by J. G. Willem
“That’s because they know too much. Mark my words, better to be that happy idiot over there than me or you.”
Belbus thought about that.
Then he said, “I still want to see her.”
Vipera sighed. “Of course you do.”
She finished her wine and poured herself another from the two pitchers, erring on the side of more wine and less water. She looked at Belbus, then at the cup he was still working on, then back at Belbus. He sensed judgement. Shrank a little.
“What, I’m drinking alone?” she said. “Come on, I thought you gamblers all had iron livers.”
Belbus sighed, tipped his own cup back and set it down empty. She filled it, erring on the side of more water and less wine.
“Much better,” she said, with a smile that revealed creases in her otherwise immaculate visage. “One ought never drink alone.”
She surveyed the young bookie for a long time, then, evidently taking pity on him, jerked her head over the railing.
“Down there,” she said. “In the courtyard.”
Trying to mask his excitement, Belbus limped forward, leaning over the rail to peer down at the lower level. Beneath him, an open-air courtyard lay shaded from the afternoon sun by a great many ferns and trees and hanging plants.
On a bench in amid the lush greenery and the polished marble sat a woman in a plain servant’s dress. She was braiding her long blond hair. The toes of her bare feet were pointed slightly inward. She was looking around the garden at the birds. Just gazing upon her took his breath away.
“Chimera...” he said. He could never help but smile when her name crossed his lips.
“She does not love you, Belbus,” the madam whispered into his ear.
Belbus gave a dismissive wave. “You don’t know that. To you, she’s just a servant. A worker with no mind of her own.”
An amused smile curled the madam’s painted lips. “And you know her so well?”
“I know her better than you.”
“Because of all the deep, meaningful conversations you two have had?”
“Yes,” he said, defiantly. “Besides, what we feel for each other goes beyond words.”
Vipera scoffed. “Now you’re speaking for her.”
Belbus wheeled on the brothel-keeper with his dander up. “Would you listen if she spoke?”
The madam considered it. “Perhaps. But she has not spoken.”
Belbus let it run off his back. “Then I must speak for her. You’ll listen to me. You’ll listen to this.”
He produced a coin pouch from his cloak and jangled the pieces inside. Jangled it right in front of her face.
Vipera brushed the pouch aside, eyes blazing with indignation. “Don’t brandish that paltry sum at me, bookkeeper! You cannot buy her love. It is a fairytale and a fantasy and a fiction that you love. Nothing more. You think that by sweeping in and freeing her from bondage, it will somehow make her see you differently than she does now. You want to play the hero. You think that the girl should fall in love with the hero. You think that, after you’ve braved the dragon, she will go weak at the knees and fall into your arms, and you’ll carry her away to your country farmhouse, far from the evils of the city, where nothing bad will ever touch her again.” She pouted at his naivete. “Ah, if only things were so simple.”
Belbus swallowed, hard. “I am not buying her love.”
“That is precisely what you are doing, or trying to do. And it will take a lot more than that measly copper sack to do it.”
“We’ve settled on a price,” Belbus grumbled. “A good deal more than you’d charge anyone else in this godforsaken city.”
At this, Vipera relaxed. A victorious smile spread across her face.
“I would be a fool not to secure the maximum dowry, now wouldn’t I? Besides, it’s not what she herself is worth as a worker. As a slave, she is unremarkable. It’s what you are willing to pay for her. Because you are not interested in a worker. If you were, you’d hire that happy, simple Spaniard across the hall. That isn’t why you want her. And it is only by my mercy that we landed on the price we did. I fear there isn’t any limit on what you’d pay for her.”
A strange kind of sadness leaked into her eyes then, and through her face, as if she didn’t recognise this breed of mortal. As if he were crippled in some fundamental way that she would heal if only she knew where the break was.
“I am not trying to bleed you dry, Belbus,” said Vipera, with a softness that seemed foreign to her.
The bookie scoffed. “Oh really? You certainly have an inflated idea of how much blood runs in these veins.”
Vipera inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. She paused, jaw tight, biting back what she wanted to say. After a moment, she let the breath out slowly. Patiently.
“I have set the price where it is to deter you.”
He said nothing. Waited.
She continued: “I’ve set the price where it is, at the point which you can just reach, but not so high that it is impossible, not because I am a shrewd businesswoman - although I am - but precisely because I want it to be attainable. I want you to get her, to sacrifice everything for her, to leave this crooked, grimy world behind, to get everything you think you want, so you’ll know that it isn’t the answer. You think you’ll be happy when you get all these things, but you won’t. And it will break you. And because I care about you, Belbus - because I care about you - I would rather the world break you sooner than later. Like I said, the higher you climb, the greater the fall. Past a certain point, it’s fatal.” She drew a breath. “You will not get what you want here. Whatever you’re planning with her, it won’t work. Maybe it will for a while. Maybe you’ll pretend. Maybe you’ll force it. But in the dark of night, when she’s asleep beside you, when all the noise of the city is far away, and you have no one else to answer to but yourself, you’ll know. When you tell her you love her with all your heart and she says it back, you’ll know. You’ll know she doesn’t mean it.”
For a long time thereafter, Belbus stared down into the courtyard with a few loose strands of hair hanging down before his good eye. He was watching her, and he was waiting, and he was thinking. Thinking deeply about what Vipera had said and if it was true and, no, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true, because if it was, his whole reason for being was null and void. All of this was for nothing.
The risk he’d taken roping Leontius into his plan.
The risk he’d taken blackmailing Pistrus.
The boy.
By Jove, the boy.
He could see the child with his waking eyes, thrashing beneath the water. The charioteer holding him down, as still as the marble statue of himself in the foyer.
No, it couldn’t be for nothing. He wouldn’t let it be for nothing.
He would save this poor girl from bondage and they’d run away and live happily ever after, far away from this place. Vipera would see. They would all see.
The madam was watching him. “If you can’t come up with the money soon, Belbus, my hands will be tied. Like I said, as a worker, she is unremarkable. Look at her, braiding her hair on my time. A fine wife she’ll make. She’s worth more to me in the brothel than scrubbing my floors.”
The blood began to drain from Belbus’ face. He twisted that despair into rage and glared at Vipera.
“Your hands aren’t tied. You’re creating an artificial scarcity to force me to act.”
“I’m creating nothing. Time is scarce. You feel it slipping away from you, don’t you, Belbus? Every day, you’re a little older. Every day, those little tablets of yours get less effective, so you need more of them. You’re a handsome man, but not as handsome as you used to be. Not as robust, or virile, and you know it. You could find yourself a woman in the wild, a free woman, but not a woman like Chimera. Not anymore, and not without a lot more money. The days of you being able to tie down a woman like that on looks and charm alone are gone forever, and that you know as well. This is one last, desperate swing at happ
iness. At love. At fatherhood. Already, you know that you won’t be able to play properly with those children. Not with that limp of yours. Not with the pain you suffer daily. But it won’t get better, will it? Better now than never, you say. Better now than later. Maybe never is better. There is more dignity in admitting what you have foregone and living with it, rather than scrambling to salvage what shadow of it you can. You’re like a man dying of thirst who collapses, weeping with happiness, at a desert pool, and some travellers later find him with nothing but sand in his mouth and in his stomach because it was a mirage. It wasn’t real. He dreamed it all up, and it killed him.”
Belbus stood there, seething, breathing through his nose and not meeting her eye. If he looked at her right now, he might do something he’d regret.
“You don’t need to force me to act,” he said, quietly. “I’m acting. You don’t see me acting?”
“I see plenty of acting,” Vipera said, folding her arms.
Belbus took a breath to calm himself. “After the Equirria, I’ll have your money. Every silver denarius.”
“I’d prefer gold.”
“I’m sure you would,” the bookie said, through gritted teeth.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not gambling on the outcome of the Equirria, are you? If you are, I have to say, you’re an even bigger fool than I took you for.”
Belbus bit his tongue. “I don’t bet, Vipera. I never have. It’s only that I have a few outstanding accounts owed to me that will be paid in full after the race.”
Vipera continued to watch him, gauging his countenance. Looking for a tell. Waiting for him to falter. He gave her nothing. Said nothing. Didn’t blink.
“Very well,” she said at last. “You have until the Equirria. After that, I sell young Chimera to the brothel and she starts earning her keep with the sodomites.”
Belbus turned away from her and peered down at Chimera in the garden courtyard. Vipera was trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn’t going to give it to her.
“If you love her so much, Belbus, why don’t you go down and talk to her?”
The bookie felt his mouth run dry. He rubbed his sweating palms on his cloak.
“Fine,” he said. “I will.”
He left Vipera standing there and headed inside for the stairs. A sad smile marked her face; the kind reserved for a child learning to read and not quite able to grasp it. The higher awareness eluding him, taunting him with its absence.
When Belbus was gone from her sight, she peered over the edge, resting her elbows like one might at the circus or the arena, settling in to watch.
*
Chimera was still braiding her hair by the time he got down there. She smiled when she saw him. All around them, sunlight trickled through the leaves, casting shadows and a pleasant shade. A fountain trickled somewhere. Birds chirped and twittered where they nested in the trees. She heard his sandalled feet scuffing the tile before she saw who it was, thinking him at first to be a fellow slave.
“Hello, Chimera,” he said, smiling nervously as he limped over.
She stood, tying off the braid and letting it fall down her back.
“Hello, Belbus. By Jove, what happened to your eye?”
“Oh, nothing. I wasn’t looking where I was going and walked into a man’s elbow.”
“A man’s elbow?”
“Yes, he was getting something off a cart and he wasn’t looking and neither was I. Entirely my fault.”
“Oh. Well, I hope it’ll be alright.”
“I have every confidence that it will. Thank you, though, for your concern.”
It was all very formal. He paused, unsure of what to say next. She waited expectantly.
“Your, um...” He cleared his throat. “Your hair looks beautiful today.”
Chimera blushed. She reached behind her and pulled the braid so it draped over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said, stroking the braid.
Belbus dared a step forward. “I have no idea how you do that.”
She frowned at him, not understanding.
He pointed at the braid. “How you twist your hair up like that.”
Chimera laughed. “It’s called a braid.”
“Well, it’s very impressive.”
She gave a humble nod, then looked for something about Belbus to compliment. Seconds dragged into hours as he felt her eyes crawl over his body. The patch wasn’t helping.
Surely, there’s something, he thought.
“I like your eyes,” she said, then corrected herself: “Sorry. Eye.”
Belbus snuffed a laugh. A bit of a cop-out, but better than silence. “My eye?”
“Yes, it’s very...” She searched it. “Very kind. Very knowledgeable, yet very kind.”
Belbus was surprised by that. No one had ever told him he had kind eyes before. People had told him he was knowledgeable before, but usually in a derogatory way:
“You’re just a regular know-it-all, aren’t you?”
“You’re a clever son of a bitch.”
“Smart ass.”
“I bet you think you’re pretty sharp, don’t you?”
“You’re too smart to be a bookie.”
The last wasn’t necessarily derogatory, but it was derogatory to the line of work he was in; derogatory by association.
It was possible he had a chip on his shoulder about that.
Belbus chanced another step toward Chimera as he pondered it. “Can knowledgeable people not be kind?”
“Well, they can be,” she said. “I just don’t know too many who are.”
“I know someone who is.”
“Who?”
“You.”
She blushed. “I’m not kind. I just don’t have the privilege of being able to be cruel.”
“As in, you can’t afford it?”
“Something like that.”
He smiled. “I’ve never thought of it that way before, but I suppose you’re right. Power doesn’t corrupt, it just...”
“...reveals,” she said, finishing his sentence.
His smile spread into a grin. Hers did too. Then it faltered. He didn’t understand why until she looked up at Vipera watching them from the balcony high above, well out of earshot.
Belbus felt the joy leak out of him, like a bowl with an imperceptible crack in the bottom; not only because her presence tainted their encounter, but because it struck him then that Chimera looked like a younger version of the madam. It was perhaps why he found Vipera so captivating, if also cold and manipulative.
He was surprised when Chimera stepped in closer to him. At first, she was looking down. Shy, perhaps. Worried. Then she lifted her gaze to meet his. Her eyes were the brightest blue, like clear pools of water in a desert oasis. For a moment, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Have you spoken to my mistress?” she said, a quiet urgency in her voice.
He nodded. “I have. Everything is going according to plan.”
Chimera breathed a visible sigh of relief. She reached out and took his hand. He held it tightly. Took her other hand.
“Once the race is finished, you’ll be free of this place forever. You’ll never have to answer to anyone ever again.”
He saw the words buoy her up and make her eyes well.
She swallowed. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you...”
“I don’t want you to repay me. That’s not why I’m doing this.”
“You know I love you, don’t you?”
Belbus felt his heart rise into his throat. “And I love you.”
“Oh, let’s run away from here. Far away.” The words turned her lips into a smile with their passing. “Let’s leave this city behind and never return.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
With the birds chirping and tweeting all around them and the water trickling and the sunlight filtering down through the leaves, he felt as if he’d stepped into a fairytale.
“We can go anywhere,” she said, mind
reeling with the possibilities. “We can go to Africa.”
“It’s very hot in Africa.”
“Well, then, we can go to Arabia.”
“It’s very hot there too.”
“How about Britannia?”
“Very cold in Britannia. Lots of fog and drizzling rain.”
She laughed. “What of Germania, then?”
“It snows in Germania.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’ve never seen snow!”
“In that case, perhaps northern Italy will suffice. I’m not sure how we’d go living amongst the barbarians.”
“Anywhere!” she said. “Anywhere but Rome. Take me away from this dreadful place and we can start again. Start over.”
Belbus looked around at the picturesque courtyard. “This isn’t so bad.”
“It’s because you’re here.”
“I was going to say the same thing about you.”
She beamed at him. “Then it doesn’t matter where we go. Wherever we go, it will be good.”
“Wherever we go.”
“And we can do anything we want?”
“We’ll have enough money, yes.”
“And we can be anyone we want?”
Chimera’s words struck his heart like the cord on a harp plucked just so, at the right moment, with the right force, to send a tingling across the skin and through the chest.
“A clean slate,” he said. “You can be anyone you want, and I can be anyone I want.”
“And we will be together?”
“Of course we’ll be together.”
“And we will get married,” she said, laughing. “And have babies.”
“Lots of babies.”
“And we’ll raise them far away from here, in the country where nothing is wrong and the world is good. And our children will never know misery or pain.”
Belbus smiled for his future children. What a life they would have. Their mother was young and vibrant and full of joy. She reminded him of being young, of feeling joy. He could feel the hope running through her. Through her hands. Her eyes were wide and shining and there was a wildness in them. A caged wildness, but very clearly there, waiting to be set free. They reminded him of a time when he could afford not to care, when he had not yet squandered his freedom. A time when he still had time.