Someone cries, “Watch out!” as Secondini’s still erect body, now spouting blood from its neck, takes a step before shuddering all over and collapsing to the deck where it continues to twitch.
The chief turns to me. His eyes are bloodshot, as if something inside him is constantly burning.
“What do you think of that?”
“What would you like me to think?” I reply, so quickly that he steps back, pretending to be struck. Backing away from Secondini’s puddling blood, I lean over the rail and take several deep breaths of cold sea air. While doing this I look for the gull, which, having delivered my luck and spared my life, is perched on a nearby hump of volcanic rock stained with sea bird droppings. The wind ruffles its neck feathers as it turns to look at me. One blue eye with my gods behind it. This is everything I need for now. This will carry me.
They fire our ship, put us aboard the pirate galley, and take us northeast under oar and sail. In this part of Our Sea there are no islands. The ocean undulates with a latent, fearful power, and without reference points, sailing becomes hypnotic and mind-numbing. With the painfully slow passage of time a wall of clouds on the horizon becomes the Asian mainland with its vast, wooded mountains. Here we turn north and pass beneath palisades of porous gray marble which form the base for walled settlements. Outside the walls women spread gay colored clothing on bushes to dry, and naked boys throw stones at our ship—boys to whom the chief waves and calls in his own language.
At night lamps are lit, and the men bring a snack of roasted chick peas. The chief pours them into his mouth from a gourd held under one arm. When eating, he steers with the tiller between his knees and every so often gives me a burst of Cilician. When I ask him to use Greek—as he did before—he puts his hands between his legs and pretends to play with himself. I tell him he isn’t funny.
After several hours we pull away from the coast and head westward, out to the open sea. Soon torch lights appear in the distance, then the outline of a small island. We sail for the lights, which burn in a tower on high ground near the shoreline. Three horn blasts announce our arrival, and rounding a hook of land we slip into a circular harbor with sheer cliffs to one side and a sand beach on the other. A few small craft are pulled up on the beach, and near them some cooking fires blaze. We drop anchor and wade ashore. The sickening smell of roasting meat nearly overcomes me.
The south wind brings fever. It whistles through the roof slates of my hut and swirls around my head, cursing like a petty god. Chilled and dizzy, I wrap myself in a blanket and open the door to go out. The guard warns me back inside. This is the fat-lipped one who strung up Curio. He tells me that Curio and the others are unhurt and housed in separate quarters, but he doesn’t indicate where.
The only window of this hut looks out over the harbor and the open sea. Smoky gray clouds race across the sky and breakers rock the harbor. The chief and his men are using mules to haul their galleys up on the beach so the storm won’t wreck them. Each ship is propped level with oars. Beyond the harbor mouth the wind flays the iron-colored sea into whitecaps. The sea foams at the mouth.
I lie back down and curl up under my blankets. There’s a nauseous, persistent feeling in my stomach that I’ve done something to cause my own capture. I’ve missed an advantage, spurned a beggar, failed to see signs or recompense the gods. Pigeons, doves, snakes, the look in my horse’s eye, something escaped my focus. This is why the winds betrayed me.
I dream of Servilia. Her voice is hoarse and conspiratorial. She whispers, “You’re different from the others. You’re starting late. You haven’t been born yet. Be patient, and all will come.”
“Patient for what?”
“For the rest of them to fall.”
“But they may never fall in time.”
“Everyone falls, sooner or later.”
“Then I will fall too, like Hector, like Achilles.”
“But not before changing the face of the earth.”
She thinks more of me than I do of myself.
They allow me one attendant, who rubs me down with fresh water and the last of our vinegar. He repeats that Curio and the others are safe, and I reassure him that no more lives will be lost. This is all bluff. When he’s done I turn over on my back. Sunlight leaks through the roof tiles, and I see Secondini’s face circled with fire.
I can trace my presence on this island directly to our civil war, which began when we took control of the Italian peninsula and drew armies from the new provinces. A Tribune named Gracchus proposed that we grant political rights to the new citizens. But conservatives couldn’t bear extending power beyond those who claimed lineage to the original tribes which founded our city.
Rome never gained power through the force of logic. We are a city of blood, of emotion, and our vulnerability to attack has given us inordinate fears of conquest. We protrude into Our Sea like a bone to be gnawed by any dog, and our people see dogs everywhere: thus Romulus killed Remus, and the Optimates cut off Gracchus’s head and threw his body into the Tiber. In my lifetime the same struggle was played out between Marius and Sulla, whose collective blood crimes only worsened the division between Optimates and Populars.
I was fourteen years old when Marius—six times consul—was brought back for a seventh term by his followers. There was no election. He entered the city with a gang of toughs who killed his enemies on the spot. A nod of the old uncle’s head meant your death. Anyone who greeted Marius and received no acknowledgment in return was taken down. Optimates were killed in their homes, which were then looted and given away.
I was buying things in the forum when Marius sent his thugs to purge his enemies from the senate. While leaving a pharmacist’s shop I heard shouts further up the street. A group of senators came toward me, heading for the Temple of Diana with all the speed their pale, failing legs could manage. White muslins flying, and sucking air into their failing lungs, they cried out in panic, knowing their pursuers were stronger, faster, and bent on murder.
They flew past me. I knew all of them. Many had been guests at our house. They were venerable men long past their youth, who once served in the army but now made their way through the world with words, not arms. They were pursued by my uncle’s slaves, thieves and muggers, ex-gladiators, conquered men paid well to do a politician’s bidding. They overtook the old men and hacked them down like corn.
From the pharmacist’s awning I watched as one of the victims fell at my feet. He was a distant cousin named Gnaeus Vibius, who always brought gifts to our house, a fruit basket, bowls and vases of blue Egyptian glass, pottery from Antioch. Vibius invariably argued with my father over Marius. Vibius was an Optimate, and supported Sulla. My father was a secret Popular, but he refused to take sides, after which Vibius would storm out of the house and throw himself into his litter so violently that his bearers nearly dropped him. Then he would visit again, always with his gifts, and the scene would repeat itself.
The chief doesn’t know that I’ve seen my share of death, or that I learned to survive by subterfuge. Not that this inures me. I was so close to Vibius when they cut him down that the sound of the assassin’s sword stuck with me, the way we store away certain odors. A swish like a gust of wind. When Secondini met his fate I was reminded of old Vibius. Neither man had the luck of the gods that day.
In the forum I knelt beside Vibius and turned him over, sweeping the street litter from his garment with the tips of my fingers. His head lifted quite easily and I thought to make him talk, but he uttered only a liquid gurgle. Below a brow furrowed with the burdens of life, his eyes were fixed in the distance, looking past me and watching his soul.
Power costs blood, or money. Our state has plenty of both, but not in the form of a fighting navy. This is why I’m here, and also why I’ll eventually go free. Meanwhile, this interruption to my life must be borne, even if the smile is forced. The little game can be played because I have a premonition—perhaps from a seagull’s eye—that I can take advantage.
They al
low me to take the sun outside the hut, and this gives us a chance to look each other over. This is a rotten-toothed bunch with soiled leggings and unkempt hair flying in every direction. To them I’m just another rich boy, and they boast of having taken plenty like me, using the ransom monies to make war against our state. They don’t consider themselves pirates, but “soldiers” of Mithridates, the Asian king and ally of Sertorius, who executed eighty thousand Roman colonists—including women and children—and then paid his way out of Sulla’s punishment.
This island is their main base of operations, and lies a half-day’s sail from the Asian mainland and its port city of Miletus. The men number less than one hundred, and their fleet consists of three small galleys and a fishing skiff used as a decoy. The mud hut settlement lies on the north end of the harbor, and my dwelling is one of twenty-odd scattered through a thin stand of pine and cypress. Central to the huts are some long tables where the pirates take their meals, or discuss strategy.
A tower at the harbor mouth overlooks the sea lanes, and there’s more prey than these men can handle. Most of the ships are bound for Miletus. Often the men don’t bother to answer the horn blasts from the watch. At best they’ll send a man up to the tower to look over the potential target, and most of the time this is refused, especially now. They assume my ransom will be large, and laziness has set in.
They allow me books, clean parchments, and the writing table. During the day I read, write, or stand at my small window with my elbows on the sill, watching my attendants throwing a leather ball on the beach, or the pirates, who bring their sheepskins outside and sleep on the sand, stretched out in the sun like dogs.
When I try to leave the vicinity of the hut, even to walk the short distance to the water’s edge, the fat-lipped guard stops me with a drawn sword. I’m confined to the space in front, and here I pace and review my instructions to Curio, who will be set free to raise not only the ransom, but whatever ships and men are required to wipe this rat’s nest from the face of the earth.
These are Servilia’s words: Not before changing the face of the earth. I repeat this like a prayer.
Fat Lip tells me the chief is called Cutter because of a lifelong mission of revenge for his severed hand. He beheads the captain of every Italian ship he takes—with the same trick sword stroke.
Such is the power of these men that they conduct their business under our very noses. Cutter returns from Miletus, where Curio has been taken to do his work, and where our governor resides. Cutter now calls me out of the hut. The men gather around, and Cutter tells them that he’s learned about me from the money lenders—all of them from our city.
“We have here a Julian!” exclaims Cutter, walking around me and patting me down like an animal. “And he’s more than a schoolboy heading for Rhodes—which I never believed. He has quite a history, this Roman. Descended from one of the original twenty-six tribes! He’s a nephew of Marius, one of the world’s great butchers and archenemy to Sulla, lately dead, whose butchery was equally unsurpassed. This young man is also son-in-law to the former consul, Cinna, who died as he lived—by the knife.”
He backs off as if my powers repel him. The men applaud his antics and then follow suit, mocking me with salutes and shouts of Imperator! Imperator!
“But wait, there’s more!” cries Cutter, bringing them to silence. “Back in the great city this young lad was high priest, called Flamen Dialis. He walked around the streets in a skull cap, bodyguards in front and behind. His job was to bless the temples. Touch him on pain of death! Of course, Lord, we won’t touch you. We honor the great city’s laws, even here on this island, which is ostensibly yours.
“But this isn’t the end of it. We have quite the prize here. Our ‘priest’ then went to war at Mytilene, and was awarded the Civil Crown for bravery! Our own Mytilene, not two days north of here, destroyed and rebuilt! Of course you always rebuild! But we are privileged to have you! Do you have the actual crown in your baggage? We shall look for it!”
Now the pirates gather closer and I recoil from these unshaven, foul-smelling, damaged men, with teeth and fingers missing, and their women’s jewelry. Some of them try to touch me, as if I’m a curiosity, but this too is in the spirit of mock homage and when Cutter restrains them they feign fright, and then retreat.
I turn my back and return to the hut, but their continued laughter and mockery draw me out again. They want me to play. Mimicking Cutter, I circle their little group, looking them up and down disdainfully.
“So, now you know me.”
“Yes, Lord,” almost in unison.
“You know what you have,” I say. “Not some ordinary citizen, but a man of prominence.”
“That’s clear, Lord.”
“Then treat me accordingly.”
“At your service, Lord.”
“Then gather somewhere else. Your noise disturbs my thoughts.”
They bow low and depart, all except Cutter.
“Lord,” he says. “It’s time we spoke candidly.”
“So this is the ‘how much are you worth’ discussion?”
“Lord, I have an idea.”
“I’m sure.”
“You know how this works.”
“More or less.”
“A young man like you, prominent, but not the most prominent.”
He’s chewing on something, perhaps his own gums, perhaps yesterday’s food.
“I can see that you’re thinking.”
“Your wit is worth something too, Lord. Those close to you value it highly. Suppose you were released without a tongue?”
Every taunt will cost me. But what of that? One makes the best of every situation. And here I see … an investment.
“For a man of your experience this is taking too long. You must have a figure in mind.”
“A figure, yes, Lord. Your life, your freedom, all your teeth, every finger and bone intact, you will live to eat, breed, and tell the tale, all for the reasonable price of ten talents.”
“You must be joking. That’s enough gold coin to fill half a fishing smack.”
“Think of it as a market, with prices fairly set. Only last month a leather merchant from Tarentum brought that much. And he wasn’t even a politician.” He looks down at his golden arm, studying it. “It may shock you, I know. But I assure you, Lord, this doesn’t happen to any man more than once in his life.”
“Probably because he chooses death the second time.”
“Slavery,” he corrects.
I look down at my nails, which need trimming. “Aren’t you just a little off the mark?”
“We don’t bargain, Lord.”
“You may not bargain, but for a man doing business in this part of the world, you’ve no more acumen than one of those African birds who spend all day with their heads in the sand. Ten talents for a Julian?”
“A prominent family, Lord.”
“You still don’t understand. I am the only Julian, married, wife with child, a career as bright as any star.”
“What are you saying, Lord?”
“Why, that you’re slow. Come now, a whole fishing smack is more in line with the handsome young man before you.”
“Twenty talents!”
“Now you’re thinking! I will instruct my man. The sooner he’s released, the sooner we end this business.”
Why do they hate us? Why, despite the logic of our laws, the skill of our engineers, the ability of our people to absorb other societies open mindedly, do men like Cutter align themselves against us? Because they see us not as a people, but a city so placed that it concentrates all the excesses of the known world.
A mule team leaves the stadium hauling a boat load of flesh. The carter’s face is smeared with red and black in imitation of Charon. But while the Charon of myth ferries the dead into Hades, our Charon will haul them to a flyblown pit filled with the refuse of our pleasure. Here one sees maggot-eaten carcasses of all kinds, bulls, bears, leopards, humans—all flesh being one. Whether man or b
east, their faces express the shock of blank outrage. Like a cook’s final touches, Charon’s cargo of new flesh is well-sprinkled with freshly killed men stripped to their breech cloths. These were criminals exposed to the beasts, or professional fighters, their once powerful muscles gone flaccid, men gnawed, scratched, or hacked to death, all of them with bleeding fissures from claws, fangs, or daggers. Coins have been jammed into their teeth to pay our mythical carter’s fee into the underworld. Once at the pit the criminals are tossed aside, but the gladiators are fished out and sold at high prices. Besides a lively trade in their extremities as good luck charms, their hair and blood are ground into powders reputed to cure impotence.
This is the background for my brief courtship with Cornelia, the young girl promised to me under a plan devised by our parents. I marry her, and Cinna appoints me Flamen Dialis, the high priest of the city. The first ligature between the families of Marius and Cinna.
“Marry her,” says my mother. “The priesthood will protect you from the fighting when Sulla gets back. Your uncle and his son will lose anyway. They’re not our blood. The old one is dying, the younger a hothead and not half the general.”
Cornelia walks with me near the stadium, but Charon’s boat of flesh having appeared and repelled both of us, we head for the Tiber, there to discuss the prospect of our marriage. The arrangement attracts me, and so does she. Cornelia’s simplicity exemplifies a virtue too long out of fashion. She wears plain sandals, and no jewelry except tiny earrings and a plain gold bracelet. Fresh daisies have been woven into her long hair.
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