Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 Read online

  About the Book

  Rome is burning. Only one man can save it.

  The Emperor: Nero, Emperor of Rome and all her provinces, feared by his subjects for his temper and cruelty, is in possession of an ancient document predicting that Rome will burn.

  The Spy: Sebastos Pantera, assassin and spy for the Roman Legions, is ordered to stop the impending cataclysm. He knows that if he does not, his life – and those of thousands of others – are in terrible danger.

  The Chariot Boy: Math, a young charioteer, is a pawn drawn into the deadly game between the Emperor and the Spy, where death stalks the drivers – on the track and off it.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Map

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  I: Coriallum, Northern Gaul, Late Summer, AD 63

  In the Reign of the Emperor Nero

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  II: Alexandria, Late Spring, AD 64

  In the Reign of the Emperor Nero

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  III: Rome and Antium, 17–19 July, AD 64

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Sources

  A Note From The Author

  The Last Roman In Britain

  About the Author

  Also by M.C. Scott

  Copyright

  ROME

  THE EMPEROR’S SPY

  M.C. Scott

  For Hannah, Bethany and Naomi, with love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks, as ever, to the entire team at Transworld, particularly Bill Scott-Kerr for inspired support and for saying in meetings those things an author most wants to hear; to the editorial team, notably Deborah and Nancy; to Gavin for IT; to Patsy for stepping once more into the breach; and especially to my editor Selina Walker, for the skill, sensitivity and unswerving dedication with which she takes the raw ore of a first draft and hones it to the book I was trying to write.

  Thanks also to my agent, Jane Judd, for calm, considered unconditional support, always; and to my partner, Faith, for being all that she is and for being there. And last, thanks to Inca, who died as this novel was being put to bed: none of this would have happened without her.

  The fact is, that the close of this fourth millennium coincides with a Phoenix Year. As you know, the residue of hours of the solar year that exceed three hundred and sixty-five days add up every 1460 years to an entire year, which in Egypt is called the Phoenix Year . . . for then the Celestial Bird is consumed upon his palm-tree pure at On-Heliopolis and from his ashes rises the new Phoenix.

  Robert Graves, King Jesus

  When the matricide reigns in Rome,

  Then ends the race of Aeneas.

  Sibylline prophecy current in the reign of Nero

  PROLOGUE

  Jerusalem in the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius

  Sebastos Abdes Pantera was twelve years old and nearly a man on the night he discovered that his father was a traitor.

  It was spring, the bright time of flowers, and Passover, the time of celebration, sacrifice and riots. Every year, teams of priests worked without cease from sunrise to sunset, cutting the throats of countless thousands of lambs in the temple.

  Every year, the multitudes of the faithful gathered to eat those lambs in memory of the angel of death who passed over their houses, striking down the firstborn of Egypt.

  Every year, the Roman prefect cancelled all leave amongst his legions and set guards about the hot, dry city, packed to capacity with the hot, dry pride of a conquered people.

  Through the nights of unleavened bread, conquerors and conquered waited alike for a spark bright enough to light the ultimate, uncontainable riot that would see the legions let loose and the streets run rivers of blood. It had not happened yet.

  In a private garden beyond the city gates, the sounds of celebration were the muffled roar of a storm not yet broken. The air was heavy with the scent of almond blossom, lilies, crushed camphire and blood. A hot wind rent the trees, raining petals to the earth. It did not move the sullen clouds that marred the sky.

  Crouching alone in the dark beneath the nut trees, Sebastos heard the approach and retreat of a watch-guard’s feet. He shut out all other noises, and made himself listen only to the soft clash of leather and metal on the path.

  Before the second circuit, he knew that the nails of the guard’s right sandal had worn thin on the inside heel, and knew thereby that it was his father, best of all men, who strode alone in the leaden dark.

  Julius Tiberius Abdes Pantera, decurion of the first wing of the first company of archers stationed in Judaea under the direct command of the prefect, may have got his son as a bastard on a Gaulish slave-woman, but none the less, Sebastos knew himself to be the child of a true soldier.

  Since the day he could first walk, his father had taught him the secrets of the archer’s craft and had instilled with it, as the food and drink of his son’s young life, the twin bedrocks by which a soldier measured his own worth.

  First of these was his absolute loyalty to his commander: a true legionary obeyed every order immediately and without question. Second, stemming from the first, was the unblemished virtue of his own honour which required that he always bring respect and dignity to his position.

  Honour was everything. Sebastos lived to seem honourable in his father’s eyes and by now he knew how to do that. As he had been taught, he made himself explore his surroundings with his fin
gertips, discovering by touch the nature and size of any obstacles that might hinder or help his progress. In doing so, he kept his mind well away from the terrifying cloud above his head. All night, it had smothered the moon and stars and seemed likely at any moment to fall and smother him.

  He had mentioned the cloud to his father in the afternoon, before the summons came to guard the tomb. In day’s safe light, his father had ruffled his hair and laughed and said that only a true Gaul feared the sky would fall on his head.

  There had been a tremor in his voice and Sebastos had hoped that it grew from pride that the only son of an Alexandrian archer should take so truly after the barbarian tribes of his mother’s people, rather than from shame for that same thing.

  Later, lying alone in the dark, yearning for the cloud to leave, Sebastos had realized that it had nothing to do with pride, and everything to do with grief – that his father still mourned his mother and Sebastos hadn’t thought to comfort him.

  What kind of boy forgets the source of his father’s pain? Shame at his own stupidity had goaded him from his bed and up the hill, skirting the walls of the city to reach the gated garden on the slope with its many scented flowers and the trail of blood leading up to the tomb. Here, where his father marched alone, he had a chance to undo his mistake.

  A thistle grew sharp behind Sebastos’ left foot. An ageing pomegranate guarded his right shoulder. To his left, a bed of kitchen herbs spiced the hot air. Beyond that, the path curved snake-like up the hill. Clouds loomed over, threateningly full.

  His father reached the first row of almonds. The sound of his tread paused a moment, before beginning the march back up the slope. The watch-fire’s red glow caught him as he turned, casting his outline in proud silhouette.

  Sebastos grinned. A fierce joy lifted the threat of the falling sky. Swift as the great spotted cat for which he was named, he slid out from under the almonds and ran through the dark towards his father.

  ‘Pantera?’

  Sebastos cannoned to a halt, balanced on one foot. The call came from his left, down the path, less than a bow’s shot away. The voice was a woman’s, like his mother’s, but lacking her Gaulish accent.

  Sebastos’ left hand found a wall of cool rock to lean on. He stood in the darkest of the dark and held his breath. His father, too, had stopped, but – unaccountably – did not challenge the incomer. Instead, he raised his fingers to his lips and gave a short, low whistle.

  No answering call came back. Instead, from lower down the path, a whispering flame danced closer, and stronger, until it lit the woman and two men who brought it.

  ‘Julius. Thank you.’

  The woman who stepped forward was his mother’s age, but under the kind blaze of the torch her face was smooth, her cheeks were clear, and her eyes were bright. Sebastos thought she had been weeping, and was close to it again.

  His father was not weeping. His face had softened in a way the boy had not seen in six months.

  ‘Mariamne.’

  Stepping into the puddle of light, Pantera spoke the tenderest, dearest form of the name, which a man might use only for his wife, or his daughter, or his sister. He raised a hand as if to touch the woman’s face and then dropped it again, his eyes wide with unspoken care.

  The man holding the torch moved forward. Its light spilled out beyond the confines of the woman’s face and Sebastos saw that she was pregnant. The signs were not obvious yet; she was no more than three months gone. Only a boy trained from infancy to study every detail of those about him would have seen it.

  His father knew, that much was clear. He had stepped back, making a sign that she should precede him up the path.

  She hesitated, as if afraid to move on. ‘Is he still alive?’ Her voice was rich and light as a temple chime. The torch set the almond blossom dancing. Moths cast giant, floating shadows into the night.

  His father bowed, as he might have done to his commander in the barracks. ‘My lady, he was when we brought him here.’

  ‘You have water and linen?’

  ‘Everything you asked for is here.’

  ‘Lead us, then,’ said the woman, and Sebastos pressed himself deeper into the dark and watched as his father abandoned twenty years of obedience to his commander and to Rome, and led a woman of the Hebrews and her two companions up the garden to the tomb he was supposed to be guarding.

  Men were crucified for less. A dozen had been, through the long day. The body of one of them lay in a tomb cut into the rock at the garden’s end.

  In a line, the incomers passed Sebastos, so that he saw them, one after the other. The two men walking behind the woman were as different one from the other as lily from desert thorn. The elder was a grey-haired rabbi, marked by the quality and style of his linen robes. He bore himself with an authority that was undercut by fear. He, at least, knew exactly what he risked.

  The younger was hewn from rougher rock. The eagle’s crag nose and the long, uncut hair said that he hailed from Galilee, where the rule of Rome did not reach, where men thought themselves more righteous than their neighbours in Judaea, who lived in thrall to an emperor who called himself god.

  If his hair showed where this man was born, the style of his tunic and the knotted leather labelled him beyond doubt as a zealot of the Sicarioi, the Hebrew assassins named for the curved razor-knives with which they slew the unbelievers and traitors, serving with a fierce fanaticism the word of their master.

  True to his calling, the Sicari had killed once already that night; his curved knife was wet with new blood. He padded past, more silent than any leopard, and of the group, he alone knew no fear. His eyes searched the dark, and the light of their look fell on Sebastos so that they stared at one another face to face, or it seemed so.

  Sebastos thought he might die then, pierced by that look, or the knife that must surely follow. He screwed up his courage to meet both with honour, but the restless gaze passed on without pause, as if it were normal to see a boy hiding in the dark on this night in this garden.

  The small group was almost out of sight when Sebastos dared to breathe again, and slowly to inch his way up the slope behind them.

  His night was changed beyond recognition. He had come because he feared the sky might fall on his head and it had done, so that his soul was crushed and the light snuffed out of his heart. His hope now lay in seeing his father set things to rights, as he had done so often in the past.

  ‘He’s alive. We will take him now. We owe you more than thanks.’

  The woman stepped from the tomb’s dark to the light of the coming dawn. She gave her news to the Sicari zealot, to Sebastos’ father, to the garden, to the waking birds, to the world. Exhaustion and relief cracked the liquid bronze of her voice.

  For a moment, nobody answered. They stood in the part-time between night and day. The cloud had lifted at last, leaving the final stars to blaze at the rising sun. The watch-fire was a crimson haze in the greys of almost-morning. By its light, the Sicari brought from the depths of his tunic a purse of poor hide, with the stitching frayed away at the seams. Silver spilled from it, easy as rain.

  From his cramped, cold place of watching, Sebastos saw his father’s head snap round in shock. His hand dropped to his knife.

  ‘Do you think money bought him? Truly?’

  His voice promised violence, for the cleansing of an insult. The Sicari looked as if he would happily oblige, but before either man could move the woman stepped forward, saying, ‘Shimon, that was not called for,’ and the man so named shrugged and stooped to gather his insult and when he rose again with the silver clenched in his fist, the moment for fighting had passed.

  The woman ducked back into the tomb and returned moments later with the grey-haired rabbi. Between them, they carried a burden that was passed with infinite care through the low opening in the rock face.

  The stench of blood was overpowering. Out of respect for his mother, Sebastos turned his face away. Other men took their sons to see the executions, believi
ng fear was the best teacher and that only thus could they keep the hot blood of young men from frothing into open rebellion against the grinding-heel of Rome. When Sebastos’ father had prepared to do the same, his mother had stood in the doorway and forbidden it – the only time in his life Sebastos had seen her truly angry.

  She was red-haired and taller than his father and while she might once have been his slave, she was free by then, and could speak her mind. At the height of the vicious row that followed, she spat a single word in a language Sebastos did not understand – a name, perhaps. It crashed through their hut like a living bull, leaving shock and silence in its wake.

  White-faced, his father had turned on his heel and gone back to the barracks and not returned for nearly a month.

  He had not taken his son to the place of execution then or later, but he had made sure Sebastos knew precisely the death inflicted on men who were caught in insurrection against the rule of Rome, the indignity of it, and the appalling duration that could span as much as three days of increasing, unremitting agony.

  ‘If they like you, they’ll break your legs,’ he had said. ‘Death comes more swiftly, but the pain before is greater.’ Worst, obviously, was the loss of honour, so much worse than a death in battle.

  At the end, in case his son might not believe such a thing could happen to him, Sebastos’ father had filled the rest of that evening by reciting aloud the names of the five hundred young Hebrew men who had each been nailed to a cross on a single day after the fall of Sepphoris to the rebel leader known as the Galilean, and his army of zealots.

  Whatever his intention, the father had succeeded in terrifying his son. Every night for the two years since that blood-stained evening, Sebastos had woken in the grey early morning sweating for terror of a threat that was as great as his fear of the falling sky.

  But his father had failed in so far as Sebastos had not at any time, then or later, ceased to regard the Galilean as his hero, however many young men he might have led to their deaths.

  The Galilean was everyone’s hero, even if he was the enemy. His growing band of followers drew young men from all quarters of the divided Judaea, uniting them in hatred of Rome and its rule. Sebastos might have considered himself loyal to the emperor, might have held in his heart the dream of Roman citizenship as the ultimate prize, but that did not stop him from idolizing a man who, by force of character, courage and arms, had stayed one step ahead of the legions for nearly four decades.