Roma

by Steven Saylor

  Although she had questioned her father on the subject and listened carefully to his answers, Potitia could not quite understand whether the amulet actually was Fascinus, or contained Fascinus, or only represented Fascinus, in the way that the idols of the Phoenicians were said to represent their gods. Despite her lack of clear understanding, Potitia nonetheless felt very grown-up when she wore the amulet. She was no longer the girl with skinned knees and muddy feet, the child who wandered carefree across the little world of the ruma. Even so, she carried within her a child’s sense of wonder and the sweet nostalgia of having grown up in a world where there was little to fear and much to discover.

  Until very recently, that world had remained unchanged—a place where strangers met in good company and where Potitia might expect to raise her own children with little concern for their safety, allowing them to wander at will, as she had done. But now, all that had changed. The world had become dark and dangerous. Families kept their children always in sight. Even grown men did not dare to wander alone across the ruma.

  The coming of the monster Cacus had changed everything.

  It was Potitia who had seen him first, that day she headed down to the river to wash a basket of clothes. At the sight of him, she screamed, dropped the basket, and fled. The creature ran after her, making a hideous noise that made the hair rise on the back of Potitia’s neck: “Cacus! Cacus!”

  Just when her energy flagged and he might have caught her, the monster gave up the chase. Potitia reached the settlement unharmed. She was convinced that Fascinus, and Fascinus alone, had saved her. All the way back to the village, she ran with one hand at her throat, grasping the amulet tightly, begging for Fascinus’s protection, whispering aloud, “Save me! Save me, Fascinus!” Afterward, trembling with relief, she whispered again to the amulet, giving it her thanks and pledging her devotion. It was a prayer that Potitia uttered, in just such a manner as the Phoenicians would have understood, made not to a nameless numen that inhabited a thing or place, but to a powerful, superhuman entity that possessed the intelligence to understand her words. She had not offered ritual propitiation to a numen, but had prayed directly to a god. In that moment, although Potitia acted with no idea of the significance of what she had done, Fascinus became the first native god to be worshiped in the land of the ruma.

  For a long time, no one but Potitia had seen the monster, and there were those in the settlement, listening to her description of Cacus, who thought that she must have imagined the encounter on the path. Her family, after all, were known for their fanciful beliefs, showing off the amulet they called Fascinus and hinting that their line had sprung from the union of a numen and a woman—as if such a thing were possible!

  Then, little by little, it became evident that some malicious creature was indeed among them. Bits of food went missing, along with small objects that no one had cause to steal. Now and again, objects of value were found broken—a spinning wheel, a clay pot, a toy wagon made of wood—as if some overgrown, immensely strong child smashed them out of spite. The troublemaker struck at night and left no trail; Cacus had grown skillful at covering his tracks.

  The settlers were angry and frightened. Their fear of the monster was compounded by another: that the traders who came to the market would learn about Cacus and be frightened away. If traders stopped coming, the settlers would lose their livelihood, and the settlement might vanish altogether.

  One morning, during the busiest cattle market of the year, everyone in the settlement was awakened by a lowing among the cattle. Outside the pen, a cow was found dead, its body torn open and much of the flesh missing. The cow could not have climbed over the fence, and the gate remained shut. What sort of man could possess the strength to lift a cow up and over the rough-hewn fence, and then to kill the beast and tear it open with his bare hands? A thrill of panic ran through the settlement. Some of the cattle-traders rounded up their herds and drove them homeward at once.

  Armed with knives and spears, hunting in pairs, the settlers combed the Seven Hills. Two of the hunters must have found the monster. Their bodies were eventually discovered on the hill of the osier trees, broken and eviscerated, much as the cow’s body had been.

  It did not take long for word to spread up and down the trails that led to the ruma: The monster that was stalking the trading post had an appetite for human flesh. Traders did not merely stop doing business at the settlement; they made great detours to avoid passing anywhere near it.

  With most of the traders gone and traffic so greatly reduced on the trails, the monster grew even bolder. An infant went missing. Her remains were found only a short distance from the settlement, at the foot of the steep hill on the far side of the Spinon. One of the searchers, looking up to avert his eyes from the horrible sight, glimpsed a movement on the hillside above. From behind a bramble-covered lip of stone, a hideous face peered down for a moment, then disappeared. A moment later, a shower of rocks rained down on the searchers, who fled. Peering up at the hillside from a safe distance, they discerned what appeared to be a cave, its opening obscured by brambles. None of them could see a way to scale the hillside. Even if it could be scaled, none of them could imagine what would await them once they reached the mouth of the cave.

  Back at the settlement, the searchers told what they had discovered. To her horror, Potitia realized that the monster had taken up residence in her secret cave, which was a secret no longer.

  From his hole high up in the side of the hill, Cacus ventured out at night to terrorize the settlement. During the day, he stayed hidden in the cave.

  More than once, the settlers attempted to scale the hillside and attack him in his lair. Bellowing his name, Cacus dropped stones on them. One settler fell and broke his neck. Another was struck in the eye and blinded. Another managed to draw closer to the mouth of the cave than anyone else, but was killed instantly by a stone that struck his forehead. Instead of falling, his limp body became caught on sharp rocks and brambles. No one dared to climb up and retrieve it. There it hung for several days and nights, a horrifying rebuke to those who had sought to destroy the monster. One morning, the body was no longer there. Cacus had claimed it. The man’s bones, picked clean, appeared one by one at the foot of the hill as Cacus tossed them out.

  It was Potitius who suggested that the hillside be set afire. If the flames and smoke did not kill the monster outright, they might at least drive him from his lair. The brambles at the foot of the hill were set on fire. The flames spread upward, heading directly for the cave. Then a wind blew up from the Tiber and drove the flame this way and that. Embers spiraled high in the air, blew across the Spinon, and ignited the thatched roof of a hut. The flames spread from hut to hut. The settlers worked desperately to douse the flames with buckets of water from the river. When the fire at last burned itself out, the face of the hillside was scorched and black, but the cave was untouched and the monster unharmed.

  It was decided that a watch should be set upon the cave, so that, if the monster descended, an alarm could be raised. Men and boys took turns throughout the day and night, training their eyes upon what little could be seen of the mouth of the cave from below.

  One of Potitia’s cousins, a burly, hotheaded youth named Pinarius, boasted to her that he would put an end to Cacus once and for all. Caught up in his enthusiasm, Potitia confessed to her cousin that she had climbed to the cave many times. Scarcely believing her, Pinarius nonetheless accepted her explanation of how it could be done.

  On the afternoon that it was his turn to keep watch on the cave, Pinarius decided to act. The day was hot and the air was heavy with sleep. The rest of the settlers dozed, except for Potitia, who knew of her cousin’s plan and gave him a kiss for luck before he began the climb.

  From above, there came a faint noise that they took to be the sound of the monster snoring. Perhaps it was the buzzing of flies, drawn to the cave by blood and gore. Potitia remembered summer afternoons when she had dozed in the shadowy coolness of the cave. She could
picture the monster asleep in that familiar, beloved place. The image made her shiver, yet it also pierced her with a sadness that she could not explain. For the first time she wondered where the monster came from. Were there others of his kind? Surely a mother had given birth to him. What fate had led him to the ruma, to become the most wretched of all living things?

  Pinarius made the ascent quietly and quickly, but as he drew close to the cave he reached for a handhold that would have taken him in the wrong direction. Watching from below, Potitia corrected his course with a loud whisper.

  The sound that might have been the monster’s snoring abruptly stopped. Potitia felt a shiver of dread.

  Pinarius reached the mouth of the cave. He pulled himself onto the lip of stone, gained his balance, and grinned down at her. He pulled out his knife and showed her the blade, then disappeared into the cave.

  The scream that followed was like nothing she had ever heard, so loud that it woke every sleeper in the village. A rending noise followed, then silence. A few moments later, Pinarius’s head came flying from the hole in the hillside. It landed with a thud in the grass just beyond Potitia, who fell to the ground in a faint. Dazed, with the sun in her eyes and swooning from the heat, she looked up and saw Cacus standing on the lip of stone high above, staring down at her. His hulking, misshapen body was covered with blood and gore. The sound that came from his throat—“Cacus? Cacus?”—had a low, urgent, questioning quality, as if he gazed at a thing which fascinated him, from which he desired a reply.

  “Cacus?” he uttered again, cocking his head and staring down at her.

  Potitia scrambled to her feet. Running blindly, she tripped over the head of Pinarius. She gave a shriek and staggered back to the settlement, weeping.

  The death of Pinarius drove many of the settlers to the limit of their endurance. His father, also named Pinarius, argued that the time had come to abandon the settlement. The monster had inflicted great suffering, and against him they were powerless; but more than this, the arrival of the creature had unleashed a great evil in the land of the ruma. The numina all around them had turned against the settlers. The worst of the misfortunes had been the burning of the huts by treacherous winds and flames, but there had been many other, smaller misfortunes in recent days. The settlers must move on, argued the elder Pinarius. The only questions to be debated were when and to where, and whether they should stay together or go their separate ways.

  “If we leave, cousin, what will keep the monster here?” asked Potitius. “I think he’ll follow us. He’ll stalk us on the trail. Our children will be his prey.”

  “Maybe,” acknowledged Pinarius. “But in the open, away from his cave, we might at least have a chance to kill the thing.”

  Potitius shook his head. “This creature is a far more skillful hunter than any of us. We’d have no chance against him in the wild. One by one, he would take us.”

  “That’s what he’s doing now!” Pinarius wept, grieving for his son.

  The argument was not settled, but it seemed to Potitia that it was only a matter of time until Pinarius would prevail. The ruma had become a place of sadness and despair. Still, it broke her heart to think of leaving the hills of her childhood.

  Then the stranger arrived.

  It was the lowing of oxen that woke Potitia that morning. There had been no oxen in the market for a long time. At first, she thought she must be dreaming of the old days before the coming of Cacus. But as she stirred and rose, the sound of the oxen continued. She hurried from the hut to see what was happening.

  Sure enough, a small herd of oxen was standing in the slanting sunlight in the meadow on the far side of the Spinon, peacefully eating the grass that grew near the foot of the hill where Cacus dwelled. Near the herd, sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree trunk, was the ox-driver. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted to one side; he appeared to be asleep. Even at a glance, and at such a distance, Potitia was quite certain she had never seen him before. For one thing, he was much larger than any other man she had ever seen, except Cacus, if Cacus could be called a man. Unlike Cacus, he was not at all ugly or frightening to look at. Indeed, he was quite the opposite. She found herself crossing the steppingstones that traversed the Spinon and walking toward him.

  “Potitia! What are you doing?” Her father, along with most of the other settlers, had gathered near the empty cattle pen. They were watching the stranger from a safe distance, trying to decide whether he should be approached, and who should do it. Potitia realized that they were afraid of the stranger, but she did not share their fear.

  As she stepped closer, she saw that his mouth was slightly open, and she heard him softly snoring. His hair was long and black. His beard was thick. Everything about him was oversized. His strong, rugged face was a match for his brawny shoulders and arms. Potitia decided that he was by far the most handsome man she had ever seen, even though he looked slightly ridiculous, sitting there snoring.

  Over his shoulders he wore a pelt of some sort, tied across his chest by the animal’s forelegs. The fur was a tawny gold, and the paws were tipped with formidable claws. Potitia realized that it was the pelt of a lion, and she regarded the stranger with even greater curiosity.

  He must have sucked in a flying insect, for suddenly he bolted forward, instantly awake. He made a face and spat convulsively. The group gathered across the stream let out a collective gasp of alarm, but Potitia laughed. To her, the ox-driver looked more ridiculous—and more appealing—than ever.

  He picked a fly from his mouth, gave a shrug, then looked up at her and smiled.

  Potitia sighed. “You can’t stay here.”

  He frowned.

  “Your oxen aren’t safe here,” she explained.

  His gaze was uncomprehending. Could it be that he had not heard of Cacus? He must have come from very far away, she thought. When he spoke, her suspicion was confirmed. She could not understand a word he said.

  A dog that had been lying near the oxen rose to its feet and ambled toward them, wagging its tail. The ox-driver shook his head. He wagged his finger at the dog and said something in a gently chiding tone. Clearly, it was the dog’s job to wake him if anyone approached the oxen while he was sleeping, and the dog had not done its duty.

  The ox-driver stood and stretched his massive arms above his head. He was even taller than Potitia had thought. Craning her neck to look up at him, she felt very small, like a child. Unconsciously, she reached to her throat and touched the gold amulet. The ox-driver gazed at Fascinus for a moment, then looked into her eyes. His gaze stirred certain feelings in her, and Potitia knew that she was not a child any longer but a woman.

  Try as they might, the settlers seemed unable to communicate to the stranger the peril he faced by staying in the meadow so near the cave of Cacus. They pointed, they mimed, they spoke in all the various dialects they had learned from traders. The man did not understand.

  “I’m not sure he has all his wits,” said Potitia’s father.

  “We shall wake tomorrow to find his dead body lying at the foot of the hill,” grumbled Pinarius.

  “What terrible things to say! I think you’re both wrong,” said Potitia. She smiled at the ox-driver, who smiled back.

  Pinarius exchanged a sidelong glance with his cousin and lowered his voice. “On many important things we disagree, Potitius, but I think one thing is evident to us both. Your daughter is smitten by this stranger.”

  “He is impressive,” said Potitius, looking the man up and down. “How do you think he came by that lion’s skin he wears? If Potitia finds him suitable—”

  Pinarius shook his head and spat. “It shall come to grief. Mark my words!”

  The afternoon became sweltering as the midsummer sun beat down upon the ruma. A warm breeze, smelling of mud and decay, rose from the marshes and followed the Spinon down to the Tiber. The droning of cicadas filled the meadow, where the oxen lay dozing in the shade.

  As the settlers believed there were
numina in places and objects, so they also believed that numina informed certain phenomena, such as sleep. Like other numina, those of sleep could be friendly or unfriendly. Sleep could heal the weary and the sick and give comfort to the grieving. Sleep could also render even the strongest man utterly helpless.

  That afternoon, the numina of sleep descended upon the settlement like a hand upon the brow of an infant, shutting the eyes of the settlers whether they wished to close them or not. Men fought to stay awake, and lost the battle without even knowing it.

  The oxen slept. The dog slept. The ox-driver also slept, leaning back against the tree where Potitia had first seen him.

  Potitia did not sleep. She sat in the shade of an oak tree and studied the stranger, wondering what the future might hold for her.

  There was another who did not sleep. With his long arms and immense strength, Cacus had found a way to climb down from the cave that even Potitia did not know about. Brambles kept him hidden at almost every point as he descended. If he exercised great stealth and did not cause a single leaf to tremble or a shard of stone to give way underfoot, his movement down the face of the cliff was very nearly invisible. Even if the boy who had been set to watch the cave that day had not been dozing, Cacus probably would have descended unseen.

  Cacus was not aware of the coming of the stranger, but he had heard the lowing of the oxen. He had not eaten beast-flesh in many days.

  Across the meadow, he caught sight of the oxen. He took no notice of the ox-driver or Potitia. Both were nearby, but both were very still, and obscured by the dappled shade of the trees. He chose the smallest of the oxen and made his way toward it. Not a single twig broke beneath his feet; it was a remarkable thing that a creature so large and ungainly could move so quietly upon the earth. Nonetheless, the ox sensed danger. It swished its tail, rose to its feet, and uttered a low bleat. The beast saw Cacus, took a step back, then froze.