The Eyes of Aurora

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  My feelings for Gaius have always been there, but they have been brought into sharp focus in recent days by the announcement of his engagement to Livilla. There she lies on the couch right now, her hand on the spot still warm from Gaius’ body. I can’t hate her. I have no right to hate her. I’m only a servant.

  I could get up and leave—excuse myself and go to the latrina perhaps—but I won’t give his mother the satisfaction and I want to be here when Gaius returns.

  * * *

  “Well, at last,” my mother said when I returned to the triclinium. “What sort of ‘business’ kept you so long at this hour?”

  I reclined on the couch next to Livilla. Spearing a snail with the handle of her cochlearia, she offered it to me with a smile and I let her slip it into my mouth. Swallowing it and wiping my lips, I said, “I was making some plans.”

  “Plans for the wedding, I hope,” Mother said with a smile. “I was just asking Lavinia whom we should invite.”

  From the end of the couch Pompeia said, “Plinia, dear, my daughter’s name is Livilla, not Lavinia.”

  Mother looked confused, even a bit frightened. “What did I say?”

  “You called her Lavinia.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did.” Pompeia’s voice rose in irritation. “And that’s the second time this evening you’ve done it. What’s the matter, dear?”

  “I’m sorry. I know her name. Of course I do.… I don’t know—”

  “The wine may be too strong,” I said. “With older women in attendance, I should have been more careful about that. I hope no one else is bothered.”

  The arrival of the main course relieved me from saying anything else. Roasted capons, newborn rabbits, and bread were brought to the table and cut up by a servant. Dishes of garum sauce were placed where they could be reached from each couch. I saw sadness in my mother’s eyes as she picked at her food, a look of fear and confusion I had never seen before.

  *

  I was never more relieved to see a dinner come to an end. Even with two longtime friends and my newest friend for company, with an excellent selection of dishes, and with delightful, soothing music, the evening was an ordeal. When I had bid good night to Tacitus and Julia and cautioned Tacitus to be especially watchful on his way home, I returned to the triclinium, where Mother and Naomi were supervising the cleaning up. Aurora hung behind me in the doorway.

  I waved the other servants out. “Mother, I need to talk with you. In private.”

  Naomi made no movement to leave. Mother nodded toward Aurora. “Does ‘in private’ mean that she’s going to be here?”

  “If Naomi stays, then Aurora stays.”

  Mother set her jaw. “That’s the way it will be then.”

  When the others were gone, I said, “I’m going to be away for a few days, along with Aurora and Tacitus.”

  Mother crossed her arms. “Humph! Of course with those two. Where are you going this time?”

  “We have some unfinished business on the road to Ostia. It’s no concern of yours. By the time I return I expect you to be in Misenum, at least until the new year. Demetrius has been instructed to oversee your packing.”

  The dismay on her face pained me. If it had not been for the specter of Regulus, I would have sent her to Laurentum, a place closer to Rome and one I know she loves. Now, if I owned any more distant property, I would be sending her there. There had to be some outer limit to Regulus’ web of spies.

  “I hate Misenum,” she said. “The volcano. I won’t go.”

  “If you refuse, I’ve instructed Demetrius to tie you up and throw you in the back of a wagon.”

  She looked like she wanted to laugh.

  “I’m not joking, Mother. Those were my direct orders to him.”

  She clutched the front of my robe. “Why are you doing this, Gaius? If you want to throw me out, why can’t I go to Laurentum?”

  “I’m not throwing you out, Mother. I need for you to be someplace safe for a while.”

  “Why do I need to be safe? Has your meddling into other people’s affairs endangered us?”

  For once I found the courage to shake my finger in her face. “No, Mother. The assistance I rendered Pompeia—at your request—has infuriated Regulus. I’m not sure how he’s going to retaliate, and I need time to sort through some things. You’ve put me in an…awkward position by arranging this marriage.”

  “But you need to get married before it’s too late.” It was as though she hadn’t even heard the first part of what I’d said.

  “Too late for what?”

  “For you to have children.” Her voice rose with an edge of desperation.

  “There’s plenty of time for me to have children, Mother. Most men my age are just beginning to think about getting married. Tacitus was the only man at dinner who’s married.”

  “Oh, and a fine example he is.” She turned her head and spat. “You need to be getting married. Having a child can be difficult. You know I lost my first one, and Tacitus’ wife lost hers. Even when the child is healthy, the birth can be taxing on the mother, sometimes even fatal.”

  “Mother, I fully expect to get married and produce an heir, just not yet and, preferably, not with Livilla.”

  “You need to be married before you become…distracted.” She looked straight at Aurora. “Lavinia is an excellent choice.”

  “Mother, her name is Livilla. Why do you keep calling her Lavinia?”

  She rubbed her hand over her forehead. “Did I say that? You must be mistaken.”

  “We all heard you.”

  Mother looked for confirmation to Naomi, who nodded slowly, reluctantly. “I don’t know, dear. I guess I’m worried that you won’t go through with this marriage.”

  “You’ve made the promise. I’ll fulfill it.” I knew that I could simply refuse, but, since the eruption and the death of her brother, my mother has been frail. I didn’t want to cause her any more anguish. “I just wish you had let me have some choice in the matter.”

  “Why don’t you want to marry…her?” She waved her hand at the door where Livilla had departed.

  “She’s your choice, Mother, not mine.”

  She locked her eyes on mine. “And who would your choice be?”

  I managed to hold her gaze without flinching. “The ‘who’ is not the issue. I simply don’t want anyone forcing me to choose right now.”

  “Do you hate me because of this, Gaius? Is that why you’re sending me away?”

  “No, Mother, of course not. How could I hate the woman who bore me and loves me? I just need time to think. You do too. I’ll come down to Misenum for the Saturnalia. Perhaps by then we’ll both see things more clearly.”

  Mother threw her hands up in surrender. “I’m going to the latrina. Naomi, are you coming?” She started for the door.

  “I’ll join you at your room in a moment, my lady.”

  Naomi stepped close to me and I knew she wanted to say something I would not be happy to hear. “My lord, your mother—”

  “Now, Naomi!” Mother snapped from the doorway.

  Naomi looked from my mother to me and back, her loyalty split between her legal owner—whom she was bound to obey—and her closest friend. “We need to talk, my lord.”

  “I will not discuss it any further. She’s going to Misenum, and I guess that means you’ll be going as well.”

  “I will not leave her side, my lord. You know that.”

  “Yes, I do, and I thank you for it.”

  * * *

  I wish I were not the cause of so much dissension between Gaius and his mother. She is as kind and forbearing to the other servants as any Roman matron could be. She and Naomi are as close as sisters, but she has disliked me since the day my mother and I were brought into this house as slaves when I was seven.

  She has never liked the close relationship that Gaius and I have shared. When I came here, I did not speak enough Latin or Greek to understand her, but I knew she didn’t like me. Thr
ough my friendship with Gaius I learned the languages. He insisted that I have lessons from his tutor along with him. Sometimes I forget that he lost his father when he was even younger than I was. Even though his uncle and several other men have raised him well, I believe he missed that bond with his father, just as I did.

  But his father merely died. He didn’t sell his wife and child into slavery, as my father did.

  For as long as I’ve been in this house I have tried to be a loyal servant, to return the kind treatment I have—for the most part—received. I know I have special privileges. Gaius allows me the liberty of a free person. Our steward, Demetrius, is not permitted to inspect my belongings, as he does with the other servants, nor is Gaius’ mother. I do not have to share a room with anyone, as most of the other servants do.

  By the time I started my monthlies I assumed Gaius and I would eventually have the kind of relationship his uncle had with my mother. The old man never married. He and my mother were content to live as man and wife, in spite of snide comments from his friends and especially from his sister, Gaius’ mother. Her dislike of my mother has been shifted onto me. Lately she sometimes even calls me Monica. I can endure that, as long as I have the assurance that I will be with Gaius.

  But now plans are in progress for a wedding, possibly soon after the Saturnalia. Gaius has told me he doesn’t want to marry the girl, but his mother is insisting, more adamantly than seems necessary. He’s a good son, so he’ll do what she wants. I don’t know what that means for me. It has made me think about being a slave in ways that I never have before. I didn’t have to because I never felt like a slave the whole time I was growing up here.

  And then, five years ago, Vesuvius erupted and Gaius’ uncle died. In a single day Gaius became a man and my master, no longer my childhood friend and the nephew of my master. He inherited me along with the rest of his uncle’s property. Most of the time I don’t think of myself in those terms, but I am his property, in the same way as his lyre or the scrolls in the library.

  III

  At dawn the next morning Saturius, owner of the stable where I frequently rent horses, had mounts waiting at my door. I ignored my clients, waving them into Demetrius’ care. Walking the horses, as the law requires us to do within the city walls, Aurora and I, accompanied by four armed freedmen—four of my burliest—set out for the taberna where Aurora had left the woman and child she was trying to help several days earlier. When we stopped by Tacitus’ house on the Aventine Hill, he raised his eyebrows at the guard.

  “Do you really think they’re necessary?” he said

  “Under ordinary circumstances, no, but…” I raised my eyebrows and gestured slightly with my head toward my servants to remind Tacitus that we had to be careful about what we said. He isn’t always. “The Ostian Way is heavily traveled, so there’s little likelihood of being attacked. But you heard Jacob last night, and you know where he was going to deliver that message from Regulus. I felt we ought to be prepared for trouble.”

  We came to the Porta Raudusculana, close to his house, which opens onto the Ostian Way. At that point we could mount. Tacitus guided his horse so that Aurora was riding between us.

  “Do you really think Dom…a certain person might assist Regulus?” he said. “That certain person was warned by Agricola, over a year ago, that there would be fierce retribution if he ever harmed you or me or any member of our families. I recall explicit threats about heads on pikes and bodies thrown into the Tiber.”

  Aurora’s eyes widened.

  I nodded as the memory of that terrifying confrontation crowded into my mind. “But when has fear of punishment ever deterred a man from doing something he considers to be in his interest? If a…certain person sees a way to help Regulus carry out his vendetta against me, Agricola’s threat isn’t likely to protect me or my family. Or yours, for that matter, since you are in position to sire an heir for Agricola.”

  “But he hasn’t bothered us.”

  “I think he’s just biding his time until we relax our guard.”

  Tacitus glanced back at my freedmen. “Maybe you’re right.” He touched the knife he now regularly carries under his tunic and I nodded. I carry a short legionary sword myself. I had even given Aurora a knife, one embossed on the handle with a dolphin, my personal symbol. A slave caught carrying a weapon could be severely punished, but the advantage of having one more armed person in our company seemed to me to outweigh that risk, especially since she was the last person an attacker would expect to be armed.

  She had strapped the knife to her thigh before I could turn my back. Of course, I had been deliberately slow to turn away. I glanced over at her now. Her green tunic, even though it was longer than a man’s, rode up, exposing the lower part of her shapely legs. Sometimes I wonder if she’s aware of how much she makes me want her.

  We joined the flow of traffic toward the coast. Vehicles dominated the throng—wagons transporting goods to Ostia for shipment, others carrying passengers. Some people were walking, but most were riding. I scanned the crowd, looking for anyone who had the look of a henchman of Regulus’, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what that look would be. The only people who stood out were two men riding donkeys. They looked poor and had an air of discouragement about them, a good disguise for a couple of spies.

  On a day like this it was hard to contemplate the possibility of trouble. As one travels from Rome to Ostia the land flattens and in July and August the heat can be oppressive along this road. But not today. Today the air felt cool, yet still comfortable, the sun bright enough to be slightly painful to my sensitive eyes. The trees along the road were showing what passed for their fall colors in this part of Italy. This far south and along the coast, the season is little more than a slightly cooler version of summer.

  Autumn, more than any other time of year, makes me miss my home town of Comum. The brilliance of the colors in the foothills of the Alps against the blue of the lake inspired me to write my first poem when I was thirteen. How did it start? Something about “O, time of year most glorious…” Did I still have a copy of it? When I got home I’d have to ask Phineas to unearth it.

  I touched the Tyche ring that I wear on a leather strap around my neck and under my tunic. Aurora saw the gesture and smiled. She and I found the ring in a cave near my uncle’s house at Laurentum when we were children. Since then we have passed it back and forth between us, depending on who we think most needs the luck it’s supposed to bring. Neither of us really believes in luck, but things have had an odd way of turning out well for whoever was wearing the ring.

  This time I didn’t think we would need luck. We weren’t going far and no one had been killed. Any time I set out to travel, though, I’m reminded of the metaphor of life as a journey that many philosophers have developed. If one doesn’t have in mind a goal—a place at which one wishes to arrive—then the journey is nothing more than aimless rambling. But, even if one does have a goal in mind, there is no guarantee one will reach it. There are so many twists and turns along the way, which no one can foresee.

  Today, though, the road was straight and our destination lay halfway between Rome and Ostia, so we would arrive in about an hour without pushing Saturius’ horses. I tried to make myself take a breath and enjoy the scenery and the company, but I kept glancing at the travelers around us. The Ostian Way is one of the busiest roads in Italy. With so many people on it today, there was no way to know which ones might be Regulus’ henchmen, or even some of Domitian’s Praetorian Guards in disguise.

  Tacitus broke my contemplative mood. “What do you think you’ll be able to do for this woman?”

  “Probably not much. If a man wants to abandon his family—and I suspect that’s the case here—the Roman Empire offers a vast territory in which to hide.”

  “But, my lord,” Aurora said, “he told her he was going to Rome.”

  “Just because he said it, there’s no guarantee that was his destination. By now he could be in Gaul or on a ship to Spain or A
frica. I’ll do what I can, but please don’t expect too much.”

  I couldn’t tell her that my motive for making this trip was to try to smooth over my difficulties with her. She was angry at me, with good reason, and hurt, also with good reason.

  I’d been to this taberna before. Anyone who’s traveled between the capital and the port knows the place. There’s no town, just two tabernae, a few small houses, a livery stable, and a small public bath—hardly enough to deserve the title “village.” The distance between Rome and Ostia is short enough that there’s no need to stay overnight, but it is convenient to have a place to get a drink and relieve oneself along the journey. The little settlement grew up at that point because the Ostian Way is joined there by a road from the south, not a regular paved road but a small local road of hard-packed dirt that follows a stream and connects with the main road from Rome to Laurentum. I sometimes take that route when traveling to Laurentum, and I know several people in Rome who have estates on that road.

  For myself, when I get away from Rome, I want to get away from Rome. Even Laurentum, only seventeen miles from the city, feels a bit too close, especially if Regulus and Domitian are conspiring against me with a renewed energy. I hoped Misenum—a two-day journey, even three at a leisurely pace—would keep my mother out of harm’s way. I had written a letter to my steward there to put my familia in Misenum on the alert for anything or anyone out of the ordinary.

  As we left the outskirts of the city behind, Tacitus leaned slightly toward Aurora. “Gaius Pliny has told me why we’re making this trip, but I’d like to hear your account of how you found this woman.”