A Villa Far From Rome

by Sheila Finch

  He said softly. “You can do something for me.”

  “What is this news about Amminus? What has happened?”

  “He received terrible news about his son. Amminus will not be coming home. Not ever.”

  “Niko! What happened?”

  “He’ll tell you more when he’s ready. But I need you to go outside – down to those grey-green trees with the long trailing branches by the stream. You know the ones I mean?”

  “The willow trees? Whatever for?”

  “I need you to cut some bark. I’ve used up my supply and his pain will be worse when he wakes.”

  She stared at him. “Why can’t you do it yourself?

  “Because he might wake while I’m away.”

  Too astonished to argue further, and heavily burdened by the news she’d just heard, she left the house.

  The stream that meandered across the garden, between piles of rubble from the demolished part of the old house and the lumber stacked to build the new villa in its place, finally reached the sea at the bottom of a little cliff. It wasn’t far from the house, but the grove of willows that had spring up on the stream’s bank sheltered her from the sounds of the villa, so that she might have been several miles away. The wind had dropped as the twilight’s first stars appeared in the pale sky.

  The bark wasn’t as easy to peel off the tree as she’d expected. She tried one tree after another, never managing to separate more than a finger’s length in any of her attempts. Stupid not to have stopped by the kitchen for a knife before coming here. Her fingers were sore from contact with the tree and she’d broken two nails already.

  “Let me do that for you.”

  She spun round to find Severus’s apprentice had come up so close she almost stumbled against him. He put out one of his long arms and caught her shoulder, but he held her away from him as if he too wished to avoid contact.

  “I didn’t hear you coming.”

  He shook his head. “My fault. But may I ask what you are doing?”

  “Trying to peel off some willow bark for Niko who wants it for some reason.”

  “It’s a pain physic,” he explained. “He’ll make a potion and give it to your husband to make him sleep.”

  “How do you know that? Are you a physician too?”

  Aron gave her a shy smile. “Even apprentice architects learn a lot of useful things in Alexandria.”

  He took out a small knife and carefully peeled a long strip off a branch near the main trunk of the largest tree. There was a calm gentleness in his movements that invited trust. A sharp contrast to his ungainly body.

  “Hippocrates taught, ‘First, do no harm,’” he said. “Centuries ago now, but still a good precept to follow.”

  “How like Niko you sound!”

  She became aware of tears, and dabbed at them impatiently, but the tide of grief that had been building overflowed. The last days at Pyrgi – her father’s suicide – exile to this cold place – the loss of her only friend, Gracila – the fear she might lose Tiberius – her growing understanding that Amminus – the pale young boy at Nero’s banquet – was dead.

  Aron sat down with his back to the oldest tree and drew her down beside him, letting her head rest on his bony shoulders. “There now,” he said, patting her arm as one might soothe a fretful child. “There now.”

  She hadn’t meant to speak of these things, but his was a comforting presence. The hurt of years began to tumble out. And finally, she told him about Lucia’s birth. He didn’t comment.

  “I shouldn’t have burdened you,” she said at last.

  The sky had darkened, a sliver of new moon came out and the resident owl spoke. They sat for a while longer, his arm a comfort about her shoulder.

  At last, he stood and helped her up. “You’d better go inside. Niko will need the willow bark.”

  She nodded, suddenly ashamed of her childish weakness. “You are kind, Aron. Thank you.”

  He turned away quickly, but she’d glimpsed the flush that rose into his cheeks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  They sat under an oak tree, silently sharing an apple left over from last year’s harvest and watching Beech chase yellow butterflies. Those that were on the trees now weren’t ready to take. There wouldn’t be any apples to harvest this year, Niko had told them, if the architect had his way about cutting the trees down to make way for a new wing of the villa. So they were making this one last.

  “Look,” he said. “See that bird floating way up there? Not moving its wings? That’s a kestrel.”

  “How do you know what it is?”

  “Listen to its cry – ‘Kee, kee!’ That’s how you know.”

  She listened, and heard the plaintive sound the bird made.

  “The kestrel is a hunter.”

  “What does he hunt?”

  “Little things. Rabbits, mostly.”

  “I wish he wouldn’t hunt rabbits, Catu!”

  “Finish your apple,” he said.

  Mater told her yesterday that they’d soon be able to move into some of the rooms in the new villa. The workers made a lot of noise and there was a lot dust everywhere. Just looking at them made her feel hot.

  The new donkey, Gallusina, still wasn’t strong enough for them to ride, Gallus said. There was a clutch of daisies in the grass a little way off, enough to make a daisy chain for Gallusina’s neck. She’d have to remember to come here tomorrow and pick them. It would be good to do something nice for the little donkey, but making a daisy chain didn’t seem like something she wanted to do today.

  “Can we go down to the sea again?”

  The boy shook his head. “Better not. The grown-ups are all acting like bees when you overturn the hive today, and I don’t want another whipping.”

  “Why would you overturn the hive?”

  “Not a real hive! It means they get angry easily. But I just remembered something.”

  He stood up and fished in a pocket of his breeches and Lucia watched with interest. He didn’t dress like Romans did in tunic and toga. She thought his breeches that fitted tight around his ankles looked better for climbing trees and scrambling over rocks than what she had to wear. His funny hair looked as if it was on fire in the sunlight. She liked it.

  “I promised you this,” he said, holding something out to her.

  It was a necklace, five blue and green pearly shells strung on a knotted cord. The mussels she’d pried off the rocks herself.

  “Here, let me tie it round your neck.” He knelt beside her to fasten it.

  “That’s the best present ever!” She turned to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

  He pulled away and made a show of whistling for Beech to come to him.

  “Why is your face red?

  “Because – I don’t know! Because it’s hot in the sun.”

  She thought about that for a moment. Catuarus had just celebrated his tenth birthday. She knew this because Niko had taught them what Roman boys did to celebrate their tenth birthdays. She hadn’t paid attention because it sounded boring. She thought his red face meant he was worried. Her own face got hot sometimes just before she cried.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, putting her hand on his bare arm. “Niko’s taking care of Tiber.”

  The dog came up to them, panting, and swiped both their faces in turn with her long wet tongue. Across the lawn, the man who’d come from Rome to build the new house shouted at the workmen. Delamira came out of one door and went back in another, carrying blankets.

  “Those are bad words the architect used,” Catuarus said. “Don’t you ever repeat them!”

  “You know so many things, Catu.”

  “Soon you will too,” the boy promised.

  “When I’m six I’ll be old enough to go down to the water and see the dolphins and nobody will stop me.”

  “Even Gallus wouldn’t bet on that! Anyway, you can’t just order the dolphins to appear. They do whatever they want out there, and sometimes you don�
�t see them for a long time. You were lucky.”

  “I wish I were as smart as you.”

  “Not smart enough to help my father when he needs it,” Catu said. “There’s going to be a war. My uncle said so. And Gallus thinks so too. Between my people and your people.”

  “What’s a war?”

  He looked at her, scowling. “It’s when people fight with each other. And you and I won’t be able to be friends.”

  “But I don’t want a war.”

  “They won’t be asking you. Or me. My father will try to stop it, if he gets well enough.”

  “I want to always be your friend, Catu. I like you.”

  “I like you too – most of the time. That’s why I made the necklace for you.”

  She touched the smooth shells at her neck. They were warm in the sunshine. She remembered the day he’d taken her to see the women looking for shellfish in the sea, the way the waves tickled her bare feet, the smell of the shellfish when the woman opened it for her. “Let’s promise to always be friends, you and me and Beech.”

  The corners of his mouth turned down and she thought he really was going to cry – but boys didn’t do that.

  “I wish my brother were here. Amminus would know what to do if there’s a war.”

  “I miss him too,” she said.

  That made him laugh. “Silly! You don’t even know him.”

  But he folded his arms around her and gave her a hug, and she knew everything would be all right.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Breca had visited him several times since he’d been wounded, bringing fresh shellfish and mushrooms from the island. For a long time he hadn’t been able to eat them, but she’d worked in the kitchen with Old Nev to make a broth which she’d patiently spooned into his mouth. As he healed, they’d taken to walking in what was left of the garden at sunset, her hand fast in his, watching the yellow ball descend through layers of red and purple cloud over the misty Downs. Autumn was settling early this year across the land and every living thing responded by ripening, softening, slowing down Somewhere at the edge of his trench-scarred garden, a nightingale began its melancholy evening song.

  He couldn’t keep it from her much longer.

  “There’s something on your mind,” she said, as they came within sight of the sea, wearing its evening indigo like an emperor, the setting sun laying a path of gold across the calm surface of the water.

  “My heart –”

  She came into his arms and he kissed the top of her head, breathing in her beloved scent. Today, there was sweet heather mixed with the muskiness of wood-smoke. He wanted to hold on to this moment forever, to believe in the possibility that things would come right in the end.

  “I know you well enough to know you’re carrying pain that has little to do with your injuries.”

  The words dried up in his throat and he lost his nerve. “I’m just tired tonight.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Togi,” she said sharply.

  He turned his gaze on a small sailboat heading lazily back through the channel from a fishing expedition. The boat rode low in the water; the catch had been a good one. “Truth is, I don’t know where to begin.”

  She was silent for a moment. “It’s Amminus, isn’t it? He’s not coming home for a long time yet? Perhaps....” Her lip trembled. “Perhaps never?”

  He thought of trying to soften the blow, but there was no way to do it. He owed her the truth in this as in everything else they shared. “There was an accident. I don’t know more than that.”

  “What do you mean, an accident?”

  “They – the boys at court – were at play – he didn’t live.”

  She stared at him. “Amminus is dead? My son? Dead?”

  “Breca –”

  “It was the emperor’s doing. Nero is a monster and a murderer!”

  He started to say they couldn’t be certain, but that wasn’t right.

  She overrode his words. “May he and his house be cursed! May his food turn to poison in his mouth, his bed be a bed of knives. May the wind cut his flesh to the bone! May the wild dogs and the wolves dig up his grave and scatter his bones! May his spirit find no rest –”

  He folded her in his arms, smothering her fury against his heart. When his own tears came, he let them roll down his cheeks as if he’d been a woman.

  * * *

  Remembering the bitter scene as clearly as if it had been yesterday – though it had been a month ago – he put his elbow on his desk and rested his brow on his palm. A king didn’t have the option of a long recovery; those whose lives were in his hands expected him to serve them with his justice. The man standing in front of him droned on with his complaint. The fifth this morning. This man was a goatherder with a very small flock. He told the truth that he could hardly afford the assessment he had now; higher tax would possibly send him and his children into starvation.

  He’d let it be known he’d hear grievances again, once a week in this audience room. There was a time when the complaints would’ve been neighbor against neighbor over fruit taken off somebody’s trees, or missing lambs presumed stolen without evidence. Once in a while, somebody wanted him to discipline a half-grown son who was going wild. Anything more serious or complicated, he referred to the Council of Elders. The mood here today was different.

  His head felt as if it were stuffed with spider silk, and the headache that had plagued him ever since he’d been attacked on the road, skulked around in the corners of his mind like the would-be assassins who’d caused it. The broken bones and the wounds had healed under Niko’s skilled hands, but the headaches and the moments of feeling far away from whatever was happening around him remained. Time, the Greek had told him, only time could heal his head. The other wound, the one that had ripped his heart out of his breast, he doubted that would ever heal.

  “..... on my behalf?”

  He came back to himself, realizing he’d been asked a question and should reply.

  “I’ll consider your complaint.”

  He had enemies on the Council who would like nothing more than to make a case that he wasn’t taking care of his people, and at the same time he wasn’t enforcing Roman law.

  The goatherder’s expression betrayed his dissatisfaction with the answer, but he left. The next man stepped up with his grievance. Togidubnus happened to know this one was prosperous, a merchant making his money supplying olive oil and fish oil from Rome and wine from Gaul to the garrison in Noviomagus. The man could afford the higher taxes Marcus Favonius had decreed. But rich or poor, both despised new taxes. Justifiably. It was legal for Favonius to demand a new tax, but not surprising the people would complain about it.

  Through the open window, the sounds of the architect shouting at his laborers drifted in to him. They were digging a new channel to re-direct the course of the little stream that crossed his land. It had to be moved, the architect insisted, in order to make way for the land to be drained so another wing of the villa could be built. Romans, he decided, were seldom happier than when they were subduing the land, re-arranging it to fit their grand purposes. They derived pleasure from building straight roads, instead of meandering paths that took in the beauty of the countryside as the Regni’s paths did. They built walls to keep some people out and other people in, aqueducts that marched across the land bringing water where no rivers flowed – Well, he conceded, that last one was probably a good idea. But they didn’t know the birds that fished in that little stream they were diverting, or the trees that bent over it, or the sound of its voice as it rippled over the stones in the bend in its path. The stream would be ordered into a new pathway, and the villa would expand. And perhaps Antonia would be happy.

  The merchant muttered something about the Regni. He forced his mind to pay attention. That was the third or fourth time the man had mentioned the tribe by name. “My people, the Regni....” Togidubnus, king of the Regni by Roman fiat, was not to be counted one of My people.

  He stared hard at the man
until the merchant dropped his eyes.

  “As king of the Regni, and a Roman citizen – as are you, my friend –” The merchant wouldn’t have acquired his lucrative contracts to supply the Roman troops unless he too had become a citizen. “I took an oath to enforce the law and protect the people equally.”

  The merchant went away without further words.

  His anger rose in his throat till he could taste it. “No more petitions.”

  He rose and the men still waiting to speak to him shuffled out of his way, grumbling under their breath, as he left the room. He needed to get away from the noise and the confusion of construction of this gaudy copy of an imperial palace that he neither liked nor wanted. The constant bickering and complaining of all the people around him sickened him.

  The autumnal garden was chilly, most of the leaves were off the trees and few birds chirped in the thickets. He walked under the bare branches till the construction dwindled behind him, his thoughts tumbling in his mind, his stomach full of acid. Before this, he’d always been able to glean comfort from the land, enough to sustain him through troubled times, but there was little solace to be found here today.

  Emerging from the grove into an open space of grass studded with clover where a few bees still droned, he came face to face with an old stag with a broken antler. They stared at each other for a long moment, unafraid, both kings in their own realms.

  “Good day, Lord Sailetheach.” He slipped easily into the Old Tongue to greet Cernunnos’s animal. “One wounded warrior salutes another. Go on your way in peace.”

  The stag lowered its head as if in acknowledgment, then moved unhurriedly away.

  If only Breca would consent to come back. The ache he felt for her was a wound that wouldn’t heal. He missed her wisdom and her steady way of dealing with the unhappy people who brought their grievances to him day after day.

  Remembering that moment when he hadn’t been able to shield her from the truth, he stared at the sea. He was a strong man, but it had unnerved him to hear Breca curse. He would never be clear of the memory of her tear-stained face, or her silence after that outburst. It had been his wish for Amminus to be educated in Rome that had caused the boy’s death. She had every right to hate him for it. But she held her anger against him in silence, and that was his punishment. If so, he would bear it. He wouldn’t allow his pain to stop what he must do, even if his people didn’t understand. Even if Breca didn’t understand. Even if he himself was beginning to doubt he understood.