Zama

by Dan Armstrong

  I picked up a small rock and tossed it into the rose bush beside Sempronia. The rustling sound made her stand up and look around. I tossed another stone. Sempronia peered into the rose bush, then came out of the peristyle.

  She let out a soft gasp when she saw me, then her eyes hardened. “What are you doing here? Leave now or I will call the slaves to have you thrown out.”

  “But Sempronia...”

  “No, go away. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “What’s happened? I understand why your mother might object, but not you.”

  “Go,” she demanded, “or I’ll scream.”

  “Please, give me some kind of answer. What has happened?”

  Sempronia pinched her face into a expression of disgust. “My mother told me about your performance at Portia’s gatherings. You exposed yourself before all the women, then had sex with one of them as part of a ritual. Does that explain it?”

  She spun away from me, but I caught her by the hand. “Did she tell you why?”

  Sempronia pulled away from my grasp. “How could that matter? It’s disgusting just talking about it.”

  “Something more important than my honor was at stake.” I opened my toga to reveal the leather pouch that hung from my neck. “I had lost this pouch—and what’s in it changes the way we see things, and provides as important an insight into the physical world as there’s ever been.”

  “More important than the Pythagorean Theorem?” she said with derision.

  “Let me show you, and then you can tell me if what I did was a mistake.” She watched me as I pried open the little pouch and withdrew the two lenses. This was not how I envisioned breaking my promise to Archimedes, but in some ways my life was at stake. I loved this woman and knew I could never be happy without her in my life—at least as a friend.

  “A couple pieces of glass, Timon? That’s it?”

  “Yes, but wait until you see what they can do. They were gifts to me from Archimedes.” I held out the larger lens. “Look at your hand through this.” I demonstrated how to hold it.

  She pushed it away. “No, go! Now! I want nothing to do with you. You’re not who you’ve pretended to be. You’re a dirty Greek with no modesty and no morals.”

  “I have no morals?” I spat back at her, losing my temper. “What about your mother? Did she tell you that the woman I had sex with was her?”

  Sempronia covered her mouth in horror, then screamed at me. “That’s a lie. That’s a lie.”

  “Ask her. See if she’ll deny it.”

  “I won’t stoop to such a thing. Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

  “Don’t worry,” I shouted at her in growing anger. “I’m going to Croton tomorrow—hopefully for good!”

  Our loud voices could not be missed. Ajax began to squawk, and Dora called out from inside the house. “Sempronia! What’s going on? Who’s out there with you?”

  I could hear the housemaid coming through the peristyle. I darted to the back of the property, hopped the fence, and ran down the adjacent alley. When I finally stopped, I put the lenses back in the pouch and began to cry. I had just made everything ten times worse.

  CHAPTER 5

  They say Italy is shaped like a boot. Croton is located on the instep, three hundred miles south of Rome, and deep into territory controlled by Hannibal. Most of the journey could be made on paved roads, the majority of it on Via Latina. A fast, experienced rider could complete the trip in six days if everything went well. I hoped to do it in ten.

  I filled a pack with the necessities, a blanket, a leather water bag, my drawing equipment, a small tent, a sack of wheat, a few pieces of salted pork, and some dried fruit. That would be enough for me, but traveling in January meant forage for Balius would be a constant concern. I wore a linen tunic, my goatskin cap, and a wool himation over my shoulders. I kept all the money I had—ten asses and two silver denarii—in a girdle that I wrapped around my waist beneath the tunic.

  Edeco met me at the stable shortly after dawn. He wished me well but said little else. Marcus had said nothing more since the night I told him I was leaving, but he came out of the house just as I was climbing onto Balius.

  “Have a safe trip, Timon,” he said, walking up beside Balius. He handed me a small pouch. “This might help.”

  I looked into the pouch. It contained two more silver denarii. “That’s overly generous, Marcus. Thank you.”

  “You’ll need money to feed Balius. And be aware that he’ll be considered more valuable than you to the sorts of travelers you’re likely to encounter. Taking your life for your horse will mean nothing to the desperate.”

  “Edeco said the same thing to me earlier. I’ll treat Balius with utmost care.”

  “I’m sure you will. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “We’ll see. If by some chance I don’t see you again, please remember me as fondly as I do you and your family.”

  Marcus nodded, then patted Balius on the flank as I gave the reins a shake and headed on my way.

  The morning was cold and the sky clear. The day warmed as the winter sun climbed overhead and I made my way south on Via Latina. The movement of large armies had left the countryside pockmarked and muddy. Broken stretches of fence traced across the land like stitching. Most of the farms I passed were vacant and had not been tended in years. The homes and outbuildings were falling apart or had been burned down. The fields offered nothing but weeds in big clumps and knots. Hannibal’s marauding army had used Italy’s abundant harvest as their personal pantry for ten years now and it showed.

  I made a lot of miles the first four days, passing through Campania and into Lucania to the edge of enemy territory. Late in the afternoon of each day, I would seek out an empty farm building to stay for the night. One night I stayed with a farmer and his wife. I paid them generously for some oats and hay for Balius.

  The morning of my fifth day on the road I woke to a light, but cold rain. Midafternoon the wind started to blow and the rain grew heavy. I began my search for a place to spend the night long before dark. I saw a thin trail of smoke rising above a farmhouse in the distance and decided to try the farmer’s hospitality. As I guided Balius across a field in mud up to his forelocks, I noted the poor condition of the land and the absence of any livestock. The farmer might be living on the property, but he wasn’t doing any farming. I hoped there was at least some leftover hay for Balius.

  When I got close, I dismounted and walked Balius toward the small, windowless, mud brick house with a roof in need of thatching. I passed two small lean-to storage sheds and peered inside looking for any trace of animal feed. I saw nothing but spider webs and thistle. Before I got to the doorstep, I heard men’s voices inside and stopped short. On the far side of the building stood four crooked crosses. Shreds of clothing blew in the wind over the rattling skeletal remains of the crucified. Whoever was in the house was likely to be squatters, not a family.

  The door to the house swung open. A large man with a long, ragged beard, wearing the worn tunic of a Roman soldier, came out. He took one look at me and called into the house to others. I judged the situation to be dangerous immediately and turned to climb onto Balius just as the man bolted from the doorstep, followed by three other rough-looking men. The first man had hold of Balius’ reins before I could mount. The others took hold of me. Balius began to buck, trying to pull away, but the man held tight to his reins. The other three men dragged me into the house, then threw me on the dirt floor. I yanked the pugio from my belt and backed into a corner. The men glowered at me with eyes blank with hunger, daring me to come at them.

  The fourth man stomped back into the house. “That godless horse broke away from me and ran off.”

  One of the other men cursed him, calling him Gaius.

  Gaius glared at me. “What are you doing here?” I noticed he had only two fingers on his right hand and a long, white scar on his face.

  “I’m a Roman levy just like you are,” I
said. “I’m traveling on my own between campaigns.”

  All four of the men laughed. “Who said we were soldiers,” said one of them.

  “Your friend’s tunic.”

  This caused even more laughter. They were deserters on the run, the most desperate kind of men.

  “Take the knife from him before he hurts someone,” ordered Gaius.

  I tossed the pugio on the floor, knowing I had no chance to defend myself. “If it’s food you want, everything I had to eat was on that horse you chased away.”

  One of the men picked up the knife and moved up close to me, threatening to use it. “Food?” The man laughed, a hollow, humorless laugh, with breath heavily laced with the smell of rotting teeth. “We’d be butchering your horse right now if it hadn’t gotten away.”

  “And you, Greek, you’re the closest thing to meat we’ve got,” snarled another of the men.

  The others joined in with more ugly laughter. Gaius cut it short. “Search him. He had a horse. He must have some money. Then take him outside and have him call for his horse. Maybe it will come back.”

  “I have some money,” I said, knowing they would find it one way or the other. I pulled the belt from beneath my tunic. “Take it.”

  I tossed the cloth belt at the man with my dagger. He tore it open and all coins fell on the floor. As Gaius stood back to watch the others scrambling around on their hands and knees gathering up the coins, I made a dash for the door. Gaius stuck out his foot and caught my ankle. I went flying headlong across the room. He came over and placed his knee in the center of my back, pinning me down. The pouch with the lenses had slid from beneath my tunic and lay beside me. Gaius snatched it from the floor and gave the cord a yank. It tore at my neck but didn’t break. He leaned over me and pulled the cord over my head, nearly taking my ears with it. The others stood around us, eyeing each other, thinking there might be more money in the pouch.

  Gaius stood up and pried the pouch open with his fingers. He looked inside, then to his fellow deserters. “How much money did he have?”

  “Show us what’s in the pouch first,” said one of them.

  “Suck Jupiter’s ass, Titus,” snapped Gaius. “What have you got? All of you.”

  I sat up as the men glared at each other. One of the men was small and wiry with bow legs and some gray in his hair. Gaius was maybe forty and a huge man, square in the chest and thick in the hips. Titus was not much smaller but several years younger. He held my knife. The fourth was blond, tall, gaunt, and probably not twenty years old. All of them were dirty and reeked. None of them had shaved in weeks.

  The smallest of the men opened his hand revealing three asses. The blonde followed suit and showed an as and one of my denarii, meaning Titus had what remained. He fixed a defiant stare at Gaius. “What’s in the pouch?”

  Gaius wore a gladius at his hip. Titus held my pugio. If they went at each other, I was going for the door.

  Gaius shook his head. “This is nothing.” He withdrew the crystal disk from the pouch. “It’s a piece of glass.” Apparently he hadn’t noticed the bead at the bottom of the pouch. He tossed both the pouch and the disk on the floor. I watched the disk roll across the dirt, cut two wide circles, then wobble, and fall on its side a few feet from the hearth.

  “Your turn, Titus,” said the blonde.

  Titus’ eyes flashed around the group, then he opened his hand. “Three silver staters,” he said with a wink. “And four asses. I guess I got lucky,” he smirked.

  Gaius frowned. “I see eight asses and four denarii. That’s two asses and a denarius for each of us.”

  “Yeah,” said the blonde. The wiry man echoed the same.

  Titus hesitated, then said, “Fine.”

  Instead of fighting over it, they pushed me into a corner to divide it up. When they were done, they ripped a sackcloth bag that was lying on the floor into strips and tied my hands behind my back and hobbled my feet, then led me out into the yard. It was nearly dark and the rain was harder than ever. They told me to call my horse. I called out the name Mathos. With the wind and rain, I doubt my voice carried very far.

  When Balius didn’t return, they stripped the bones from one of the crosses and tied me to the crucifix. They left me there in the wind and rain for the night and went back into the house.

  The rain stopped early in the morning. Soon afterward, the sun made a hesitant appearance through the clouds. The four men took a brief look around for Balius then got ready to leave. Only the blonde bothered to check on me. I pleaded for him to let me down. He spat on me then joined the others as they headed out into the weed-filled fields and disappeared from sight.

  I was sure I would die there on that cross. With little other hope, I called out for Balius until I was hoarse. I lapsed into some state between sleep and unconsciousness for I don’t know how long.

  I woke with a nudging at my side and a whinny. Balius stood beside the crucifix. I was so glad to see him I began to cry. But even with him there, I was still stuck on the cross. With no idea how I could get Balius to help me, I asked him outright. “If you can, Balius, pull at the rags around my feet.”

  And sure enough Balius gave the rags at my ankles a sniff. After a moment, he pulled the sackcloth free with his teeth, then chewed it up and swallowed it. He freed my right wrist next, which left me dangling from the cross by one arm. By kicking my feet and swinging back and forth, I managed to tip the crucifix over. Once on the ground, I pulled off the remaining scraps of cloth, then rubbed my wrists and ankles to get some feeling in them—so I could properly stroke the forelock of my loyal friend.

  I went into the house to retrieve the leather pouch and the crystal disk, which had fortunately survived without a scratch. I saw a piece of the sackcloth on the floor. No wonder Balius had chewed if off. It was leftover from a bag of oats.

  CHAPTER 6

  The experience with the deserters gave me second thoughts about being on the road alone. With little other choice, I rode Balius a little harder and longer each day and reached Croton at dusk two days sooner than expected. I saw the walls of the city from a distance. Memories of my childhood washed over me as I directed Balius toward the main gate, wary of the fact that the city was now controlled by the local Bruttians who had sided with Hannibal in the weeks after I was kidnapped and Croton fell. The entire toe and instep of the Italian peninsula had become a Carthaginian stronghold. Last I had heard, Hannibal wintered on the coast in Metapontum not far from Tarentum and about one hundred miles west of Croton.

  Croton had once been a large and prosperous city enclosed by twelve miles of walls, but seventy years earlier, during Rome’s war with Pyrrhus and the Tarentines, Croton was besieged by the Romans. The city was never the same. The river that ran through the city now split it in half—one side was inhabited, the other was a desolate wasteland.

  Four guards appeared on the wall above the gate as I rode up. One called down to me, asking what my business was. I replied in the Bruttian dialect. I told them I was coming home to Croton. I had been taken as a slave six years earlier and had recently been given my freedom. I had returned hoping to find my mother.

  I was an unarmed lone rider and clearly Greek. Rather than open the main gate, they directed me to a postern gate farther east along the wall. I dismounted and led Balius. A guard opened the gate from the inside.

  “Things have changed in Croton since you were last here,” the man said. “Most of the Greek populace was transported to Locri after the city went over to Hannibal.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. If I don’t find my mother here, I plan to go to Locri.”

  The guard shrugged. “Just be aware that the Senate no longer makes the laws here. A military tribunal of Carthaginian officers runs everything.” I thought of my time in Syracuse under similar circumstances. “Stay clear of the Carthaginian officers,” continued the guard, “and you’ll be fine.”

  I crossed the city warily, leading Balius by his reins. The friendly warmth of the Cro
ton I had known as a child had transformed into an icy chill. Carthaginian soldiers were everywhere. The Bruttians, who had been second-class citizens when I lived there, were now the controlling populace. Greeks were far and few between. When I neared our old home, I began to hurry, certain my mother would be there. I knocked lightly on the door, then in a storm of mixed feelings, let myself into the room where I had seen my father killed. The room was empty, so I headed to the atrium and called out my mother’s name.

  “Who’s that?” shouted back from the peristyle. Lucretia, a slave who had known me since I was an infant, came running from the garden as though she were expecting me.

  I caught her in my arms and embraced her. “Do you believe we’re finally home?”

  Lucretia was well over fifty years old. She carried a little extra weight in her face and hips, and her hair was entirely gray, making her look like a grandmother, but her eyes remained strong and radiant. She held me at arm’s length and looked into my face, tears streaming from her eyes. “It seems like a lifetime since we spoke outside the Roman camp last summer.”

  “Where’s my mother? I must see her.”

  Lucretia lowered her head. “She’s not here.”

  “Then what was the message I got?”

  “That was from your mother. We didn’t know if you’d received it or if you were coming.”

  “But where is she?”

  “Metapontum.”

  “What?”

  “Hannibal requested her company shortly after she sent the message to you. It’s been three weeks.”

  “I don’t get it. I thought he was letting her go after the campaign.”