Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  Only a fool would try to sail out of the narrow lagoon on an outgoing tide in the dark. What choice did I have? Besides dumb luck, the old man and I had paddled in and out of the lagoon so many times over the past four months we knew every jog and sandbar. Gray Beard positioned himself up in the bow and called for me to turn to port or starboard when it looked like I was off course. I had it all the way.

  Reaching the main channel, all that was left to clear was the reef, which was already exposed in some places. We didn’t have to leave. Now that we were off the flats and out of the backwaters, we could have anchored and waited for the next high tide. Neither of us felt like hanging around.

  “First mate!” I shouted. “Raise the sails.”

  There’s a natural channel through the reef where we did a lot of our fishing and gathering. That channel provided many meals. In the light of dawn, we slid through the gap in the rocks and coral with about six inches of water to spare on each side of the boat. My heart was beating like drums.

  The minute we were clear and sailing in the open sea, Gray Beard untied his dog and let him roam the deck. The terrier sniffed and checked out every corner, finally went to the stern, lifted his leg and took a long leak into the Mediterranean Sea.

  “Look how smart he is!”

  Though he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, Gray Beard was as happy as I’d seen him in a long time.

  “You had a big night,” I said. “Rutting with two women at once. Stealing a man’s dog. Did you have to kill him to take it?”

  “No steal. I trade. He say yes, then change mind, say no. Piece of shit.”

  “A bag of sky stones is too much to trade for one dog.”

  “Not this dog. Him smart. And young. I can still train this dog.”

  The story of his big adventure came in bits and pieces, me holding the rudder and him sitting with his legs crossed, rigging a fishhook and uncoiling line to catch breakfast. After a while, the wiry-haired dog wandered over to study us.

  I never thought I’d let another mutt onboard. Gray Beard’s old dog, the bitch, didn’t like it at sea. He could get her aboard our little catamarans, but she was always right on the edge of freaking out. Like I said, this black and white guy, with his little tongue hanging out and sharp gray eyes going back and forth between the old man and me, looked right at home. Not only does he listen to what we say, it seems like he understands most of it too.

  “What about your beautiful, young girlfriends?” I teased. “Are they going to miss you now that you have sailed away?

  “Of course they will miss me. Those two were stolen from the north. We shared language. They loved my stories.”

  “And your cock. Is that how you got them to rut with you? Told them stories?”

  “Of course. If something works, why change? They are widows and lonely. Too bad their leader tried to cheat me.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “I no kill Wronek. He and his brother will walk with limps for the rest of their moons, but I spared their lives. Wronek had his people tie me to tree. I could have escaped easy. His people knew he cheated. I wanted the dog. I knew you would come and the two of us could defeat them. To pass the time, I started telling the girls stories again.”

  “Must have told a few lies to get that kind of treatment. Two at once?”

  “No lies. I told those women I was the son of a man from the future. I told them my father had traveled back in time more moons than there are grains of sand on the beach where their clan hunts seal. I promised them the seed in my loins was powerful and produced strong, smart children–great hunters, healers, storytellers and shamans. I did not need to coax them to rut with me, they begged for the honor. Tell me, son with horns like a goat, did I lie?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  64 A.D.

  The Great Fire of Rome was into its second day before word reached the farm. There appeared to be more smoke in the sky than usual, but we had been chalking it up to smoggy conditions.

  News was delivered by a pair of staffers who had departed at daybreak bound for market. They walked only as far as the crest of the Esquiline. Seeing the city was ablaze, the frantic maid and groom dropped their baskets of eggs, herbs and early vegetables in the road and sprinted back to the valley to report.

  With a sinking feeling, I saddled a pair of swift horses while the lady of the house berated her servants for abandoning the baskets.

  “Rome has a fire every day,” Tullia grumbled as she swung into the saddle. “You two fools better pray to the gods those baskets are still there. Wench! Pump water from the cistern, fill all urns and troughs, douse the carpets. Make sure all pails of sand are in place and full in every corner of the house. Boys! Double-check the gates to see they are secure then walk the fence line. We don’t need any loose horses. Hunter! We go!”

  Kicking our mounts into a gallop, we charged up the dirt lane and rounded onto the cobbled spoke road leading to and from city center. The higher we rode the thicker the smoke blowing through the forest became. The farm’s baskets were right on the crest where the maid said they dropped them, covered by a murder of crows feasting on eggs and vegetables.

  Scattering the black bastards as we reined to a stop, we surveyed a scene more dire than described. The imbeciles didn’t say the Temple of Jupiter Stator, Lady Tullia’s favorite, had been destroyed. Both the Palatine and Capitoline hills were scorched. Smoke poured from dozens of palaces and temples. Even edifices made primarily of marble relied on wood beams and boards for roofs, flooring and interior walls.

  The worst flames raged in the neighborhoods of houses and shops crammed between the hills. Warrens of rickety, wooden buildings, many two and three stories high, were engulfed in wind-blown blooms of fire shooting hundreds of feet into the sky. Knowing how narrow and twisted the streets were in those precincts gave me little hope for any poor souls trying to flee.

  “Did the priests not make the proper sacrifices?” Tullia wailed. “I offered a pigeon or dove to Jupiter every visit I made to the city. How could the Gods let this happen?”

  There was nothing for us to do but collect the baskets and return to the valley.

  Call me naive, maybe audacious is a better word, but I almost believed my presence could forestall Nero’s great fire. Over the past 30,000 years I’ve missed everything and everybody of historical import. After falling flat on Abraham, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, Alexander, Cleopatra, Caesar and Jesus, why not this fire too? My computer said the blaze would start in 64 A.D., but that’s not how they’re counting off the years these days.

  The computer says the fire will rage nine days and destroy 10 out of 14 precincts. I hoped I might have a year or two to persuade Tullia and Quintus into selling their family’s land and abandoning the city. Now it is too late.

  From the log of Hunter

  Ethics Specialist

  64 A.D.

  Quintus and Linus galloped down the lane this morning, gone AWOL along with most other Roman residents in the army. Quintus ordered me to swap out their winded horses for fresh mounts while he and his deputy ran to the house to confer with Tullia.

  In moments they were back, anxious to be on their way.

  “Master, what’s happening?” I dared.

  “The fire has spread to the base of Caelian Hill. Linus’ family home is in danger.”

  “Take us with you,” I blurted. “They say there are gangs of looters and hooligans roaming the streets.”

  “Yes, we can help,” Tullia echoed.

  Quintus kicked his horse to leave, but quickly stopped and returned.

  “Hunter, have you been to city?”

  “No, master.”

  “Then how do you know there are cutthroats afoot?”

  “I, ah . . . it’s what always happens, sir.”

  “Just wait five minutes,” Tullia interjected. “Let me get my sword and cloak.”

  “There�
��s no time,” Quintus growled.

  “Be gone then, brother. Hunter and I will follow. I know the way.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she loped from the barn and disappeared into the house.

  “Anything happens to my sister, it means your head. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Swiftly then, saddle two more horses, and for Saturn’s sake, grab some leather clothes and a hat. There are embers flying everywhere.”

  Turning to Linus, he said, “I beg your pardon. We should have carried on straight to the Caelian.”

  “No need to apologize. I’m sure Father and the staff have everything under control.”

  Tullia returned with a sword belt strapped around her waist and a thick wool cloak to use as a shield from flames and ash. Bidding the servants to be vigilant, she climbed into her saddle and fell in beside her brother as we raced out of the valley.

  Cresting the Esquiline and trotting along the base of the Servian Wall, I saw the fire’s perimeter had tripled, now stretching the full width of the walled city down by Circus Maximus. Several palaces on the Palatine were engulfed in flames. A towering plume of smoke rose from the residential zone near the Tabularium and Temple of Concord. So dense was the smoke, views were fleeting and difficult to process. Were the House of the Vestal Virgins and Atrium Vestae truly gone?

  Soldiers and auxiliary men lined the top of the Servian Wall, grimly surveying the fire’s destruction. We rode against the tide as most foot and horse traffic was headed in the opposite direction–worried faces, wailing mothers, donkeys carrying heavy loads. Turning onto the Via Sacra along the flanks of the Caelian Hill, we dove straight into the chaos.

  Linus muttered a string of curses as we reached his neighborhood to find several grand homes closest to the Palatine already ablaze.

  “On me,” he shouted over the din. Turning his warhorse up a steep side street, we followed him through several twists and turns to reach the front gates of his parents’ marble mansion. Its wooden shutters had been ripped from their frames and piled by the curb along with other combustibles like bedframes, furniture and interior doors.

  “Floomis, is that you?” Linus called to a grizzled gardener sitting on the wall with a sword across his lap. The blade was nearly as long as he was tall.

  “’Tis me, Master Linus,” the man’s smile showed he still had a few of his teeth. He waited for us to draw close before continuing. “Your family got out last night along with the horses and pets. Your grandfather sent a wagon.”

  “Are they safe?”

  “Aye, master, I believe the Senator and your mother are safely outside the walls. They planned to evacuate by way of the Via Sacra. Last I heard that area has not burned.”

  “Not yet,” Linus confirmed, relief in his voice. “We came that way. Why are you still here?”

  “Bad people about, my lord. Looters and fire starters. Me and the Missus are too old to leave. We’ll stay back to keep an eye on the place. She’s around back.”

  If I had expected Linus to scoff or relieve the gardener of his duties, I could not have been more wrong. The deputy pulled a pair of loaves of bread from his saddlebag and handed them to the man.

  “Take one to Marta and let her know my family will not forget your loyalty. We’ll stand guard until you return.”

  Linus waited for him to limp out of earshot before informing us the man was a retired centurion who served under Claudius in the conquest of Britannia. Quintus was unimpressed, countering that Floomis was “a bit long in the tooth” to be half of the house guard.

  “He’s killed more men than you and me together,” Linus said with pride. “Floomis has thwarted at least five assassination attempts on my Father.”

  “A gardener?” I asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of my tone.

  “It’s a disguise, fool. Floomis has been head of palace security since I was a lad. He’s probably got his Celtic warrior wife and her yew bow well-sighted and provisioned with a thousand arrows. He’s armed to the teeth as well. Look ye there.”

  Following Linus’ point behind the wall, I spied a long spear, ax, several quivers of arrows and a curved bow.

  “I’d bet my life he has weapons stashed on every floor and window. He’ll fight a retreating action all the way to the roof if he has to.”

  “Not if they burn the place down around him,” I thought, but had the good sense not to say.

  The fire posed us no imminent danger, but was close enough that we could hear the crackling of its flames and the shouts of people battling it.

  Once the veteran had returned to his post, Linus invited us inside.

  “We’ll have a better view from the second floor,” he said. “Let us see if Mother left any food or wine.”

  Even stripped of its wall hangings, furniture and carpets, the interior oozed money. Elegant statues too heavy to spirit away graced the hallways and rooms. Light, airy frescos painted on the walls and ceilings beautifully accentuated the bright tile mosaics decorating every floor with scenes of sea creatures, woodland forests and geometric designs.

  The kitchen cupboards were empty as the wine cellar. Following Linus upstairs to his quarters, we watched him pile tunics, sandals and knickknacks onto a bed sheet. Cinching the cloth into a bag, he handed it to me, saying, “Carry this.”

  Leading us down a hallway and through an empty grand reception room, Linus delivered us to a wide terrace overlooking the smoldering city. The nearest house afire was perhaps 150 meters away, downhill and downwind. The breezes had been swirling and we all knew they could change at any moment.

  Some neighboring homes were dark and empty while others bustled with life as their owners prepared to either escape or remain and fight. One couple looked to be hosting a viewing party atop their flat, crenellated roof.

  “I wish I could offer you better hospitality,” Linus sighed, leaning against the marble railing.

  “No wine? No cheese or musicians? You, sir, are a disgrace to the Patrician class,” Quintus pretended to fume. “I’ve been longing for more of that swill from Gaul.”

  “Me too,” Linus smirked. “I haven’t had a headache for days.”

  “Why must you two always make jokes?” Tullia hissed. “Our city is being gutted! Look, the Temple of Bellona is starting to go up. There’s nothing funny about that!”

  “Forgive us sister. You are right, ‘tis blasphemy. It is just a soldier’s way of dealing with tragedy and death.”

  “You either laugh or you cry,” Linus said, shaking his head.

  They quieted as the flames in the wooden rafters of the temple spread swiftly to engulf the entire building. Over the sounds of ringing bells, crackling flames, screams and shouts there began a steady beat of hobnailed sandals on the cobbled street.

  “Do you hear that?” Linus asked.

  “Soldiers,” said Quintus, striding to the end of the terrace facing the street.

  Within a minute, a squad of 40 men marching double time emerged from the smoke. Signaling a stop directly in front of Floomis, a herald stepped forward to loudly deliver a proclamation.

  “Hear ye, all Roman citizens, slaves and visitors! Emperor Nero has returned from Antium to save the city. After witnessing his own home, the Domus Transitoria burn, Nero is determined that other Romans shall not suffer the same fate! All able-bodied men are to report to the Field of Mars to receive their orders. With great Nero at the helm, the people of Rome will stop this fire! All able-bodied men! Report to the Field of Mars for duty!”

  Quintus slapped Linus on the back as the squad stomped away. “Looks like we’ve got work to do.”

  “Able-bodied men?” Tullia fumed. “What about the women? We can fight fires.”

  “Yes, Sister, I’m sure you can. Hopefully it will not come to that, for your duty is to the homestead. You must take Hunter and return to the valley. The horses will be acting up. They need you.”

  Grabbing Tullia’s hand, Linus said, “Come quickly, I want
to show you the new frescoes in Mother’s bedroom before we go. They’re quite naughty.”

  The moment they left the room, I stepped to face Quintus. “I’m able-bodied, sir. I should come with you.” Perhaps I’d finally get to witness some history I’d actually read and heard about. He studied the matter for a moment before surprising me with a swift kick to my shin.

  “You’re not able-bodied anymore,” he chuckled as I held my bleeding leg and hopped around on one foot. “Your job is to take care of my sister. Remember that promise?”

  “I’d ask a promise of you then, sir,” I said as I gingerly tested to see if my leg still worked.

  “Hunter, one of these days, I’m going to rip that insolent tongue of yours out.”

  “I know that, sir. It’s just that I, well, I sacrificed a chicken yesterday and read its entrails. You should know this. The fire will burn for three more days, six total, before it is brought under control short of the Esquiline.”

  “Good. Our land will be safe.”

  “No, it will not. I fear your valley is doomed. The fire will start again and burn three more days, taking most of the Esquiline with it.”

  “That must have been some chicken,” he scoffed. “How drunk were you when you did this reading?”

  “Lord Quintus, you must trust me.”

  His lightning punch to my chest sent me reeling across the terrace and gasping for breath.

  “I must? I must?” He thrust his square jaw an inch from mine. “Hunter, you’re lucky I need you. Don’t ever tell me what I ‘must’ or ‘must not’ do again. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stared at me for a spell, before once again breaking into a smile.

  “The secret to prophesying is to be more vague,” he confided. “Haven’t you ever been in a temple?”

  Slinging an arm around my shoulders, he led me from the house. Striking a servant is like spanking a child, sometimes you feel guilty afterward.