BYZANTIUM!

by KEITH TOPPING.

Prologue.

Once in a Lifetime

And these signs shall follow them that believe.'

Mark 16:17

London, England: 1973

'... And what is your name then, young man?'

The little boy stopped pretending to be Tony Green (Newcastle United and Scotland) dribbling brilliantly around the static (and imaginary) Chelsea back-four, and looked up at the pretty lady and her bewitching smile. 'h.e.l.lo,' he said, without a trace of inhibition. 'I'm John Alydon Ganatus Chesterton.' He held out a delicate child's hand which the woman took and shook, gently. 'And I'm six-and-a-half,' he continued, precociously. 'How do you do?'

'Bet you're only six-and-a-quarter, really?' she asked.

Johnny grinned with a gap-toothed smile.

'Those are unusual names,' the lady noted.

Johnny nodded, half of his attention on the lady's clear sea-green eyes, the other half drawn to the fabulous exhibits around him. 'They were friends of my mommy and daddy,' he replied in a well-rehea.r.s.ed little speech. 'They live in a place a long way away.'

Barbara appeared from around a nearby corner with an irritated scowl on her face. 'There you are,' she scolded.

'What have I told you about running off like that?'

Johnny looked at his shoes and said nothing.

There was an embarra.s.sed silence before anyone spoke.

'Don't be too hard on him,' said the woman, kindly. 'We were talking.'

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. 'He can be a bit of a handful,' she confided and then playfully ruffled Johnny's hair.

'Can't you?' she asked. Her son continued to cling, mutely, to his mother's dress with a contrite look on his face. 'He's at that age where everything's one big adventure. Which is just fine for him, him, but it's a right pain in the neck for everyone else.' but it's a right pain in the neck for everyone else.'

She paused and looked down at her son. Her stern expression remained until the urchin holding her tightly melted her icy heart to slush.

The woman nodded. 'My youngest is exactly the same,'

she replied. 'She's only three, but you wouldn't believe the kind of things that she can get up to... Well, actually, you probably could.' could.' She held out her black-gloved hand. 'Julia,' She held out her black-gloved hand. 'Julia,'

she said brightly.

'Barbara. Chesterton,' replied Barbara. 'Pleasure to meet you.'

Julia looked down at the still-silent boy. 'And this little man, I've already met. What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnny?' she asked, kneeling down beside him.

Johnny unwrapped himself from his mother's side and grinned broadly. 'I want to be a top pop star like Julian Blake.

Or Mr Big Hat out of Slade.'

I'll buy all of your records,' said Julia, charmed by Johnny's cheeky, ragam.u.f.fin smile. 'He's so sweet. Can I take him back to Redborough with me?'

Oh, don't encourage him, for goodness sake,' Barbara said, wryly. 'He's a dreamer, this one. Last week he wanted to be an astronaut. Next week it'll be something different.'

The miserable and overcast slate-grey November sky, seen through the British Museum windows, was full of drizzle and spit as Barbara and Julia sat on a hard wooden bench in the middle of the vast and virtually deserted hall.

'An Exhibition of Roman and Early Christian Archaeology', noted a sign next to an open-topped case containing fragments of broken Samian pottery and jagged-edged silver and bronze coins. noted a sign next to an open-topped case containing fragments of broken Samian pottery and jagged-edged silver and bronze coins.

'One of my specialities when I was still teaching,' noted Barbara, gesturing towards the case. 'That's a piece from a first-century drinking goblet,' she continued, pointing to a curved fragment of a reddish-brown pot. 'It's probably from the Middle East. Antioch or Rhodes. Or maybe Byzantium.'

"Istanbul, not Constantinople?!"

'Was there once. A long time ago,' noted Barbara in pa.s.sing.

Oh lovely,' lovely,' said Julia. 'It'd be pure joy to have a foreign holiday but the costs are so expensive. I must find Robert soon,' she added. 'He's up at New Scotland Yard. We always do this when we get a weekend in London. He swans off drinking with the Flying Squad and gets completely slaughtered and I have to amuse myself up and down Carnaby Street and then fish him out of the Bent Copper's Arms and drag him back home to the rolling pin. It's like a little ritual with us.' said Julia. 'It'd be pure joy to have a foreign holiday but the costs are so expensive. I must find Robert soon,' she added. 'He's up at New Scotland Yard. We always do this when we get a weekend in London. He swans off drinking with the Flying Squad and gets completely slaughtered and I have to amuse myself up and down Carnaby Street and then fish him out of the Bent Copper's Arms and drag him back home to the rolling pin. It's like a little ritual with us.'

Barbara was surprised at her new friend's acceptance of such a regimented lifestyle. 'I'm amazed you put up with it,'

she said as they stared at another of the Roman empire exhibits, and shared tea from Barbara's thermos flask in a pair of dirty-yellow plastic cups. Ahead of them, Johnny happily ran in circles around the exhibit case.

'Haven't you ever been in love?' Julia asked.

'Yes,' replied Barbara cheerily. 'Like Byzantium, I was there once. But there are some places that you visit briefly and leave and then there are others where you stay all of your life.'

EPISODE ONE.

LXIV, AND ALL THAT...

And Jesus said unto them, Game ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. and I will make you to become fishers of men.

Mark 1:17

Chapter One.

Direction, Reaction, Creation

And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? ye call the King of the Jews?

And they cried out again, Crucify him.

Mark 15:12-13

Sharp, like a needle.

As hot as burning coals, the spikes were hammered through flesh and muscle. Through sinew and bone. And finally through the gnarled wood of the flat-board, to the dirt beneath.

As sparks from the clashing metal danced in the air, blood spurted in a fine mosaic mist onto the arms and face of the legionnaire. The soldier winced and spat, though not at the touch and taste of the blood, for he was well used to them both after half a lifetime in the service of his emperor.

He wiped away the red specks with barely a second thought, leaving an ugly slash streaked across his cheek.

No, the blood didn't bother him too much.

It was the screaming that really annoyed him.

Why didn't these snivelling sc.u.m just die quietly, and with some dignity?

Like a Roman.

'They squeal and wrestle like a sticked-pig,' he told his watching comrades as he struggled with the tool in his hand.

'Keep him straight and still,' he continued, shouting at the hapless foot-soldier gripping the victim's shaking hands. 'Or you shall find yourself nailed up there with him.'

The hammer struck again and the hands were joined together at the wrist. At that very moment, when the sickening frenzy of pain was at its most intense, the victim lost all control of his bowels. It was something that the legionnaire had experienced on more than one occasion and the stink was, also, of no concern to him. But, again, he wished that this wretch would cease his infernal noise.

'Rot in Xhia's pit, you Roman b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' cried the victim in a hoa.r.s.e and guttural voice, and through tightly gritted teeth.

He would undoubtedly have enjoyed spitting in the legionnaire's face as an afterthought. But this wasn't an option as the p.r.o.ne victim's throat was bone-dry. A consequence of the blood-chilling pain in his wrists and at his feet.

'Stick him up there,' the legionnaire told his colleagues.

'Stick him up straight and hard and let him dangle. Let us see what an hour of that does to his opinion of his superiors.'

Sycophantic laughter filled the air as a group of troops heaved the dead weight of the victim upright, and fixed him to the stauros stauros on which he would die a horribly slow and painful death. on which he would die a horribly slow and painful death.

The judgement was read. 'Jacob bar Samuel. Having been accused by his own people of being a common and lying thief thief and having been fairly tried and condemned by Thalius Maximus, representative in the free city of Byzantium of his most great and awesome emperor Lucius Nero, is, this day, crucified for his banditry and thievery. Let his just and righteous punishment serve as a rare example to all who would consider perpetrating crimes and treasons against the authority of the empire of Rome.' and having been fairly tried and condemned by Thalius Maximus, representative in the free city of Byzantium of his most great and awesome emperor Lucius Nero, is, this day, crucified for his banditry and thievery. Let his just and righteous punishment serve as a rare example to all who would consider perpetrating crimes and treasons against the authority of the empire of Rome.'

Centurion Crispia.n.u.s Dolavia turned his horse away from the crucified thief whose loud screaming had partially drowned out the reading of the sentence. But the way that Dolavia was now facing offered him no sanctuary either. A phalanx of black-clad women, their heads shrouded with funereal coverings, knelt in the dirt several feet away, wailing and crying out the name of the executed man and beating the ground with their fists. 'If you do not get these screeching wh.o.r.es from my sight with great haste, I shall take pleasure in having you put to the sword,' the centurion told a nearby soldier who instantly rushed forward and drew his own weapon, holding it threateningly above the women.

'Move yourselves,' the soldier shouted, kicking dust into the women's faces as they scattered and ran down the steep hillside with the soldier at their heels, growling at them like a crazed dog.

Crispia.n.u.s admired such dedication, even in the face of his own terrible threat.'Be advised that I wish for that soldier to be given extra pay for his efficiency,' he told the captain of the guard, who nodded and helped the centurion from his saddle. 'Five denaril denaril at the least.' at the least.'

Sore and skinned from the chafing leather, Crispia.n.u.s landed on the ground with a wince and a curse to Jupiter.

Then, a little unwillingly, he returned his attention to the condemned man. And the noise that he continued to make.

'What crime did the dog dog commit?' he asked the captain. commit?' he asked the captain.

'Stole bread from the garrison,' replied the barrel-chested man. 'To feed its starving family, it said.'

'Crucifixion is a punishment far too good for the cur,' noted the centurion.

But that simply wasn't true.

The principle of this form of execution was sublimely simple. Yet it was about as undignified a death as as it was possible to imagine, with the wrists and feet of the unfortunate victim nailed together in such a position that the prisoner slowly died of hyper-asphyxiation and hypovolemic shock whilst they jerked spasmodically with the last of their energy. Sometimes, if there was a lack of nails, the legions simply used rope bindings instead, that scarred and chafed the skin raw instead of piercing it cleanly. But the effect was much the same. The Romans were experts at this sublimely cruel manner of dispatch, they could keep a person alive for days on the it was possible to imagine, with the wrists and feet of the unfortunate victim nailed together in such a position that the prisoner slowly died of hyper-asphyxiation and hypovolemic shock whilst they jerked spasmodically with the last of their energy. Sometimes, if there was a lack of nails, the legions simply used rope bindings instead, that scarred and chafed the skin raw instead of piercing it cleanly. But the effect was much the same. The Romans were experts at this sublimely cruel manner of dispatch, they could keep a person alive for days on the staurous staurous if they wanted to, dehydrated, exhausted, in terrible pain, but still clinging to life. if they wanted to, dehydrated, exhausted, in terrible pain, but still clinging to life.

The only relief for the dying man was the ability to push himself up by his feet and so ease the vice-like pressure upon the chest and allow himself to breathe. But this required undergoing the agony of sc.r.a.ping the broken bones of his feet against the thick metal spike nailed through them. The usual custom was to let the executed man fight a cruel and hopeless struggle for air for an hour, or five, or ten, depending on the severity of his crimes. And, when the overseeing officer eventually got bored with the proceedings, or when darkness encroached, to break the man's legs and thus prevent him from relieving himself any longer.

Death would follow soon afterwards. If the executed man was lucky.

But the saddlesore centurion was, frankly, already bored.

The heat of the day was beginning to take its toll, making him weary, and the shrill screaming was giving him a dull ache in his head.

'Captain. Have one of the men finish the job,' he ordered.

'Put this beast out of my misery.'