Watchmen of Rome

by Watchmen of Rome (retail) (epub)

  Publius shook his head anxiously. Carbo counted the coins out of his purse. Publius snatched them, and with one last glance around, was gone. Marsia stared at the door he had just departed through, disbelief on her face.

  ‘Gone, just like that. I have served him for three years and he didn’t even say goodbye.’ She faced Carbo. ‘Well, Master. You are the proud owner of your own tavern and two slaves. What now?’

  Carbo thought for a second. ‘Pour me a drink, I guess. And then carry on as you were. I presume you two know how to run this place?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Marsia, as she poured Carbo a cup of wine. ‘You don’t think Publius did any work, do you?’ Carbo smiled, then walked round behind the bar and sampled the unfamiliar viewpoint. He didn’t think of himself as an impulsive person, but he realized his current frame of mind had pushed him into a decision he wouldn’t normally have made. Maybe that was a good thing, though. He suddenly felt like he had some vague sense of purpose. Or at least, something to do.

  First, though, he had another task, now the morning’s torpor had been lifted.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘May I ask where to, Master?’ asked Marsia.

  Carbo looked at her, surprised at the presumption for a moment, then walked out into the street.

  * * *

  Elissa stood before the worshippers, who knelt in hushed silence like obedient schoolchildren. The initiation ceremony was finished. The new follower, a Numidian freedwoman called Dahia, knelt at the front, beaming in pride.

  Arms raised, Elissa chanted a prayer, eyes half-closed. The worshippers listened intently, responded obediently where they should. Elissa felt bathed in serenity. This was where she belonged, receiving adoration, continuing her mother’s legacy, and the legacy of her homeland. She finished the prayer and lowered her arms. The large, dimly lit room was silent, expectant. She drew out the tension skilfully, inhaling a deep breath through her nose, then exhaling gradually. Her gaze swept over the ranks of the worshippers. She marvelled at the stew of Roman life she saw before her, old and young, angry and scared, destitute and comfortable, slave and free. While those at the front were silent and rapt, a few at the back were muttering to each other.

  She set her gaze on one man with hair like an untended bush, who was more vocal than the others. He stopped talking when he realized he had become her centre of attention.

  ‘The Lord and Lady are almighty,’ she said, her voice penetrating the quiet. ‘Do any here doubt it?’

  No one spoke up, the man she had singled out dropping his gaze sheepishly. Several shook their heads.

  ‘Rome is rotten. Do any here doubt it?’

  Quietly, many of the followers mumbled, ‘No.’

  Her gaze pierced into the eyes of the man she had singled out, and saw him start to tremble. She raised her voice, loud and clear.

  ‘The Lord and Lady are coming. Rome will belong to them. Do any here doubt it?’

  ‘No,’ shouted her followers. She saw tears trickling down the face of the wild-haired man and smiled inwardly.

  ‘Tonight,’ she said, her voice quieter now, ‘I am introducing to you a special new member of our family. Metella, please come here.’ She extended a hand, and Metella, who had been kneeling in the front row, rose gracefully with a smile and stepped forward.

  ‘Children, this is Metella. A noble woman, from a powerful and famous family. But even her power and wealth could not prevent tragedy from striking her. Her beloved husband, cruelly murdered by unknown criminals. And does the mighty city of Rome care? Will it give her redress, aid her in finding the culprits? No, it turns its back on her in her hour of need.

  ‘But we do not turn our backs on one who comes to us for succour, not if they renounce the evil Roman Empire and the oppression it stands for.’

  A murmur of approval ran through the worshippers.

  ‘Metella, you have been initiated into the worship of the Lord and Lady. You are ours, and we are yours.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother,’ said Metella, a tremor in her voice, her eyes moist. ‘Thank you, all of you, for accepting me.’

  She bowed her head, and several of the worshippers from the front row, including Glaukos and Shafat, got up and congratulated her. They led her into the congregation and started to introduce her to prominent members. Elissa smiled in satisfaction. Metella would be an invaluable asset. Especially once she had changed her will in favour of Elissa.

  A short man with a weathered face approached her. She frowned, trying to place him. He wasn’t an initiate, so she decided he must be one of the curious newcomers that the cult increasingly attracted.

  ‘The Lord and Lady’s blessing on you, child,’ she murmured, benignly.

  ‘Oh, they have blessed me, in their way,’ he said. She looked at him more closely. Something about him was familiar.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you, Elissa?’

  ‘No, I…’

  His accent. African? Punic?

  The man looked around him. ‘You have a wonderful following here. And now some powerful, dare I say rich, adherents. You have come a long way.’

  ‘A long way from…?’ Elissa hated being off balance, but a dreadful realization was dawning on her.

  ‘When I heard there was a cult reviving the old gods of Carthage, my curiosity was piqued. When I heard the High Priestess was called Elissa, well, how could I stay away? Elissa, the sole survivor of the slaves of the household of Proculus. Apart from me.’

  ‘Tegius?’ she gasped.

  ‘How soon you forget. I know I have lost some hair since you last saw me. And some teeth. Still, I’m hurt. You were just blossoming when… when it all happened, weren’t you? I had plans for you.’

  ‘How did you survive?’

  ‘I was the steward of the household. The most valuable slave. Proculus was reluctant to get rid of me, at least at first. Besides, he needed someone to oversee the whole affair.’

  ‘You organized it?’ Elissa said in horror.

  ‘Organize it or be part of it. That was my choice.’

  Elissa swallowed. Their hushed conversation was drawing curious looks from some of the members of the congregation.

  ‘What do you want of me now?’

  ‘Just a little talk, I think. See if there is maybe a way that a rich lady like yourself can help out an old compatriot. I get lonely here in Rome, lacking the company of other Carthaginians. Sometimes I seek people out, just to talk, reminisce. Chat about things that happened in the old country.’ He looked at Elissa pointedly. ‘But I’m guessing you would rather I didn’t do that?’

  Glaukos walked over. ‘Are you well, Mother?’ he asked.

  Elissa realized she was trembling and fought to control herself. ‘Quite well, thank you, Glaukos. I was just talking to this new follower. Tegius, wasn’t it? We shall continue our discussion. Tomorrow evening? Please dine with me.’

  ‘It would be my honour, Mother,’ said Tegius. He bowed, a sneering smile on his face, and left. Glaukos looked at her curiously. Elissa looked away, then turned back to him, searching his face. She was satisfied with what she saw there.

  ‘Glaukos, dear friend and faithful follower. I may need your help.’

  Chapter III

  The early afternoon sun made Carbo blink as he entered the street. He paused to get his bearings, then retraced his steps from the night before. He walked back up to the third floor of the insula he had grown up in and knocked on the door. It was opened cautiously by Gnaea, who looked at him with a mix of suspicion and sympathy.

  ‘Carbo,’ she said guardedly. ‘I didn’t really expect to see you back.’

  ‘I won’t bother you for long. I just need to ask you a question I should have asked last night. My mother, Atella, where is she buried?’

  Gnaea looked uncomfortable. ‘Atella wasn’t a member of a collegia, and she had no money and no family members to look after her when she was gone.’ She shifted from foot to foot. ‘I mean, no fa
mily in Rome. She was cremated and her ashes were going to go to one of the mass burial pits outside the city. But Lucius, he knew her and had a soft spot for her, so he pulled some strings to get her a place in his collegia’s columbarium.’

  Carbo was quiet for a moment, then nodded. ‘I understand. My thanks to you both.’

  After getting more detailed directions to the tomb, just outside the Esquiline gate, he took his leave. He traced his steps through the crowded city streets until he reached the place Gnaea had described to him, pausing on the way only to purchase a small meal as a sacrifice from one of the opportunistic vendors working near the tombs. The columbarium was a rectangular brick building, with niches set within the façade in the manner of a dovecote. The particular one that Gnaea had told him housed Atella’s remains was one of the larger ones, three storeys tall, with dozens upon dozens of niches, most of them containing urns of varying degrees of ornateness. A small garden in front of the tomb was occupied by a handful of people paying their respects. One small family group – a young mother and several small children – clothes tattered and dirty, body condition lean, sat on the grass. They ate a meal composed mainly of bread, presumably from the grain dole, and a few garden vegetables. The children seemed distracted and bored, not noticing the tears that intermittently overflowed from their mother’s eyes.

  Carbo counted across and up from the bottom left until his gaze came to rest on a plain pottery urn. He walked up to it and touched it with his fingertips, then lifted it down. The urn was enclosed and he thought about opening it, but knew there would be nothing of solace to see. Instead he kissed it and placed it back gently. He unwrapped the meal he had purchased, made from milk, oil, honey and the blood of a sacrificed goat, and ate a small amount, placing the rest in the niche with the urn. He then poured a small amount of wine from the tavern’s stocks onto the ground. He hoped it would be enough for the manes, the spirits of the dead.

  * * *

  Rufa examined the garden vegetables on the market stall, testing them for ripeness, turning them for signs of rot. Shafat would beat her if the produce was substandard. The vegetable seller complained at her handling of the goods and harangued her, but she refused to be hurried, and when she had picked a satisfactory selection she haggled the seller down to a price which wouldn’t get her into any further trouble.

  Task completed, she made her way back to the house of her mistress, Elissa. As she approached it she felt her legs weakening, a terrible sense of foreboding descending on her. She ran through the events of the previous night in her mind for what seemed like the thousandth time. But try as she might, she could only come to one conclusion.

  Surely she had misunderstood. This was Rome in the reign of Tiberius. Human sacrifice hadn’t occurred here for centuries.

  Yet she couldn’t forget the mark on Fabilla’s forehead and the fact that Glaukos said he had marked the sacrifice. She reached the house and hesitated. Only the fact that her daughter was inside stopped her from turning and fleeing.

  But if she was right, if this insanity was true, what could she do about it? She was a slave. She had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. She knocked on the door. As she waited for the porter the image returned to her of Fabilla’s doll, Arethusa, being fed to the flames.

  * * *

  Elissa stood in her study, staring down at a map of Rome spread over a table. Glaukos and Shafat stood around the table, following her fingers as she traced the streets.

  ‘It will start here,’ she said, tapping at one point on the map. ‘From here it will spread uncontrollably.’

  Shafat nodded thoughtfully. ‘With half of the population at the games and the cohorts and vigiles involved in crowd control, there will be no one to stop it. It will spread throughout Rome, destroying every building in its wake.’

  ‘But is that all we want to achieve?’ asked Glaukos.

  Elissa looked at Glaukos sharply. ‘All?’ she asked archly.

  ‘Rome’s power is not in her buildings. It is in her people. Look at their history – Romans never surrender in adversity. Even when defeated by Pyrrhus or Hannibal, they kept fighting when anyone else would have surrendered. If we destroy their city, they will rebuild it, and it will all have been for nothing.’

  ‘You say this now?’ said Elissa coldly. ‘After all our planning? You think our mission is worthless?’

  Glaukos shook his head. ‘No, Mother, not at all. I have been thinking, we need to destroy more than the buildings. We need to destroy the Roman people. Their families, their freedmen and subservient slaves. Annihilate them so totally that those few remaining will have neither the numbers nor the will to rise again. Without Rome their whole Empire will disintegrate in months.’

  Elissa looked curious now. ‘Go on. How will we do this?’

  Glaukos smiled. ‘We use the Romans’ own contempt for their lower classes. The shoddy, tottering buildings can be used to create chaos.’

  Elissa looked doubtful. ‘I want to know this works before we commit too many resources to this.’

  ‘Of course. Give me a little while, I will instruct a few of our followers and then give you an unforgettable demonstration.’ He grinned like a gourmet about to embark on a banquet.

  * * *

  Carbo sat before the tomb for most of the afternoon, indulging in painful nostalgia as one childhood memory triggered another. Games with wooden soldiers with his childhood friend Sextus; scoldings and beatings for misdemeanours; births, marriages and funerals; all spun through his mind. As the sun started to dip in the sky, and the bright early afternoon light was replaced by an orange glow, Carbo took a deep breath and stood. The family was long gone, no doubt wanting to be shuttered in their dwelling well before night fell, assuming they weren’t one of the many who lived on the city streets. He walked slowly, lost in his thoughts, and it was nearly dark when he arrived back at his new home.

  The tavern was over half full and Marsia and Philon appeared to be coping admirably. Carbo suspected that Publius had often left them to it and so he had no qualms about doing the same. He entered quietly, slipping in behind the bar to appear at Marsia’s elbow as she was pouring wine from a jug.

  ‘Everything going well?’ asked Carbo. Marsia gave a little start, but didn’t spill a drop. Her voice was steady as she replied.

  ‘Of course, Master. You can rely on us to keep things in line here.’

  Carbo smiled. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said as he surveyed the room. The atmosphere was pleasant, if loud and a little raucous, with at least half the clients happily inebriated. Vatius sat in his usual chair, feeding Myia crusts of bread. Three men caught Carbo’s eye, sitting around a table in a corner, sipping slowly from their cups and saying little. The eldest of the three, a short, stocky, grey-haired man, sat very still, but his eyes darted around the room, fixing a gaze momentarily on each dropped plate, each raised voice, seeming to assess a threat before moving on.

  Carbo walked over to their table. They looked up at him but didn’t stand. Carbo weighed them up, then pulled up a stool to sit with them.

  ‘Gaius Valerius Carbo,’ he said, holding out a hand.

  ‘Lucius Vedius Vespillo,’ said the older man, taking it and shaking it, firmly enough to show some strength, but not so strong as to seem to be trying to prove something. ‘My colleagues,’ he said, gesturing to the other two men, who nodded and also shook Carbo’s hand.

  Vespillo looked at Carbo appraisingly. ‘A veteran, am I right?’

  Carbo nodded. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Twenty-five years in the army changes men in ways that it is usually easy to pick up. Physique, bearing. Calluses on your sword hand. The nervous tic.’

  Carbo smiled. ‘You served?’

  ‘Twenty-five years in the XXth Valeria Victrix.’

  ‘The Pannonian War?’

  Vespillo nodded, his mouth tightening at the mention. ‘You?’

  ‘I was with the Ist Germanica when I retired.’

  ‘You
served under Germanicus?’

  ‘I did, his memory be blessed. What a loss to Rome he was. And we are left with Sejanus, the man who likely sent him to Hades, in charge.’

  Vespillo sucked air in through his teeth. ‘Beware what you say in Rome, man. This isn’t the army, all loyal brothers. Around every corner lurks an informer, willing to sell their grandmother for a few denarii.’

  Carbo held his gaze for a short while, and nodded. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the tavern door was flung open with a crash. Carbo groaned as the crack in the masonry, created just this morning, widened a little. He stood to admonish the culprit, and found himself face to face with three angry men armed with cudgels and knives. Carbo sighed as he recognized the man he had expelled that morning. Next to him was an older man, still imposing in bulk, whose facial features showed a family resemblance to Cilo. Another man, even bigger, a little older than Cilo and again similar in appearance, but with a slack-jawed expression, stood to the other side.

  Cilo pointed at Carbo. ‘That’s him, Father.’

  Carbo winced inwardly. He was outnumbered this time and what’s more he was unarmed, with his antagonists between him and the bar where his gladius lay.

  The elder man regarded Carbo steadily for a moment. ‘I’m Manius Gellius Cilo, and I’m this boy’s father.’

  Manius looked around him. ‘So, old Publius Sergius sold you this place and fled?’ He glanced at his son. ‘I did warn you not to squeeze too hard.’ He turned back to Carbo. ‘I have no doubt that my impetuous son deserved to be thrown out of your fine establishment.’ Cilo scowled but said nothing, and his father carried on.

  ‘Nevertheless, there is a way of doing things around here. I run this district, with the help of my friends and my sons, Cilo and Balbus here.’ He indicated Cilo and the other, larger young man. Then he picked up a stool and hurled it across the room. It crashed into a table, scattering plates and wines and causing the men sitting there to jump back, startled.