by Jack Ludlow
They glared at each other for several seconds, the two workers weighing the cost of non-payment against the price that might fall on them if they were caught working as builders. They were officially classed as poor, entitled to free corn, and Balbus shrugged, bent down and picked up his hammer, before making his way back to the ladder. Mellio, following him, whispered urgently.
‘What you doin’?’
Balbus turned and spoke sourly. ‘Can you imagine what that tight-fisted bastard will do if he gets an excuse not to pay us?’
Mellio looked at their employer’s retreating back and shrugged in agreement. Dabo had turned and hurried to the open side of the compound, casting his eyes down the track. It did not take him long to reach the same conclusion as the builders and his heart nearly stopped with fright.
‘Nine years,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Nine years’ land tax. They’ll ruin me.’
He turned and made for the house, calling to his wife. His sons Annius and Rufurius were in the fields, so she would have to deal with this intrusion; after all, officially, he was dead. That made him stop moving and shouting; it was one thing being at home while someone else fought your war but he had never considered that Clodius would actually get himself killed. Silently, standing in the middle of the compound created by his new, half-built villa, he cursed the man; if he was officially dead, then everything around him belonged to Annius, his heir. Dabo fought to bring some order to his thoughts, regarding a son who disliked him nearly as much as he disliked Annius. If the boy ever found out about this he would probably boot him off the property. He could lose everything. Time to come clean. What he had done was illegal, but it was a regular if not a common occurrence, one to which the magistrates could turn a blind eye. As for the taxes, he could slip them a bribe that would be a lot less than he owed, with a grovelling apology for missing the census.
‘There’s no future in being dead,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Time for Dabo to return from Hades to the land of the living.’
Then he remembered he had been calling for his fat and lazy wife and she had yet to respond, so he stormed into the finished part of the house, glad to have someone on whom to take out his anger.
An odd feeling had come over Cholon as he approached the buildings; up till now the farms he had visited had been run-down, with untidy fields, places where he felt the money he offered would be insufficient compensation for the loss of the man needed to work the land. This was different; here was obvious prosperity, and a look around the place, fields well tilled and a full and thriving pigsty, revealed proper husbandry. The house itself was a mess, but that was because it was, as yet, unfinished. It required little imagination to see it as it would be, with a tiled courtyard, facing north, away from the heat of the sun. Did these people really qualify for a bequest from Aulus? The face that greeted him was full of the rural suspicion he had come to expect, a man of perhaps forty years dressed in a long smock, which reached below his knees, with a large straw hat on his head. He could not be the owner, since he looked nothing like the sort of person who would construct a place such as this. Indeed he smelt like a farm labourer who had just completed his most unpleasant task of the day.
Dabo, for his part, was wondering who he was about to greet, there being nothing official about his visitor’s accoutrements – no rods of office – nor the livery of his plainly clad, dust-covered attendants. His nose crinkled as he caught a whiff of the scented water that the man wore, his eyes taking in the braided band that Cholon wore around his head, something in which no true-born Roman would be seen dead, and the voice, with his light pitch, to a ruffian like Dabo, sounded as though it belonged to a girl!
‘I am in search of the relatives of Piscius Dabo.’
Dabo said nothing, trying to make sense of the words. Cholon mistook the look on his screwed-up face as a sign of bucolic stupidity, so he repeated the name slowly, and still lacking an answer, leant forward slightly and proceeded to spell it out letter by letter.
‘I heard you the first time,’ snapped Dabo, stung by the implication that he was an idiot.
His visitor was slightly taken aback, left with a wholly inappropriate and patronising look on his face. Dabo looked beyond Cholon to the four bearers, waiting for instructions to lower their chair.
‘Who’s asking?’
The Greek recovered his dignity, squared his shoulders and spoke sharply. ‘You will first tell me, have I come to the right farm?’
Dabo nodded. ‘You have, but I’ll say no more until you tell me why you’re here and who you are.’
‘Please be so good as to fetch the owner. My business is with him.’
‘I am the owner.’
Cholon blinked, then looked around the area, as though what had been said could not be true. The man was old enough to be a dead legionary’s father, but the century scroll had said that the deceased was the head of the household. His eye caught the two builders, standing idle on the roof, listening to the conversation below, deep suspicion on their faces, so he tried to inject a friendly note into his voice.
‘Then it is you I have come to see.’
Dabo declined to respond; if anything his frown deepened and his voice was now positively hostile. ‘About what?’
Cholon was tempted to rebuke him, even tempted to turn on his heel and forget this prosperous fellow who dressed like a tramp. He did not need the money by the look of the surroundings and his manner was offensive, but it was not his place to interpret the general’s instructions. So he took a deep breath and launched into the familiar litany, one repeated so many times in the last few weeks. But he refused to look this fellow in the eye, instead casting his gaze over his shoulder, to where Mellio and Balbus were eavesdropping.
‘First I must express my regrets at the loss of the head of the household. Be assured that Piscius Dabo did his duty by the Republic and, at Thralaxas, died as honourable a death as any man can hope for. Already in Rome the tale is the stuff of legends. Before the final assault, the general in command, Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, realising that few, if any, of the men he led would survive, bade me carry his wishes to his executors. These were that all the men who died with him should be remembered in his will and their relatives should not suffer by their death. I am here to fulfil that wish.’
‘What does that mean spoken plain?’
‘It means,’ snapped Cholon, ‘that Dabo’s heirs are to benefit from the death in battle of Piscius Dabo. Are you his next of kin?’ Dabo threw back his head and laughed, a reaction which annoyed Cholon even more. After all, the dead deserved respect, so he shouted at the man. ‘Are you related to the legionary, Piscius Dabo?’
Dabo grinned at him, tempted to tell him of his fears of the tax-gatherer. He was firstly relieved because those had evaporated and the second question had only served to increase his humour. ‘I’m related to Piscius Dabo, all right. None closer, friend. You could say we was twins.’
‘I’m wondering if we can stand by and let this pass,’ said Mellio who, like his workmate, had heard every word of the exchange. Both men knew of the bargain struck between Dabo and Clodius, which was common enough knowledge locally.
‘By rights any money should go to Aquila,’ replied Balbus.
He was still musing, wondering if he should intervene, while the well-dressed visitor fetched a scroll from the litter, scanning it, talking all the while, explaining the procedure for the collection of the money. ‘A twin you say? I cannot find any evidence of a twin on the census. Only a son, Annius.’
Dabo spoke quickly and there was a new note of respect, triggered by greed, in his voice. ‘The twin was a joke, sir. Annius is Piscius Dabo’s eldest. He’s out in the fields, working.’
‘Then it is to him that I must speak.’
Dabo was stumped; if he asked Annius for help the boy would do the opposite just to spite him, but he could hardly admit to being hastari legionary Dabo, alive and well. Not only would that pose some danger, but he could kiss goodbye to a
ny coin that was going. At least the task of fetching Annius would give him time to think, so he touched the brim of his straw hat and headed off towards the ribbons of fields that made up his farm.
‘Is it any of our business?’ asked Mellio.
Balbus nodded, his eyes fixed on Dabo’s retreating back. ‘It is that. So if we’re planning to say anything, we best be quick.’
Cholon was not shocked; being Greek he was more inclined to praise Dabo for his good sense rather than take a stiff-necked Roman attitude and berate him. Neither would he report him, it being none of his affair. The only question to be answered was how to get Aulus’s bequest to this boy called Aquila, for he certainly could not countenance going all the way to Sicily to deliver it. The builders were back on the roof, working away, when Dabo came scurrying back into the courtyard with a young boy of about ten, surely too young to be the Annius Dabo listed in the census two years previously, a census that the parent had managed to avoid.
‘Here you are, sir,’ cried the father. ‘This is the younger Dabo.’
‘Is it indeed?’
Dabo, fooled by his visitor’s smile, grinned and came close, wafting the odour of the pigsty in Cholon’s direction. ‘Small for his age, ain’t he, but he’s a good lad.’
‘I’m sure he is.’ Cholon looked at the boy, who immediately avoided his eyes. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
Dabo reacted with exaggerated surprise. ‘Why, Annius!’
‘Let him answer.’ Cholon turned to the boy, pointing at Dabo. ‘Who is this?’
Rufurius, clearly nervous, replied without thinking. ‘My father, sir.’
‘Your father?’
‘What he means is…’
‘It’s perfectly plain what he means. Now boy, what is your father’s name?’
Rufurius was utterly confused, his head turning between Dabo and Cholon, as the Greek favoured him with a look that encouraged him to speak. It was too much for the boy to make up a name on the spur of the moment, even though his father, with a screwed up look on his face, was willing him to do so.
‘Piscius Dabo.’
The paternal hand took him hard round the ear and Rufurius spun away with a painful cry. ‘Idiot!’
Dabo made to go after the boy, but Cholon placed himself between them and put his hand on Dabo’s stinking smock. It was not physical strength that stopped the farmer, more that he had no idea who this man was and it would never do to go belting someone important. Besides, the four litter bearers had started to move towards him, though their master waved his other hand to tell them to remain still.
‘The boy has saved you a flogging, if not something worse. You would do well to remember that.’
Dabo just growled, glaring past Cholon at the cowering Rufurius. ‘I wish I’d exposed you, you little turd, and I curse the day that Clodius found Aquila.’
‘Found?’ asked Cholon. He removed the restraining hand and rubbed his fingertips together, in a vain attempt to rid them of Dabo’s smell.
‘Not that he would’ve found the little bastard, if I hadn’t have filled him full of drink. If anybody deserves a reward, it’s me.’
‘It is not a reward.’
‘It’s money ain’t it?’ Cholon nodded, moving backwards to avoid the spittle that Dabo, in his ire, was spraying around. ‘Same difference. I looked after the boy and his mother for years, an’ took him into my own home when she died. I’m not one to spit on a friend, even if the boy wasn’t his own flesh and blood. Not many can claim to be a foundling twice.’
Cholon did not want to hear any of this; what he wanted was information about this Aquila, then he could leave this farmyard, as well as this stinking peasant. ‘You are not making sense. What is all this about exposure and foundling children?’
‘The boy, Aquila. He was found by Clodius after a night’s drinking, lying a couple of leagues off the road in them woods you can just see from my roof. Only the Gods know where he came from, lazy little sod with grand ideas. Like his father: never done a day’s work in his life.’
Cholon had a moment’s thought, of that night many years before, the Feast of Lupercalia, when he and Aulus had placed a small bundle in some woods far from a main highway, but he dismissed it. Exposure was commonplace and such coincidences were the stuff of plays and comedies, not of real life.
‘My sole concern is that the boy should receive the money due to him. Do you think he will return here?’
‘Never!’ said Rufurius. His father glared at him, but he did not disagree and Cholon turned round to face the boy as he continued. ‘He has relations in Rome, a baker called Demetrius.’
‘Not relations, the boy was never adopted proper,’ growled Dabo. Then his face took on a crafty look. ‘There are Clodius Terentius’s blood children, surely any money should go to them. There’s a sister on the other side of Aprilium.’
‘Did they live with their father?’ Dabo shook his head. ‘Then they do not qualify. The bequest was for dependants. Has this Aquila reached manhood?’
‘No.’
‘Which is?’
Dabo looked at his younger son, as if to confirm, by the difference in their ages, the truth of his reply. ‘Thirteen summers, I suppose.’
‘Then he is the sole dependant and the money is his. I shall leave instructions at the Temple of the Goddess Roma in Aprilium. Should he return here, you must direct him to that place.’
‘And if he don’t come back?’ asked Dabo.
‘I may seek to find this Demetrius Terentius in Rome. More than that I cannot do.’
She was waiting for them in the same place, crouched by the side of the track, staring at the bones laid out before her and since her cart blocked the way, Cholon’s bearers were forced to stop. He walked towards her to see that her finger was stuck in the red earth, where she had drawn the outline of a beaked eagle, wings outstretched as if in flight. The old woman did not look up when Cholon coughed politely and he finally touched her shoulder when she failed to respond. The skinny frame fell to the side, the head falling backwards, and Cholon could see clearly that the black eyes held no life. He looked at the bones, lying in the dust where they had been cast, and the drawn eagle, wondering what message, if any, they contained.
CHAPTER EIGHT
South went Flaccus and his party, past Neopolis, towards Rhegium and an ever hotter sun, with Aquila bringing up the rear of the column, his mouth full of the other people’s dust. Minca was at liberty to run alongside the road, drinking freely from the thin watercourses which traversed the fields that lay on either side of the route. The paved roadway was busy, full of carts and wagons pulled by dull-eyed oxen, and messengers on post-horses galloped by, demanding right of way, as did the occasional official or wealthy traveller in a litter. Flaccus and his men moved in the morning and the late afternoon, resting up from the heat of the noonday sun, both horses and men sleeping in the shade. They stopped in a town for the night if they could, or at the post-houses along the way if the distance demanded it, flea-ridden establishments, with poor food and worse wine. Flaccus was careful now to pay for their needs in advance, so that any further expenses would fall on those doing the ordering. He laid out nothing on the boy, who was obliged to feed off the left-overs of other travellers and bed down in the stable with his dog and the horses.
All Aquila’s attempts to engage Flaccus in conversation failed; the ex-centurion had no desire to talk of his times in the legions, nor of the exploits of Clodius Terentius, who had been at best an innocent, at worst an amiable buffoon who was always short of what he needed to get leave. And he moaned about everything: having to serve in place of Dabo, the seeming indifference of the wife he had left behind, always claiming that she had in her possession something valuable that would more than pay for any leave he took. Flaccus was not a fool, and he had heard every promise and excuse in the book from the men he had led. Clodius would promise the moon to get home, and that Flaccus knew would be the last he saw of him, never mind the money Clodius
had lost to him gambling.
Indeed, every time the boy mentioned the name Flaccus thought of the treasure wagon in that poorly lit clearing and the wealth which, as far as he was concerned, Clodius had lost, of the prophecy he heard that he would die covered in gold and how near that had come to being fulfilled. Why had he tried to steal something so valuable with only someone like Clodius Terentius to help him? The man was born to lose. If Clodius had a spirit that watched over him, it was Egestes, the Goddess of poverty.
Yet even heartless Flaccus occasionally turned his thinking to those he and Clodius had watched die and the manner in which they had been killed; they were, after all, fellow-Romans. The male civilians had been strung up on trees, to be used as targets for arrows and spears, the women and girls had suffered the fate of females in any lost fight, but he had seen the soldiers killed too, one by one, forced to make their way down a line of men who wanted to beat them into pulped submission before the final blow to despatch them. Those thoughts made him even more taciturn, and that was before he even gave any consideration to the men he had left behind at Thralaxas. These were things he wished to forget; they were not memories of which he wanted to be reminded.
Aquila reasoned, when Flaccus growled to be left alone, that the older man was regretting his one moment of weakness. He could not know that every grain of dust in Flaccus’s teeth served as an excuse to curse the luck that had him on this road, with years of toil before him, in the company of a band of cut-throats whose loyalty could never be truly bought, when he had held a fortune in his hands, could not know that the boy’s questions brought that all back. And there were other worries. It was soon obvious that Toger and his mates had access to money, though it was a mystery how they acquired it, for they had had precious little when he had taken them on. Every time the band stopped in a town, and after the men had eaten, Toger would disappear for an hour with a couple of the others, returning with the means to purchase the things he seemed incapable of living without: wine and a woman. His presence on every expedition clearly established that he was an alternative leader for these men, a source for certain of future trouble. Assuming they were indulging in a bit of thieving, Flaccus decided he would need to follow them one night. Not that he would interfere; he wanted these men for the very qualities he suspected they were employing, albeit there was a limit. If they were doing more than thieving, that could put him at risk.