Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  64 A.D.

  Quintus and Linus galloped down the lane and leaped the wall in midafternoon. Pelting across the front pasture, scattering mares and foals, they set off on a high-speed race of the property with Quintus holding a narrow lead over his deputy and best friend. Once out of sight, the only way to chart their progress was by the flushed birds and the bellows of spooked horses.

  A half hour later, they returned from the bottomlands walking their horses, talking in a relaxed way.

  “Woodcutter! Pig stabber!” Linus grabbed me by the shoulder as they turned the blown horses over to my care. “You look good. Farm work agrees with you.”

  “Yes, sir, I believe it does. Thank you.”

  Quintus gave his friend a swat on the ass.

  “Quit bothering the help. He’ll get a big head and think he can run off.”

  A smell of wine was strong upon their breath.

  “Run?” Linus had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. “Where would you run to, Hunter?”

  “No place, sir. I like it here.”

  “See, Quintus, he’s not running anywhere. Tullia will be fine. If it will make you feel better, I’ll find her a husband tonight!”

  “You’re drunker than you look,” Quintus said, pretending to wobble. “Last time she met a man she married him.”

  Linus gave me a sheepish grin. “Divorced and back under her father’s roof within a year.”

  “It was the wrong man,” Quintus tittered.

  “Has she ever found one that was right?”

  “Perhaps tonight, Mr. Matchmaker. Ye Gods, what wine were your parents pouring? My head spins.”

  “Something new from Gaul. I’m tired.”

  “My sister’s always taking naps, perhaps we should try one.”

  Taking his friend by the elbow, Quintus led him to the door.

  “Hunter, we have a big party tonight,” he said, stopping. “Make sure to have four of our best mounts well-groomed and ready to go. Pretty them up. And pretty yourself up too. You will be accompanying us as groom. Perhaps we’ll find you a wife!”

  “No masturbating,” Linus waggled a finger my way. “Save it for your new spouse.”

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  64 A.D.

  For the most part it’s been a hoot ensconced in this lower class life, a working vacation from responsibility.

  Tonight was the first time since beginning the charade that I found myself yearning to mingle with the elite, to quaff their wine and sample the rich foods. Quintus had the mother of all birthday parties and I wasn’t invited. Boo-hoo.

  I guess my expectations were raised on the horseback ride to their friend’s estate. Quintus, Tullia and Linus treated me nearly as an equal. The men confessed they would be shipping out to Iberia soon and had no firm idea of when they would be back. When asked if I had ever traveled to Spain, or had any travel tips, I lied and said no.

  Over the past 30 millennia I’d of course toured Spain many times. It didn’t seem the moment to describe breeding with Neanderthal lassies to create hybrid troops or being the first prospector by many thousands of years to pan for gold in the Las Medulas. Nuggets littered the streambeds and valley bottoms in those days. In less than 10 years and without much effort, I compiled a gold repository that continues to pay dividends to this day.

  Such stories can never be told. I kept my ears open and let them speculate on which dishes would be served and what entertainment had been arranged.

  “Atticus and his young wife, Giunia, have spared no expense, I can assure you of that,” Linus said. “I dined with them last night at my parents’ home. Both claimed to be overjoyed to fete the departing heroes. Giunia is his latest wife. She’s half the man’s age and twice as pretty. She’s bright.”

  “Will your parents be coming?” Tullia asked.

  “Probably not. Father is hosting a gathering of senators. He’s working overtime to get the votes he needs.”

  “Needs for what?”

  “Insolent witch! You question the great Linus?”

  “This witch changed the great Linus’ diapers when he was a boy,” she drawled.

  “A scant two years ago!” Quintus zinged before Tullia continued, “Has she not earned the right to pose a single question?”

  “If you must know, Nero’s intent on beggaring the Empire to build his Neropolis and Father is just as intent on stopping him.”

  “Neropolis?”

  “The Emperor wants to demolish a third of Rome to build palaces and parks in his own honor. Everything from here to the Forum would be torn down and moved. Your land may even be affected.”

  “Let’s not begin on politics,” Quintus groaned. “There will be enough of that tonight. I implore each of you, and this includes Hunter, Fide nemini, trust no one. There are sure to be many spies listening and watching tonight.”

  Not long after this admonishment, we passed through the entry gates of the Balventius Estate and started up its long, white pebble chariotway. Beneath pruned oaks thick in spring growth, Quintus reminded us one last time to refrain from sharing our political views. The masters rode three abreast with Tullia in the middle, while I brought up the rear. Halfway to the marble palace, a fanfare of trumpets announced our impending arrival and brought a flood of guests pouring through the doors and windows into the front gardens.

  Several hundred revelers cheered and called out greetings. “Long live Quintus! Hail Linus! Felix natalis! All hail the future heroes of Iberia!” Nude slave girls and boys danced from the wings to throw flowers in the air and cover the entry stairs in blooms. Tall maypoles streamed with colorful banners and ribbons. Atop each pole chattered a leashed chimpanzee dressed in white toga and red Oriental cap.

  From the center of the crowd emerged the host and hostess to officially greet the guests of honor to the Bacchanalia. The host’s welcoming speech centered mainly on the importance of Quintus and Linus indulging in as much drinking, eating and fucking as possible while they still could. The stout, middle-aged man with bald pate and curly white sideburns predicted hard times in Spain.

  “As every Roman knows, the only wine Iberians have to drink is horse piss, their best dish is cheese-baked sand, and the only beings clean enough to screw are the goats!”

  “To the goats!” the crowd roared. “Try a cup of my horse piss!”

  Men garbed in all sorts of military finery and dress togas rushed forward to help Quintus, Linus and Tullia from their horses and shepherd them into the cool shade of the house. I was sitting on my horse watching them go, feeling the first pangs of jealousy, when a senior house servant jabbed my calf with a wooden cudgel and ordered me to the high ground.

  “Follow this path and seek where the other grooms have set up,” he said officiously. “Pick a tree to tie your horses to and stay away from the house. If you are caught snooping or stealing, it will mean your life. So sayeth the lord and master of this property, Atticus Balventius.”

  At a trot, I passed a fountain where drunken revelers were already splashing and swimming amid the marble statuary. Circling wide of the outdoor kitchens, I was assailed by wonderful smells of roasting meat. Three oxen, two horses and four pigs turned on spits.

  One positive of being relegated to the back of the property was the panorama. While the palace was sited below the Esquiline’s crest and faced the city’s outlying farms and northern hills, we grooms and servants on the summit enjoyed inspiring views of Rome itself.

  Once the horses were securely tethered, I slung a couple of the wineskins Quintus had provided over my shoulder and approached a knot of sullen grooms.

  Even watered down, the wine did its usual trick of relaxing the mood and building temporary camaraderie. There was no food to speak of, just the personal stashes secreted in our pockets and saddlebags. We passed the wine as Rome’s white temples and palaces t
urned copper in the setting sun. Over the next hour the edifices became ghostlike shadows in the dwindling dusk and then nothing at all as full darkness took hold. With its myriad pinpoint torchlights and wavering bonfires, the rolling black city was a constellation of flickering stars.

  As is often the case when men get together, conversation landed on the various, inventive ways we had injured ourselves through the years. What is it with mankind’s preoccupation with pain? One erstwhile idiot describes how he recently stubbed a toe and lost the nail and another man immediately jumps in to one-better him with a grim yarn about a giant splinter wedged through his penis. Out flows a torrent of festering tales designed to make listeners fidget and wince.

  “My master says they’re pitting a boxer against a wrestler in a fight to the death,” cut in an older groom, deftly changing the subject. “I’d like to see that.”

  “My master and mistress were arguing about who got to fornicate with Quintus first. He claimed first dibs, and she told him he better hurry.”

  “They all spread their legs or bend over for the birthday boy,” a likable groom from the Palatine said. “It’s good luck, they say.”

  “Good luck for Quintus!”

  “Real men don’t bend,” the older groom growled with conviction. “They penetrate. I’m surprised you admit your master takes it in the ass.”

  “He’s old and weak.”

  “It’s surprising to hear you say that as well. Where is your loyalty, man?”

  “Me and the rest of the staff haven’t been paid for a year. ‘Tis hard to be loyal when you’ve got nothing in your stomach and the master and missus are sloppy.”

  “When I rode with the cavalry, the rules were straight forward. If a fellow soldier allowed himself to be penetrated, it was our duty to flog him to death.”

  “Were you ever ordered to flog a friend?”

  “No. Our men knew to bugger the male prostitutes and slaves. Always as penetrators, never submissive.”

  Handing an empty wineskin to me, the former cavalryman asked bluntly, “How about you, wine merchant? How often do you give it up for Quintus? Is that how you came to replace the Greek? The master liked you bent over the tack table better?”

  “That is not the case,” I said, meeting his eyes.

  “You show up here with gifts of wine and then sit quiet as a mouse and listen. Are you a spy?”

  “Perdix left to deliver a message to the master and never returned.”

  “One of the slave girls who serves my master heard that Lady Tullia cut the head off the former headman’s daughter, Ancilla. She said you fed her to the pigs. Ring a bell?”

  “I haven’t heard that one. It is a dandy story, but untrue. Excuse me, kind sirs, if my wine and I are not welcome, we will find other company.”

  Catcalls followed me to the horses. Digging a hunk of cheese and a stale roll from my saddlebag, I was tucking into dinner when Lady Tullia’s voice breezed through the trees. She had to be walking the pathway connecting the noisy party to the marble, hilltop terrace that overlooked the city. Groups and couples had been wandering up to ogle the view all evening.

  Slipping through the trees, forgetting my place as lowly groom and longing to be included in the merriment, I followed her laughter. Having spent so much time working together in the fields, foaling horses and auditing the books, we had genuinely become close friends. I knew Lady Tullia would not be offended if I paid my respects. If I interrupted an important conversation or the situation became awkward, I would simply report a concern for one of the horses and leave.

  Clearing the trees, I noted that Tullia and the hostess Giunia were the only people on the terrace. It took me far too long to register the two women were no longer giggling and chatting, but embracing and staring longingly into each other’s eyes. Nearly a head shorter, Giunia tipped her chin upward as Tullia bent low to plant a long, loving kiss upon her soft, garnet lips.

  Before I could turn around and run, Giunia moved her mouth down to Tullia’s right breast, sucking its nipple through the fabric of the sheer, light blue robe. Eyes closed, head lolling, my mistress wore a Mona Lisa smile as she slipped a hand between Giunia’s legs. Working with her fingers, she soon had the woman on the edge of climax.

  I was doing a poor imitation of a tree, slowly retreating backwards away from the terrace when Tullia detected my shuffles and flashed open her eyes. It took her a moment to see it was me.

  “Get back to the horses, silly man.”

  “What is it?” Giunia asked, coming up for air.

  “Nothing, my sweet, just an overstepping groom trying to get himself strangled for snooping. Where were we?”

  “Mmmmm yes, that’s the spot.”

  The orgy’s music, screams and laughter were still going strong, three hours after sunrise when a servant came to fetch me.

  “Your masters are ready for their horses. You are to meet them at the front steps.”

  Following the same path I had taken around the palace the previous afternoon, I passed the fire pits where all the carcasses had vanished but one charred, stationary goat. Beneath trees, curled in the yard, sprawled halfway in fountains, revelers slept wherever they had dropped. Absent their chimps, the poles and banners in the front entry yard were now bloodstained and tattered.

  On the ride home, I learned the chimps were part of the evening’s entertainment. Once they were picked off by spear and arrow as a sacrifice to the Gods, they were exquisitely prepared and eaten, all the way down their runny brains and hairy paws. The dishes happened to be served at the height of the meal’s entertainment, just as the beaten-down wrestler finally got inside the boxer’s defenses, brought the Egyptian to the ground and choked him to death at the foot of the table.

  My group was far too green around the gills to eat brains, runny or otherwise. Many times we were forced to stop for one of them to dismount and retch. I give them credit for taking care not to puke on the horses, and also for the style with which they knelt in the rutted road and heaved their guts out. To these Romans, the shared suffering was humorous, a badge to be worn proudly, even when passing neighbors tsktsked and muttered derogatory comments.

  The groans and suffering provided rich fodder for wisecracks and word play between the men.

  “Oh no,” Linus called from his saddle during one of Quintus’ fits in the bushes. “He’s just retched up both testicles. Oh wait, they’re quail’s eggs! Don’t you chew your food?”

  Quintus did not reply until he was back in the saddle and using the hem of his dress toga to wipe a green smear off his cheek.

  “Jaylius bet me 20 gold pieces I couldn’t swallow 20 eggs, shells and all.”

  “Did he pay up?”

  Quintus gave the leather purse strapped to his sword belt a shake to make a satisfying jingle.

  “I could go for some quail’s eggs right now,” Linus said with fake relish. “Covered in monkey brains and sprinkled with honeyed sparrow tongues. Umm-mmm.”

  The imagery sent Quintus and Tullia dashing from their saddles and into the dirt. Linus gave me a satisfied grin for all of three seconds before he too was, as Quintus calls it, “shouting at the ground.”

  I had hoped to use the ride as a time to share highlights of the gossip I had culled. Not every circle I entered was so leery of a strange face. It seems debt is rampant among the aristocracy, even plaguing our host and hostess. Despite the grand feast and entertainment, two of their stable boys claimed the couple was up to its eyeballs in creditors. The short, dark-eyed brothers said the auxiliary had to be brought in to sweep out the angry moneylenders before the party started.

  Christianity was also a topic of note. There was much curiosity and speculation about the powers and prospects of this new cult. More than a few grooms claimed to have friends or family who have converted. None risked announcing their new faith outright, but it felt like the stories they recounted about “friends” seeing the light were based on personal experience.

  Knowing how
popular and powerful the Christian Church is destined to become, I found it very interesting, almost quaint, to get a glimpse of the foundations of such passionate beliefs. Sadly, the messages of love thy neighbor, help the poor and turn the other cheek are being co-opted by base human nature. The interests of self and clan seem to always come first. The grooms’ “friends” claimed eternal life gave a man time to grow wealthy and move up the social ladder.

  “Some day Christians will own all of this city,” one said with a sweep of his arm. Out of the mouths of babes.

  All three of my Romans were slumped in their saddles fast asleep as I led their horses down the tree-covered lane and through the rusty gate. Not even the howls of Romulus and Remus in their stall could wake the trio as we passed the barn.

  A notion of sending them off to bed and finally making my escape rolled around my brain for a moment. I could steal a horse or leave on foot. Either way, I would probably have all the head start I would need to quit the city and reach the foothills of the Apennines, where they could never find me.

  The idea was gone as quickly as it appeared. In spite of their dim prospects, I feel very attached to these people. Linus is lucky to be transferred and to be taking his friend with him. His father the Senator seems destined for the garrote, or worse. If only I could persuade Tullia to sell the farm and accompany them to the wide-open spaces.

  The gruff groom’s stories about soldiers being flogged to death had me wondering if he was issuing a warning or trying to draw me out about the relationship between Quintus and Linus. In truth, I would have nothing to divulge. Though I have never seen two closer men, I have also never witnessed anything that could be considered improper between them. Are the gallant cavalrymen star-crossed lovers or two brothers dedicated to obeying the Empire’s rules? And what about Tullia? Is she destined for spinsterhood or a brand of contentment that only comes from living life on your own terms?

  Studying the three napping riders as their horses cropped grass outside the house’s front door, I was overcome with a servant’s brand of affection and loyalty. It’s easy to see what’s grand in them and to make allowances for what’s not.