CHAPTER 98

When Theophilus returned to the dungeon, he told the others about his trial. Julia and three other women wept with joy at the knowledge that their children would be spared. Andronicus thanked God for the deliverance of the little ones. It was a rare victory in an otherwise-vile situation.

Now, with guilty verdicts hanging over their heads, there was nothing left for the prisoners to do but wait. Conditions in the cell were intolerable. Nobody cleaned out the human waste, and the place grew putrid, the air so thick with stench that Theophilus could taste it. The guards shoveled in small amounts of food and water at unpredictable intervals, and the prisoners divided up the provisions and gave thanks.

Theophilus clung to thin reeds of hope. Maybe Seneca would reach out to Nero and talk him out of this madness. Maybe some of Theophilus’s former clients or friends in the Senate would take action. Maybe the people of Rome wouldn’t stand for a mass execution of Christians when the evidence all pointed back to the emperor. Or maybe —and this was the hope that kept Theophilus alive —God would provide a miraculous escape. He had done it before, and he could do it again.

The prisoners had no contact with the outside world, no way of monitoring the events that would dictate their fate. Each day Theophilus could hear less optimism in the others’ voices, less will to live, less expectation of a miracle. They tried keeping sane by remembering parts of Luke’s books or Paul’s writings. They sang hymns and songs they had sung before their arrest. Theophilus and three other prisoners whose limbs had not been dislocated came up with small and subtle exercises they could do. Those who couldn’t move enough to exercise simply tried to survive and heal.

With no light in the cell, it became hard to distinguish day from night. The prisoners lost all track of time. A week passed. Perhaps two.

The day came without warning. Finally, mercifully, it would all soon be over.

The metal door of the cell was flung open, and the guards barked at the prisoners to stand up and hold out their wrists. They put shackles on the prisoners and then chained them together in a long line. Theophilus made sure Julia was between him and Urbanus so that the men could carry her.

They were all led down some steps, through a long corridor, and out into the street. Those like Julia who had trouble walking were whipped by the guards and then carried by their fellow prisoners.

It was late at night, and the procession moved slowly by torchlight. The guards pushed and prodded the prisoners to the other side of Rome, across the Tiber River, to the private stadium built by Caligula in the Vatican Gardens. It was not as big as the Circus Maximus, but it had been constructed in the same grand style. There was a large track for chariot races and a center obelisk that reached toward the sky. The wooden bleachers could hold nearly seventy thousand spectators.

From the activity that was taking place when they arrived in the middle of the night, Theophilus knew preparations were under way for a day of races and games.

The prisoners were herded into an underground crypt that already contained dozens of other Christians. The guards said they would be back for them in the morning.

A few hours after dawn, the guards emptied the all crypts and lined up the prisoners. They hung a titulus around each neck, declaring each prisoner to be an arsonist. There were too many prisoners to easily count, four or five hundred at least, and Theophilus searched the ranks for Flavia.

He spotted her, along with Procula, a hundred feet behind him, and his heart jumped. When her eyes met his, he drew strength from her. Her clothes were tattered, hanging from her emaciated body, but she was walking on her own. She mouthed, “I love you,” and Theophilus mouthed it back.

The guards herded the prisoners together outside the stadium and put them on display in the unrelenting sun as Roman citizens streamed past. There were thousands of people entering the stadium, carrying bundles of food and jars of wine, their togas clinging to their sweaty bodies. They pushed and shoved as they squeezed through the entrances and crossed the bridges that brought them to the Vatican Gardens. Most ignored the prisoners, but some stared, and others couldn’t resist a few mocking comments.

Theophilus stared back, realizing that he had once been one of them. He looked for faces of friends, though he wondered if they would even recognize him with his hair disheveled, his beard grown thick, and his skin blackened and scaly.

He picked up on bits and pieces of their conversations. These were no ordinary games. Nero had apparently promised that he would, in the most spectacular fashion, punish those who had set fire to Rome. There would be no gladiators or chariot races today; the Christians were the only show in town.

At least, Theophilus thought, there would be no children.

Before they paraded Theophilus and the others in front of Nero, a phrase was passed down the line from one prisoner to the next. The woman in front of Theophilus turned and whispered it to him.

“Be strong in the Lord.”

Theophilus repeated the phrase to the man behind him. He nodded and passed it to the next man back.

Trumpets blared from inside the stadium, and Theophilus knew that Nero was taking his seat at that moment. The crowd roared, and the guards started whipping the prisoners forward. One by one, the prisoners were unchained from the next person in line and marched into the stadium.

It was only while he was being unchained that Theophilus saw him —Marcus was the very first prisoner being forced to march around the oval track! Theophilus had a sickening feeling that Marcus had been arrested solely for helping at Theophilus’s arson trial. He had always been there for Theophilus, time after time, since childhood, and now that loyalty had become his undoing. Guilt-ridden and helpless, Theophilus prayed that one of Marcus’s cellmates had led him to faith.

With the line of prisoners stretching behind him, Marcus stopped in front of Nero’s box. He looked up at the emperor but didn’t say a word. The guards glared at him as if by sheer willpower they could force him to grace Caesar with the traditional greeting of honor.

But Marcus refused to speak. A guard stepped forward, took the blunt end of his sword in its sheath, and drove it into Marcus’s midsection.

Marcus doubled over and knelt on the ground.

“Say it!” the guard demanded.

Thin and frail, Marcus lifted his head, stared for a moment at the emperor, and spit in the sand.

Theophilus wanted to break free and somehow help him, the same way Marcus had come to his aid so many times before. But his wrists were shackled together, and he was too far down the track. All Theophilus could do was watch helplessly as the guard lifted his sword, swung it in a gigantic arc, and severed his good friend’s head.

Theophilus stared in disbelief. Vomit caught in his throat, and he turned away. Marcus, of all people, was the first to die.

With tears blurring his vision, Theophilus looked back as the next prisoner refused to salute Caesar as well. This time it was a young woman. Nero cursed at her and ordered the guards to take the prisoners back to the crypts without further ceremony. The crowd jeered as the guards marched Theophilus and his fellow prisoners out of the stadium to await their turn for execution.