Chapter XI
XI
“A GOOD MORNING TO YOU, TELEMACHUS.” Gaius met them at the monastery door. “How was your—” His black eyes snagged on Felix and then bounced back up to Telemachus. “He actually came?”
“I didn’t force him.” Telemachus glanced at the medicus standing beside him. Perhaps he had forced him here. Accidentally. People did tend to take one look at him and do what he said. “Did I?”
Felix only looked at Gaius, who heaved a long-suffering sigh and held out a hand as he introduced himself. “Thank you for coming anyway. We will speak after morning prayers.”
With no other introductions or explanations, or protests from the captured medicus, the three of them followed the sound of wavering voices raised in a morning hymn.
Telemachus glanced at Felix out of the corner of his eye, curious.
What did he think of the invitation to worship?
Would he be impatient? Bored? A flicker of relief fanned through him when he saw the tension slipping from the young man’s shoulders, as if the words of the hymn had wrapped around him like a blanket on a cold night.
You are our holy Lord, O all subduing Word,
Healer of strife. You humbled yourself,
That from sin’s deep disgrace You might save our race
And give us life.
The words grew louder as they rounded a corner and entered a domed room, the carved wooden doors standing open in welcome, unlike those of the church where the medicus had left his family a short while ago.
The place was full of men in plain robes, all standing and singing in a harmonious unison.
Their voices lent the space a transcendent peace.
Untainted by the wars and rumors of wars, the kidnappings and violence of the ludi, mere streets away.
It was a world wholly unto itself, and it always struck Telemachus with equal parts awe and discomfort.
Awe, because worship of God had the power to lift one above the cares of the world, and discomfort because so many like-minded men were content to worship in seclusion—when so many outside of these walls needed hope, light, rescue.
He knew some were meant to go and others meant to send and support, but this staying sent an anxious energy bounding through his limbs. There was so much to be done, and never in all his life, in all the arenas he’d stepped into, had he felt so powerless to do it.
You didn’t lead me back here to fail. The prayer was nearly as much a statement as a question. Because so far his endeavors had felt terribly similar to failure. But they wouldn’t after today. Because now, they had him.
Telemachus sent another side-eyed glance toward the bewildered medicus. He was young. Couldn’t be a day over twenty-five, and yet, the bend of his wide shoulders suggested an invisible weight. Out of all the men he’d scouted, there was no one else they could go to. It had to be him.
After the singing and morning prayers ended, Telemachus and Felix followed Gaius out of the basilica and to a door at the end of another hall where Gaius paused and gestured for them both to enter ahead of him.
The room of pale brown stone was cut along one wall by a row of arched windows.
Light fell through the openings in wide shafts, illuminating a row of copy tables, the tops tilted upward toward the light, manuscripts in varying degrees of completion clamped to the surfaces.
The copy room stood empty, the scribes leaving their work for a day of rest.
Gaius shut the door behind them and stepped forward, gesturing toward Telemachus but addressing Felix. “Thank you for coming, Felix.”
The medicus stopped mid-breath. “How do you know my name?”
“We know a lot of people.” Gaius waved a hand as if this was inconsequential. “You’ve met Telemachus of Moesia, I take it?”
Felix’s brow wrinkled for a moment, then smoothed in recollection as his gaze slid to Telemachus. “The Battering Ram of the East?”
He murmured the name in half question, but Telemachus heard it roared on the lips of a blood-hungry mob. It dried his mouth. “No longer, praise be to God.”
Felix was still looking at him. “You earned your freedom and disappeared.”
Telemachus gave a nod. Fame and power did not satisfy the way men thought they would. Nor revenge either. But he only said, “I could not stay in Rome.”
Gaius stepped closer, filling in more than one gap.
“God and I met Telemachus on the road to the east. We’ve spent the last ten years among the Visigoths, preaching.
” Gaius raised his hands, words tumbling faster.
“Perhaps we are not the best of missionaries. After all this time, most still follow heretical misteachings, but . . . we cannot give up on them. They are dear to us.”
“What brings you back to Rome?” Felix shifted to face them both but directed his question toward Telemachus.
“My people.”
Felix waited.
Perhaps he did need the story. At least the latter part, not how the better part of his life had been spent in chains, nor that he was the son of an enslaved woman and a cruel merchant who’d sold him to a gladiator troupe to punish his mother for giving him extra food when he was hungry.
The memory sent a quick flush of heat through him. No. He would not share that part.
“The battle near Pollentia, you’ve heard of it?”
Felix nodded. Of course he’d heard of it. Everyone had. The boy emperor’s victory over Alaric and his Visigoth army was widely touted and celebrated.
“Ambush might be closer to the truth. So many taken captive. Soldiers, war-daughters . . . Alaric’s own wife and children.
” He drew in a slow breath, trying to cool the injustice simmering beneath his skin.
It would take little to fan it into a blinding boil.
But rage was not needed here. He ran a hand over his head, gripped the back of his neck.
“Their families are desperate to find them. To learn whether they are alive or dead. I am here on their behalf.”
Felix crossed his arms, listening, but with a look in his eye that was ready to challenge everything. “Some might consider you a traitor to the empire for that.”
“And they would be wrong.” Telemachus leveled his gaze, voice dropping.
Gaius edged forward, voice going quick with urgency. “Alaric is furious and humiliated. Even now he is gathering an army, threatening to sack Rome to find his family and rescue his people. We have no power to sway him, and fear the loss of many innocent lives if he succeeds.”
“Can he succeed? Rome has never been sacked.”
“The emperor must think so, if he has fled.” Telemachus paced the room, agitation coiling his muscles, feeling the bands of restraint beginning to stretch thin.
“We’ve begged meetings with his generals, his advisers, senators—anyone who will listen,” Gaius spoke again. “No one will take the threat seriously. We know Alaric. Fury and revenge are the gods he serves, and I shudder to think of the consequences for us all.”
“Why tell me?” Felix raised both hands. “I’m not in a position of power or influence. Do you need me to find the Visigoth captives?”
Telemachus stopped and turned, meeting his confused expression with one of determination.
“I want you to free them.”