the slave inside and behind a couch, out of obvious sight.

  Vitas picked up the cudgel and pushed through the doorway.

  He needed to accomplish this next mission before the slave regained consciousness or anyone noticed him missing.

  On their previous occasion together—in Jerusalem, in the summer when the Jewish revolt began—even while her husband’s body had yet to grow cold, Alypia had tried to seduce Vitas.

  His memory was of an extremely attractive woman only thirty years old, wearing a blonde wig made from the hair of slaves from northern Gaul, her arms and wrists decorated with gold trinkets—a woman with extreme confidence in her looks, where those looks had taken her, and where those looks could continue to take her in the Roman world.

  Vitas found Alypia slumped in a chair that overlooked a garden, wrapped in a blanket despite the day’s heat.

  She caught his movement and spoke without fully looking. “I have given instructions. No visitors.”

  “And I have ignored those instructions,” he said.

  As she turned her gaze fully upon him, he coughed to hide his shock and a shiver of revulsion. The skin of her face had sagged with two decades of aging, although only two years had passed since their last meeting. Pustules marred the skin, and she was nearly bald. What disease had ravaged her?

  By her reaction, she was equally shocked, but for a different reason.

  She found her voice first. “Vitas? You . . . you . . . you . . . died in the arena. I was there that day.”

  “I am back,” he answered. “And I am not dead.”

  Her smile was a rictus, showing gaps where teeth had fallen out. “Too bad. We could have met on the other side of the Styx, if a person believes in that sort of nonsense.”

  Vitas was prepared to believe in divine judgment. No punishment suited Alypia better than taking away the one thing she valued most.

  She touched her balding head. “But would one corpse desire another?” Another rictus of a smile as she continued to speak. “It’s obvious why I don’t take visitors, but now that you are here, I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not. I spent a lot of years doing that, and it was too much work. Tell me, what do you want? Certainly not me.”

  Vitas felt guilt for his continued revulsion. He should have had compassion for the woman, but he wanted only to leave. “Valeria and Quintus did not die in Jerusalem. I’m here to instruct you to begin the process of reverting their estate to them.”

  “Do you think I care enough about anything to actually take orders from someone?”

  “I think you did your best to make sure both were killed,” Vitas answered. “I’m here to tell you that if either is harmed, you will face reprisals from powerful men in Rome.”

  He said this because it was what he’d come prepared to say on behalf of Valeria and Quintus, but in saying it, he knew how hollow the threat was.

  She began to laugh, but it ended in a choking spasm. When she recovered her breath, she said, “And what will these powerful men do as punishment to me? Send in more doctors to poke and prod? Or extend me mercy by chopping off my head?”

  Pain crossed her face, and she shuddered until the spasm was over.

  “It seems to me,” she said, “that I’m the one who can harm you instead. Won’t Helius and Tigellinus love to have you delivered to them. I may be dying, but I can still send a message that you’ve reappeared in Rome.”

  Vitas held her gaze, difficult as it was to look into a once-lovely face, now hideous. Knowing that Alypia would perceive him as a threat, he fully expected she would get word to Helius. And that was the second purpose of his visit. Vitas wanted Helius on edge, aware that he had returned, but with no idea where to look for him.

  “Perhaps you should strangle me now to make sure your secret is safe,” she said. “Do it. Place your fingers around my throat and squeeze.”

  “See to it that you begin the process of ensuring Valeria and Quintus inherit this estate,” he said. “I am finished speaking.”

  There truly was little more to say. It was obvious that Alypia did not have long to live. It didn’t even make much difference if she helped Valeria and Quintus with the legal process before she died. One way or another, the children would receive their rightful inheritance. And one way or another, Alypia was no longer a threat.

  “Please,” she said. “I mean it. Strangle me. My slaves won’t kill me. They know they’ll be executed for it. I don’t have the courage to commit suicide. Please. If not your hands on my neck, then a knife. Strike quickly.”

  Vitas left her there, wrapped in her blanket, shivering from cold on a hot summer day.

  Hora Decima

  Vitas slipped into the tavern where he’d met Nerva, near the forum. This time, he truly was tempted to drink beer, even knowing the quality was questionable. It had been a hard, fast march to get here from the villa, and his feet hurt. During those delightful months in Alexandria with Sophia and his new child, his excursions had been limited to chasing the baby around a shadow-dappled garden.

  Drinking beer would take time, however, and he felt like he couldn’t even spare the leisure to gulp any down. Instead, he inquired whether a letter had been delivered for Sophia.

  The woman who answered his question was huge, with a face smeared with paint in an attempt to pass herself off as someone a decade or two younger. “You don’t look like a Sophia to me.”

  “See if this has any resemblance to the woman who sent me,” Vitas said. He opened his hands to show a glint of gold. “If there is enough similarity, you’ll get this in exchange for the letter.”

  The woman cackled. “For that, I’ll swear you look like Nero himself, if you were suicidal enough to want that. And I’d be happy to throw in a little extra. Plenty extra, if large women are your taste.”

  “Sophia’s a jealous woman,” Vitas said, putting a rueful grin on his face. “And she wants me to return with her letter as soon as possible.”

  “Pity.”

  On the street once more, Vitas ducked into a gap between the buildings, knowing it led into a warren of alleys. He walked slowly without looking behind, as if he knew his destination.

  The alley stank of human excrement, and rats scattered from some garbage ahead. A dozen steps later, when the alley turned, the street behind him was no longer in sight.


  He stopped and waited thirty seconds, then stepped back around the turn.

  He wasn’t surprised when he saw a dark-haired man halfway between him and the street.

  Their eyes locked briefly.

  While the man was probably only in his twenties, he looked older, for he was thin, his face gaunt in an unhealthy way that suggested too many days without food. His clothes betrayed the same poverty.

  Vitas didn’t hesitate but advanced on the man, who turned and began to flee, only to stop abruptly when Jerome’s large figure filled the space at the end of the alley and began moving toward him.

  Wildly, the man looked at Vitas and back at Jerome, realizing he was trapped. He tried to leap upward, to climb the wall. He fell, then tried again. It reminded Vitas of a rat fleeing a fire. Except rats were better fed.

  Jerome reached the man first and grabbed him by the shoulder, then put a massive arm around the man’s neck and held him in a choke hold for Vitas. The man briefly yanked down on Jerome’s arm but only succeeded in lifting himself off the ground.

  Vitas moved in slowly.

  The man kicked at Vitas, who smiled and stepped just out of range.

  “Why are you following me?” Vitas asked mildly. “Who sent you?”

  It would have been a simple guess if this man had followed from the tavern. That would have told Vitas that he’d been sent by Nerva. But Nerva had not betrayed Vitas, at least not yet. This man had followed Vitas to Alypia’s villa and back again.

  Who else knew that Vitas was in Rome? Only Hezron and Ruso, and neither of them had reason to follow Vitas.

  “Who sent you?” Vitas repeated.

  In response to Vitas’s question, the man simply closed his eyes and sagged backward against Jerome, as if his efforts to escape had drained all his energy.

  “Shall we nick his nostrils?” Vitas asked Jerome in a conversational tone. “Nothing serious, of course. But painful. The cuts will bleed for days and hurt even longer.”

  Jerome grunted agreement.

  Vitas lifted his lower garments and pulled out a knife he’d strapped against his outer thigh.

  He put the tip of the knife inside the man’s nostril, and the point shocked him into opening his eyes again.

  “I’ll ask once more,” Vitas said. He pulled a little with the knife—not enough to cut into the delicate inside of the nostril, but enough to give a sense of the pain that would come when Vitas sliced it open. “Who sent you?”

  The young man finally spoke. “Do what you must. I’ll die before telling you anything.”

  Vitas saw certainty and determination in his eyes.

  It was one thing to incapacitate a fit slave warrior threatening with a cudgel as he’d done earlier in the morning. Another to torture a man so weak from hunger he could barely stand. The man wouldn’t have anything to report to the person who sent him except that Vitas had visited Alypia and then a tavern.

  “I’m getting soft,” Vitas told Jerome with a regretful sigh. “Let him go.”

  Hora Undecima

  “You’ve come to taunt me?” Alypia croaked from her chair in the sun. “Go away.”

  Quintus and Valeria had insisted that Vitas take them to the dying woman. He’d mentally measured the risk. Had Alypia sent word to Helius about his visit to her? If she had, would Helius have sent men to watch for his possible return?

  He’d weighed the likelihood of those risks against the possible danger of Quintus and Valeria’s going unaccompanied to visit the woman who wanted them dead. When Valeria had informed Vitas that unless he chained them to the gates of Damian’s estate, they would find a way to visit Alypia with or without his permission, he’d realized he had little choice.

  And now they were here, with Valeria and Quintus sitting across from her, Vitas standing watch at the entrance to the garden, within earshot of the conversation.

  “We are not here to taunt you,” Valeria said quietly.

  Vitas knew that even before the murder of Valeria’s father, she and Alypia had been two proud and spiteful women, each grating on the other in the confines of their household. With all he knew of Valeria’s past as the spoiled daughter of a rich man, he now marveled at the gentleness in her reply.

  “I want to tell you about Jerusalem,” Quintus said in his usual earnest and straightforward manner. “When the Romans were forced out, I lived with an old woman—Malka. A Jew. With no money or any other family.”

  “I hate the mention of Jerusalem,” Alypia spat. “Leave me. I want to be alone.”

  Vitas had warned Quintus that Alypia might treat them with foulness. Quintus pressed forward anyway.

  “She was a follower of the Christos,” Quintus said.

  “Then throw her to the lions,” Alypia answered.

  “There is something to these followers,” Valeria said. “You must listen.”

  Alypia looked past them but said nothing to interrupt when Quintus began again.

  “She taught me about the Christos,” Quintus said. “About his teachings. About his death on the cross. And how some alive today witnessed his resurrection. Malka said he was the long-awaited Messiah.”

  Vitas thought of Titus and Vespasian, commanding their legions in a tumultuous land split by contention over this figure—the Messiah.

  When Vespasian withdrew his legions from Jerusalem to await the outcome of the pending Roman civil war, the Jews who rejected the Christos as Messiah had proudly proclaimed this as evidence of God’s miraculous intervention to save Jerusalem and the Jews to ensure the coming of the Messiah he had promised.

  The followers of the Christos had interpreted the action in the opposite way. They’d recounted one of the warnings of the Christos, when he’d proclaimed that during the Tribulation, the days would be shortened for the sake of the elect. Those on the housetop should not take anything from the house, and those in the field should not return to take clothes, but all should flee into the hills.

  And believing that Jerusalem would face destruction for rejecting him as Messiah and crucifying him, the followers of the Christos had used the time of Vespasian’s retreat to flee the city, leaving behind their homes and much of their wealth.

  If civil war killed the empire, Jerusalem was safe. But if the empire survived, it would return to Jerusalem, for it could not afford defiance from any province.

  What Vitas knew for sure was the chill of the remainder of this prophecy, which Sophia had taught him. Immediately after the Tribulation of those days, the sun would be darkened and the moon would fail to give her light; the stars would fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens would be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man would appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth would mourn, and they would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The Christos had prophesied that this generation would not pass until all these things were fulfilled.

  Were Jerusalem to be destroyed, Vitas realized, it would be a confirmation of this horrible prophecy. But this horror was impossible.

  He was pulled from his thoughts by Alypia’s screeching nastiness. “Is there a purpose to all of this drivel?”

  Valeria knelt at her feet and held one of Alypia’s hands, ignoring the festering wounds on the skin. “Quintus and I have become followers of the Christos,” Valeria said. “We know his teachings. And we know the hope that he offers.”

  “We are here because we are your children,” Quintus said. “We are here because we want to help you and keep you company.”

  “Is this a cruel joke?” Alypia said. “You don’t need to be nice to me to get this estate. I’m sure your lawyers have told you that it will be yours, no matter what I try to do to you.”

  “It’s the farthest thing possible from a cruel joke,” Valeria answered. “Whatever has happened in the past doesn’t matter. Vitas told us that you are afraid to die. Learn about the Christos from us. Learn that he has prepared a room for you.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Alypia sa
id. “You must want something.”

  Valeria straightened and smiled. She spoke to Quintus. “We need water. Warm water in a bowl. And a towel. Let’s start by washing her feet.”

  Vespera

  At dusk, Vitas reclined across a table from Ruso as the senator gave thanks to God for the lavish spread of food in front of them. Vitas had bathed and been tended to by slaves, and he’d felt guilty about it, then felt vaguely un-Roman for this guilt.

  He knew the source of his guilt. It had begun in the previous months in Alexandria, where he and Sophia had lived a very simple life in a small circle that included only Jerome, Arella, Quintus and Valeria, Ben-Aryeh, and their own son.

  Many hours Vitas and Sophia had discussed faith and what it meant to be a follower of the Christos, with Sophia fully committed and Vitas curious but still reserved.

  The teachings of the Christos were radical. To follow him, one had to crucify oneself. “It is no longer I who live,” Sophia had once told Vitas, “but the Christos who lives in me.”

  Vitas knew that Sophia ached for her husband to share her faith. She’d told him that one must give up not just part but all of oneself. One could no longer be a rugged individualist. Following the Christos involved being baptized into a body of believers who considered everyone equal—indeed, as fellow slaves of the Christos, each was to consider others better than himself. Sophia explained with crystal clarity that there was no room for compromise on this central point. She had quoted the apostle Paul’s writing in a letter to the church in Philippi: “‘Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.’”

  Vitas had freely admitted to Sophia that he too ached for the freedom that came with this kind of submission but said that every time he came close to it, something within him balked at the notion.