fluttered like a trapped bird in his breast. Another fit of coughing seized him and brought tears to his eyes. Too old, I’m too old. I’ll die before my work is done.
Was it possible, what the Roman said? The Persian a murderer? For what possible reason? He wouldn’t believe it. But could it be? He must tell this to the Sun-Runner. He would go to see him in the morning. Risky, to meet outside the cave, they seldom did it, but now he must.
He struggled to his feet and went to shut the door. Seeing that the bolt was broken, he pushed the chest, the small box that contained his few possessions, up against it. The effort brought on another fit of coughing. Then he took his plate from the table and scraped the uneaten bits of bread and cheese out the window and tossed out the lees from his cup of vinegary wine. He closed the shutter and latched it against the night vapors. He shivered. The night was cold and his watery blood had no warmth in it. The coals that glowed in the brazier hardly sufficed to warm the little room. He lowered himself onto his cot and removed his sandals and foot cloths. He rubbed his thin shanks to bring a little warmth to them. He put the butcher knife under his pillow as he always did. He blew out the lamp and eased himself under the covers, his ankles, like sharp stones, grated one on the other.
He had been strong once, equal to the hardest labors. When he and his four brothers—all of them so many years dead—had come here from Commagene, on fire to spread the gospel of Mithras. He remembered how they had bought a piece of worthless land, honeycombed with caves, and with their own hands had fashioned it to their purpose. How, with masons tools and paint and plaster, they had made the image of their beautiful god in the act of slaying the bull; how they had painted the mystery of the zodiac on the walls and ceiling. How they had sought converts—secretly, quietly; only a few, but all of them rich men, important men. Men who gave generously to the work of spreading the Faith. And if they served their own purposes as well, if they conspired to break Roman laws in the privacy of the cave, well, what did that matter to him? And they offered to make him rich too, but he had never taken a drachma for himself. It was all for Mithras: to send missionaries, others from the royal clan of Commagene, to the West, to the army camps—because Mithras was a soldier’s god—and to the great City itself, the beating heart of the Empire. To this great purpose he had devoted his life; he had taken no wife, fathered no children. And he would not live to see it, but someday tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of men would worship at the altar of his god.
Barzanes lay, lost in his memories, waiting for sleep to come. He heard the ceiling creak as the family that lived above him made ready for bed—a laborer in the fullery and his slattern wife and their four snotty-nosed brats who loved to taunt him. He heard some drunken late-night revelers shouting in the street outside. He heard—what? The chest grating on the floor, his door opening?
“Who is it? Who’s there?” The Romans again? He fumbled for his knife under the pillow.
The shadow, black against black, came at him swiftly. He struck out with the knife and felt the point graze his attacker’s cheek. Then powerful fingers found his throat, a hand covered his mouth. He felt the assassin’s hot breath on his face. He kicked out with one leg, knocking over the brazier, spilling the coals onto the mat of dried rushes.
By the time he was dead, the room was in flames.
Pliny and Suetonius had scarcely arrived back at the palace when Galeo, panting from having run all the way, caught up with them. They returned at once to find the building ablaze, smoke pouring from its windows, flames shooting up through the roof. The inhabitants of the street were fetching buckets of water from the fullery and flinging them uselessly on the flames. The old wooden structure burnt like tinder. Pliny recognized the man whose door he had knocked on standing in the crowd with his wife and baby. The flames lit up his oily face.