The Raven's Wing

by Frances Watts

  I saw Marcus wince and give his mother an incredulous look, as if to say, What kind of joke is this?

  I risked a glance at Prisca myself and saw that she was glaring at me as if I was deliberately singing badly. Aurelia was staring sternly at her napkin and I knew she was repressing the urge to giggle.

  I sang the rest of the song in a low monotone.

  When I had finished, I saw my audience looking about the garden as if searching for something to say.

  As Prisca began to speak loudly about the warmth of the evening — clearly keen to distract her son from my abysmal performance — Lucius moved to stand beside me. ‘Are you all right, Claudia? Has something happened to upset you?’ he asked me quietly.

  Looking up into his clear eyes, I wished I could tell him the truth. ‘No,’ I lied. ‘I — I just had a bad night. And now I’ve made a terrible fool of myself.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not possible. You looked like a goddess tonight in the lamplight, with your skin glowing like honey and your hair like ebony.’ He reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. ‘Now promise me you’re not upset.’

  I promised, even though his concern had increased my pain rather than lessened it. How could I marry Marcus when …? But I couldn’t let myself think it: whether or not Lucius married Aurelia, I knew it was impossible that he should be my husband. I left the garden as soon as I could and fled for my room.

  For once I was glad of Aballa’s sombre demeanour as she combed out my hair; it fitted my mood exactly. I did not want to talk. Scenes from the evening kept replaying in my mind. Marcus’s scorn, his obvious incredulity that anyone could be so bumbling and charmless as me. From the way he had repeatedly glanced at his mother, it was apparent she had told him about me, that he knew she intended us to marry. And everything — everything — had gone wrong. I could hardly bear to imagine what he might think of me.

  I found out what Marcus thought soon enough. Approaching the atrium through the shadows of the colonnade the next morning, I heard him say in a voice that curled like a sneer, ‘A clumsy, graceless girl from the provinces with a voice like a gull? Really, Mother, that’s the best you could do?’

  ‘Not just any girl from the provinces,’ Prisca rejoined sharply. ‘Gaius’s daughter. And she’s not as bad as all that.’

  My skin prickled with shame.

  ‘Anyway, I’m working at smoothing away the rough edges.’

  Rough edges?! I tripped over a cat, I wanted to scream. It wasn’t my fault.

  ‘You’ll see; by the time I’m done with her she will be a fit wife for the most discerning suitor. Even you, Marcus.’

  But Marcus’s response was direct and final. ‘You’re wasting your time, Mother. Claudia will never be a fit wife for me.’

  I felt sure I was going to melt in a puddle of humiliation, but Prisca just said, ‘Don’t be so quick to reject her. You know that if you want to be a senator, you need more property, and this is the best way to acquire it.’

  So I was to be a stepping stone in Marcus’s rise to power, was I? If he judged me fit to be his wife, that was …

  ‘And another thing: you must treat Gaius with the respect a son would show his father,’ Prisca ordered.

  ‘But he is not my father,’ Marcus said darkly.

  ‘He could be, if only you would treat him as a son should. Look how easily he was won over by Lucius. Think, Marcus, what opportunities you’d have if you were his son and heir.’

  ‘My real father —’

  ‘Your real father would have wished for you to be a good son to Gaius Maximus and take your rightful place in the Senate,’ Prisca interrupted.

  I was starting to understand my stepmother’s difficulties, though I didn’t sympathise. She wanted my father to adopt Marcus, and she was right about the opportunities that would bring. Yet Marcus was determined to thwart her, even at his own cost. Not just arrogant, then, but stupid. Silently, I thanked the gods that he had rejected me. Who’d want to be married to him?

  ‘You know how I feel, Mother — it’s not up to you to arrange my marriage,’ Marcus said.

  Prisca responded, ‘Just give Claudia a chance, that’s all I ask.’

  Her son grunted noncommittally.

  I was able to avoid him for most of the day; he left for the law courts soon after my arrival in the atrium. But as the hours passed I grew less upset and more angry. What had I done to deserve his contempt? So I had tripped and fallen. A good person would have been sympathetic, concerned even, but not Marcus. And if nerves had got the better of me when I sang, who was really to blame? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that he was conceited without cause. So he was good-looking — that didn’t warrant his superior attitude. I was seething as I made my way to the garden for dinner that night. I would never be a fit wife for him, he had said. Ha! I was the daughter of a wealthy senator and who was he? He had it the wrong way around: he was not fit for me.

  I found an ally in my father, who seemed to have as little time for Marcus as I did. Though he was so easy in his affection for Lucius, when he addressed Marcus his manner, though clearly aiming for jovial, was awkward.

  As slaves carried away platters that had been piled high with scallops, cuttlefish and mussels, Father said, ‘So, Marcus, Prisca tells me you’ve been at that place of yours near Veii these last weeks and that’s why we haven’t seen you much lately.’ (Little did Father know he had been hiding there to avoid me.) ‘I hardly know why you bothered studying the law, you spend so little time in the courts and so much in the country.’

  ‘You would have me follow Cicero’s example, would you, sir?’ Marcus responded smoothly, wiping his face with a napkin.

  ‘Eh? Cicero? Why not? He was one of the finest lawyers Rome has ever seen.’

  ‘But wasn’t it Cicero who said: Of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man?’

  My father looked uncomfortable. ‘Did he?’

  ‘He did,’ Marcus affirmed. ‘In On Duties.’ His jaw was shadowed, as if he hadn’t been to the barber for a few days. He looked more like a pirate than a lawyer.

  I couldn’t believe the arrogance of the man. Was he actually mocking my father at his own table?

  ‘What about soldiering?’ I spoke up, with a quick glance at Lucius. ‘Agriculture might be profitable and delightful, but it doesn’t exactly require the kind of courage that has made Rome great. What was it Aristotle said? You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour.’

  ‘Bravo!’ said Lucius, laughing, and my father, looking surprised by my unexpected intervention, agreed. ‘Well said, daughter.’

  Take that, Marcus Aquila, I cheered silently.

  But Marcus responded with disdain. ‘You might think the sword is mightier than the wits,’ he said, shaking his dark head, ‘but Aristotle did say courage was a quality of the mind, you’ll note — he wasn’t referring to brute strength.’

  I had the feeling this was a slight on Lucius and would have argued further, only Sabine interrupted.

  ‘Marcus has won impossible cases in the courts,’ she said earnestly. ‘Ones they said could never be won. You must have heard of them, even in Arretium. He defended a freedman who was charged with murdering his former master — a senator — by proving that it was the man’s brother who did it! People said it reminded them of Cicero’s defence of Sextus Roscius when he was charged with patricide. You mustn’t think my brother lacks courage, Claudia.’

  The subject might have been Marcus, but everyone was staring at me: Aurelia with amusement, Prisca with displeasure, Lucius with interest, my father as if he was trying to remember who I was. The only person who wasn’t looking at me was Marcus, who no doubt considered me too insignificant to argue with.

  ‘Enough, Sabine,’ said her brother, though he gave her a warm smile. ‘Have
some more peaches before Aurelia eats them all.’

  All eyes went from me to the platter of peaches drizzled with honey. While the rest of us had been talking, Aurelia had been devouring them as she did all sweet things. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that Marcus was rescuing me.

  I suspected that when I next saw Prisca I would pay for my criticism of Marcus the night before — which seemed unjust, considering he had started it by being so rude to my father. So I was disappointed to find her and Marcus alone together when I entered the atrium the following morning after breaking my fast.

  Greeting me coldly, she said, ‘You were entirely too bold last night, Claudia. Young ladies should be quiet and modest.’

  To my surprise, Marcus laughed. ‘Is that right, Mother? And isn’t it you who is always scolding Sabine for not engaging in discussion at the table?’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t listen to her, Claudia. What she means is be bold in her interests and quiet against them.’

  Prisca smiled reluctantly. I was interested to see how her son’s teasing broke through her reserve. Both Marcus and Aurelia had a knack with their mother; I felt sorry for Sabine that she didn’t.

  Marcus stood up. ‘I’ve some business in the Forum.’

  ‘Will you be back later?’

  Marcus hesitated, then inclined his head. ‘Yes, I’ll see you for dinner.’

  ‘So what do you think of my twin?’ Aurelia asked me a few mornings later as we soaked together.

  ‘Your —?’ Then I understood. ‘You mean Marcus? The two of you are twins?’ I couldn’t hide my astonishment.

  She laughed at my expression. ‘We’re not all that alike, are we? I got all the smiles and he got all the frowns.’

  Twins, I mused, like Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Raised by a she-wolf — that described Prisca all right, especially where her son was concerned. And Marcus, yes, I could definitely see the wolf in him: he had the snarl for it.

  ‘Is he always so combative?’ I asked. ‘I’m almost too scared to approach the dinner table these days.’ Before Marcus’s arrival I had anticipated the evening meal with pleasure. But when he was present, the dining room became a battlefield, with every meal ending in an argument. It was as if he were determined to antagonise Father.

  ‘Must you bring the spirit of the courtroom to the table, Marcus?’ Father asked once, with a pleading look at Prisca.

  Marcus was unmoved. ‘Haven’t the finest philosophers — Socrates, for example — taught us that debate and dialogue are the ways to learning?’

  ‘Perhaps, but they don’t aid my digestion. And I don’t recall quite so many heated arguments in the dialogues of Socrates,’ my father responded wearily.

  When I reminded Aurelia of this, she laughed. ‘I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but he doesn’t dislike your father; I suspect he only argues with Gaius to annoy Mother. She’s determined to plot and scheme for him when he’d rather do things his own way. It drives her crazy that he insists on being independent! But it’s not just ambition on her part; she truly loves and admires him and wants to help. It’s what mothers do.’

  If my mother was alive, I would hope she’d scheme to find a better husband for me than Marcus Aquila, I thought grimly.

  I thought Father would finally lose his temper one evening when Marcus raised the topic of slavery. Marcus had recently been arguing a case in court on behalf of a physician. A slave had been sent to the market by his master, but on his way had been so badly beaten by a gang of ruffians that he required extensive medical attention. Now the slave’s master was refusing to pay the physician’s bill, arguing that the whole affair had nothing to do with him.

  Somehow the discussion had turned to Crassus, Spartacus and the slave revolt. I remembered learning about this from my tutor back in Arretium. It had happened just over fifty years before, in Capua. The slave Spartacus, who was a gladiator, escaped with some other gladiators from the school where they were being trained. Soon more slaves joined them, until they had an army numbering in the tens of thousands. They defeated every force sent after them, so eventually the Senate gave Marcus Licinius Crassus eight legions to do the job. It still took two years before Spartacus was defeated in battle.

  I had always heard that Spartacus was a dangerous madman, but according to Marcus this was a simplistic view.

  ‘He won many battles against incredible odds; I don’t think anyone could deny that he was a brilliant military tactician. But what interests me is the question of what sparked the rebellion in the first place, and what Spartacus’s true objective was.’

  My father, his eyes blazing, turned on Marcus. ‘His true objective is obvious to anyone with a brain. He pillaged and plundered his way through Italy, and I have no doubt he was intent on destroying Rome herself!’

  ‘There’s only one way to deal with enemies of Rome,’ Lucius chimed in, slashing at the air with his right arm. ‘And that’s with the sword.’

  ‘I’m not defending him,’ Marcus said. ‘And of course if Rome was threatened, Spartacus had to be defeated. I just wonder whether the slaves would have been less inclined to revolt if their conditions had been better. Or did Spartacus have it in mind to sack Rome all along? It’s hard to say without knowing the man. I mean, who was Spartacus really? Before he was a slave, I mean. Where did he live, what were his customs, did he have a family? He was from Thrace, I think, and his wife was enslaved too. Did they have children? Were the children also slaves? How were they treated?’ He seemed to be thinking aloud now.

  I thought of Aballa and wondered what had happened to make her so unhappy. ‘I hope that if I were taken slave, I’d be treated with kindness.’

  ‘You might hope in vain,’ said Marcus, ‘for there’s no law to govern how we use our slaves.’

  ‘Ah, you’re wrong there,’ said my father triumphantly. ‘The Senate has recently passed laws to proscribe the killing of slaves by their masters.’

  ‘It’s a weak law,’ Marcus shot back. ‘Killing is proscribed, but not torture. And that’s practised widely, even in the houses of senators.’

  ‘Are you accusing me?’ my father blustered. ‘Are you suggesting we mistreat slaves here?’

  ‘I’m speaking generally, sir, not of this household,’ said Marcus. ‘Your slaves are treated well enough, but you do deny them the opportunity to advance. Look at Theodotus; he has been a faithful slave first to your cousin and now to you. Surely he’s earned his freedom by now?’

  ‘He’ll be freed in my will,’ Father said.

  ‘In that case, he’d better hope that you die before him.’

  Father’s face was turning red, but before he could reply, Aurelia interrupted.

  ‘If I were a slave, I’d like it to be in Titus Laenas’s household. The work there is not so very onerous. Did you know that he has three slaves in the garden waiting with baskets just to pick flowers? He has one for white flowers, one for yellow and another for red.’

  ‘What if someone should want a pink bouquet?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘Well, they couldn’t have one,’ Aurelia retorted. ‘There’d be no one to pick it.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Poor Titus.’

  And suddenly we were all laughing.

  By this time, the slaves were clearing the final dishes from the table. Goodness knew what they made of the conversation, if they were listening; I felt embarrassed that we had been talking as if they couldn’t hear and didn’t have feelings.

  As he stood up from his couch, my father said, ‘I have paid for my slaves and I own them. They will work as I say and I will treat them how I like. And anyone who resides in my house will respect my customs, which are the customs of Rome.’

  It occurred to me that this was at the bottom of all the disputes between my father and Marcus: Rome. Father thought that Rome was perfect, that the job of Caesar and his Senate was to preserve her in her perfection. Marcus, on the other hand, was always arguing for change. They both wanted the best for Rome, but whose way was right
? It seemed to me that they both were. Suddenly I felt sorry for Prisca, being caught between them.

  What did Lucius think? He mostly echoed the opinions of my father, as a dutiful son should. I had no idea if his opinions ever differed from Father’s. I gazed at him, extending a hand to help Prisca from the couch. The lamplight cast shadows across his face, but his straight white teeth gleamed as he smiled at something Father was saying. His eye caught mine and he lowered one eyelid ever so slightly, not quite a wink but a definite acknowledgement.

  When I looked away to hide my smile, I found that Marcus was watching me, dark eyes brooding. My smile faded. Had he seen Lucius’s not-quite-wink?

  But he was apparently still preoccupied with the evening’s argument. ‘Look at them,’ he muttered to himself too low for the others to hear, though I was sitting near enough to catch his words. ‘They’re so quick to brush off tonight’s discussion as if it were of no importance. They have no idea how precarious their position is. Perhaps as many as a third of Rome’s residents are slaves. What would happen if they were to revolt? And if they did, what would we have for a labour force? The very future of the Roman Empire might rest on how we deal with our slaves.’

  Lying in bed that night, I mused over my relationships with the two slaves who had served me directly, Anthusa and Aballa. I had thought of Anthusa as more of a companion than a slave — but, I saw now, I had not seen her as my equal. I’d only ever imagined her life lived in relation to mine. I would marry and she would come with me to my household, perhaps be a nurse to my children; I had never imagined her having a family, a household, of her own. Had she ever dreamed of it? I had no idea, I realised, ashamed of myself. And I had wanted her to accompany me to Rome, forgetting that she had been born to slaves of my uncle’s household. Alexius was her father, her mother Iole was the cook. As distressed as I had been to leave my aunt and uncle, I hadn’t thought twice about taking her from her parents. Was that why she had sounded so upset when I had suggested she should accompany me — not because she was reluctant to be parted from me, but because I had been suggesting she leave her own parents? I cringed at my selfishness.