by Jack Ludlow
‘Someone wants this child raised, Clodius. This is a mark to identify him, as well as a sign to tell whoever finds the boy that the person who brings him up is in for a reward when he’s taken back.’
‘That’s gold,’ said Clodius, as he took it off her, fingering the feathers on the wing. He felt the small indentation in the back and turned the object over to examine it. Fulmina was looking at him strangely, trying to see if he was playing the fool, for she had only ever seen one piece of gold in her life, a charm on the wrist of the local praetor’s wife. It had flashed in the sun the day the magistrate crucified the slaves of a rich fellow who had been murdered. Quite an event that; all the women, young and old, had noticed that golden charm, and conversation was made up, for months afterwards, of endless wishful thinking about a life that could include such luxuries.
Clodius, though, had been a soldier, and that was all old sweats talked about. Booty, generally in the form of gold and silver and usually slipping through their fingers by the merest whisker of fate. Fulmina took the eagle back, emulating Clodius in the way that she ran the charm through her fingers. She gave a small gasp, as if she had hurt herself, but quickly recovered as Clodius leant forward to touch it again, his eyes wide with greed and wonder.
‘Perhaps your singing to the gods and asking them for favours hasn’t all been in vain, husband. Perhaps we have come into some good fortune at last.’
‘I wonder how much it’s worth?’
‘What?’
Clodius was so busy looking at the gold he mistook Fulmina’s surprised reaction for a real question. ‘The gold charm. If we sell it, would it provide enough to buy another farm?’
She scowled. ‘Tend that pot before it cracks, you fool!’
Clodius hauled the pot out of the fire. Some of the water spilt on his hand and by its heat he knew that he had got to it just in time, which brought forth a sigh of relief. A pot like this, fired in a charcoal kiln, was worth a bit, a valuable item that they would find impossible to replace. Then he smiled; sell that charm and they could probably afford a dozen pots like this, perhaps even a beaten copper one. He turned to carry the water over to his wife, who had laid the tiny infant on the rough top of the wooden table. The baby kicked with both legs and thrust its arms in the air, pushing against Fulmina’s hands.
‘My,’ cooed Fulmina once more. ‘We have a little fighter here.’
She proceeded to bathe the little fellow, gently removing the dark streaks of dried blood from his body. Now well fed, the tot seemed to be enjoying it, gazing at Fulmina with those steady blue eyes, and gurgling happily.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Clodius demanded.
Fulmina didn’t take her eyes off the child. ‘Think. About what?’
‘About what?’ said Clodius impatiently, feeling that his good fortune in finding the child allowed him a little licence to berate his wife. ‘What have we just been talking about?’ He put out his hand and lifted the eagle so that it lay in his palm. ‘How much is it worth?’
That made Fulmina stop her bathing. She stood up and stretched to her full height. This still left her a good head shorter than her husband. ‘You’re a fool, husband. All you can think of is selling this thing so you can have enough money to carry on with your drinking.’
‘That’s not true. I asked if it was enough to buy a farm.’
‘You drank away one farm, Clodius,’ she sneered. ‘I daresay you could easily manage to drink away another.’ Fulmina reached up and tapped the side of his head. ‘Think for once and try and see past the first flask of wine. Somebody exposed this child in a secret place so he would not be found, but whoever put this charm on him wanted him to live. How many people round these parts could afford to own something like this?’
Clodius shrugged.
‘Not many, husband, and how many of them would have had a child since the sun went down last night?’ She stopped talking, watching the slow look of comprehension cross her husband’s brow. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find that out if we ask around. Then we’ll know.’
‘What happens then?’
‘One thing at a time, husband. Let’s find out who this little fellow is, then we can decide what to do.’ She lifted the charm out of Clodius’s palm. ‘Whoever it is might pay more than the price of this to see him grow up to manhood.’
‘Fourteen years is a long time, Fulmina. Another mouth to feed.’
His wife fixed him with a glacial stare. ‘We can manage it, that is if you stay off the drink and get some kind of work. You made a pig’s ear of raising our brood, let’s see if you can do a better job on this one.’
Clodius knew when he was beaten, knew when it was time to make a tactical withdrawal and his golden rule was always to change the subject. ‘Well, if he’s staying with us, he’ll need a name. What are we going to call him. What about Lupus, since he was born on the feast-night of Lupercalia.’
Fulmina looked down at the charm. The eagle flashed, seeming to be truly in flight. ‘Not Lupus, husband. With a charm shaped like this, what else can we call him but Aquila.’
They asked all over the district. There were often disagreements about exposing children, even those that were deformed, for in a world where a husband’s word was law, it was the father’s sole decision, even if the mother virulently disagreed. In that case the wife would arrange for a particular family to “find” the child and pay for them to raise it. With luck, and a discreet approach, they might find someone willing to pay them for rearing Aquila. At the very least they would elicit a promise of a future reward. Clodius was sent as far afield as he could walk in a day, but there was no evidence of a well-born lady, or the wife of some rich merchant or rancher, giving birth in the district. Travellers and traders on the road could not help either and gradually, as the weeks went by, the search petered out.
By that time Fulmina had begun to have her dreams, all of which featured this foundling child. Clodius was allowed only the barest details of what these portended and even then he was tempted to scoff, but he knew his wife to be a great believer in such things. Then she got together with Drisia, the local soothsayer. Clodius could not stand the woman, a filthy wretch, of uncertain age, who seemed never to wash. To him, being upwind of her was like standing too close to a legionary latrine and since he made no effort to keep this opinion to himself, his distaste was heartily reciprocated. He made a vain attempt to bar her from entering the hut, only to find himself ordered out with scant courtesy, forced to observe proceedings through a crack in the wall.
Drisia made a potion of herbs, mixed with some rough wine. This she rolled around her mouth, with her eyes closed, emitting a low moaning sound. Then she spat it onto the beaten earth of the floor where it formed globules in the dust. Both women leant forward to examine the pattern this created, with Drisia pointing to various shapes. He could see Fulmina nodding, and later, though she refused to tell him what the soothsayer had prophesied, she insisted that the eagle charm had some kind of magical powers to affect the child’s future. To Clodius it was all nonsense; that charm, in his eyes, had power all right; the money it would fetch could change his life.
Drisia came again the next day, employing the whole range of her soothsayer’s art. Bones were cast on the ground, the way they fell carefully inspected; various wild animals and birds were cut open and their entrails examined. Fulmina became totally attached to her little ‘eagle’ and any suggestion that he, or his gold charm would have to go, was met with a furious tirade and the threat of eviction for Clodius himself, this while the burden of the extra mouth to feed forced him to find some proper work. He began to curse the day he had found the boy.
Five leagues to the north the young midwife Marcia had engaged in the same quest. She too could find no information about the baby born on the Feast of Lupercalia; still had no idea of the identity of the strange lady who had given birth that night. Time, as the days lengthened into months, stilled her enquiries, though every year on the Feast of Lupercalia s
he would cast her mind back to that night, wondering about the name of that stern-faced patrician who could look so gentle when his gaze fell upon his young wife. And what about that effeminate Greek, Cholon, the name spat out in one unguarded moment by his master? Which direction did they take, after the slave took her home? When she returned to the villa, looking for clues, it was deserted and devoid of any evidence of their occupancy. Most of all Marcia ached to know where they had ridden to, immediately after the birth. Where did they go to expose the child, a journey that had kept them away until well after dawn broke the following day?
CHAPTER SEVEN
The house of Lucius Falerius Nerva was, once more, full of people. They stood, in groups, around the waterless fountain and burning braziers in the spacious atrium, their conversation setting up a steady buzz as they discussed the events of the previous two days; Tiberius Livonius cut down along with four companions garbed in his robes as a priest of the Cult of Lupercalia. This had led to serious rioting, as the people he represented, the poor and needy, poured out of their slums screaming for retribution, thus giving the patrician party an excuse to respond with their armed retainers, which in turn led to the massacre of Livonius’s adherents. Over three hundred had died as the patricians egged on their supporters to kill their political enemies.
Yet their deaths paled beside the effect of the initial assassination. The murder of a plebeian tribune, a hero to the dispossessed, whose person was held to be inviolate, was a heinous crime. All Rome was agog to know the names of the assailants, though few seemed to doubt that the author of the attack was the owner of this house. An angry crowd, defying the danger of another massacre, as well as the orders of the lictors to disperse, had gathered outside to yell obscenities. Those lictors, whose task it was to maintain civil order, were forced to mount guard at the gate. The noise swelled as the outer door swung open to admit another caller, and the room fell silent as Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus entered. A collective sigh rose from the throats of those with a slim chance of an interview with Lucius, for their prospects were so diminished as to have almost disappeared. Everyone else knew that the mere presence of this man would considerably extend the time they had to wait; Aulus would be admitted to the great man’s study just as soon as the host was appraised of his arrival.
Properly clad in his senatorial toga, with one fold acting as a cowl to cover his head, Aulus took up position on his own, at a point far away from the entrance to the study. Several men bowed in his direction, indicating that many a conversation was open to him. While courteously returning the bows, Aulus held himself aloof. Likewise those clients of Lucius, who would also wish to avail themselves of Aulus’s largesse, he being one of the richest men in Rome, were kept at bay by the look in his eye, which was not one to invite an approach. Lucius’s steward, ushering an elderly knight out of the study, failed to see Aulus and was just about to indicate that another man should proceed through the door when a hurried whisper made him spin round. It was like a scene from a comedy by Plautus. The steward’s hand shot to his mouth in a most unprofessional manner and he rushed into the study to tell his master. Seconds lengthened into a full minute before he returned, which had already heightened the tension, but when the fellow ignored Aulus, and indicated that the original supplicant should go through, the air became charged. For quite some time no one could speak; they just stared at Aulus to see what he would do.
The object of their curiosity did not even flick a black eyebrow; there was no reaction at all to this obvious slight, even though, inwardly, he was troubled. Aulus had come with three objects in mind; to celebrate a birth, to mourn a death and to expunge the dread that what the mob protested outside, that Lucius had been responsible for the assassination of Tiberius Livonius, was true. Ruminating in turn on all three, he stared back at his inquisitive audience as if daring one of them to mention what had just taken place; to state the level of the insult that had just been very publicly delivered. No one did and soon the conversation resumed, if anything louder than before, as the gathering tried to make sense of this unexpected shift in the political wind.
In the jumble of thoughts that coursed through Aulus’s mind the sight of the child he had exposed kept cropping up, unbidden, a bundle of white placed on the cold earth. He had avoided looking at it too closely, staying mounted on a horse suddenly skittish, not wishing to be haunted by the physical image, but all that meant was that he transposed, instead, the infant faces of his own two sons. Much as he tried to concentrate on the forthcoming meeting with Lucius, which was now bound to be difficult, he could not erase the memory of watching Cholon lay down the sleeping infant with a gentility that was at odds with what was intended. On a clear moonlit night the trees had sighed in the gentle wind, as if in sorrow. As he had gazed at the outline of the distant mountains, with the ghostly outline of an extinct volcano, Aulus had felt the chill in the air as the clear sky sucked what little heat the day had produced out of the earth, the chill that would ensure a slow but painless death.
Two more knights and one senator were admitted while Aulus stood waiting. All the while he kept trying to bring his thoughts back to matters at hand, or to the turmoil that had greeted him and his wife as they had entered the city he loved and had fought for; the sight of bodies in the streets; of armed bands passing him with swords already bloody, and a look in their eyes that promised more killing. The notion persisted that by being present he might have been able to prevent this, but the moonlit glade well away from the Via Appia kept intruding. The body would provide food for some predator, so that the little bones would be scattered. He wanted to shake his head, to destroy the image he had then — why was he so shaken by one death when he had participated in so many — but too many eyes were on him, too many people looking for some kind of reaction to what they had observed.
Finally, with his progress followed by the whole room, the steward made his way across the atrium towards the tall, imposing, but solitary figure. His whispered words brought a curt nod and Aulus, head high, looking neither left nor right, made his way towards the study, hearing the steward, behind him, announce that there would be no more business conducted that day. The study was much darker than the atrium, hardly surprising since what he had left was open to both daylight and the elements. Here the light came from a glowing brazier and oil lamps, with the bulk of their effect concentrated on the owner’s desk. It was only then that Aulus realised what was missing; Ragas, the warrior slave he had gifted to this house after his return from Macedonia, a fellow always with Lucius, who knew as well as anyone that, with the position he held, he could be the target of an assassination.
‘Greetings, Lucius Falerius,’ said Aulus.
He reached up to uncover his head as a mark of the genuine respect he felt for this man, but the hand froze in mid-air. Lucius Falerius did not even look up, but just kept on writing, his quill scratching across the rough papyrus and for one of the few times in his adult life, Aulus felt foolish, unsure of what he should do. To uncover his head while being blatantly ignored would be undignified.
‘It’s difficult to know what to do, is it not, Aulus, when you’re unsure who your friends are?’
Lucius still had not looked up, leaving Aulus trying to discern something from the voice; anger, guilt or was it just pique? He and Lucius had fallen out often enough — you could not be friends for thirty years with a man like him and not have the occasional spat, but they had been, in most cases, of short duration. Aulus was always willing to admit when he was at fault, while Lucius was gifted with the wit and words to eventually turn any dispute into an object of mirth. On the rare occasions when Aulus thought about their long attachment he would conclude that, though very different in many ways, they balanced each other, the uncomplicated warrior and the wily politician. This, Aulus knew, because of the way he had been left waiting in the atrium, was different.
Faced with such a welcome, kept waiting like some common supplicant, Aulus was forced to confront an unwelc
ome truth. It was no secret that Lucius had become more acid and less tolerant over the years as the burdens he undertook increased, just as it was known that he was inclined to outbursts which could only be ascribed to jealousy. Some of his comments on the marriage with Claudia, which had been repeated by gossipy tongues, had been far from amusing and Aulus had chided him, before departing for Spain, about the fact that he was prone to treat some of his friends with the same disdain he reserved for his enemies.
As he looked down at the thinning hair on the bowed head, it seemed such an attitude applied to him as well, and for the first time in his life and for all the years he had considered this man a companion, ally and confidant, he was unsure if the words he was about to use were wholly true. ‘I have never had cause to doubt that we were friends, Lucius.’
There was a trace of a growl in the Falerii voice as Lucius responded, which made Aulus really bridle for the first time since he had entered the house. ‘Then you are more fortunate than I!’
‘That is, until now,’ snapped Aulus, his black eyes blazing with anger. ‘No friend of mine has ever seen fit to humiliate me.’
The top of Lucius’s balding head shook slightly, the sheen of his pate catching the light from the nearby lanterns. ‘Again you are fortunate.’ The voice had softened now, to become almost silky, but still Lucius, as he continued, would not look at his guest. ‘A friend of mine did something very like that recently, someone bound to me by a lifetime’s companionship as well as the most solemn of blood oaths. Perhaps humiliation overstates the case somewhat, but this friend saw fit to be absent at a time when any true comrade, who has it in his power to be present, knows that he should be. I refer Aulus, to the birth of my son.’
That stung, for the blood oath they had exchanged as children was a covenant that meant a great deal to a deeply religious man like Aulus. He had known as soon as he heard of the birth and death that an important obligation had been broken, just as he knew that his presence on Italian soil, so close to Rome, must have been known to Lucius. The man had cause to be angry. Suppressing his own annoyance at the way he had been treated, he responded in a deferential tone.