by Paul Waters
It was not that I had not thought about such matters. Once I had even ventured alone to one of the city’s many whorehouses, to test myself against what was to be found there. But, after a cup of rancid wine, Albinus’s prurient fantasies had come swimming into my head, and even before the girls came to join me I had got up and walked out, tossing a coin onto the table as I left.
Afterwards I told myself I had other things to think about than women; and this was true, or partly true.
The girl Brica kept filling my cup and urging me to drink. And I drank, for it took the edge off my uneasiness. I cannot recall how I ended up upstairs. I remember seeing Tascus, lolling drunkenly in the dim-lit passageway, with a girl on each arm; I remember the smoky corridor, hot and noisy and crowded. And then I was in a lightless room.
I looked around, blinking. In the corner a tiny lamp glowed under a shade of blue glass. The air was heavy with the smell of sweet incense. I shook my head to stop it spinning, and as I turned I saw a movement. A slender figure had stopped in front of the lamp; I realized I was not alone.
I shivered, though it was not cold. I think I spoke out; but the touch of a hand in mine silenced me, and drew me down to a shadowy, tousled bed.
I reached out and felt an arm and naked shoulder. A mouth came up to mine, and a little darting tongue forced itself between my lips. Then a hand rested on my thigh, and began gently, expertly pushing up under my tunic. I closed my eyes, and felt my reeling senses start to respond.
I do not know how long it was before I opened my eyes again. Only a few moments. I saw the blue lamp and a three-legged bedside table; and then, slumped in the corner, its dead painted face staring up at me, a child’s doll. It came into my clouded consciousness that the girl had offspring. Well, I thought, no surprise there. Yet it troubled me all the same, and I pushed the thought from my mind.
The girl shifted, touching my body, pulling herself up, intending, I think, to position herself on my lap.
The shock of realization, when it came, hit me so hard I gasped out loud. It was all I could do not to strike her away; but forcing myself to be gentle I eased her off me and stared. Between my strong hands she was trembling, like a small bird when you cup it in your palms.
‘What is wrong?’ she said, the first words she had spoken.
Then I knew.
Pointing to the corner I managed to say, ‘Whose is that?’
‘Oh,’ she said brightly, ‘that’s Poppaea. She’s mine. Do you like her?’
‘Yours?’ My voice was shaking.
She returned her hand to my groin, grasping and impatient, eager to complete what she had started. I leapt back as if scalded.
‘What is it?’ she cried, and there was a new harshness to her voice, ‘am I not pleasing?’
I stared, straining to see her in the gloom. ‘How old are you? Tell me how old.’
‘Why, ten next birthday,’ she answered. ‘Mother says I may have a sister for Poppaea if I’m good.’
‘You’re nine,’ I whispered. I reviewed in my mind the moments that had passed, as a man might consider the bites he has taken from an apple, before he found the worm lurking in its core. ‘But where is your mother?’
The child gestured at the wall behind. In the silence I could hear, through the partition, a rapidly creaking bed, and a man grunting, and a female’s bored encouragements.
A wave of nausea and grief swept over me. I brought my hand up to my eyes, as if to block out what my mind saw.
‘What is it?’ she said, pawing me. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Don’t touch me. I have to go.’ I pushed her away and stood. She grabbed my arm, but I shook her off. In a little plaintive voice she called behind me, ‘Don’t say I didn’t please you. Please don’t say; or they will beat me.’
I halted then, and punched the tears from my eyes with the flat of my palms.
‘Never fear, little one,’ I said. And then, remembering what she was at, I reached in my belt for a fistful of coins.
‘Here!’ I said. ‘Take this. Take it and show them, and tell them that you pleased me.’
In the passage outside I paused, gathering my wits, such as were left to me.
The air was rank with lamp-smoke and stale incense. From downstairs I could hear raucous laughter, suddenly devoid of merriment or joy.
I could not bring myself to face the others. I stepped the other way, along the dimly lit corridor, looking for an exit at the back. As I went, a crone emerged from an alcove and jabbed out an obstructing arm. She must have been waiting there.
‘You were quick,’ she said, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘Was she no good? Or,’ she added, leering and showing black teeth, ‘was she too good?’
I felt my fists tighten. It is a wonder I did not strike her. She looked at me, and opened her mouth to speak; but whatever she saw in my face made her blanch. Then, before she could utter another word, I had shoved past her. By the time I heard her angry, crow-like voice I was halfway down the back stairs to the street.
Outside I paused, leaning forward, resting my hands on my knees. My eyes were burning, not with tears, but with fury.
Presently I stood up straight and looked around. I was in a narrow alley behind the tavern. There were piles of rubbish. The air stank of rotting food and urine. On this side of the building there were no welcoming torches burning, but I was used to darkness now, and I hurried away before anyone came looking.
I cannot recall what path I took. Soon I came to a quiet square of old shuttered houses, with a tall ancient oak growing in the middle.
There was a stone bench beside it, and I sat. My hands had started shaking. I could taste the child’s tongue in my mouth and saw, if I closed my eyes, the grimacing painted face of the hideous doll. I spat, then wondered why.
After some while, when I had regained a little self-command, I got to my feet and walked on; and when I passed a tavern I went in and downed a cup of wine, and then another, and then a third.
But what I was feeling was not to be cured by wine. Eventually I stumbled out, my head spinning, and threw up at the nearest corner.
FIVE
THAT SUMMER, BALBUS’S SHIPS began to arrive. From Spain they brought olive oil and preserved sauces; from Sicily wine in tall pitch-sealed amphoras; from Italy marble, and little straw-packed boxes of Etrurian jewellery.
His greatest pleasure, however, came on a sleek trader from Egypt. It was the smallest ship of all those he had chartered, but it bore the richest cargo: Arabian frankincense; Indian saffron; essence of violets and hyacinth and cedar; unguents in alabaster, precious lotions, and finely blended oils, all prepared to the closely guarded recipes of the perfumeries of Alexandria.
In that one summer, even without his other business interests, his fortune was made.
Ambitus too returned, on the ship bringing Count Gratian’s furniture from Africa. I went down to the wharfside to greet him, and to hear his news.
Gratian, though he came of rough Pannonian peasant-stock – or perhaps, as Ambitus said, because of it – had a passion for fine furniture and precious artworks. He collected them like a jackdaw. He had purchased crystal goblets and jewel-encrusted caskets from Asia, paintings from Athens and Constantinople, antique wine-kraters from old Corinth; and, from wherever he found them, gilded tripods, mahogany chests, and fine marquetry cabinets. He had acquired, in short, beautiful objects from across the empire, treasures indeed that an emperor would have been pleased to own – which is why he kept them at a discreet distance from the court.
Gratian had begun life, I learned, as a common soldier in the ranks, and it is doubtful he would have risen so high, except that as a young man he possessed a particular skill in wrestling.
It was this that got him noticed. One day, during a bout, a senior officer partial to wrestlers was watching; and thereafter Gratian was singled out and promoted. He was found to be able; he had risen fast.
Now, in grizzle-haired middle age, with a distinguished army career beh
ind him, he preferred to forget his rude beginnings, and adopted the outward trappings of a gentleman.
News of the upturn in my uncle’s fortunes spread around the city, even without Lucretia’s careful sowing. Suddenly the house was full of well-wishers and old friends, who felt it was time to renew their acquaintance.
Lucretia gloried; Balbus was civil, thanked them for putting themselves out, said he was pleased to see them again after so long, and told them he hoped they would excuse him, but he had work to do.
That summer a new obsession had seized my aunt. She had conceived, from her friends, that a family of quality must possess a country villa. She nagged and wheedled, reminding Balbus that trade in land was slow and prices still depressed after the terror of the Saxons. There were excellent bargains to be had, which in a year would cost half as much again.
She was shrewd as a stoat. She knew the right bait to bring in her quarry. She had heard, she said, that there was a perfect villa for sale, out west, in pleasant rolling country. Balbus could return to London easily by river whenever he chose; meanwhile she would take up residence, and decorate, and entertain. What could suit him better? But he must hurry and make up his mind: already she had heard from Volumnia that there were others interested, and such a bargain would soon be snapped up.
She got her house, of course. Then Volumnia reminded her she needed furniture, and it all began again.
All this I shared with Ambitus, amid much laughter. But I did not tell him about Durano and the others, and when he eyed my muscled arms and broad shoulders and asked what I had been doing, I said I had exercised a little, and quickly changed the subject.
Since Midsummer Eve I had stayed away from the little back-street gymnasium with its red-painted porch. Like many a self-deceiver, I scarcely acknowledged what I was doing, even to myself. I persuaded myself that it was only this or that petty chore that held me back, and I should return tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. But, as the old wives say, tomorrow never comes, and each day away made returning harder.
I felt shame, and self-disgust; and, with it, some unclear notion that my friends had contrived to make a fool of me. I was, I told myself, no better than Albinus, for all my wishing otherwise. Night after night I lay awake in my bed, stifling in the summer heat, trying to remember and dissect every detail of how I ended up in the child’s room. Surely I did not go there of my own accord, knowing what lay within. But the more I tried to recall what had happened, the harder it became, like a man who reaches into a pool, trying to touch his own reflection. I reminded myself, truthfully and with relief, that little had taken place, and I had fled as soon as I knew. But I started to have bad dreams.
They began with some pleasing image, of a pretty girl or – worse still – of my mother; but they always ended the same, with the staring doll and the child in the room, pawing and pleading, trying to thrust her squirming body upon me.
I would cry out, and jolt awake wet with sweat, and find the sheets coiled around me, or in a heap upon the floor. Then, lest the dream return, I forced myself to lie awake, staring up at the roof-beams, fearing sleep.
I remembered the tales of the snake-haired Furies, daughters of Night, older even than the old gods, who pursue men for crimes too terrible to mention and drive them into madness. Could it be that I had awakened them? Was I guilty, deep within my secret soul? I was like a man who in an unexplored cellar of his house finds a door that leads far below, to a fearful pit he had not conceived of. I saw that door in my mind’s eye, and stared at it transfixed. But I dared not open it.
Such thoughts haunted me, filling my nights. By day a semblance of perspective returned, and I knew I missed my friends, Durano most of all.
I reminded myself that, out of all of us, it was he who had resisted going to the tavern; and how I had joined with Tascus, Equitius and Romulus in urging him on against his will. I asked myself what kind of man I was, that I should blame him, when it was I who was at fault?
And so finally, one afternoon, goaded by remorse, and recalling some sense of the justice I owed to others, I made my way to the baths to find him.
Nothing was changed. The sour-faced attendant was still in his cubby-hole at the entrance. The old men were still at their dice-games beneath the colonnade.
But Durano was not there.
I went next day, and the day after, and each day for a week. Finally, on the last day, I ran into tall, placid Equitius in the changing-room.
‘Where have you been?’ I cried. ‘Where are the others?’
He frowned at my shouting. Out of all of them, Equitius was the one I had conversed with least. Indeed, he had so little to say that I had even thought him rather simple. But I learned, this day, that I had been wrong.
‘Well where were you?’ he answered shortly.
I told him some nonsense about having been busy; and when I saw in his face he did not believe me, I resented it.
‘Durano is not here,’ he said, returning to strapping on his sandal, ‘nor are the others. The army is transferring out. He left with the advance party. He would have come to tell you, if he knew where you lived.’
‘He could have found me,’ I said, sulking.
‘And you could have found him.’
I shrugged. I think, in my heart, I already knew the truth of it, for which I had no words.
‘Ah well,’ I said, affecting indifference and turning for the door. ‘I expect I’ll see him here sometime.’
‘I doubt it. He left half a month ago, and so did the others. I’m the last, and I’m about to ship out.’
At this my foolish attempt at nonchalance collapsed. I turned and gaped. I felt as though someone had slammed a punch at me, and I suppose my feelings were written on my face.
‘Why don’t you wait?’ he said, less harshly. ‘I’m almost finished. I’ll walk with you.’
So I waited, awkward and shuffling at the door, while he tied his sandal and buckled his belt, and mussed his fleecy blond beard in the old mirror of polished bronze.
He did not speak until we were outside in the street. Then he said, ‘You are angry. Why?’ And when I shook my head he said, ‘By the Bull’s blood, Drusus, I may be a mountain peasant, but I know what I see. It’s not my business, but did Durano do something to offend you?’
I shrugged. ‘No.’
He let out a long patient breath.
‘It was you who disappeared. You must have known how he would take it.’
I replied that I did not know what he meant; and at this he cried, ‘Come, Drusus, you are young, but not that young. I never saw Durano so taken with anyone, boy or girl, as he was with you. Are you telling me you had no idea?’
I felt my face redden to the ears. I hardly knew where to look. So I stared at the cobbles in the road.
‘I suppose I wondered,’ I said eventually. Then, after a pause, ‘Did he say anything?’
‘He’s not one to talk of such things. But he was miserable; that much was clear. That night he thought you’d found a girl – we all did – and what harm is there in that? But I suppose he was hoping for something else, and when you didn’t come back, day after day, he took it badly . . . It must have been quite a girl, to keep you away for so long.’
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t that.’
‘Then what?’
‘Something happened. I don’t remember, Equitius . . . or only parts. I can’t speak of it. I was drunk.’
‘Who was not?’ – and, when I said nothing – ‘Tascus, that great wit, told him you had tasted better wine than his. He always manages to say the wrong thing. After that, when I told Durano to go and look for you, he said he was not your keeper. But I think he was afraid of what he might find.’
‘I wish he had come looking.’
He gave me a long, considering frown. ‘You are a hard one to fathom, young Drusus. I would have sworn . . . but never mind. Durano is not the kind who snatches food from another’s table. He might have been fond of you,
but he has his pride.’
He drew his breath to say more; but instead he glanced up frowning. I followed his gaze. We had rounded the corner. Ahead, at the bottom of the street, there was some sort of commotion, and as we approached, a group of soldiers came stumbling out of a tavern and began shouting ribald abuse at the innkeeper. I could hear him from somewhere inside, yapping angrily back at them.
‘They will be in for it,’ said Equitius, ‘drunk when they’re supposed to be packing.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘In the morning, with the tide.’
‘So soon?’ I said wretchedly. I looked up into his face, which cost me some effort. But there would be no other chance, and so I said, ‘It is my fault. I did not know my own mind.’
He reached out and rubbed my shoulder, and gave me a smile.
‘Do not trouble yourself overmuch. What’s done is done. After all, it is in some men’s natures and not in others’. Durano should have guessed. He will get over it.’
I nodded at this. But in truth his words had fallen wide of the mark. It was not my nature that had held me back, I saw it now. It was something else: a weakness, a shyness, a fear of showing my naked, barren soul to another.
He had been right: though I was young, I was not so young I did not have some sense of what Durano was about. If I had minded, I could have withdrawn; yet I had remained by my own choice, bathing in his attention, learning from him, filling my days with his company. And, during it all, whatever he may have hoped for in his heart, he never demanded anything from me in return.
What right had I, I asked myself, to feel aggrieved? Though I knew my spelling and grammar and numbers, to my own heart I was a stranger. I had learned to fight, and liked to think myself brave. Yet, through it all, I had not the courage to face myself. I shook my head. Durano had not asked, and I had not given. Was I really so blind?