The Last Stoic

by Morgan Wade

  “I’m a Mithraist too comrade,” Patricius continued, “we worship the same god!”

  Nasir scrutinized Patricius. His face was partially obscured and the dusk made his features indistinct. He’s familiar. But he doesn’t look Parthian.

  “I’ve seen your sister, Sura.”

  Nasir grabbed Patricius by his tunic with such force that for a moment Patricius thought of giving up the charade and running. But he was exhilarated by his scheme and did not want to abandon it. If there was one thing Patricius knew, it was rage, and he stoked it now in Nasir like a blacksmith at the bellows.

  “Comrade,” he said quietly and conspiratorially, “She’s been captured by the guardsmen when they were clearing the streets.”

  Nasir cried out, making Patricius nervous he would bring the city guard down upon them.

  “It cannot be true!”

  “Quiet, quiet,” Patricius whispered, “there’s nothing that can be done.”

  “How could you know it is Sura?”

  “A slight girl? A crippled right leg? A flute?”

  Nasir howled.

  “What did they do to her? Where did they take her?”

  “Comrade, please, calm down. You must think of yourself. You mustn’t think of her anymore, put her out of your mind. You will likely never see her again.”

  “She’s my only family. I’m the last one. I swore on the graves of my mother and father that I would protect her until the end of time. I have failed. I deserve to die.”

  Nasir pounded his head against the wall, drawing blood from his temple.

  “Comrade, please!” Patricius grabbed him by the shoulder. “You are still alive. You aren’t finished. You can still do the right thing, for your sister, your mother and father, your ancestors.”

  “How? I have nothing. I am nothing.”

  “You have your pride. You have your anger. That is everything.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Make them pay. Avenge your sister and the rest of your family. Restore your honour.”

  “I would do anything to make it so. But how?”

  “The emperor gives a public address tomorrow on the commons. It is his last farewell before returning to Parthia, to finally put his boot on the necks of our countrymen. If he could be stopped…”

  Patricius paused and allowed Nasir to finish the thought.

  “But what can I do, strangle him with my bare hands? He’ll be surrounded by guardsmen and soldiers. I won’t be able to get within fifty paces.”

  “You are good with a knife, no? All Parthian men are knife throwers and archers are they not?”

  “Unrivalled, of course. But I have no knife!”

  “You can take this one. Keep it, I don’t want it back.”

  Patricius pulled from the belt at his tunic, the sharp, hunting knife he had scavenged from the gear Marcus had left at the roadside with Phoenix, his abandoned horse. He flipped it and presented it shaft first to Nasir. Surprised, Nasir carefully wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife and appraised it, twisting it and turning it, examining the straightness and smoothness of the blade, weighing it and balancing it.

  “What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the script along the spine of the knife.

  “Nothing. Celtic scribblings. I have no idea. I traded for it from a Gaulish merchant at the market.”

  Nasir judged the knife to be a good one.

  “Thank you, you are a true friend. You’ve done me a great favour. May Mithras bless you always. I promise you here, on my life, I will secure this vengeance and return honour to my family and our people.”

  Nasir embraced Patricius and hurried away into the shadows.

  Patricius laughed. It occurred to him that when he first set out to foil Marcus it was because he suspected the Briton of treason. He was convinced that Marcus intended to assassinate the emperor. Now, like an Olympian god, he had directed his pawn toward the same result.

  I don’t love the emperor, he shrugged, why should I? Caracallus hasn’t done me any favours. I don’t much care whether he lives or dies. I want Rome for Romans. An attempt on the emperor’s life would rally the patriots, would return Rome to its former, purer, glory.

  Patricius turned and headed for the Mithraist temple.

  Besides, it is just an attempt. The Parthian won’t hit his mark. In his state? He’s sure to be a good knife thrower. He’s Parthian. But he won’t get close enough. Too many people. It will be impossibly far. Won’t it?

  TWENTY ONE

  There was only the erratic blue emanating from the television.

  Mark slumped uncomfortably on the couch, his feet on the coffee table still in their shoes, his back curved awkwardly against the L of the cushions. Sura dozed fitfully in the next room, in Mark’s bed. It was the first time she’d slept in a proper bed - not cardboard, not blankets, not a cot - in at least three years. She had refused. Mark had insisted.

  Mark could not sleep. He opened another beer and returned to the screen and the newsreader.

  “Tanks continued to roll into the city centre today, flushing out the remnants of opposition forces, encountering only isolated and sporadic fighting. Commanders in the field have been surprised by the low level of resistance they have encountered, concluding that most enemy combatants have simply abandoned their posts and melted into the countryside.”

  Mark’s eyelids drooped.

  “Elsewhere in the city, rioting and looting continued to make conditions difficult. Many significant government buildings have been ransacked, including City Hall, the courthouse, and the National Archives. Looters are making off with just about everything they can carry: computers, appliances and furniture, and even bathroom fixtures.”

  “Sadly,” the news-anchor chirped, “the city’s National Museum, with its estimated one hundred seventy thousand items of cultural and historical importance, has not been spared from the pillaging. Curators, historians, and antiquarians around the world are condemning the ransacking and are demanding that coalition forces protect what they feel is a priceless resource. But with the army stretched, securing the oil-fields, power generating stations, airfields and other transportation routes, it appears that the museum will be left unprotected.”

  His head nodded and snapped back.

  “Pictured here are some of the treasures known to have been housed at the National Museum, at least until today. There’s the famous Warka Vase, dating from around three thousand B.C., and the Warka Head, from about the same time period, thought to be the oldest existing representation of a human face. Both are from the cradle of civilization, from the Uruk empire. There are also later objects, from the Assyrian and Akkadian societies, and also from Parthia. There is a well preserved Parthian flute, called a nai. There are some prized statues from the Roman periods between 200 and 300 AD, including a vandalized bust of the emperor Caracalla. And from the same time period, what you are looking at now, is an extremely rare, early copy of The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It is perhaps one of the first copies of those personal writings of the legendary emperor, the so-called philosopher king. The museum was said to have been in negotiations with the National Museum of Rome about the possibility of repatriating that piece. To discuss the scroll and all of the museum’s holdings we have Dr. Selim Al-Rahdi, a professor of antiquities, on a satellite feed from Damascus. Good evening professor, or perhaps I should say good morning….”

  Mark was asleep.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Outside, Patrick was wide awake.

  He sipped from a soda, sitting on a berm in the front yard of a low rise apartment three doors down from Mark’s own apartment building, concealing himself in the dusk between streetlights. He waited and watched. When the light in Mark’s apartment finally went out, Patrick entered the apartment building, scaled the flight of stairs quietly, and located Mark’s front door. He slipped a note under it that read:

  I’ve received word that Nasir will be at the rally tomorrow.

&nb
sp; Please be there early and talk some sense into him. I think he plans to do something rash.

  Your friend,

  Sebastian

  Patrick hurried away to phone Gus, to let him know what he predicted would occur at the rally the next day.

  TWENTY TWO

  “The friends of our enemies are also our enemies.”

  Caracallus, bedecked in full military gear sat atop a magnificent bay Arabian horse as he addressed the assembled crowd. His conspicuous Gallic cloak, signifying his direct connection to the boisterous, rustic spirit of the ale-swilling common man was flung rakishly over his left shoulder. He spoke with a practiced, countrified twang.

  “Either you stand with Rome or you stand alone!”

  Hundreds of soldiers and officials of the empire flanked Caracallus, including Macrinus, the Prefect of the Guard, the Primus Pilus, the Praefectus Castrorum, dozens of centurions, and many more lower-level officers and soldiers of the most distinguished cohort of the most legendary legion. Thousands of soldiers making up the several legions of the expeditionary force bivouacked at a camp a few miles outside of the city. Citizens crammed themselves in to the central commons, taking a break from their daily routines to catch a glimpse of the emperor and his splendid army, the world’s most advanced and most feared.

  “We will turn every rock, search every cave, bring civilization to every dark corner.”

  Nasir tightened his cowl. He brought the collar up to his nose and thrust his right hand into the folds of his robe, nudging spectators out of the way with his left hand, snaking toward the emperor and his entourage, still one hundred paces away.

  Marcus and Sura stood wedged between a tree and a clutch of rowdy students.

  “We shouldn’t be here Sura. We should go.”

  Marcus recalled the first time he heard Caracallus speak, years ago on Rome’s Via Ardeatina, in the company of the boisterous Germans.

  “Sebastianus has been a good and kind man since we’ve known him, since we’ve arrived. It’s only right that we trust him now.”

  “Yes, but where is he?”

  “I’m sure we’ll find him soon. Or, he’ll find us.”

  Marcus rubbed the back of his neck. Where has Sebastianus been? Why did he leave a note? Why didn’t he just knock?

  The emperor’s oration continued.

  “In five days I will lead an expedition east. We will venture deep into darkest Parthia and we’ll once again make our borders safe, even at the furthest reaches of the Empire. We’ll defeat the Parthians abroad before they attack us at Rome!”

  Nasir marched on, squeezing past onlookers, compressing and darkening, like an ancient star.

  “And, my fellow Romans, we will not fail. We will persevere, and defeat this enemy, and hold this hard-won ground for the realm of the empire.”

  After each pause, the soldiers stamped their feet and hammered their shields. Caracallus waited, grinning.

  “How can we fail, with the greatest army the world has ever seen, and ever will see?”

  Marcus scanned the crowd in all directions, watching for Sebastianus. Instead he saw Nasir, muttering, pacing back and forth, plunging his hand in and out of his tunic.

  “Jupiter.”

  “What? What is it, Marcus?” Sura asked.

  “Nasir. I see him.”

  “Where?”

  “He doesn’t look well.”

  “Call him to us.”

  “He’s too far away.”

  Nasir could move no further forward. He worried that the emperor neared the end of his speech and would soon ride away. The crush was dense and guardsmen were near. He was at about twenty paces. In his youth, he’d hit targets at thirty. He could see the emperor’s head and neck, nothing else. That was enough. Nasir kissed his fingers. He prayed to his ancestors for blessings of a steady hand and true sight. With thin fingers, no longer shaking, he gripped the knife tip.

  Caracallus continued.

  “Before we depart I want to pay a special honour to the soldiers for their service, their courage and their sacrifice. I thank their families, who support them in their vital work. The centurions have contributed mightily to our efforts to secure our borders.”

  Nasir pulled the knife and hurled it. It sliced through the air above the crowd, hilt over blade.

  “Rome is grateful, and so is your emperor.”

  The spinning knife stopped suddenly and brutally, absorbed by the neck of a minor official, a tax administrator, standing on the rostrum seven dignitaries away from the emperor. Another thunderous roar erupted from the ranks of the cheering soldiers. Only those standing next to the bureaucrat noticed he had crumpled to the floor with blood pooling around his head.

  Nasir saw the taxman disappear into the crowd and he heard the oration continue.

  “Our work in these distant lands will be hard. The job of civilizing is hard. Our soldiers will face changing conditions of war, and we will require of them perseverance, sacrifice, and an ability to adapt.”

  Staggering back from the rostrum, Nasir dug his nails hard into his arm, breaking the skin. I am cursed. One chance. Missed. Every halting cadence of the emperor’s speech stabbed at him, underscoring his failure. He wished he still held the knife so he could jam it into his own neck.

  “For their continued sterling service Rome will provide an extra twenty-five thousand sesterces to the Praetorian Guard and to the rest of the soldiers another twenty thousand. May it always be said of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus that he supports the troops.”

  Marcus saw Nasir throw the knife. He saw him backing away, back toward where they stood. Praetorian Guardsmen had descended from the rostrum now and were pushing their way through the knot of people gathered there.

  “Please,” Marcus begged, “we must leave.”

  “Why? What is going on? Call him to us. You see him? Nasir! Nasir!” Sura cried.

  “My fellow countrymen, just as the great Alexander, liberator of civilized men, marched east over five hundred years ago to vanquish a Persian tyrant and brought with him principles of freedom and justice to an oppressed people, we will cross those same Tigris and Euphrates rivers and free the Parthians from the Arabian lions that torment them!”

  Nasir heard his sister’s voice through the emperor’s bellow. He looked up the hill and saw Marcus and Sura standing by the tree.

  “And, like Alexander, history will forever record that Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is a war emperor!”

  “Nasir! It is you!” Sura said when she finally caught sight of him.

  “Dulce bellum inexpertis.”

  “Nasir?”

  Nasir embraced Sura, kissed her on each cheek, and said, “I have failed you Sura. And mother and father. I’ve disgraced our whole family. I’m eternally sorry. Goodbye.”

  He clambered up the trunk of the tree.

  “What in Hades are you doing?” Marcus cried.

  Nasir turned back and looked down at Marcus, Sura and the rest of the crowd.

  “Marcus, are you familiar with Galgacus?”

  Every child growing up in Verulamium heard the stories of the famous Briton general.

  “When I was young and we were awaiting the legions we used to recite his speech. I still remember it.”

  The guardsmen pursuing Nasir now heard and saw him.

  “Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them.”

  “Come Sura, we must leave.” Marcus begged.

  “We can’t leave him!”

  “We must. There is nothing we can do now.”

  Marcus hoisted Sura and handed her the crutch, supporting her from the other side and they hobbled away.

  “Do you suppose that the Romans will be as brave in war as they are licentious in peace?” Nasir continued.

  The Guardsmen arrived and commenced to hurl pieces of cinder i
nto the branches, one of them striking Nasir on the side of his head. He fell heavily from the tree. Two soldiers bound Nasir. The others interrogated onlookers.

  Marcus recognized one of those interviewed: Patricius. He was pointing up the hill, toward the edge of the park, where Marcus and Sura stood.

  “Come Sura, we must run!”

  “I can’t.” Sura wept.

  Marcus thrust his arm around her waist, gripped the belt of her tunic, and led them from the park’s edge and into the thinly treed woods. Sura skipped along painfully, flopping like a rag doll against Marcus’ hip. Two soldiers appeared ahead. Marcus looked behind. Two others entered the woods behind them, Nasir’s bloodied and broken body suspended between them. Marcus and Sura were surrounded.

  “That’s him. That’s your man. He’s the mastermind.”

  Patricius stood next to the guardsmen holding Nasir.

  “Mastermind?” Marcus’ voice was shrill.

  “They all know each other. They were in the plot together.”

  “What plot?”

  Nasir had revived. His arm hung awkwardly from his shoulder. Blood streamed from the gash in the side of his head and spidered across his face.

  “Marcus,” he mouthed, “don’t let them take Sura. Look after her.”

  A third soldier crunched the heavy bronze umbo of his shield against Nasir’s temple, silencing him.

  “So you do in fact know each other?” asked the decanus. “What’s your name?”

  “Marcus of Verulamium. I’m an architect with the Frontinus firm. I came only to hear the emperor’s speech.”

  “We have no evidence to the contrary,” one of the soldiers said to the decanus.

  “There is proof,” Patricius said, “you mustn’t release the mastermind or it could happen again.”

  “What proof?”

  “Bring the knife that killed the tax collector.”

  The decanus studied Patricius, then Marcus, and finally his subordinates. He motioned to one of them to retrieve the weapon.

  As the soldier departed, Gus came into the clearing, from the direction of the crowds in the park.