The boy makes as if to crawl for the flap. “No, don’t!” Drenis cries. Too loud. The boy freezes but looks terrified. Drenis drags himself toward him, but the boy turns again for the exit.
That’s how Epta finds them when she slips inside again. Drenis stops, feeling absurd. He’s pulled himself off his mat, drawing nearer the boy as he inched away. He’s out of breath, with sweat dotting his forehead. It’s a struggle to keep the pain of his spear wound off his face.
The baby crawls for his mother. He cries the torment of having been left alone with this man. So much for Epta not seeing him distressed by Drenis’s care. She sets down the bowl, wooden scoop stuck fast in the congealed mass of barley gruel, and lets her son climb up her.
“I tried to distract him,” Drenis says.
“He’s hungry,” she says.
With a quick motion, she pulls aside her tunic. The boy latches onto her breast. Drenis clears his throat and tries to slide himself back to his lying position on the mat without grimacing too much at the effort. “He was trying to crawl away.”
“And you were trying to stop him? That’s what all this sweating and singing and squirming is about. I was only at the fire. I would’ve seen him if he crawled out.” Epta looks down at her son. “He is really not very clever, is he?” The boy doesn’t answer. For a time, the only sound in the enclosure is of the boy’s nursing, the unnervingly wet sucks and occasional sounds of pleasure that he makes. “You loved her, didn’t you? Bendidora, I mean.”
“What?” Drenis is certain he’s never disclosed her name. How can she—
“You spoke of her when you were still fevered. You thought —” She cuts off and mumbles something as she shifts her grip on Deopus. Frowning, she leaves him be. “You thought I was her. You clutched my hand so hard and stared up at me, your face all wet with sweat. You cried to see me. You said you’d never thought you’d see me again and you were so lucky. You loved me, you said.” She looked at him. “You don’t remember any of this.” It was a statement more than a question. Drenis says nothing, and she lowers her eyes again. She speaks more softly, looking as if she’s speaking to her nursing son. “You said things no man has ever said to me. Maybe no man has ever said them to any woman. I was scared at first, but then I had ears for your words, and then I tried not to listen because you weren’t speaking to me but to her. Later I thought you were speaking to me. You didn’t know it, but you were, and you would realize it. I thought when you awoke without the fever, you would see me, and then everything that you said would be true. Of me, though. Of Epta. Then you woke up. You know the rest.”
Deopus twists away from Epta’s breast. “You are restless, not hungry,” Epta says. She sets him down, though he climbs back into her lap. As he writhes in her arms, Epta looks over, frankly, at Drenis. “So which are you? The one who loves me, or the one who insults me and my son?”
Drenis stares right at her, into the eyes that are outlined in blue, green-brown inside. “You know the answer. It’s as you said. I make more sense when I’m feverish and babbling. I’ve always been that way.”
—
Epta makes a few things clear to him. She will not fully trust him until he’s proven what he claims through days and days of action. She will not stay with him if he harms her son or shows unkindness to him. He can touch her but not that way. Not yet. He should not try to force her. If he does, she’ll hate him, and there will be nothing between them.
It all sounds perfect to Drenis.
“We should not waste oil,” she says, cupping the flame and blowing it out. “Sleep now.”
It’s night. She doesn’t say that she’s going to stay in the enclosure with him. He doesn’t comment on it either, but he’s glad. Glad too that Deopus is there between them. He’s content with it and finally feels as if he can breathe it in and make it part of him. There with the happiness of the moment, there’s a grief that rests just behind it. Bendidora, he knows, is lost to him. He’s always known it. He’s just never accepted it. He’s doing so now. It’s not, he tells himself, that he’s replacing her with Epta. She was gone already. In truth, in the last two days he’s exchanged more words with Epta than ever passed between him and Bendidora.
“Drenis,” Epta says, “there is something else.”
He answers by squeezing her hand.
“Sura said that I should kill him. My son. She said I shouldn’t name him. I shouldn’t feed him or hold him. Drown him, she said. It would be easy, and then he would be gone and I wouldn’t have to think about where he came from. Today when I told her I was happy with you, she said she would yet do it for me. She said that you wouldn’t want me so long as I had him on my hip. I should put the past behind me and take you to bed and make you want me.” She pauses, but she’s not finished, so he stays silent. “She’s right, but I can’t do it. Because of it she says I cannot be a priestess of Kotys. Not when I have a child fathered by ones the goddess despises.”
“Did Astera—”
“She has not said it, but Sura will convince her. I know she will. You see? I’m stupid. More even than you.”
He wants to tell her that she’s not stupid. But just saying that won’t convince her. He wants to say that Sura isn’t right. Deopus is her child. That’s all that matters. She can’t truly put the past behind her. It’s folly for anyone to think they can. The past walks forward on the same feet each person does. Find peace with it. And he wants to tell her that he already wants her just as she is. If she’ll allow it, he will call Deopus his son. He’ll ask for her hand and hold it and not let go. He’ll give her all the time she needs, all the things she needs until she’s ready. I’ll love you, he thinks, even if you’re never ready.
But that’s rather too much to say all at once. He says, “Don’t listen to Sura. Keep the child.”
“And if I can’t be a priestess?”
“Talk to Astera. She will tell you straight, and then you’ll know.”
After a time in silence, she says, “If I ask you to, will you stop talking about her? I mean no slight to her, but…”
Her voice trails off. Drenis picks up her sentence. He knows exactly what she means, and he makes it his own, because he means it too. “I mean no slight to her, but from now on I’ll talk about you instead. All right?”
In answer, Epta makes a sound low in her throat. It’s a somber affirmation, which he thinks is just about right.
Dolmos
The small party of mounted men, fifty in total, ride the contours of the Roman road through the undulating landscape of Apulia. Behind them, the great mass of the Risen follows. They are far enough away to be hidden from view, but looking back, Dolmos sees the signs of them in the sky, the dust kicked up by so many feet and hooves and wheels and dragged things, the dark cloud of birds always circling above them. It’s been weeks since they turned south from Mutina, and they’ve made good time. Through Umbria they took a route different from their northward trek. They reaped new harvests as they went, sacked still more villas, took still more of the supplies they needed, collected still more followers at every step. The Romans hung back, following, preparing, it was said, to come at them under the leadership of a new commander. So be it. They had killed more than enough Romans for the season, Dolmos thought. They had other things to do instead.
On this march they sacked no cities, unlike the previous summer. They flowed by them, offering friendship instead of violence. Sarsina and Sestiman, Cales and Helvillum: all along the way Spartacus sent overtures to the municipalities they passed, offering a partnership of mutual benefit, an allegiance against an enemy they shared in common. Some were deaf to him, abusive to the messengers. Some were generous. Nucerus sent them a gift of fine horses. Assisium gave a box of coins. Spartacus had both gifts returned. In Camerinum Spartacus himself hailed the city fathers, calling to them from outside the closed gates. They came and heard him and even spoke cordially in return. He showed them a gathered group of hundreds of Roman prisoners, most captured at Mu
tina. See, he said, even to our enemies we’re just, feeding and caring for them, not slaughtering them as these Romans would have done to me had they ever laid hands on me. The great men of Camerinum acknowledged all this, but they stayed behind their walls and promised nothing. All, so far, stayed behind their walls and promised nothing. Spartacus left his offer at their feet, should they choose to pick it up later. He was sure they would. They only needed one of their number to be bold enough to be the first to do it.
That was why he’d received the envoy from Asculum with such enthusiasm. It was why he heard what the man, Bantia, had to say with open ears, and it was why Spartacus now rides with his closest advisers toward that very city. They have polished themselves for the meeting to come. Spartacus wears a tribune’s breastplate and skirt, with a helmet adorned with a horsehair crest. The others are all attired similarly, each wearing the best of the items taken from Roman officers. Spartacus has even made concessions regarding his beard. He didn’t shave it in the Roman style—that would be a step too far—but he had it trimmed and neatened.
When the city finally comes into view, Dolmos pulls up, stopping his horse. The others carry on, talking among themselves. Only Spartacus chooses to slow and circle back. He rides a beautiful stallion, a warhorse of dark coppered brown that, from a distance, looks black. He asks, “What’s troubling you?”
“They have walls,” Dolmos says. It’s an obvious statement, the evidence to support it right there before them. Asculum stands ringed by a formidable wall, one that undulates over the hilly terrain into which the city is carved. He doesn’t like the look of the place. It’s a welter of stone and concrete and wood and tile inflicted on a land that’s otherwise a patchwork of fields and woodland draped over natural contours. He’s never liked cities. He wishes they had no need of the men and the wealth inside them.
“Any city worth the name has walls,” Spartacus says. “Think of it as a sign of their strength, of the riches and resources they bring to us.” He leans over and grasps his shoulder. “This is the beginning of the end for Rome. This city, joined with us, will bring others. No more will this be a slave uprising. It’ll be a proper war, one that Rome is not ready for, does not expect, and cannot crush. You understand all this, right?”
Dolmos nods. “Why must we go in unarmed?”
Spartacus’s hand still rests on his shoulder. Dolmos’s horse moves away a sidestep, but Spartacus grips the rim of his countryman’s breastplate, and the horse steadies. “If we go inside the city, we do so as allies. Remember that. First we meet, confirm the terms, swear faith. It’s only after that that we’ll dine with them as friends. We walk in as honored equals. For that we must go unarmed. It’s reasonable.” Spartacus lifts his hand long enough to wave at Gaidres, who has turned and looked back at him. “Am I a good judge of men?”
Dolmos doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to, as they both know that he is.
“Then trust me that Bantia speaks true,” Spartacus says. “I looked into his eyes. I am not wrong about him. What he offers is a boon for his people and for us. Let’s grasp it. Come. Do this with me. By the end of this day, Rome’s fate is decided.” He urges his horse forward.
Dolmos, reluctantly, follows him.
—
Bantia Vidacilio had approached them several days before, just as they crossed into Picenum and poured down through the Apennines’s foothills. He was a one-man delegation, with just a handful of youthful guards behind him. Dressed in rich robes, he carried scrolls attesting to his authority to represent Asculum. He produced half of the city’s official stamps to verify the office he held as one of the chief magistrates. He begged an audience with Spartacus and was granted one.
They met beneath the shade of a copse of holly oaks on a hilltop that provided a view of the mass of the Risen on the march. They flowed around them like a river around a boulder, on both sides, near enough that their feet kicked up dust and debris that wafted over the delegation from both sides. Stools were set out, and Spartacus sat across from Bantia, each man with his attendants flanking him. Dolmos had been one of these. He stood with the leathery leaves of the trees brushing his back. They were heavy with dark brown acorns that dropped occasionally to the ground. Loud, whirring insects called from somewhere above him, unseen, talking to one another.
“You see my people are numerous.” Spartacus spoke in Latin, a language he’d grown more fluent in as he made a study of it over the winter. “They have no one nation, no one god or language. They do, however, have one purpose: the destruction of Rome as it now stands. Are you yet convinced of this?”
Bantia was a slight, dark man, with close-cropped black hair and prominent eyebrows that had flecks of gray in them. He must have had the pox, as the scars of it dotted his skin. Watching him, Dolmos kept drawing invisible lines among the dots, as one connects the stars to make constellations.
“You have convinced us,” the Italian said. “Everything you’ve done so far has made a great impression. At first we thought you would grab what you could and run for your homeland. Many still expect you to do that. They can’t think any other way about you, can’t see your actions for the grand design that they are.”
“Asculum can?”
“We can. Those of us who longed to join you held our breath as you marched north, wondering if you would quit Italy after all.”
“We never planned to,” Spartacus said. “We were just looking for another Roman army to defeat—”
“—and you did just that,” Bantia finished for him. “We know. News flies fast. All Italy knows. In every city up and down the country. Even in my own city one finds your name written on alley walls. Little graffiti images of you. You are quite famous.”
Spartacus looked over his shoulder at Dolmos. “We’re famous, Dolmos. They’ll write of us in the histories. Bantia here says so.” He looked back to the Italian. “So what does Asculum wish to say to us? You have my ears.”
Dolmos kept his face grim. His gaze moved over the soldiers behind Bantia, just as theirs did the same to the Thracians facing them. They seemed hostile. To Dolmos, they looked no different than Romans. Tan-skinned, dark-haired, clean-shaven, with breastplates he couldn’t distinguish from those of legionaries. The swords at their waists were the same as those they’d stripped from Roman bodies. These were people to call allies? He didn’t see it, and he couldn’t help but glare at them because of it.
Bantia and Spartacus, however, seemed at ease with each other.
“We’ve heard of what you’ve been proposing,” Bantia said. “You wish to convince city-states to rebel against Rome with you. Is this so?”
“It is.”
“Then you have Asculum’s ears as well. We have no love of Rome. We are under their heel, being ground into the earth. What ally does Rome have that hasn’t been beaten into submission? None. That’s their way. They say we are free, but they tax us. They demand soldiers. They make us fight their wars for them. For hundreds of years this has been so. It’s we that won Rome their empire. And what have we received in return? Little, I tell you. They say we are free, but if one Italian city wishes to make treaties or trade agreements with another, we have to go to Rome to get permission. Their hands are in everything we do, yet we have no vote on either our own fate or any power to affect theirs. Just sixteen years ago we rose against them. Many Italian cities did. We fought Rome long and hard. I know this because my uncle, Gaio, led the city. They besieged us, but he would not give in. He knew.” He holds a finger up, the thing he knew apparently contained within the crooked digit. “He knew.”
“Too bad you lost. If you had prevailed, I would never have been dragged to this country.” Spartacus glanced over his other shoulder this time, murmuring to Gaidres, “Strange to imagine that, eh?”
Yes, Dolmos thought, it’s strange to imagine that. He would not be the same person he now is if Rome had been defeated earlier. He had never thought of it that way. What unseen webs connected the fates of men who didn’t even
know one another.
Bantia continued, “When the city voted to surrender, my uncle burned himself so as to die with honor. He was right to do so. How do the Romans treat those who surrender? No better than those who don’t. They burned all. Killed all. Took everything from us.”
“Not killed or burned all,” Spartacus pointed out. Dolmos heard the smile in his voice. “You’re here. Perhaps they were not thorough enough.”
A tic lifted one side of Bantia’s face, but only for a moment. “It’s to my shame that I’m still alive while so many I loved are not.”
A passing ox bellowed a complaint, loud enough that Bantia looked his way and again took in the continuous flow of men and women, children and beast, clanking and lolling, talking and laughing, carts rolling. The beginning of the line was somewhere hidden in the roll of the hills before them; the end not yet in sight. “Jupiter, do you see this?” Bantia mumbled. And then, to Spartacus and those behind him, “You are a great host. That’s all I mean.”
Spartacus nodded.
“My colleagues have questions, though,” Bantia said. His hands drew these questions, ones that his fingers danced over to show he had no doubt they could be answered. “One thing that troubles them is the slave business. By which I mean, where does it end? You and those with you have won incredible honors. We don’t doubt that. But would you see all the slaves in Italy rise against their masters? If so, you will find it impossible to win any allies other than slaves. It’s just to say—it’s not only Romans who have slaves. We need assurance that you’ll not turn our own slaves against us. You understand…” This time his hand gestures were vague enough to belie the notion of understanding. Whatever they were drawing was an incomplete idea, one that matched the way his words trailed away.
Spartacus stood. Bantia flinched back. Spartacus, no doubt, noticed but didn’t show it. He paced away a few steps and plucked several acorns from a low branch. Rolling them in one hand, he said, “Our strength has been in our numbers, in the fact that Rome brought so many here against their will. That is still a strength, but it can only take us so far. I want a greater strength, the kind that Asculum can bring to me. So hear my thoughts on ‘the slave business.’ If Italian cities join us—and bring with them fighting men and the funds to prosecute a war with Rome—we will transform ourselves accordingly. Those with me now will stay the Risen. They who first rose are not slaves anymore. Each has earned his freedom, and that must be acknowledged. But we need not take on more slaves. We will not recruit them or accept them. By joining you, we will leave our slavery behind, in name and in deed as well.” He paused, looked up from where he’d been watching the motion of the acorns in his palm. He tilted them, and they fell to the ground. “By which I mean that none should call us slaves anymore. As we are not slaves, we have no stake in the fate of other slaves. It’s Rome that matters. I offer this only if you join us. If not, I gather my strength where I can.”
The Risen Page 36