Read Online Search the Seven Hills by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page B

vestibule, a dark silent room as black as the anteroom of Pluto himself. No lamps had been lit in the front part of the house for many years. Evidently if this courteous, old-fashioned scholar had ever had clients, they had long since gone elsewhere for their patronage.
    “Socrates always opened an investigation of any truth by demanding that people define their terms,” mused Marcus after a time. “Once you understand the question, sometimes you don’t need to seek very far for the answer. I think you’re the only person I’ve met who’s done that.”
    “Recreational hysteria relieves the feelings,” replied Sixtus, “but it is seldom of use in achieving the best solution to what is not, at bottom, an emotional question. What you need is an unclouded mind, my son, and an unflinching capacity to confront unexpected truth.”
    “It isn’t all I need,” said Marcus quietly. “I need help. I realize it’s an imposition to ask it of you, when you’ve been retired for so long from the world, but do you realize that you’re the only person I’ve ever met who actually knows anything about the Christians? Can I—can I count on your help? I don’t know where to start, or what to do.”
    “Leave that to me, for the moment,” said Sixtus. “There are other ways to utilize Churaldin’s particular talents without forcing him to spy upon his acquaintances. In the meantime—”
    “I know,” sighed Marcus. “School myself to accept the dictates of Fate.” Relief, exhaustion, or the release of what had felt like an unbearable burden put a cracked, gritty edge to his voice that he had not intended; Sixtus raised one white bristling brow at him.
    “We should all learn to do that, of course,” he replied mildly. “Or at least learn to identify them. I was going to say, in the meantime, keep your wits about you. You may see one of your kidnappers in the street at any time, you know. If you do, don’t rush up and seize them—follow them, and see where they go.”
    Marcus laughed shakily. In the warmth of the distant gardens he could hear the crying of cicadas and the sweet voice of a woman singing a love song in Greek. Throughout that empty and time-haunted house, there was no other sound.
    After a time Sixtus sighed. “When I returned to Rome fifteen years ago, it was with the intention of retiring from the world, and in that I feel that I have been happy. In the last eight years I have scarcely gone out of the house; my world has been encompassed by my books, my meditations, my friends, my research, my little statues. I hardly thought to embark upon a Christian-hunt at this stage of my career.” He straightened his shoulders a little, folding his blunt warrior’s hands around his staff. “Come back, when you need advice. I fear you will generally find me at home.”
    And in the absence of a doorkeeper, Sixtus Julianus, former commander of the Imperial Armies, former governor of Antioch, opened the doors for him and bowed him graciously upon his way.

IV
Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself, breathes, lives, and dies.... I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question and to discuss the treatment of slaves, toward whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting....As often as you reflect how much power you have over a slave, remember that your master has just as much power over you. “But I have no master,” you say. You are still young; perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?
    Seneca
    “S EE ANY OF THEM?” Priscus Quindarvis turned from the smooth mirror of polished brass with a startled growl; the slave who was holding it up for him bowed and effaced himself. “Great gods, boy, by the time I’d summoned the men of the house and come running to the scene those murdering scum