Rufius

by Sarah Walton

  Aeson’s been assessing the dialogue. It’s a skill slaves pick up, the ones who retain their wit, but there’s nothing in the boy’s countenance that speaks of service.

  ‘Do you have something for me?’

  He looks uncertain, but senses he should play along in case there’s a way out.

  ‘Like what?’ Plebeian accent, but soft, no sharp street edge.

  ‘Has Turk sent you?’

  His gaze flicks to the terrace.

  ‘Untie me first.’

  ‘How can I trust you won’t be over that balcony like a bird?’

  ‘What you want’s under my tunic.’

  Cheeky Alexandrian urchin… I do believe I’m blushing!

  He sizes me up as I walk over to the wine jug.

  ‘You must be in shock. Drink this.’ I hold the cup to his mouth. Whoops, let’s wipe that dribble of wine from his chin. A soft down, but no bristles yet. He’s almost ready. Let’s give his bicep a squeeze like a slave would test the ripeness of a melon in the market. Muscle undulates under smooth honey skin as he tugs at the rope like prize carp gliding through water; the jut of his collar bone, the elegant crusade of his shoulders, stretched back around the pillar. Oh my!

  ‘Answer my question: where’s Turk?’

  ‘You had a deal with Croc. I’m delivering for Croc, not Turk.’ He pushes depth into his voice like all boys that aspire to be manly, but there’s nothing gruff in his tone.

  Croc’s deal… perhaps Turk isn’t the pimp I thought he was.

  These ropes are knotted too tight. He smells of the streets, but there’s a hint of his own odour. He may be a boy, but his armpits emit the robust scent of a man. My ancient groin stirs. That’s got it; the rope falls at my feet.

  ‘Thanks.’ He rubs his wrists, loosens his belt and pulls out a crushed papyrus scroll. What a way to carry a book! Is he reading the tag? There’s more to this boy. ‘Here.’ He hands it to me and tightens his belt.

  The Gospel of Philip. Good. Crocodile is more reliable than his pimp.

  ‘Indeed, you’re quite right. Crocodile and I had an agreement.’

  His foot’s bleeding; the blood on the roof terrace balcony, the limp…

  ‘Dear boy, my men have hurt you. Diana!’

  The girl patters in.

  ‘Fetch balm for our guest’s wounds… and fill his cup, dear.’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  That’s it, dear. Drink up.

  He raises his cup. ‘To your health, sir.’ I do believe he intends to charm me.

  We drink, both eyeing each other.

  ‘Sit down, relax.’ I pat the cushion next to me. Nope, he wants to sit on the couch nearest the balcony, and look around between sips.

  ‘Croc knows I’m here. You can trust me… with the payment, I mean.’

  ‘You seem a trustworthy sort of man.’ He liked that I called him a man. This is progress.

  Diana clatters in with a tray of vials and a small bowl of water.

  ‘That will be all, Diana.’

  ‘Let me clean that cut, dear.’ I motion for him to come to me.

  ‘It’s just a scratch.’ He shoots a swift glance at the balcony, and gulps back the rest of the wine. ‘Thanks for the wine. You have the book. Now pay up what you agreed with Croc.’

  I’ve scared him off.

  ‘There’s no rush, dear. Your boss, Turk and I had a deal too.’

  ‘Bet you did, but I’m not part of the bargain.’

  ‘Turk seemed to think so.’

  ‘Turk ain’t my pimp, Rufius.’ His gaze is steady, defiant. I like the way he says my name.

  ‘Well then, let’s strike a deal of our own, Aeson.’ By Bacchus, this is too much fun. ‘I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement. Please, make yourself comfortable.’

  His shoulders relax. He’s going to explore the room.

  I like to watch him touching my possessions, dragging his fingers across the carved tables, the edge of the gold tray, the vials. He picks one up and wafts it under his nose.

  ‘Frankincense.’ He picks up another. ‘Um, patchouli, rosemary and this one… myrrh.’ He places each one back on the tray with respect. We share that: an appreciation of fine things.

  ‘You have a cultured nose. And you read too? I’m impressed.’

  ‘A student showed me the mark.’ Ha! Of course, they must have found some kid who knows the Library. Resourceful, these young Alexandrians. He looks ashamed. How curious.

  ‘You are of Greek descent?’

  ‘Yes, my mother was the daughter of a rich man, but she died. I ran away to make me own fortune.’

  The usual lie. The more imaginative rent boys like to create elaborate histories about how they fell into the gutter. I love to watch him talk. I search for subject matter in his repertoire so as to not ruin my adulation. Maturity is an act, and some boys are adept at faking it.

  ‘So, our deal, dear?’

  ‘Clean slate, nothing to do with Turk?’

  ‘Just ours. You have been to the games?’

  ‘Course I have.’

  ‘And your favourite gladiator?’

  ‘Saracen. He’s filled me pockets many times.’

  ‘Ah! A virtuous occupation.’ Hide your surprise, Rufius, don’t arch your eyebrows. ‘Perhaps we should wage together?’

  He’s considering, that frown is serious.

  ‘Are you a winner?’

  Most boys would jump at the chance to gamble, no questions asked.

  ‘Well?’ Aeson arches an eyebrow.

  What fun! Rearrange my face: we are entering negotiation.

  ‘I have the means to play.’ I walk over to my chest, pull off my ring key, and take a hand full of coins from my domestic hoard. I’m showing him how to rob me.

  ‘How much?’ He’s taken the bait.

  Let’s tempt him with the clatter money.

  Grubby hands weigh a gold coin in each.

  ‘Not the first time I’ve held a gold coin, it ain’t.’ His wonder proves he’s lying. Lamplight catches the gold and throws a yellow glow up into his face. What an unusual boy. His whole being has taken up the room like the best actors fill a stage, like he’s part of the household. I want him, but more than that, I don’t want him to leave Biblos.

  ‘I will advise you, Rufius – for a fifty percent cut.’

  ‘And if we lose?’

  ‘I never lose.’ His skin moves fluidly over his jaw as he talks, pulling in on the Greek ωs and οs.

  'You never lose?' I can’t prevent my eyebrows rising.

  'Never.' Did he realise I was hoping he'd say lose again?

  'Thirty percent, and the book you stole from my library.'

  He looks defiant again.

  ‘Forty. Take it or leave it.’ ‘He throws one of the coins back on the table. ‘And I’ll take this one for Croc, as payment for the book.’

  Most boys would take both.

  ‘You have a deal on the condition you explain what you were doing in my library.’ He looks pained. ‘I need to know I can trust you, dear. You can borrow any book from my library whenever you wish. All you need to do is ask.’

  ‘Was just looking for something to pinch, sir.’ He’s lying. There were gold knives on my desk. He didn’t find whatever he was looking for.

  What’s he picked up my pen for? He holds it the way a labourer holds a hammer. Don't ruin the moment, Aeson. It's always the same with the street kids – such financial sophistication, but no finesse when it comes to the arts.

  What’s that look for? By Bacchus, I’m soft and malleable as wet papyri pinned beneath his Olympian glare.

  'Teach me to write.'

  ‘What?’ All the control releases from my face. I want to laugh, but I do believe he’s serious.

  ‘You want to learn to write?’

  His nod is grave. What a strange aspiration in a street urchin. There again… such beauty must harbour something of the Muses, surely. And it would mean I could hold on to him�
� but I don’t have the patience to teach him. It would kill this glorious Olympian haze I’ve entered into.

  ‘It takes a long time to learn, unlike the art of gambling. A year, maybe more.’

  ‘Not afraid of hard work, I’m not.’

  And there’s the grammar… I’m pacing again, hot with excitement for the idea – a future with this boy? What an odd sensation: I do believe I feel positive.

  ‘Forget the money, the games and all that. You teach me to write and I’ll be your rent boy for free.’

  ‘You have a deal, dear.’

  ‘Just until I can write that is.’

  ‘Of course, when you have mastered the pen you are free to leave.’

  I pace the terrace. Ah! The sweet scent of roses. My garden’s taking shape. The lighthouse flickers across the harbour… my word it’s an imposing building all lit up. I see for the first time what my cabin slave saw, like I’m viewing the Pharos from another perspective.

  ‘Come here.’

  He joins me.

  ‘Aeson, you see there, the Serapeum, and over there, the Museum?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looks at the buildings like a beggar lusts for chicken roasting on a spit. I have the upper hand.

  ‘Alexandria’s Library still holds the most comprehensive collection in the World.’ Although it will have reduced slightly tonight if that pimp Turk ran off with the books. ‘Once, the greatest minds gathered here in Alexandria, in Eratosthenes’ time.’

  His expression is inquisitive, not gormless.

  ‘Eratosthenes calculated the diameter of the Earth.’

  ‘Like the diameter of a weight? Makes sense, that the Earth has a diameter – um, it’s round.’

  ‘How do you know what a diameter is?’

  ‘I’m not stupid.’ With an accent like that he’s not educated, but he’s quick. This might not be as tricky as I thought.

  ‘Alexandria still has the best medical school in the Empire.’

  Success shines in his blue eyes as he looks out over the city. I don’t keep boys for more than a night in my own home – responsibility usually kills my passion. He played me better than Diana and has more power over me than the Archbishop of Rome.

  ‌17

  Aeson

  —Two Weeks Later—

  This schoolroom don’t get enough sunshine in the afternoon. Palm trees cut up the light into thin shadows, they do. Shit, I did it again… I’m surprised that slave Apollinos has a hand left, he slaps it so hard every time he shouts superfluous repetition!

  His large desk, directly in front of my smaller one blocks the view beyond the terrace. Apollinos is writing another one of his lists. Diana says the only time he smiles is when he gets to cross a word off. Words. Words are built from the letters of the alphabet. A few gangs of letters all Alexandrians know – fish, cheese, bread, taverna, doctor, lawyer, fight, god – signs we see in the street. But writing them is practice and pain, practice and pain… and boring.

  Once a week I get to use ink. Writing’s easier with the wax tablet as I can scrub out the mistakes. This page is already smudged with inky fingerprints.

  I’d grow to loath you, dear. That’s why Rufius sent the slave to teach me; his attention span’s shorter than a kid's. Lessons start sharp after dawn. Break at noon, more lessons. We dine together. Routine, routine, routine.

  Looks like Apollinos’ long sucked in face will sink into itself one day. Younger than Rufius, but those hollow cheeks make him look older than he is, whereas Rufius’ excess fat makes him look more like a chubby-cheeked baby than a wrinkly.

  A whiff of cut grass. Garden smells tug like tarts calling from windows on Venus Street. Fed up being cooped up inside Biblos, I am. I want to run barefoot on the lawn, but Apollinos ain’t letting me go nowhere, not until I finish the alphabet – over and over again.

  Rufius made such a fuss turning this guestroom – Biblos has rooms just for visitors – into a schoolroom. Made me feel well special, it did. The Muses in one corner: all white and perfect, a bust of Rufius in the other. Can’t get away from him, can I? It’s like he’s watching me in every room. How many of them does he have?

  A palm frond sways and chops criss-cross shadows on the walls. Apollinos sighs, puffs at his list and looks up.

  ‘Concentrate. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’ll be out there.’ By the look on Apollinos’ face, he wants to add: you little tyke.

  I’d better scratch my pen across the page or he’ll start slapping his hand on my desk again. He wants to whack me, but I reckon Rufius told him he can’t. Biblos is better than my plan: pinch the Snake People’s book and bargain with Seth to teach me to write. Who’d want to live in a crusty old temple full of snakes and nutty Christians? Not me!

  Apollinos ain’t bad. Even when he looks at me odd, he don’t hate me. Seen hate in Lanky’s face, wicked ideas in his eyes; seen revenge in Turk’s. When I think of Turk and Lanky my heart goes bang, bang. They’ll come after me – unless they kill each other first. I’ve been searching for Croc, running the rooftops at night. Looked everywhere. Even went back to the gang’s tomb. Deserted, it was. Serapis only knows where he’s hiding.

  Stop eyeballing me, Apollinos. Here he comes again. Better put my head down. He pads over. His eyes dig into the back of my head. I want out of here, away from his beady glare.

  My wrist’s killing me. Let’s wiggle my fingers, clench and stretch. No difference. Ain’t natural, holding a pen for so long. Curse this pen for not doing what I want.

  ‘Unless you relax your grip, you won’t achieve a smooth stroke.’

  Why, in Hades, do all the alphas have to be exactly the same size, with the same shaped loop and tail? Tyrant slave. At least I’m keeping my promise to Dad. Look at me now, Dad.

  ‘Line them up flush to the edge. Your deltas are going to walk off the page.’

  How about I itch my head like I’ve got lice? That’ll scare him off. Ain’t no lice left after all the stinky potions I’ve been scrubbed and dunked in.

  Apollinos takes a step back from my desk. It worked.

  ‘Relax your hand. It’s not a knife. Hold it gently, like you’d hold a fish you’ve just caught in Lake Mareotis,’… like the street urchin you are, he wants to add. It’s a dig: only the poor fish.

  His breath stinks: lunch must be rotting in his belly.

  I know that look. Dead jealous of me, ain’t yer, Apollinos? But he’s more secure as Rufius’ slave, than I am as Rufius’ lover. Reckon he loves the old cinaedus.

  ‘Thumb rests against index finger.’

  Nag, nag, nag. Yuk, he’s sprayed gob on me again. I wipe my cheek. Why does he have to spit his sibilants? By Serapis, I know what a sibilant is! I’m getting clever. Maybe I should start exaggerating my s’s? Nah, makes honey-noses sound like snakes, and Apollinos sound like a hissing snob.

  Rufius would say what he thinks. ‘This room’s hot enough without your smelly breath on my neck.’ I mumbled it.

  ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘No.’ Head down. I’m trapped too, Apollinos. What other options I got? It’s the streets, or that snake pit of a church… or forget my promise to Dad and become a brickie’s apprentice like Dera wanted. The thought of Dera makes me sad. I miss him.

  ‘Concentrate!’ Spit sprays the side of my face.

  ‘Curse this pen.’ The reed pen jerks from my grip and smacks the floor beside the carved legs of my desk… the feet are leopard paws. Apollinos bends to pick it up in the automatic way slaves do. So do I. Sunbeams light up his face: he’s cross. I get why. It’s up-side-down: a brainbox like Apollinos picking up a street kid’s pen.

  Let the slaves do the work, dear. Rufius’ words nag me from last night when I’d poured his wine. It was my way to thank him for my new tunic and sandals, but there’s only one way to thank Rufius. Apollinos didn’t like me serving Rufius either.

  Better sit up and look at the page. My writing’s a right mess.

  Take the reins, that’s what they
respect, dear boy. You steal their purpose in life if you do their work.

  ‘Apollinos, stop puffing.’ The snap of my voice surprises both of us. Never spoken to an adult like that before. My thighs and buttocks grip the seat – will he slap me?

  We eyeball each other… if it’s a staring match you want, take a load of these! Hold it. Stretch my eyelids wider… focus on the black dot of his pupils. His lids are a bit stretched. Not slits like the Eastern traders that arrive on the spice boats, but not round like mine. Steady. That’s it. This is more fun than the alphabet.

  With a sigh, his face softens. I won! His eyes roll as if to say, you’re just a kid. That’s more annoying than him looking down his long nose at me like I’m an uneducated pleb.

  A wipe of the cloth and the nib’s clean again. He places the pen in the pot and squeezes it to pull the ink up the shaft. Each movement is exaggerated for my benefit.

  ‘You’re pressing too hard with the nib. The shaft is like a fish. Hold it too tight and it will jump from your grasp, too gently and it will slither away. Try again.’

  He places the pen on the gold tray along with the neat row of nib knives and offers it to me in the humble way he’d offer it to Rufius. Some battles can be won without drawing blood. That’s new to me.

  This ink’s black. Is purple ink more expensive?

  ‘Try filling it yourself this time.’

  Why’s nothing happening when I squeeze? Squeeze harder.

  ‘Gentle, but firm. A fish, remember?’

  ‘Apollinos, ’ow much does ink cost?’

  His eyes narrow. The ink will be locked away tonight. There’s less trust in this house than in the Necropalace.

  ‘Some types cost more than others. The most expensive is Tyrian purple sourced from the purpurea.’

  He reads the question on my face.

  ‘It’s a shellfish. The veins of its neck and jaws secrete a tiny amount of the royal colour. Rare, and in constant demand. I once saw it used by the Head Librarian.’ His eyes are distant as he stares straight ahead of him into his past, as if this was an important moment in his life. ‘It resembled the colour of coagulated bullocks’ blood.’