The Skystone

by Jack Whyte

  “Aye, the coins. There’s more money here, lying around unguarded, than there is in the rest of Britain. This is an invitation to robbery, Publius.”

  I looked at the hoard piled haphazardly on the table top. “You’re right. We’ll have to do something with it. But what?”

  “Bury it again.”

  “Where?”

  “What does it matter? Just get it out of sight.”

  We finally poured the coins into a large amphora as an interim hiding place until Equus and I could fashion a strong-box to hold them. It took the combined strength of all three of us then to move the amphora into my study, where I sealed the neck with wax later that night. In the meantime, I threw each of them a leather pouch full of coins and then spent an hour or more convincing them to accept them. How we managed to pass that evening without the servants realizing what was going on is beyond me, but they never suspected anything. They were used by this time to the three of us carousing together at least one evening each week, and I think they were glad to be relieved of the need to dance attendance on me and happy to tend to their own affairs.

  It took me a long time to appreciate that I was now a wealthy man, and it took another man’s death to bring it home to me.

  I was walking with Plautus one morning from the fort, where I had been meeting with Lucullus, the paymaster, and we were passing the main gate of a large and luxurious townhouse, more like a villa than anything else, when we heard loud screams and cries of grief coming from the other side of the walls. Curious, we stopped and looked inside the gate, and Plautus began asking questions. It turned out that the old man who had lived there for years, a retired general, had been found dead in his bed that morning. The howling was coming from his servants, more out of fear for themselves than out of grief for their master, I suspected, for the old man had died without heirs.

  Plautus took over, since the dead man had been a general, and went back to report the matter to the military authorities and initiate funeral arrangements. I continued homeward and forgot the incident until that evening, when Plautus turned up unexpectedly on my doorstep. I saw immediately that he had been drinking. He poured himself a large cup of wine and flopped into a chair.

  “Well, that’s that! Got the old fellow off to the barracks for burial. Your health!” He swallowed deeply and went on. “No point in leaving him there at home, poor old catamite. According to his servants he doesn’t have a relative left in the world, nor any friends to mourn him. You know, Publius, a man can live too long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I say. That poor old son of a noble Roman whore outlived all his contemporaries. All his friends. He just died alone. That’s no good at all. I hope I die young.”

  “Young? You?” I laughed at him. “Plautus, you’re an old man already! Besides, he might never have had any friends. Perhaps everybody hated him.”

  “No.” He shook his head drunkenly. “His servants didn’t, and if they didn’t hate him he must have been all right. They’re knee-deep in their own dung over what’s going to happen to them now.”

  “What d’you mean? What’s going to happen to them?”

  “Nothing, but they have to move out, tomorrow. They’re finished. Can’t stay there. ’S not their house, so out!”

  “They’ll find somewhere else, Plautus. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “It is for them. Who’s going to take them in?” He snorted. “They can’t even rob the place. The Procurator’s people moved right in today.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To take inventory. They have to. The old man had no heirs. Everything goes to the State.”

  “What will the State do with it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Sell it, probably.”

  “To whom? That’s a big place. Who could afford it? I can’t think of anyone in this town who could.”

  “I can.” He smiled, pleased with himself. “Why don’t you buy it?”

  I stared at him in amazement. “Me? Why in the name of all the gods should I buy it?”

  He grinned at me. “Because it would suit you, and you can afford it. You’ll get it for half price, too, ’cause you’re right. They won’t be able to sell it t’ anybody else and they don’t need it.”

  I was half interested. “Why do you say it would suit me?”

  He was still grinning. “Because, my friend, there is one room in that place that will make your eyes fall out. That old man was rich. Very rich. He took one of the small interior courtyards, you know? A courtyard? Open to the sky? Covered the whole thing with glass! Real glass! The whole thing. Must have cost a fortune. What’s there now is a big room, bright, like outside, with a glass roof… ’s daylight, bright daylight in there all the time. ’Cept at night, of course. Whole place is filled with plants. As soon as I saw it, I thought, Here’s the place for Publius’ treasures. It’s perfect. It would be like having them outside, in daylight, except that they’d be inside in daylight, if you see what I mean, all warm and dry.”

  I was staring at him. “I think I do,” I said. “At least, I… hmmm… I’d like to see this room. Can you arrange it?”

  The following day, because I fell in love with that one room, I tried to buy the house. Because of legalities, I was not permitted to, but, thanks to the influence of Antonius Cicero, I was permitted to rent it for an outrageous amount. The terms of rental were excellent; for all intents and purposes, in every sense except outright ownership, the house was mine. It was explained to me by the Procurator’s people that, should the Emperor ever decide to come to live in this part of the Empire, in this particular town, I would be expected to vacate the premises.

  I began to live the way I imagined a wealthy man should live, although I sometimes felt that I rattled around in the huge place like a lonely pea in a dry pod. Having made my bed, however, I was determined to lie in it, and I counterbalanced the pleasure I took in the treasure room against any regrets I had of my impulsive decision to assume the tenancy of the house.

  XIII

  Old age is a fascinating phenomenon, and a man’s perspective on it changes rapidly as he accumulates winters. I am now at that stage of life where my grandchildren prove that people may legitimately think of me as old, but I am still young in my own head, and I anticipate with pleasure a long chain of satisfying, busy years before I grow old enough to die.

  It was not always so. When I was younger, decades younger, I endured a period of terror, barely admitted even to myself, of growing old before I had time to live. I suppose all men must know that fear at some time, but keep its nightmares deep-hidden. I was not yet forty at the time, and the torsion of the mental fluxes I was going through brought out, from time to time, a rashness in me — an impulsiveness and, infrequently, an intransigence that I had not suspected of myself.

  About three months after I moved into my new home, at the height of a magnificent summer, an event occurred that introduced the stench of the Senecas to my nostrils in a way that made me wonder why I had not been able to smell it before. I know it was my fate to behave as I did on that day, and I would do the same again today. I merely reacted to specific stimuli, without thought of long-term consequences.

  It had been a long day, the second of what was to have been a week spent on the road, at leisure, with Plautus, who was on furlough. Ostensibly, we were on our way to Verulamium to visit Alaric and deliver yet another silver cross, this time a large one for public display during his services. We had left Equus in charge of the smithy and set out to make our way slowly to the south, prepared to make a three-day journey out of one half that long. We carried leather legionary tents, arrows and bows for hunting and barbed, iron-wire hooks for fishing. The weather was glorious. I was thirty-seven years old and had believed myself twenty in my mind until that morning, when we had met two young women in the fields. Plautus, three years my senior but with black, close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face, had prospered with his choice. I h
ad not. The chit that I had been attracted to looked at my greying hair and grizzled beard, and at my limp, and treated me as though I were her toothless grandfather, laughing at me and bidding me be ashamed of my almost incestuous designs. She made me feel old, and the beauty of the day had withered around me.

  Now, in mid afternoon, we were seated in the front yard of a prosperous mansio, separated from the main road by a low wall with wide, open gates. We had enjoyed a meat pie, with fresh vegetables, new-baked bread and sweet, luscious plums, and Plautus had finally stopped crowing over his conquest of the girl that morning. I was still in a foul frame of mind, my memory stinging from the cruel injustice done my years.

  The owner of the hostelry, a veteran of the armies, had just brought a fresh jug of wine to our table and was passing the time of day with us when we heard raucous voices in the distance, and all three of us looked idly for the source of the sounds. There were several men in the distance, grouped around two chariots, each of which was harnessed to a trio of horses. I noticed our host’s face darken as he saw them.

  “Who are they?” I asked him. “Do they live around here?”

  “No, sir.” His eyes had a worried look as he went on. “At least, they do, but not all the time, thank the gods. They visit nearby from time to time.”

  “Their presence doesn’t fill you with happiness. Who are they?”

  “I know only two of them. Nephews of Quinctilius Nesca, the commercial money-lender. He has a large villa to the south of here. The others are their… friends.”

  Quinctilius Nesca. Where had I heard that name before? It was familiar, and I had heard it only recently. Before I could comment on it, Plautus spoke up.

  “They have done damage to you in the past?”

  The mansio-keeper looked at him wryly. “Damage? Aye, sir, you might say that. Sometimes. In truth, almost always. They are very wealthy, and spoiled. They know no discipline. They seem to think they need none, with the people around here, anyway.” He was still watching the small, distant group. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I must make preparations.” He hurried away, and I turned to Plautus, who was eating one of the few remaining plums.

  “We should get going. Are you about ready?”

  He spat out the plum stone, stretched himself and broke wind loudly. “For what? There’s no rush, is there? It’s a beautiful day, the sun’s hot, we’ve still got a jug of wine, and I don’t feel like moving.”

  I grinned at him, momentarily forgetting my bad humour. “Plautus, you’re a pig sometimes. Look at you — you’re unshaven, unkempt, and you fart and scratch and belch and spit as though you’d never seen a parade ground. If your recruits could ever see you off-duty, out of uniform, all their fears of you would drown in laughter.”

  He farted again, deliberately. “That’s what furloughs are for, friend, to give a man the opportunity to cleanse himself of all the rust that builds up through disuse.”

  “That’s what I said. You’re being a pig.”

  He belched, and I laughed aloud as he went on.

  “Well, at least I’m a placid pig, and I pay for what I eat and drink. I wouldn’t want to be our host and have to depend on those bucks to do the same.”

  He nodded sideways, and I looked to see the two chariots come racing towards us. They clattered across the road and right into the front yard where we sat, and their occupants, six of them, spilled out shouting at each other and laughing and yelling for someone to look after their horses. They made a lot of noise. Or rather, five of them did. The sixth, who remained in the chariot, stood out from his companions in every way. He was taller than all the others, broad-shouldered and heavily but cleanly muscled, with thick, fair hair and a tanned, handsome face. He stood silent, and I thought at first he was smiling, for he showed white, shining teeth and very bright blue eyes. But he was not smiling. There was no humour in his face, and he was staring hard at Plautus. I felt a stirring of misgiving in the bottom of my gut.

  “Come on,” I said to Plautus, who was unaware of the stare. “Let’s drink up and move on. We’ll take the jug with us. It’s not going to be quiet around here for a long time now.”

  “Relax, man. They’re just spoiled rich brats. They’ll get bored and move on soon enough. Won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.” He was looking at them as he spoke, and the silent one knew he was talking about them. He flicked his reins and walked his horses forward, right up to our table. Suddenly his five companions were silent, watching. Neither Plautus nor I reacted in any way other than to look at the three white horses that now stood within arm’s reach of us. The chariot tilted as the driver stepped down, and I saw his sandalled feet approach on the side closer to Plautus. Plautus looked at me, his eyes expressionless, and took a mouthful of wine without swallowing, holding it behind pursed lips.

  “You! Take care of these horses.” The words were spoken in a flat, ominous tone filled with the threat of violence.

  Plautus washed the wine around his teeth, swallowed it and grimaced, smacking his lips and then sucking them in to bite them between his teeth. The triple leather reins landed on the table between us. I raised my eyes and looked at the speaker, who ignored me completely. His eyes were fastened on Plautus, who sat immobile, side on to him, still looking at me as though the two of us were alone.

  “I gave you an order, dung pile.” No change in the tone of voice. None of the other five moved to approach, but now one of them spoke.

  “Thrash him, Deus.”

  Deus? I looked more closely at the fellow they were calling God. At this proximity, he was even more impressive than he had appeared from a distance, but there was something in his face that told me he was older than he looked, and his expression recalled to me the junior tribune who had eaten Plautus’ dung stew so long ago in Africa. It was that same look of intolerant, autocratic harshness, of implacable arrogance and intractability. And his eyes disturbed me. They looked, somehow, familiar.

  Plautus spoke. “I was wrong. About the bothering. Stupid of me. It didn’t connect.” He put his goblet down very deliberately on the table top. “I will have some more, after all.”

  I was now experiencing the strangest feeling of being caught up in one of those Greek tragedies, as though we were all fated to perform some inexorable dance here, powerless to change the course of things. As I began to pour, the stranger started to reach for the jug, but Plautus’ next words forestalled him.

  “Look, stranger,” he said, his voice unruffled but pitched low for our ears alone, “if you really want me to, I’ll break your arm right off and jam it up your rectum, but I’d rather not.” For the first time, he turned and looked at the young man standing above him. “Now, I can see that you’ve put yourself in a situation where your friends expect to see you make something happen, so here’s a suggestion. Walk away from us, right now, back to your friends, and leave us to enjoy our wine in peace. You do that, and I’ll take your horses and see that they’re looked after. Then I’ll come back, we’ll finish our wine, and we’ll leave. That way, you will look good to your friends and nobody will get hurt. Agreed?”

  The young man said nothing. He just stood there, looking down at Plautus with a strange, wild-eyed look that I still felt was strangely known to me. It spoke to me of insanity and yet familiarity. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and walked away, straight-backed in his rich, white Grecian tunic. I heard his footsteps pause at the rear of the chariot, and then continue.

  “Beautiful, isn’t he?” Plautus’ voice was heavy with irony.

  “I think he’s insane.”

  “He is. Crazed as Caligula.” He moved to get up. “As soon as I move these horses, it’s a certainty they’ll bring the other chariot over. Let them. Don’t move. Don’t say a word, don’t get involved. Just sit where you are.”

  I stared at him. “Then what?”

  “Then I’ll come back and move the other one.”

  “Are you serious? Why bother? Let’s just face them down and get i
t over with. If you move both chariots they’re not going to stop there. That whoreson’s looking for a fight.”

  “Let him look. He won’t get one from me. And don’t you antagonize him. It’s me he wants.”

  “Why, Plautus? Does he know you?”

  “No, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Then sodomize him! Let’s just take them now and have done with it.” I started to gather myself to rise, but he pressed me back on to my stool.

  “Forget it! It’s not worth it. Anyway, he’s the sodomite. Take a close look at the two pretty ones with him. Slap tits on them and I’d bed them myself. Just stay there, and don’t get excited.” He gathered up the reins and led the horses away.

  As the chariot cleared my line of sight, my eyes were on the group on the other side of the yard. They stood in a line, watching Plautus. None of them looked at me. Apart from a single dismissive glance from the big one, they had all behaved until this time as though I were not even present. I began to simmer resentfully.

  The leader stood there, a pair of sword belts dangling from one hand. As soon as Plautus was out of sight around the corner, he threw one of the belts to a companion and slung the other across his own chest. Two more sword belts appeared from the bottom of the other chariot. Now four of the six were armed, and I was worried. My earlier eagerness to tackle them had vanished. Plautus and I were unarmed. Our weapons were with our horses. Lulled by the lushness of the summer afternoon, we had had no thought of violence here in this quiet mansio. The only item I had brought to the table with me was Alaric’s cross, because it was too valuable to let out of my sight. It lay now on the table in front of me, wrapped in a square of cloth.

  I watched them huddle together, talking among themselves, giggling and hatching some new mischief. One of them gave out a great hoot of laughter and threw his arm in a headlock around one of the others, and they wrestled together, ignored by the rest of the group who still listened to the big fellow. They might have been any group of normal young men having fun, except for the malevolent bearing of their leader.