by Paul Waters
I paused in the silence. I had plucked a sprig of white-flowering bryony outside; it seemed fitting now to lay it at her feet. But as I knelt I looked up and caught sight of the statue’s eyes.
I froze, and caught my breath; and stared. The eyes were green agate, luminous green, the colour of moss. I remained a long time still, assembling my thoughts, wondering what motions of chance or fate had brought me here.
When at length I returned outside, the sun was obscured by cloud and the clearing was in shadow. I paused on the stone porch-step, looking about me, considering what path to take. I had lost all sense of my direction. Suddenly the silence was broken by a rapid stirring in the undergrowth. I remained motionless, listening, remembering the boar tracks. But I heard nothing more. Keeping my back to the wall, staying under the narrow encircling colonnade, I stepped over a fallen branch and edged around to where I could get a better view. There was a sudden beating in the branches above. I jerked my head up, startled; but it was only a bird, rising in a flurry of wings through the canopy. I let out my breath. Then I heard a crack behind me – the sound of dried wood splintering underfoot. I swung round, realizing what it was. But I was too late. A spear-blade pressed into my ribs, and a voice said, ‘Keep still, or I will kill you.’
The cold steel pressed through my tunic, sharp against my skin. It was skilfully held, keeping me pinned against the wall; but not enough to cut me, unless I moved.
My mind turned fast. He had spoken in good well-cadenced Latin; it was not the voice of some country bandit trying his luck. I recalled a lesson Durano had drummed into me: think, decide, then act fast and certain. I said, ‘If you kill me it will be the worse for you,’ and even as I spoke I was gauging the distance ahead and to my side. In one sudden curling movement, while my words still hung in the air, I leapt away from the blade, grabbing at the javelin-shaft and twisting it.
I had caught him off his guard. He had loosed his grip. The twisting motion forced the javelin from his hands and I seized it. I span it round and turned it on him, and forced him back at the tip of the blade. Only then did I look at his face. He was handsome and sturdy, with clear grey eyes and heavy bronze hair turned gold by the sun. He was staring at the spear-point with a deep frown which showed the fine lines on each side of his mouth. The palms of his hands were open, and below his tunic I could see the muscles in his legs were taut, ready to spring.
But I was not going to let him use my own trick. I jabbed at him, forcing him back against the column.
His eyes moved from the blade to my face.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘This is my land.’
I could tell he was angry with himself for having let me catch him so easily. I scanned his body for weapons. He was dressed in a leather hunting jerkin with a wide brown belt. I could see no sign of a hidden dagger.
I grinned. ‘Now we are even,’ I said.
Keeping my eyes on him I tossed the javelin away behind me. It clattered on the stone. He relaxed a little after that, and his eyes studied my face.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was lost.’
‘You were in the temple. I saw you.’
‘What of it? I wanted to see inside.’ I spread my hands, to show I had no knife. ‘You can fight me if you want. It is an even contest now.’
He paused, furrowing his brow, and once again his face moved in a frown. He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want to fight you.’
For a moment we stood looking at one another, both of us wary. Then he took a tentative step forward and offered me his hand.
I took it. It was broad and strong.
‘All this is my grandfather’s land,’ he said, gesturing over his shoulder, ‘but I live here too.’ He smiled, adding, ‘My name is Marcellus.’
I told him mine, and where I had come from, standing straight, filling my lungs and feeling pleased with myself for having bested him. But then, as I took half a step back, my foot caught on the discarded spear-shaft and I tripped. He grabbed my arm before I fell, catching my weight in his grip. I clutched onto him. I had to, or I should have fallen sprawling on my back. It dispelled all my cock-pride in an instant.
‘Well, Drusus,’ he said, ‘it looks like my spear was some use after all, don’t you think?’ He heaved me up and I dusted myself off, trying to regain my dignity. When I next looked up he was grinning.
‘What?’ I said crossly. But it was no good, and after a moment I was smiling back at him. ‘Here,’ I said, taking up the javelin and handing it to him. ‘You’d better take it, before I really hurt myself.’
As I looked at him, something in me, which had long slept, stirred to life. I think I knew, even then, that whatever it took, I wanted this beautiful youth as my friend.
He said, ‘I hear Lucius Balbus the merchant has that house. Are you his son then?’
‘Oh no!’ I cried, appalled that he should think so.
‘Then why are you there? Are you visiting?’
I explained, and as I spoke he looked into my face, not insolently, but with genuine concern.
‘I heard what happened to your father,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘Grandfather told me. I am sorry; it is a hard thing to bear.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Do you still grieve?’
I shrugged. It seemed a long time since anyone had cared what I thought, and I found the words did not come easily.
‘He was wronged,’ I said eventually. ‘I think about that sometimes . . . Where is your own father? Is he at the house too?’
‘He died when I was young. I don’t remember him.’
‘Then I am sorry too.’
‘He died of a fever. It was with the gods, I suppose. What happened to yours is worse. It is the injustice of men.’ He looked into my eyes. ‘Come, I’ll show you where the house is.’
We stepped out. Suddenly, as we began to move, there came from behind me in the undergrowth a violent scrambling, the same noise I had heard before. I leapt round startled, shouting out.
But Marcellus laughed, saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only Ufa,’ and from the cover of the bracken a shaggy grey wolfhound came bounding out. It strode up to me, wagging its tail and snuffling, and pushing its nose into my hand.
‘See, he likes you. He’s a good judge.’
I petted the creature’s head and let it sniff me. ‘But he wasn’t there when you were in trouble,’ I said with a grin.
‘No.’ He drew down his brows. ‘Well he’s not much of a guard-dog really. I suppose he thinks I can look after myself. I can, usually. Where did you learn a trick like that?’
As we walked, with Ufa strutting beside us, inspecting the undergrowth, I told him something of how I had learned to wrestle and fight. I was halting and unsure at first – it made me aware of how long it was since I had had a proper conversation with anyone. But before I knew it, I was telling him about Albinus and my aunt, and my life in London.
He listened, commenting now and then. He was about my age – sixteen – and, as I had already noticed, he was taller than I, though only by a little. Where I was dark, he was fair. His forearms and the backs of his hands were brushed with a fine golden down, and the sun had tanned his skin the colour of burnished bronze. As we walked he absently swung the javelin to and fro, swishing it at the bracken beside the path. He moved well, I thought, with the powerful grace of a young male deer.
Presently we emerged from the trees, and I realized I had not stopped talking since the temple. I broke off and looked at him. I had never told so much about myself to anyone before.
I thought, ‘He is walking with me out of good manners, and to see me off his land, no more than that, though he is too well-bred to say so.’ I was about to excuse myself and tell him he need not trouble himself further, but he stopped me with a touch on the shoulder and resting his hand there pointed across the fields.
‘See that far ridge, where the tall trees are? The house is below it, in the valley. It’s quite a way still, but you can make out the roo
f between the trees. Stand closer. There, that’s better. Now you can see.’
I looked, shading my eyes with my hand. Over the rolling barley-fields and sheep-dotted meadowland there was a line of black poplar and spreading elm, and in their midst, half-obscured, the red-tiled roof of a house. Even from this distance I could make out high pediments and soaring arches, and towers and long walls.
‘Is that yours?’ I asked, impressed. It looked as big as the governor’s palace in London.
He gave a quick, shy laugh. ‘Well it’s Grandfather’s . . . But yes, it’s mine too; it’s my home. The house has belonged in our family for generations, since our ancestors built it in the time of the emperor Marcus, and brought all the land under cultivation. As a house it’s too much really, just for Grandfather and me and my mother. But it’s where we belong, I suppose.’
‘Your mother is alive, then?’
He looked at me and laughed. ‘How not? Losing one parent is enough—’ But then he stopped himself. ‘What, did the emperor take her too?’
I shook my head, and tapped and dabbed at a tuft of grass with my toe. ‘No, it wasn’t that. She died in childbirth, when I was born. I never knew her.’
The dog came up and nuzzled at my hand, demanding attention. I knelt down and ruffled his ears; he rolled over and smiled up at me, pawing the air.
I heard Marcellus set down the javelin. He crouched beside me, pushing his hand into the dog’s fur. Our fingers touched, and then I looked up. I knew my face was reddening; I felt I had stirred old embers of a fire long dead, and found them glowing still.
‘But she was beautiful,’ I said. ‘I know. My father had a picture.’
‘I’m sure she was, if you are her son. I can see it. It’s a shame we didn’t find a better way to meet.’
I do not know what possessed me then – some god, perhaps, or some noble spirit, the sort that draws from us the right word at the right time, and makes cowards brave and weak men strong, and discovers for us our potential in the unseen corners of our souls. But I answered saying, ‘Any way is better than none.’
For a moment he looked surprised. And then he smiled. ‘Yes, I think so too . . . I suppose I feared, after we almost fought each other—’ He broke off with a shrug. For a moment I even thought he was blushing. But no doubt it was just a trick of the light, for by then the sun was sinking into a towering sunset of vermilion cloud.
‘Well,’ I said, standing, ‘I ought to get back.’
‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll walk with you; I’ve nothing else to do.’
‘It’s out of your way.’
‘I don’t mind – unless you’d rather not?’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I’d like it.’
And so we walked, this time skirting the woods and taking a dusty trail beside the fields, talking all the while.
When at length we reached the brook with its barrier of rowans and lime-leaved willows, I said, ‘So, here we are,’ and immediately felt foolish.
‘Yes. Goodbye then, Drusus.’
‘Goodbye.’
But we paused, looking at each other. Then we both said at once, ‘But when—?’ And then we laughed.
‘Tomorrow?’ I said. ‘I’ll come to the house, now I know the way.’
‘Yes, tomorrow. Good . . . Until tomorrow then?’
For a moment he looked at me, as if there were something else. But then, suddenly self-conscious, he gave a quick nod, turned on his heels and strode off.
I watched him as he receded along the path, with the slanting sun on his back, and the wolfhound prancing happily behind him, until in the end he passed over the ridge and was lost from view.
SIX
THE SUN WAS SINKING over the honeysuckle courtyard by the time I returned. Albinus must have been waiting; even before I had mounted the last of the steps he came rushing out.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Mother has been looking all over.’
I pushed past him. If I had been attending more carefully, I should have realized he already had an audience. He had a particular way of speaking when his mother was in earshot.
She was waiting just within the door, in the dark of the atrium, with her arms folded tense across her chest, and a face like death in triumph.
‘Do not ignore Albinus when he speaks to you!’ she cried. Her voice was shaking with anger. I had seen her like this before. She had worked herself to such a peak of rage that she could scarcely control herself. ‘He saw you with that youth,’ she went on, ‘so do not deny it. You have been to the house of Quintus Aquinus. Who summoned you there? What business have you with him?’
So that was it, I thought. She supposed I had been invited when she had not.
I answered with the truth, saying I had not met Quintus Aquinus, nor had I been summoned by anyone. I had met his grandson – the boy Albinus saw me with – only by chance.
But she was beyond listening. The sinews in her face were moving, waiting for me to finish.
‘You lie!’ she cried. I stared at her, at a loss for what more to say. Suddenly her folded arms sprang open and lunging forward she struck me a powerful blow on the side of my face. The clap of it echoed in the high empty chamber.
I reached up to my cheek. When I took it away there was blood on my fingers, where the bezel of her ring had caught under my ear. I bear the mark still.
Albinus gaped at her. ‘Mother!’ he cried.
‘Leave him! He has brought it upon himself. Let him remember he is our guest; I will not have—’
She broke off, for I had stepped up to her.
The wall was behind her. She could not back away. I had broadened and thickened out. I was a boy no longer. Reaching out I took hold of her wrist, locking my fingers hard around it and pulling her resisting arm down from the amber necklet she was clutching.
Her blue-painted eyes met mine. I heard her breath catch.
Slowly I said, ‘You will never do that to me again.’
I dreamt that night of my mother, smiling and laughing and taking me in her arms, and woke with a start to a grey dawn and a sinking feeling of recollection.
I had lain awake till long after midnight, brooding. Even in my great anger I had been careful not to hurt Lucretia; there would have been nothing fine in returning her violence. But a barrier had been crossed all the same. I knew that now I should be cast out. Better to leave before that happened and save my pride.
I heard a scratching on my door. It must have been that which had woken me. I called out, thinking it was one of the slaves; but it was Albinus who entered, looking shamefaced.
‘Here,’ he said, holding out a platter of cake and raisins. I had been given no food the night before. He set it down, then paused.
‘What do you want?’ I said, eyeing him warily from the bed.
‘Drusus, I don’t think she meant it.’
I pulled the cover from me and stepped naked across the stone floor, poured water from the pitcher, and splashed it on my face. Sullenly he watched me.
‘She was angry,’ he said.
‘Then she had no cause. I did not lie to her.’
He sighed. We both knew it was not my truth or lies that had enraged her so.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘you must make yourself ready; we are leaving. Already the slaves are loading the carriage.’
But at the door he paused, scraping his foot on the floor. I turned from the basin, my towel in my hand.
‘What is it, Albinus?’
‘She went too far, that is all.’
Then he hurried off.
I stood, looking at the open door. It was the nearest I had ever heard to an apology from him.
By the time we reached the river and the waiting barge the low pewter sky had turned to rain, carried in on a damp west wind. Lucretia arranged herself under the awning at the stern, her face pursed and bitter under a scarf and hat, muttering curses whenever water came dripping through the canvas.
All that morning, during the
slow wagon-ride from the house, she had not spoken one word to me. Perhaps she was waiting for me to come grovelling to her. If so, I told myself as I stared down into the dull slack water, she would wait in vain. I would find a way of leaving, whatever hardship it brought me.
When I was not brooding on this I was thinking of Marcellus. I imagined him waiting for me, the realization dawning on him with a fading of any liking he had for me that I was not coming.
That he should think ill of me oppressed me terribly. I hoped he had not waited long. Already, as I sat miserable in the bow, feeling cold rivulets of rain meander down my neck and back, it seemed to me he inhabited a world of light, a perfect world which fate and the natural order of things had set forever beyond my reach. Just as well, I told myself, casting a glance at my aunt huddled with Albinus under the shelter of the awning, that the friendship I had hoped for had died before it began, before he should see the base life I led and despise me for it.
Eventually the grey ragstone walls of London showed through the rain ahead. My aunt’s first task, I knew, would be to embellish a tale to Balbus that would have me cast out onto the street. I tried to consider what I should do.
It was not until the following morning that old Patricus the house-slave came to me and said, ‘The Master wishes to see you in his workroom.’
I had been expecting it. I went with my head held high.
‘Ah Drusus,’ he said, looking up from the desk scattered with scrolls and tablets. ‘How did you like the country?’
I gave him a careful look – he was not one for small talk – and answered that I had liked it well enough.
‘You did?’ He prodded at his papers for a moment, then went on, ‘Even so, I have to say it wasn’t all I had hoped. And your aunt disliked it too. Tell me, how old are you now?’