Watchmen of Rome

by Watchmen of Rome (retail) (epub)

  Finding himself suddenly needing to relieve himself, he located the nearest public lavatory, paid the attendant a small coin, and settled himself on the wooden seat with a hole in, situated above running water. To his left, a man was sitting with his tunic around his waist, reading one of Cicero’s speeches. He appeared to have settled in for the morning. The man to his right gave a groan as he strained, then looked satisfied at the loud volume of the splash that followed. He looked at Carbo.

  ‘That was a good one,’ he said.

  ‘It sounded impressive,’ replied Carbo.

  ‘Bit cold this morning,’ said the man.

  Carbo grunted, then agreed.

  ‘Enjoying the games?’ asked the man.

  ‘I’ve been away for a while. Tell me about them?’

  ‘You must have been gone a long time. The legions? Everyone is talking about the Ludi Romani.’

  ‘In honour of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the man. ‘Best party of the year, except for maybe Saturnalia. The Urban Prefect is planning to make the closing day a real blowout this year. Chariot racing, tigers, executions, gladiators. He is promising it will be the best finale for years.’

  Carbo smiled, while inwardly sighing. He had seen enough bloodshed to last a lifetime and the execution of the defenceless held no appeal for him. He had to confess to a professional interest in a good gladiatorial combat, however, and the chariot races were often worth a gamble.

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘The thirteenth day before the Kalends of October. The first festivities have already started, if you like religious processions and poetry readings, but I know what I am looking forward to.’

  Carbo beckoned the attendant for the communal sponge. The attendant picked it up by the stick it was attached to, rinsed the worse of the faeces of the previous user off in a bucket, and passed it to Carbo. Carbo gave his backside a scrub, handed it back to the attendant, and rearranged his tunic.

  ‘Which baths would you recommend, friend?’ asked Carbo. ‘I feel the need for a rub-down and a soak.’

  ‘You still can’t beat the Baths of Agrippa. The first great baths in Rome, the biggest, and still the best in my opinion. They do get crowded, though, being so near to the Campus Martius.’

  ‘Thank you. Good day to you.’

  ‘Good day to you, too,’ said the man, then grimaced as he strained again.

  Feeling a little more comfortable now, Carbo continued through the city to reach the Baths of Agrippa, situated just behind the Pantheon, near the Campus Martius as his recent companion had said. The imposing Aqua Virgo, a huge aqueduct, supplied the large volumes of water the baths required, and had been built, Carbo recalled, specifically for this purpose. The huge building was covered in white marble, which shone brightly in the morning sun. He approached the front doorway, but the bath attendant informed him that it would be another hour before opening time, so he wandered for a while among the street sellers. He bought some bread and mackerel garum. When he had finished, he used his bread to mop out the bowl. He may be comparatively rich by many Romans’ standards, he thought, but that didn’t mean he was going to waste a thing.

  A group of young boys and girls sat on the ground nearby, working out maths problems their teacher gave them on their abacuses. Frequently sharp raps across the back of the hand punished their mistakes. One particularly slow boy was bent over the teacher’s stool and given six hard stripes across the backside, accompanied by much screaming and wailing.

  Carbo spied the doors to the baths opening and wandered over. He tipped the bath attendant a copper coin and walked through into the changing room. A trickle of people of both sexes and all ages accompanied him in, wanting to make use of the facilities before the main flood of users came along in the afternoon. Carbo undressed and tipped a slave to watch his clothes and purse, moved through into the main central area, and tipped another slave for a massage and rub-down with oil. Rough fingers kneaded his back and legs, and he winced where they touched the bruises from the night before. The masseur found the old injury to his thigh, with its puckered scar, and worked around it with a tenderness that surprised Carbo, and actually eased the perpetual ache there a little. As he worked, the masseur tried to engage Carbo in conversation.

  ‘From the legions, sir?’

  ‘Can everyone tell?’ growled Carbo.

  ‘No offence, sir, but you have scars from wounds that you see caused by spears and swords, not clubs and knifes. These injuries weren’t inflicted by street brawls.’

  ‘You are observant.’

  ‘I was slave to a medicus in the legions for many years, sir. I have seen all types of wounds, and have a good eye for what caused them and how much disability they bring about. This one on your thigh, for example, is from a spear thrust downwards that sliced the meat open and was sewn shut in a hurry. The skin has healed badly, although long enough ago that the healing is complete. It looks like it probably took some infection too. This wound will still cause you considerable pain, I think.’

  Carbo grunted. ‘It’s not so bad. Bearable most of the time.’

  ‘I do have some ointment that you could try, sir.’

  Carbo had been given all sorts of quack treatments by the medici and doctors in the army, and was sceptical about all of it. But this slave seemed genuine and there was no harm in trying. He nodded his assent and the masseur took some thick white ointment from a pot and smeared it over the scar tissue. For a moment Carbo felt nothing, then a deep warmth suffused his muscles. The pain that was always with him to a greater or lesser extent receded, not disappearing completely but easing. Carbo sighed.

  ‘How much for the pot?’

  ‘Three denarii, sir,’ said the masseur. Carbo winced – that was three days’ pay for a legionary – but he summoned the slave guarding his clothes and purse, and paid the masseur what he asked for. The masseur then produced the strigil to scrape the oil from his body.

  When he was finished Carbo rose from the massage table, feeling relaxed. The baths were considerably busier already and certainly much noisier. In the gymnasium, slightly offset from the main room, were a group of naked bodybuilders, lifting lead weights with loud grunts. Three young women dressed only in loincloths and breast bands sat and pretended not to watch them, but occasionally whispered remarks to each other and giggled. At the other end of the room a handful of men were playing a ball game, which involved a lot of running and shouting. Masseurs, barbers and hair-pluckers all shouted to advertise their services, and more noise still came from their customers, in the form of moans and shrieks of pain. Beauticians, hairdressers, sellers of bread, cheese, sausages and wine all competed with each other to be heard.

  Carbo moved through to the warm bath, the tepidarium, and groaned in pleasure as he eased himself into the water. There was a thick sheen of oil on the surface, but generally the water seemed clean, especially compared to many provincial baths he had seen where it wasn’t uncommon to find accompanying you in your bathing a dead rat or a floating turd. In the warm bath with him were a couple of middle-aged women, heavy breasts bobbing in the water, and two old men, deep in discussion. He heard snatches of what they were saying above the noise, but found it too difficult to work out the full gist of the conversation. When one of them uttered the name Sejanus and laughed uproariously, though, the other looked around anxiously, falling momentarily quiet, then angrily chastising his companion. Carbo eased a little closer and found he could hear slightly better. The angry man was still chiding his friend.

  ‘How can you be so flippant about the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the man who rules Rome while Tiberius is in self-imposed exile? You know what the man is like, and the city is full of informers, ready to denounce anyone who says anything the remotest bit derogatory about him.’

  The flippant one shrugged. ‘I’m an old man, I’ve lived a long life. If my time comes because our ruler can’t take a joke, then so be it.’

 
; ‘And your son, will he have to suffer too for your sense of humour?’ This made the joker’s smile disappear. ‘Don’t think your equestrian status will protect you or your family. On the contrary, your riches make you an even more tempting target for proscription. It is only the divine Augusta that keeps his power in check, and who knows how long she will be around for, the gods bless her?’

  ‘I’m sorry, you are right, friend.’

  The angry man seemed to notice how close Carbo was for the first time. ‘See,’ he said, gesturing at Carbo as he addressed his friend. ‘This man here has heard everything. For all you know he is one of Sejanus’ spies.’ He looked at Carbo. ‘Are you?’

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me. I am newly returned to Rome and know nothing of its current intrigues. Besides, I didn’t even hear the joke. Would you care to repeat it?’

  Before the angry man could stop him, the joker repeated his joke for Carbo’s benefit. ‘Apparently there was a man came up to Rome from Capua, and he looked for all the world just like Sejanus. So Sejanus summoned him and said, “Did your mother ever come to Rome?” And the man replied in all seriousness, “No, sir, never, but my father was here often.”’

  The man burst into laughter again and Carbo couldn’t help but chuckle himself. His friend threw his hands in the air and then joined in the laughter. Carbo shook their hands and moved on to the hot air room, and from there to the caldarium. This was hotter than he was used to and he could only stand it for a short while before moving rapidly on to the frigidarium. The freezing water shocked him as he jumped in, and he briskly extricated himself, taking a woollen towel off an attendant and rubbing himself dry. He returned to retrieve his clothes and walked out into the noon sun.

  He took an ambling walk home. The clean, large buildings and well-repaired streets gave way as he approached the Subura to cracked cobbles with no sidewalks, meaning that he was forced to walk in the sewage and litter. Narrow alleys flanked by tall buildings frequently occluded the sunlight, making the place feel gloomy even at midday. Some of the shops, barely more than cubicles on the front of houses, which had still been shuttered up when he had left in the morning, were now open, and a good number of these contained prostitutes advertising their services.

  As Carbo turned the corner into the street on which he now lived he nearly tripped over a woman sprawled on the floor. She was a doris, one of the class of prostitutes that were so stunningly beautiful that they eschewed the florally patterned toga that most prostitutes wore and simply sat nude before their stall, advertising their services cheaply and effectively, if unsubtly. This particular doris had long dark hair, a slim, toned, slightly boyish body accentuated by her small breasts and full lips. Her eyeliner was smudged with tears, dark tracks running down both cheeks, and her naked body showed off a multitude of bruises, some older and turning yellow, some fresh and dark, and some bright red where they had only just been inflicted. Over her stood a fat, sweating man, who Carbo assumed was her leno, her pimp. The leno held a thick cane, and as Carbo watched, he brought it down hard across her arm, making her scream.

  ‘Useless whore,’ he cried. ‘May Venus curse you. How dare you turn down a client.’ He flicked the cane down again, eliciting a cry.

  ‘Please, Master,’ sobbed the girl. ‘He hurt me last time. And he threatened me, said that next time he would leave me so no man would want me again. Then I wouldn’t be able to be of service to you.’

  ‘It is not for you to decide who you will and won’t serve.’ The cane descended again. ‘You answer to me and me only. Next time Cilo comes calling, you will let him do whatever he wants, even if he desires to cut your tits off!’

  ‘Cilo, you say?’ asked Carbo, keeping a neutral tone to his voice. The leno looked at Carbo suspiciously.

  ‘Yes, Cilo. This stupid she-wolf turned him down late last night. He was in a foul temper after some run-in in the tavern, and when she put up a fight he stormed off. But now him and his father will have it in for me. I will have to let them have free use of my girls for a month, just to avoid them setting their thugs loose on me.’

  ‘I think you have less to fear than you think, friend.’

  ‘Oh, and who are you to tell me who and who not to fear?’

  ‘The one who had the run-in with Cilo.’

  The leno paused and let his arm drop to his side. He appraised Carbo with a searching stare.

  ‘So, you are the one with the death wish. You are to be praised for your bravery, and avoided, in case association with you brings down your fate on others.’

  ‘As you wish. But my establishment is free of intimidation now. You are welcome to drink there, and tell your friends the same. Cilo will not cause trouble there as long as I draw breath.’

  ‘However long that is,’ said the leno. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I am in the middle of something here.’ He raised the cane again and brought it hard into the girl’s side. Carbo winced.

  ‘Isn’t this poor business?’ he said to the leno. ‘She won’t be able to command as high a price if you damage her.’

  ‘This doesn’t concern you. The message this sends to her and to my other girls will save me a lot of trouble in the long run. If they think they can disobey me with impunity, where would I be? No, this has to be done. Once I’ve beaten her, I’m going to have her flogged with a barbed whip. If she survives, she will be too disfigured to be a doris anymore, but she can serve in a dark back room somewhere.’

  Carbo looked down at the girl at his feet, shaking violently, curled in the foetal position. She looked up at him, eyes begging. Carbo shook his head. This really wasn’t his problem. Her master had every legal right to treat her this way if he wanted. He turned his back on her and walked to the tavern, hearing the girl cry again as the cane descended once more. At the tavern door, Marsia stood, arms folded. She blocked his entrance and looked at him with an icy stare. Carbo hesitated, then roughly pushed her out of his way and walked inside.

  * * *

  Fabilla had been inconsolable since she had lost Arethusa. Rufa had tried everything – hugs, games, even spending one of her very few coins, which she was over-optimistically saving to buy her emancipation, on a cheap beaded necklace for her daughter. Fabilla had merely smiled at her mother dutifully, then sat sullenly playing with the beads.

  ‘She’ll be in trouble if she doesn’t snap out of it,’ said Natta to Rufa as they scrubbed a mosaic floor together.

  ‘She’s upset,’ snapped Rufa.

  ‘I know that,’ said Natta. ‘Do you think they will care?’ She nodded towards the peristylium, where Elissa, Glaukos and Shafat sat, deep in conversation.

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry,’ said Rufa. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You’re sure you’ve looked everywhere for that silly thing?’

  Rufa bit back another angry retort. Natta was only trying to be helpful. Of course, she didn’t know that Rufa had witnessed the doll being ritually sacrificed, and Rufa didn’t know how she could tell her. Natta would think she was mad. Or maybe Natta was part of the cult, and would go straight to Elissa.

  Rufa shook her head. She was getting paranoid. But since that evening she had started to ask herself questions. Remembering strange comings and goings, secret meetings, and a predatory expression that came over Glaukos’ face whenever he looked at her or Fabilla. She knew that her mistress was a priestess in some sort of cult, but hadn’t really interested herself in it. The household slaves had not been invited to join, apart from Shafat. She wasn’t sure why, maybe Elissa didn’t trust people that physically close to her. She had never wasted thought on it before – she was a Roman, and worshipped the pantheon dutifully, if unenthusiastically.

  Now she felt, no, she knew, that there was more to the cult than some eccentric belief in long dead deities. Something deeper was happening and it involved her and her daughter, and it scared her to her marrow.

  ‘Did you hear about that fight in the Subura?’ asked Natta conversationally,
changing the subject.

  Rufa shook her head, only half-listening. She felt so trapped. Obviously, she was a slave, being restricted was her lot in life. But she had never felt in danger before. As long as she did her duties faithfully, she would be fed and clothed and sheltered in return. That was the deal that kept the massive slave population in Rome pacified. Now, though, with increasing intensity, every instinct in her body was telling her to run. Unfortunately the instincts didn’t tell her how, or to who.

  ‘It was at the tavern with the sign of the cockerel. The one owned by Publius Sergius.’

  Rufa was aware of the place, though she could never afford a drink there, even on the rare occasion she was allowed out.

  ‘A local thug was harassing poor Publius, apparently, when this guy steps in. Big lad, a veteran. Faces the thug down, then buys the tavern! I’m not sure how long he will last, but still, it’s nice to see someone standing up to those bullies. What was his name now?’

  Could she smuggle Fabilla away, arrange for her to be sold to someone else? Maybe stay behind to take the punishment herself? It would mean death for her, for sure. And who would buy an escaped slave child?

  ‘Carbo, that was it. I think we might be hearing more of him.’

  Fabilla looked up at Natta sharply.

  ‘Carbo?’

  * * *

  Inside the tavern the lunchtime atmosphere was jovial and calm. Philon was receiving lots of attention, pinches, surreptitious feels and blatant gropes from men who were inclined to pretty boys. One who was better off than his colleagues paid for a quarter of an hour with the slave in the cubicle behind the curtain, and Carbo tended the bar while he was occupied. At this time of day no one was too drunk, and no one seemed to be worried after the previous fight. If anything they seemed more relaxed, and Carbo hoped that word had got around that the tavern was under the protection of both Carbo and the vigiles, and so was a safe place to drink and eat.