Zama

by Dan Armstrong

  Still striding along, I faced him. “Give me one reason.”

  He grinned. “I can’t. Caelius doesn’t give reasons. I’m not in the need to know.”

  I stepped in front of him, bringing us both to a halt. “Know about what?”

  Ennius made a face. “I’ve said too much already. Just be there.”

  “What do you mean? You haven’t told me anything.”

  “That should tell you everything.” He laughed, then darted off down the street. “I’ll see you tonight,” he called over his shoulder.

  “No you won’t,” I muttered to myself before resuming on my way. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what message Caelius could possibly have for me.

  The Community of Miracles was a collection of artists, thieves, and small time gamblers. Caelius was the ringleader. He dealt in stolen property and covered his dirty dealings by using the street theater in the Community of Miracles as a front. He was little more than a racketeer and a shakedown artist, but eight months earlier he had been instrumental in helping me find my mother. This memory made me pause.

  What did Ennius mean? He had said too much already. All he had told me was that he was not in the need to know. Was there something suggested in that phrase that I should be aware of? Or was it more of Ennius’ silly word play?

  When I reached the Claudian residence, I went directly to the stable. Balius was in one of the stalls. I stood beside him and stroked his flank lost in thought.

  Ithius, an elderly house slave and a fellow Greek, teetered into the stable. “Timon, what brings you into Rome? I saw Balius was here and was hoping to catch you before you left. How is Marcus? I never see him.”

  “Hello, Ithius. It’s been too long.” I embraced him as I would a favorite uncle. “Marcus has sunk into himself. We hardly talk. I keep expecting him to come out of his melancholy, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

  Ithius nodded. “He’s becoming more like his father. Single-minded and closed in upon himself. He hasn’t been here since the funeral.”

  “Is Portia in the house? I was thinking of staying in Rome for the night. I could sleep in the stable.”

  “There’s a room inside that’s available, Timon. Talk to Portia. She’s in the atrium. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.”

  I had my own issues with Marcus’ mother, but I went into the house anyway. I found Portia standing beside the atrium pool staring at the surface of the water. She looked up at me as though lost in thought, then smiled. “Hello, Timon. What brings you here?”

  “I came into town to tutor Sempronia.”

  “How did the lesson go?” Portia was a beautiful woman, forty years old, tall, willowy, and widowed now six months. She wore a plain wool stola, with a heavy wrap over her shoulders. She had no paint on her face, and her brunette hair was pulled up in a bun on top of her head.

  “Fulvia canceled it. That’s why I stopped by. I wondered if you’d heard anything.”

  “No, this is news to me. But I do know Fulvia’s getting impatient in her search to find Sempronia a husband. It’s causing some tension between us. She’s still angry that Marcus canceled the wedding, and I’m afraid she holds me partially to blame.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t me or Marcus. It was Livinius. I wish Fulvia could make that distinction.”

  “But she hasn’t said anything about me?”

  Portia tilted her head. “Not specifically, but I do know she’s concerned that Sempronia thinks too much of you.”

  I thought of the incident the previous week.

  “And that you might think too much of her,” continued Portia.

  I bowed my head, then looked up. “But she wouldn’t cancel the lessons for that, would she?”

  “She might.” Portia was a complex woman. I had been totally captivated by her beauty and intelligence when I first met her, but now after three years, I knew she was too capable of intrigue and secrets.

  “Do you mind if I stay here tonight? Maybe Fulvia will have changed her mind by tomorrow.”

  “I have no idea about that, Timon. But you’re welcome to stay.”

  I remained in Rome that night, but I had no intention of going back to Sempronia’s home the next day. After everyone else had gone to bed, I slipped out of the house and went to the Community of Miracles at the top of the Aventine Hill.

  The night was especially dark. Clouds hid the stars and moon. Rome was always risky after the sun went down, the Community of Miracles more so. I had only been there twice before, and I didn’t trust Ennius as far as I could throw him, but Caelius wasn’t called the King of the Crooks for nothing. He had surely sent Ennius after me for a reason. I had no idea what it was, but it had been too long since I had heard from my mother, and Caelius often knew about things no one else did.

  I carried a small dagger tucked into the folds of my toga and wound my way up the side of the Aventine Hill to the Temple of Minerva. I entered an alley behind the temple and followed it into a courtyard lit by torches and surrounded by rundown tenement buildings. The scene never changed. Every street poet, actor, minstrel, and common thief made a point of stopping by the Community of Miracles at least once during the night. True to form, the place was filled with the usual carnival abandon of frantic dancers, jugglers, prostitutes, and sots.

  I hoped to avoid Ennius by going straight to Caelius. He held court in a little room behind the community’s makeshift theater. Three drunks commanded the stage spouting lines from Euripides as I made my way through the throng of misfits.

  “I knew you’d be here,” slurred Ennius who staggered up to me just as I reached the curtain leading into Caelius’ den of iniquity.

  “Things changed,” I said. “I had to stay in Rome so I thought I might as well see what Caelius has to say.”

  Ennius brayed like a donkey. “I don’t believe a word of it. You know as well as I do that nothing in this world is as it seems. Black is white, and white is black. The wisest men in Rome aren’t in the Senate. They’re up here playing dice with Caelius. This is where the real business of Rome takes place.”

  “I thought that happened in the brothels.” I pushed past Ennius and slipped beneath the sailcloth curtain into the shadowy chamber. Three torches on wooden staves provided a minimum of light. The place stunk of body odor and burning pitch. Caelius didn’t notice me come in. He was on his knees on the floor, wearing a crown of cat skulls and commanding the attention of a ring of dice throwers, also on their knees. Behind them stood an unsavory crowd, waiting for a spot in the circle or simply taking advantage of the excess of bitter wine that sloshed around the room in cups and overfilled bellies.

  I edged up close to Caelius, waiting for him to notice me. He shook a pair of cubed bones in his right hand and glowered at his fellow gamblers. “I’ve got one as against ten that my next roll shows matching dice.” Caelius pushed a bronze coin into the center of a circle drawn in the dirt.

  As usual Caelius was the banker, setting the odds every time a throw was made. A scruffy looking man with his goatskin cap pulled so low over his brow that I couldn’t see his eyes pushed a stack of eight asses up alongside Caelius’ one. “How about eight, you crook? Is that enough advantage for you?”

  “Drop it to seven,” said a man cloaked in shadows, “and I’ll take a chance.”

  “I said ten,” growled Caelius, scratching at his gray-streaked beard. “But I’ll take eight. Who’s in?”

  The man who had asked for seven pushed in eight. The man beside him got a nudge from the woman standing behind him, and he did the same.

  Caelius dropped a coin beside each of their stacks. He blew on the dice, then gave them a shake, calling out, “Any pair will do!” The entire room seemed to draw in its collective breath as he tossed the dice into the circle. One die stopped with a four uppermost, the other a three.

  Caelius cursed as the three gamblers drew their winnings out of the circle. “See that, eight wasn’t enough. Make it nine and we’ll try it again!”


  The seven grim gamblers around the circle eyed each other and fiddled with the coins before them. The three winners pushed out stacks of nine asses. Two of the others did the same. Caelius looked around the circle and grinned like he knew something no one else did. “One more roll. Win or lose, I’m gonna take a little break.”

  The only woman in the circle, though it was hard to tell with her head covered by a rough woolen cowl, peered out of the folds of cloth around her face, glanced at me, then held up a single bronze coin. “How about just one as, Caelius?” she queried. “If it’s stamped with Hannibal’s face?”

  Everyone had heard the rumor that Hannibal was minting his own coins to pay his mercenaries, but few had ever seen one. All quieted to hear what Caelius would say.

  “Let me see it.” Caelius reached out to take the coin from the woman. “You sure that’s what it is? Where’d you get it?”

  “A friend in Croton,” she said with a second quick glance at me.

  That was when I recognized her. It was the same woman who had told me the previous spring that my mother was traveling with a group of pickers and that she was looking for me.

  Caelius turned the coin over in his hand. “How do you know this is Hannibal? I have no idea what he looks like.”

  Whispers passed around the crowd. Has anyone here ever seen Hannibal?

  “I have,” I said suddenly, recalling the two times I had seen him with the aid of my two lenses. I moved up close to the circle. “I can tell you if it’s him or not.”

  Caelius had only met me twice before, but his eyes glittered with recognition as soon as I spoke. He handed me the coin with a knowing grin. “This him?”

  I took the coin and held it beneath the nearest torch. One side of the coin was engraved with the image of a date palm with a horse lying beneath it. The other side showed the profile of a man wearing a helmet in the style that Hercules had worn. It was impossible to say if it actually resembled Hannibal, but I wanted to talk to the woman who owned the coin. “That’s him,” I said with more certainty than I had.

  Caelius looked at the woman, then placed the coin in the circle. “Fine. It’s mine if I can match the dice.” He pulled back the sleeves of his fleece robe, made a big show of talking to the dice, blew on them, then bounced them across the dirt. Breaths sucked in then expelled as the dice came to a stop. “Six and six,” bellowed the King of the Crooks. He reached out with both hands to rake in the stacks of coins.

  The other gamblers groaned and stood up. They milled around, complaining to each other about the last roll, then gradually drifted out of the chamber. I found myself alone with Caelius and the old woman. She had moved back into the shadows, clearly waiting for the others to leave. Her eyes, little sparks of light beneath her cloak, darted from side to side, then she approached me, drawing Caelius up alongside.

  “You are Timon?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Caelius nodded as verification.

  “I remember you,” she said. “Go to Croton, Timon. Go to the house that was your home.”

  “Will my mother be there?” I gasped.

  “That’s more than I know.”

  As she turned away to leave, I touched her on the shoulder. “What is your name, kind woman? You helped me before. How can I thank you if I don’t know who to thank?”

  “I have no name.” She looked at Caelius. “Caelius knows how to find me if there’s any thanking to do. I must go.”

  “And I have more money to win,” stated Caelius. He glanced at me and opened his hand, revealing two dice. Six spots were on all twelve sides. He winked. “Who but a fool would throw bones with a man known as the King of the Crooks?”

  CHAPTER 3

  I rode Balius back to the farm the next morning. Edeco met me at the stable. The former king of Spain’s Edantani tribe, fifteen years a slave, greeted me with only a nod of his head, then held the reins of my horse, allowing me to dismount.

  “Where’s Marcus?” I asked.

  “Pruning in the apple orchard. He’s likely to be there all day.”

  I wanted some time to think, so I decided to wait until evening to talk to Marcus instead of tracking him down on the farm. Although the message I had received the previous night held no promise of seeing my mother, going back to Croton, specifically to the house where I had grown up, had to have something to do with her. With the cancelation of the tutoring, I had no reason to stay in Rome except an unstated commitment to make maps for the Roman army. By the middle of the afternoon, I had decided to go to Croton. I had nothing to lose, and what could be more important than finding my mother?

  Marcus came in from the apple orchard at dusk. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until we both sat down for dinner in the triclinium. Meda, the Thracian housemaid and cook, served the meal—two small roasted chickens, boiled chickpeas, a loaf of rye bread, and a bowl of mulsum.

  With Portia living in town, only the two of us were at the table. Marcus, who had been so open and outgoing when I had first met him, had retreated into himself since his father’s death. I had tutored him in geometry for three years. We used to have long conversations about science and philosophy, but the tutoring had stopped after that tragic day in Apulia. Now we passed much of our time together in silence.

  Marcus dipped his cup in the bowl of mulsum, then put one of the birds on his plate. I gave him a chance to get some food and wine down before opening the conversation that had been on my mind all day.

  “I’m leaving Rome,” I said after he had devoured about half of his chicken and drained a cup of wine. I lounged on the couch directly opposite him. A single oil lamp burned on the table between us.

  He pulled a wing from the carcass on his plate and looked up at me. “What do you mean, leaving Rome? Aren’t you still in the army?”

  “I’m not a Roman citizen. I have no commitment to the military other than year to year. I want to go back to Croton.”

  “That’s a Carthaginian controlled city. That’s like going into a hornet’s nest. What could possibly be there for you but trouble?” He put the entire wing in his mouth, then pulled out the bone, drawing the meat off with his teeth.

  “My mother.”

  “Didn’t you tell me she was dead?” He dropped the bone on the plate and used his fingers to pull free a breast.

  “I was deceived. I’m not certain where she is or even if she’s alive, but what I was told before was a lie. I’m going back to my home on the off chance that she could be there.” I had no intention of telling Marcus about my trip to the Community of Miracles.

  “You said she was a slave in Rome. Why would you think she’s in Croton?” He took a bite from the breast. “Seems foolish to me.”

  “I never knew anything for certain, Marcus. Only rumors. This is just another instance where I’m guessing as much as hoping.”

  Marcus took a swallow of mulsum. “That’s a long way to travel on a hunch.”

  “I know that.” I watched him lift a piece of skin from his plate. “I was wondering if I could take Balius?”

  Marcus looked up. “He’s yours. Do as you please.”

  His tone put me off. I considered him my best friend. Telling him I was leaving wasn’t easy, but he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me. My father gave you that horse.” He went back to eating.

  I had lost my appetite. I wanted to walk away from the table. Instead I nibbled at the food and drank too much wine. I told Marcus I would be leaving in two days. “If I don’t locate my mother, I’ll come back to Rome.”

  “You’re welcome here anytime.” Despite the words, he said them with no emotion. His ambivalence saddened me. By the next day I had convinced myself that I was glad to be leaving.

  CHAPTER 4

  I went into Rome the next day to tell Ithius that I was going to Croton. When I reached the house, I saw Rullo and Julia, the twelve-year-old son and six-year-old daughter of Laelia, Portia’s l
ongtime Insubrian house slave. They were behind the stable, sword fighting with sticks. The unstated household secret was that Rullo was Marcus’ illegitimate son. Although Rullo had Laelia’s blond hair and blue eyes, I could see Marcus in his brow and jaw line. I waved at the children, but neither of them noticed me as Rullo lunged at his sister, poking her in the stomach with his stick, causing her to fall on her behind. I expected her to start crying, but she scrambled to her feet and went at her brother with twice the ferocity she had shown before.

  I found Ithius in the peristyle watering the garden. “I’m going to Croton,” I said when he looked up. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

  “What’s in Croton?”

  “It’s where I grew up. I want to see if any of my relatives are still there.”

  “How are you traveling?”

  “On Balius.”

  “Alone?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know how dangerous that is, Timon?”

  “After three campaigns with the Roman army, Ithius, I think I’m capable of taking care of myself. Besides, I already know many of the roads from my mapmaking. You needn’t worry about me.”

  “But I will.” He shook his head. “When might you return?”

  “No telling.”

  “But you will be back?” he said wistfully.

  “If only to see you,” I laughed, then embraced him. “I thought I should let you know before I left.”

  “I appreciate that, Timon. May fortune be with you.”

  Despite my decision to leave, I still struggled with my feelings for Sempronia and the way the tutoring had been canceled so suddenly. In a fit of desperation, I went to Sempronia’s home that afternoon. Instead of knocking on the front door, I slipped down the alley between her house and the neighbor’s and climbed the fence that enclosed the back portion of the property.

  I hid at the back of the yard watching the slaves come and go. I saw Dora leave the slaves’ quarters and enter the house, then I saw Sempronia. She came out to the peristyle and sat on the bench where we had reviewed geometry lessons for two years. I crept up close to the colonnade that circuited the peristyle, and slipping from behind one column to the next, got close enough to Sempronia to get her attention with a whisper. I was about to say her name when I noticed Ajax in his birdcage at the edge of the atrium. If he saw me, he was certain to squawk my name and announce my presence to the entire household.