Furies

by D. L. Johnstone

  “Corvinus was like my own father! How could I have said no?”

  She fixed him with a withering glare. “How could you have said yes? And borrowing from a man like Gurculio!” She spat out the name as though she had a mouthful of lye.

  The moneylender’s slaves stumped into the room opposite. Vibius approached the death masks of the illustrious Tarquitius ancestors hanging on the wall in their ashwood frames and plucked one off, examining it in puzzlement. “What about these?” he asked, passing it to Gnaeus.

  “Put that down, fool,” Aculeo hissed.

  “I can get a good price for them if you like,” Gnaeus offered. “New men are always trying to gild their pasts.” Aculeo glowered in response, seething. “Fine, dusty old things anyway,” the freedman said, tossing it carelessly onto a table. The masks seemed to gaze across the room at Aculeo, silently casting their unanimous judgement.

  Xanthias returned with Atellus in hand, the boy’s tunic smeared with dirt. “Can you not stay clean for five minutes?” Titiana sighed.

  “I’m sorry Mistress, he was too quick for me,” the slave said.

  “You too old,” the child proclaimed.

  Titiana allowed a small smile, laying her hand gently on the slave’s cheek. “Thank you, Xanthias. It’s hardly your fault, he’s quite wilful. Come, Atellus,” she said, holding out her hand for her son. The boy stuck out his lower lip and hugged Xanthias, turning away from his mother.

  “Perhaps he’s hungry,” Xanthias said. “I’ll have the cook make him something.”

  “He just ate. I don’t want him to get sick. He can eat again once we’re aboard.”

  “Titiana, I beg you not to go,” Aculeo said.

  Titiana closed her eyes. “Please don’t make it more difficult than it already is.”

  He took her in his arms, holding on tight. “I can’t bear to lose the two of you,” he whispered.

  “Oh my love, don’t you see? You already have.”

  Aculeo felt actual pain at her words, like a knife stabbing in his heart. “Titiana, I give you my oath,” he said, his throat so tight he could barely speak, “I’ll get it all back. This is just a temporary setback. We’ll build a palace, anything you could ever want …”

  She looked up at him, her dark, lovely eyes glistening with tears. “It’s not about our money, our home, our things. I love you in spite of all that. I always shall.”

  “Lucullus then?” he asked bitterly. Titiana’s father, Lucullus, had been tepid about the marriage from the very start, especially given that it had involved his beloved daughter moving from Rome across the sea to Alexandria.

  “I don’t care what my father thinks,” she said, stroking her fingers back through his hair, sweeping the stray curls off his forehead. “It’s about Atellus.”

  Aculeo felt a lump swell in his throat as he gazed down at their perfect little boy running about the aulos. “Atellus? He’s just a child. By the time we’re back on top he’ll not even remember this.”

  “Oh won’t you face the truth for once? You’ve ruined your family’s good name with this horrid mess. You’ve thrown away your honour. That’s bad enough for you. For me. But I can’t allow that for Atellus. I won’t.”

  “But … what will I do without you,” he whispered.

  “Oh my love,” she said. He could have faced her anger or resentment, he’d grown used to it over the past few weeks, but not the pity that now lay like heavy stones in her eyes. He looked away, wishing he could crawl into a deep, dark hole in the ground. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, held him close, kissed his cheek with her soft, warm lips. He tried to kiss her back, to embrace her but someone made a small coughing sound behind them. Titiana’s slave stood in the hallway, pointedly avoiding Aculeo’s gaze. Even the damned slaves won’t look at me, he thought bitterly.

  “The wagon is ready, Mistress,” the slave said. “We need to hurry or the ship will leave without us.”

  “Come then,” Titiana said firmly, breaking away from Aculeo. Too soon, too soon. Atellus put his head down and went to her at last. She took the boy by the hand and led him down the hallway, past the stacks of boxes and furnishings towards the gates and then into the hired wagon. They’re leaving, Aculeo thought, they’re actually leaving. He followed them.

  “You come too, Poppa?” Atellus asked as Aculeo tried to step into the wagon.

  Titiana held up her hand. “No. You shouldn’t show your face in public yet,” she said. “It’s too soon.” She looked towards Xanthias. “You’re to take care of him.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” the old slave said, tears running down his deeply lined cheeks.

  “Why Poppa and Xanfas not come?” the boy asked, sensing something was amiss.

  “You’re taking a special trip to Rome just with your Mamma, remember?”Aculeo said, forcing a smile, though his eyes were burning. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  Titiana paused before handing him a small packet wrapped in linen. “What’s this?” he asked. She said nothing. He looked at her for a moment, then reluctantly unwrapped the bundle. It was her emerald necklace with the matching earrings – his wedding present to her. They suddenly felt heavy as a millstone in his hands. “Titiana, no …”

  “They’ll only get stolen when we get onboard,” she said.

  “Oh, of course,” he said at last. “I’ll … I’ll keep them here for you then.”

  “Aculeo …”

  “I’ll keep them safe for you. I’ll come for you once I’ve found my feet again. By summer at the latest. My oath.”

  Titiana held his gaze for just a moment, unsmiling now, unreachable. “If you truly love us you’ll let us be,” she said. She nodded to the driver and the wagon rattled off along the creamy paving-stone street towards the city, the winter breeze cold and damp off the Egyptian Sea.

  “I should stop them,” Aculeo said hoarsely. “I… I should do something.”

  Xanthias shook his head. “No, Master. The mistress is right. Let them go.”

  Gnaeus appeared next to him in the doorway, scratching at his beard. “When are you leaving?”

  “The agreement was midnight,” Xanthias snapped.

  “The auction’s first thing in the morning. Gurculio’s orders …”

  “Oh shove Gurculio’s orders and let the man be!” The freedman scowled but slumped away. Xanthias turned to Aculeo and said gently, “How about some wine, Master? There’s an amphora of aged Tameotic I’ve been holding back. An excellent vintage. Or so I’m told.”

  “No, nothing,” Aculeo said, and wandered back through the villa. It had been so full of life only a moment ago. Now it was just the echoes of his sandals slapping against the stone, the empty chatter of the slaves as they packed everything up. The back wall had been removed last summer to reveal an extraordinary view of the city down below, the vast gridwork of red clay tile roofs and bone-white buildings, temples and palaces that lay beyond. To the north, ships bobbed in the Great Harbour of the wine-dark Egyptian Sea. There in the harbour the great Pharos soared, dove grey in the early morning light, a billowing trail of smoke and glint of yellow firelight spilling forth from the lighthouse mouth, and Rome itself a lifetime away.

  Aculeo thought he heard the sound of distant horns and drums, a joyous festival in the city, and realized it was the first day of Januarius. Already? He watched a flock of brown and grey birds pass overhead from left to right before they turned as one and wheeled out to the darkening sea.

  He couldn’t recall if the omen was good or bad.

  Aculeo awoke to the sounds of the street below and squinted about his little bedroom, which was hardly big enough to hold his simple, narrow pallet. Rays of morning light scratched across the cracked plaster ceiling. The crumbling walls were etched with graffiti from previous occupants, stained with soot and sweat and the gods knew what else. And the smell, a rank, musty odour that seemed to have penetrated the very walls. He’d hoped when he and Xanthias had moved here a month ago that the stenc
h would eventually fade but it had only gotten worse over time, as though something had died, a prior resident even, and been plastered into the walls themselves.

  He closed his eyes again. Nights were the worst – long hours spent staring at the ceiling waiting for dawn to come. He’d fallen into a dull routine of late, drinking himself into a stupor every night as hope slipped through his fingertips like water. Never mind, it’s morning now. I only have to get through the oppressive weight of yet another day.

  His head throbbed, the taste of sour wine like paste on his tongue. I don’t even remember coming home last night, he muddled, though I suppose I must have. What day is it anyway? The twelfth? Thirteenth? I’m losing track. No, it’s the fifteenth, the Ides. Which makes it three-and-a-half months since Titiana and Atellus returned to Rome. Three-and-a-half months. Is that all it’s been? Still, it’s better they aren’t here to witness this. Or, even worse, be part of it.

  As the ripples of financial disaster had spread and the other investors began to experience the full effects of their own ruin, rumours had sparked and fanned – that perhaps it had all been a scam, with Corvinus and Aculeo themselves at the root of it. Aculeo must have hidden the money away somewhere and was even now preparing to flee the city! And like a beautiful, elaborate knot severed by a blunt sword, he’d run out of both willing hosts and most of his remaining funds. These simple lodgings, a two-room flat above a marble worker’s shop, had to suffice for now.

  A line of silverfish emerged from the window’s cracked edge, scuttled across the wall and slipped behind the wooden frame of his father’s funerary mask – which had apparently become their new nest. I should have sold you to the damned moneylender after all, Father, it would have given you a better view of the world at least.

  “Ah, there you are. I thought for certain you’d been murdered in an alley somewhere,” a bitter voice pronounced. Xanthias was standing in the doorway staring down at him, shaking his bald, freckled head.

  “You seem disappointed I wasn’t,” Aculeo grumbled.

  “Not at all, Master. My soul dances at the prospect of another day basking in your presence.”

  “Shut up and leave me be.”

  “Of course, Master,” Xanthias said with a deep, mocking bow. He snatched up the tunic Aculeo had dropped in a heap on the floor and held it up against the morning light, a sour look on his face. “Are these blood or wine stains?”

  “How should I know?”

  “As you wore it, Master, I had hoped you may have been able to shed some light upon the matter. It’s scraping the top off an empty measure, I know …”

  “Oh by the gods, just let me sleep in peace!” Aculeo snapped and tugged the woollen blanket back over his head, hoping the room would stop whirling about long enough to let sleep overtake him again. I’ll get back on my feet soon enough, he thought. And Corvinus will rise up from his scattered ashes, our broken fleets will lift from the bottom of the sea, the money will flow once again, my debts will disappear, Titiana and Atellus will return to my arms, she’ll beg for my forgiveness, as will our so-called friends, I’ll buy back our villa and then … then the world will be restored to sanity.

  A pleasant dream to cling to at least.

  Aculeo was just drifting back into the dark, subsuming tide of sleep when the silence of his bedroom was shattered by an ear-splitting din of hammering and chiselling, followed by laughter and a stream of fellahin chatter. It was the damned marble workers from the shop below, who’d just begun their day’s work. He could already taste the chalky marble dust on the back of his tongue.

  “Pluto’s stinking hole,” he grumbled. There was no chance of sleep now. He crawled out of the bed, his feet found the cool floor, and he pulled a tunic from the chest. He held it up to the light. It was cheap linen fabric, so plain and such a provincial design he despised it but there was little choice. He gave it a cautious sniff, made a face at the off-smell, then slipped it on anyway.

  “Where are you going?” Xanthias asked as he emerged from the cubicle of a bedroom.

  “To the Agora, then the baths.”

  “The baths?” the slave said in a tone that made Aculeo feel like a wayward child.

  “It’s been days since I last went. I can barely stand my own smell.”

  “A wiser man would simply be thankful he still has a nose with which to smell his own stink. We’ve not a crumb of food in the pantry and our rent is due.”

  “I’ve got business prospects still,” Aculeo said irritably. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Business prospects!” Xanthias cried. “Haven’t you already tossed away what little money we had left on dice and wine?”

  “You’re a slave. You know nothing of business.”

  “I know something about a fool and his silver though.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours with some money and tonight we’ll eat and drink like Caesar himself. Alright?”

  “A flawless plan, Master. Then tomorrow we can go back to starving like Tantalus.”

  Aculeo watched the pawnbroker turn the emerald earrings about between his stubby fingers, holding them up to the dusty light. “You should’ve brought ‘em to me at the same time as the necklace,” the man said. “I could have given a better price.”

  “I wasn’t planning to sell them at all,” Aculeo said dully. He’d pawned the necklace over a month ago, and the coins he’d gotten for it had flowed through his fingers like water.

  “No one ever does,” the pawnbroker said with a dusty laugh. He laid the pretty baubles out on the counter, giving them a weary appraisal. “Eighty.”

  “Eighty sesterces? That’s outrageous, I paid over a thousand …”

  “I don’t care what you paid, I care what I can get for them. We’re hardly in the Painted Stoa here after all.” The man pursed his lips distastefully. “Alright, a hundred but that’s it.”

  “Three hundred or …” The pawnbroker snorted. “Two?” The man slid the earrings back towards him. “Fine. A hundred.”

  It’s alright, Aculeo told himself hollowly as he watched the pawnbroker tuck the earrings away and set a small stack of coins out on the counter. It’s fine, I’ll buy them back and more when things are right again.

  The Street of the Pawnbrokers was little more than a rutted back alley that reeked of piss and old vomit, its tight walls echoing with the dusty clink of mallets from the workers inside the countless shops along its length. It was part of the close-packed artisans’ ghetto, tucked in amidst the Street of the Goldsmiths, the Street of Textiles, the Booksellers Street and all the rest. The upper balconies of the surrounding tenements huddled together, practically touching one another, blocking all but a sliver of blue sky overhead.

  The day was early still, pedestrians meandering into the shops were a scattered few. Aculeo’s mind wandered as he headed towards the baths, his joints aching as he walked over the cracked, uneven paving stones, feeling aged beyond his years.

  “Aculeo?” a chipper voice cried. “Aculeo, is that you?” Aculeo reluctantly turned around and saw a plump, finely dressed young man with a large port-stain birthmark across his right cheek approaching him. Fundibus Varus – of all people to run into down here. The gods do enjoy shitting on mortal men.

  Aculeo forced a tight-lipped smile. “Varus. What a pleasant surprise.”

  Varus’ eyes flitted over Aculeo’s patched, plain tunic, a joke compared to his own pure white linen finery embroidered with glittering gold, blue and scarlet thread. Varus tore his gaze away in an effort to appear not to notice. “Well, well, I haven’t seen you in months. How’ve you been?”

  “Never better. What are you doing down here?”

  Varus gave a theatrical sigh. “Shopping for a new fountain of all things. My lovely young wife, Aelia, is anxious to decorate the new villa in the very latest fashion.”

  “You have a new villa?”

  “Oh yes, you know, Valentinus’ old place. I picked it up at auction earlier this year. And dirt cheap, to
o, I never thought … oh,” Varus said, putting a manicured hand to his mouth, looking mortified.

  Valentinus, Aculeo recalled, his stomach churning. Valentinus, Montaus, Protus, Bitucus, Gellius … and how many other of our friends lost their homes, their fortunes? He’d given up counting. He hadn’t been able to watch the auction of his own villa, though Xanthias had heard it had sold for just three hundred fifty thousand sesterces – a sickening plunge from what he’d paid only two years prior. That was what happened when too many fine homes went on auction all at once and the mortgage-holders were anxious to unload.

  Aculeo managed a tight smile. “Don’t worry. I’d likely have done the same given the chance. You and Aelia are happy there I trust?”

  “Oh yes, very. Still, I must do my utmost to keep her in the manner to which she is accustomed. You know women,” he said with a knowing wink. “What of Titiana and your son … Atellus isn’t it? How are they?”

  Will the torture never end? Aculeo thought, his head ringing with the man’s inane chatter. “Never better.”

  “Did I hear they were back in Rome?” Varus asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Yes, actually, visiting family.” Aculeo’s mouth ached from holding his rictus smile. He’d heard word from mutual acquaintances that while the divorce was not yet final, there’d already been numerous inquiries to her father, Lucullus, from potential suitors. He glanced sideways at the other man. The rotten prick – he probably knows this already! Gossip spreads faster than thistles!

  “Family is important, but Rome’s so dreary this time of year. Ah well,” Varus sighed. “Shall we get something to eat perhaps? It will give us a chance to catch up properly.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Aculeo said. “I’m far too busy today. You know how it is.”

  “Oh, oh yes, of course,” Varus said, clearly disappointed. “Too bad though. I was planning to head to the Hippodrome.”