by J. G. Willem
“When he wasn’t around to punish you for not doing it?” Belbus offered.
Auribus lifted his eyes to meet the bookie’s. “I’m sorry. To both of you. I didn’t...”
Belbus walked over to him, clapping him on the shoulder. “I don’t speak for Ursa, but the only one responsible for me being in that bull was me.”
Auribus furrowed his brow. Didn’t understand.
“I created this situation,” he said. “I am solely responsible for what was going to happen to me, to Ursa, to Agnina...”
“Hold on a second there, partner,” Ursa said, stepping alongside him. “You can claim responsibility for yourself and for the child, but I decided to come with you every step of the way. There were a lot of times I could have gotten out and I didn’t. That wasn’t your choice. It was mine. And hey, it all worked out. You really did get everything you wanted.” She shook her head and added, “You stubborn ass.”
He smiled at her. She smiled warmly back at him.
Auribus looked down. “I, too, am responsible for what happens to me. For what I do. Following orders is no excuse. I stood there and forced you into an oven...” Then, to Ursa: “...and set the dogs on you. If the news of Pistrus’ death didn’t reach me in time, I would have stood by and watched it happen. It would have caused you unspeakable suffering and haunted me to the end of my days and I knew it and I did it anyway.”
Filled with a deep and profound sorrow, Auribus clenched his hands into fists and relaxed them. He did this several times, like he was kneading something. Finally, he lifted the necklace of ears over his head and dropped it to the ground.
“Let’s just take solace in the fact that the man who put us in this position...” Ursa held up her hands in mock surrender as Belbus glanced at her. “If we were to take a little less responsibility and blame the man who is actually responsible for you almost getting roasted and me almost getting raped... let’s just take solace in the fact that he’s dead, huh?”
Belbus could live with that. So could Auribus.
“Go now,” he said. “Go and live. I will melt this godforsaken creature down so that it is never used again. As for the rapacious appetites of men... I am sorry, miss, there is nothing I can do about that. I fear they will always be with us.”
Ursa gave Belbus a half eye-roll, once again drawing the short end of the stick.
“Where will you go?” said Belbus. “What will you do?”
The centurion thought about it. “I might retire to a nice quiet life in the countryside.”
This time, there were no half-measures with Ursa’s eye-roll; she went all the way. “What is it with you guys and the fucking countryside?”
Belbus smiled and put his arm around Ursa, and together they walked out of the room.
Part IX - All That Glitters...
It was just like he imagined.
The ploughed fields rolled away from his farmhouse, drenched in sunlight. The sky opened wide and blue overhead. He had never seen it so wide, so unmarred by buildings. Beyond his fields, the green countryside rolled, undulating, to the ends of the earth in every direction. Not a soul. Not a sound.
It was perfect.
He sat on a chair under the awning, facing west, watching the sun go down. He carved an apple with a knife and sipped his wine and ate his apple and all was good with the world.
He wondered where Ursa might be and how she might be getting on. He thought about Leontius. He thought about Vipera and Auribus and the life he’d left behind. The wheeling and dealing and the landlady who’d thrown herself at him. That had been a nice surprise.
And yet...
He didn’t miss it. Not a bit.
Out here, he could hear himself think.
Soon, there would be kids running around. In time, they’d help him with the farm-work. Ursa hadn’t been lying about the back-breaking nature of it. His tunic still clung to him from the sweat of the day’s labour. The ox was lowing in his pen, a stone’s throw from where Belbus sat. He was lying on his folded legs, mooing away. It sounded like complaining.
“I hear you, buddy,” Belbus said, yawning. “I hear you.”
They’d ploughed the lower fields today, and between his limp and his eyepatch and the stony soil, it had been a Herculean effort for the both of them.
Belbus wondered if Hercules felt like this at the end of every day.
Despite a good washing, his hands were stained with dirt where the blisters had popped and bled and become calluses. Where the sweat had dried and been sweat through again, his body and his tunic sat stinking. Where he had bent to lift and strain and rise again, his back sang out in pain. He took a sip of wine to make it go away, but it didn’t go away. It stayed. It intensified.
Belbus leaned forward and peered inside to make sure Chimera wasn’t looking. He took an opium tablet from the little pouch around his neck. In a flash, he remembered turning the bag inside out into his mouth. He shuddered. Crushed the pill into his cup to make the memory go away. The pain. He took another sip. This time, it worked.
Immediately, a wave of calm crashed over him. It was like slipping into a warm bath and his body going pleasantly numb. Away went the day and all days before. All wounds healed over. All breaks fused back stronger than when they were broken. He grinned. Knifed a slice of apple into his mouth. Chewed. Watched the sun set.
It was hard work, sure enough, but it was honest work. Real work. Not the scheming and manipulating and flying by the seat of his tunic that he’d known in the city.
In the city, he did what he had to do to get by. He was restrained in so many ways, by so many forces. Here, he could live how he wanted. He had limitless space, infinite opportunity. He had so much freedom that, at times, it was a little unnerving. A little overwhelming.
Still, it beat living in the city, where danger lurked around every corner. Where any meal might be his last. Yes, sir; country life was the life for him.
Chimera came out with a tray of bread and cheese and assorted fruits, and set it on the table by his wine. They’d grown the fruits themselves, right in their own backyard, by the east window. He told himself they tasted better because of it.
Chimera smiled at him as she came out. He smiled at her.
She sat down beside him and they smiled and watched the sun go down.
It was just like he imagined. Well, almost...
There were a few things he’d change here and there, but otherwise...
Otherwise, it was perfect.
It was perfect, wasn’t it?
Yes. Yes, it was. It was perfect. It was perfect. It was perfect. It was perfect.
It was perfect.
“Freedom,” he said to her, not knowing what else to say. “Total freedom. How does it feel?”
“It feels good,” she said. She looked tired too. Her face was drawn. Tight, somehow. Her skin had taken on a chalky quality.
She reached for his wine, but he quickly took it away.
“Get your own,” he joked.
She laughed, but was giving him a strange look. A suspicious look. Gradually, her laugh faded. Then her smile.
Belbus swallowed.
“You said you were cutting down.”
“I am,” he said, defensively. “This is just wine.”
“Then let me have a sip.”
“Get your own.”
She folded her arms. Arched an eyebrow.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Chimera, I’ve been ploughing the fields all day. I’m exhausted. My back’s killing me. Can you cut me some slack? I just want to sit out here and drink my wine and watch the sun set.”
She softened. “Alright, I’m sorry. I didn’t know your back was killing you.”
The farmer’s eyes bulged. “Are you kidding? It’s always killing me...”
Chimera gave him a warning look. “Alright. I just... I’m just worried about you. I don’t like how that stuff makes your eye look.”
“My eye?”
“Yeah, it makes it all
glassy. It’s... inhuman.”
She gave an involuntary shudder.
He felt his nostrils flare. “Jove, now I’m inhuman, am I? First of all, this is just wine...”
“Then give me a sip.”
She met his eye and held it. Wasn’t backing down. He wasn’t either.
This wasn’t like he imagined at all.
It wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t even close.
Belbus drained the rest of the wine to mask the tears welling in his supposedly-glassy good eye. She scoffed at him. He set the wine down. He looked out at the fields. He looked at the ox. He looked around him at the western side of the house. It was a fine house. A house where a man could be happy, if he were able. It occurred to him then that these things would not bring him happiness, he had to bring happiness to them. Even seeing Pistrus’ mangled corpse being dragged from the tracks had brought him no joy, because he brought no joy to it.
Finally, he looked at Chimera. He knew right then that she didn’t love him and never would. He remembered the line from Ecclesiastes that had occurred to him in the brothel-keeper’s house.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow.
He said, “It’s not working, is it?”
She looked away from him as her own eyes filled with tears. He watched them mirror the setting sun. Shimmering.
“It’s not going to work, is it?”
Chimera looked down, then back up at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “I tried.”
He snuffed a laugh. Not a cold or indifferent laugh, but one of surprise. Surprise at hearing it laid bare. Hearing her admit it. Hearing himself admit it.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you, Belbus, I swear. I was...”
“I know.”
“I really thought I loved you. But...”
“But what you were really in love with was freedom.”
He said it as a statement, but she heard it as a question.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s not your fault. Even if you never loved me, I couldn’t fault you for seeing a path to freedom and taking it. Hell, it’s what I did, or what I thought I did.”
“You kidnapped a little girl.”
He nodded, appropriately ashamed. “I know. She’s in a better place now, if that’s any consolation.”
“And the little boy you watched drown? Is he in a better place?”
This one grated on Belbus a little more.
“Presumably,” he said. “Yes. Presumably, he’s in a better place. What did you want me to do, Chimera? The boy was a slave. He was property.”
“Just like me.”
Belbus let out a sharp breath, frustrated but with no argument.
He said, “Bondage to me is better than bondage to Vipera, or to Pistrus. I don’t know which one’s worse, but I know they’re worse than me.”
She laughed, amused by the analogy. “If that’s how you want to define yourself.”
He laughed too. It felt good to laugh, even at himself, because it was an honest laugh, and because - at last - there were no more lies.
“But bondage is still bondage,” he went on, smile fading. He looked at her a long time after that. “Goddamn it, I wish you loved me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, caught off guard by the comment. It struck her momentarily speechless, brought her heart into her throat.
“Do you love me?” she said.
He studied her. Her face. Her eyes.
“I wish I did. I just...” He laughed. A dark, ragged laugh. “I thought this was what I wanted. I thought that if I wanted it enough, and if I got it...” He clenched his hand into a fist, then let it drop, let the fingers go limp. “Doesn’t matter.”
She looked over at him, heart in her throat. He could tell she wanted to say something to make him feel better, but no words came.
“You could by all rights keep me here. I’m a free woman, but I’m still a woman. I leave and you don’t want me to, there’s not a magistrate in all of Italy that’ll say I’m free to roam.”
“I’m aware of that. The thought did cross my mind.”
She smiled through her tears.
He let out a long, steady breath through his nose. “But I’m not cut out to be a jailkeeper.”
They sat there in silence for the better part of five minutes, just watching the sun dip lower and lower in the sky. For the first time ever, he felt like it was counting down to something. Not just that night was approaching, but that the day was almost over. That time was running out and it wasn’t coming back.
Before he even asked the question, he knew it would be the last sunset they watched together.
“Well,” Belbus said, inhaling deeply through his nostrils. “You have your freedom. What do you want to do with it?”
*
She was gone by the time he woke, manumission papers in hand, everything she owned in the world packed into two saddlebags astride an old mule.
Belbus watched her from the doorway. He’d seen her rise but hadn’t spoken. No point dragging it out.
He stood there with a blanket around him against the pre-dawn cold, naked underneath. They’d made love the previous night after going inside. It was the most connected he’d ever felt to her. Laying there afterwards, with her arm across his chest and her leg across his waist, he’d had half a mind to tell her to stay, but knew it was only because she was leaving. It hadn’t been like that before, and it wouldn’t be after. There wouldn’t be the tears and the fierceness and the longing and the heartache. There wouldn’t be the gratitude or the freedom or the fear of the unknown. They wouldn’t lie spent and sheened in sweat and holding each other, crying, because it wouldn’t be the last time.
There would never be another thing like it.
He watched her shrink down the dirt road towards town, then he went inside and sat at the kitchen table. He saw the opium pouch he’d dropped there the previous night on his way to bed.
It stared at him.
He stared at it.
He thought about it.
Really thought about it.
He shouldn’t have been thinking about it but he was thinking about it.
At least he wouldn’t have to swallow them dry this time. This time, he had wine. Lots of wine. He could think of worse ways to go.
The moment passed. He chuckled to himself.
He didn’t have Chimera anymore. She was gone. She was not coming back. He didn’t have her, but he had his farm. He had his money. He had himself. He was alive. He was relatively healthy. He was safe.
That was a good place to start.
He had thought he was at the end of the road, but now he saw that the end of one road was just the beginning of another, and that there were no ends, only junctures. His money wouldn’t keep him warm at night. His money wouldn’t love him. But it was a start. It gave him the luxury of choice; of good choices, not just the best bad one.
Already, he knew it wasn’t Chimera he was grieving, nor was it grief that he nursed in his heart. It was fear, and it was freedom that he feared, because now he was truly free. With much wisdom came much sorrow, yes, but with that sorrow came clarity. Came freedom. With that sorrow died any alibi for why he wasn’t happy. It put the burden back on him, not on some future paradise, because now he knew that paradise couldn’t bear it.
He could.
He could bear the weight of freedom, or let it crush him, and a choice between the two was really no choice at all.
Aware and alone was a damn fine place to start.
*
Belbus was out ploughing the fields when he saw two figures approaching the house. He stopped. The ox stopped with him. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Then he smiled.
He unhitched the plough and guided the ox back up to his pen. Filled the trough. Went inside. Met Ursa and Leontius at the door. They beamed at him. He at them. It was good to see them.
“
Hey, partner,” Ursa said with a smile. “Where’s your better half?”
*
He told them about it over a cup of wine.
Then another cup.
Then another cup.
Then, when all of them were good and drunk and night had fallen and they hadn’t eaten anything since noon, Ursa said, “Fuck her.”
Leontius raised his eyebrows at Belbus. Belbus raised his eyebrows at Leontius. An oil lamp flickered on the table between them.
“That’s right,” Ursa said. “Fuck her. She’s not good enough for my partner. Not good enough by half.”
The ox mooed loudly outside.
“Oh, shut up!” Ursa called.
They all laughed.
Then she got serious, grabbing the farmer’s hand. “We miss you, Belbus.”
Belbus looked at her, then at Leontius.
“It’s true,” he said, taking a sip. “We miss you, pal.”
Ursa’s eyes lit up. “Come back with us!”
Belbus scoffed. “What?”
“Come back with us! What have you got to stay for? Chimera’s gone. You fucking hate it here. Come visit Agnina and Bobarius and Taurinus. They’ve got this nice little place by the gardens. Agnina loves it.”
“She does?”
“Yeah, she does. Come watch Leontius win chariot races and kill people in the arena. It’s great!”
The giant gladiator/chariot racer shrugged modestly. “It passes the time.”
She slapped him playfully on the arm, then remembered something else. “Oh! Oh! Oh! You can visit our house!”
Belbus laughed. “The Achilles’ Heel?”
“It’s almost finished,” Leontius said, proudly. “They’re just putting the finishing touches on the toenails. And it’s all thanks to you, bud.”
He lifted his cup in a toast, truly grateful.
Belbus smiled.
Ursa cleared her throat.
Leontius rolled his eyes. “And you, dear.”
She gave him a big, close-eyed grin of such exaggerated sweetness it almost made Belbus sick.
“And another thing...” Ursa whispered, nudging her old partner in the side like she was about to share a secret. However, she was so drunk and whispering so loudly and slurring her words so much and elbowing Belbus so hard that it didn’t stay a secret for very long.