A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  It hit me like a thunderbolt. Anywhere I wanted to go; my own floating sedan chair, door to door. It was the most wonderful offer, and I hadn't got a clue.

  After all, where the hell would someone like me want to go? Wherever I end up, any place on earth, when I get there I'd still be me, so where in the gods' names is the point?

  ' Athens ,' I said. 'I think I'd like to go home, please.'

  SEVENTEEN

  So there I was— Actually, I was fast asleep when we got there. I hadn't been able to sleep the previous night, because we'd anchored off Salamis when it got too dark to sail, and I could feel home in my bones like the itch you're supposed to be able to feel in an amputated toe. Finally I dropped off just before dawn, and was still sleeping like a kiddie when the ship made Eleusis Bay, which was where I'd asked them to drop me off— not Piraeus, because I didn't want to go to the city, I wanted to go home; to Phyle, and our crummy little village, with the dogs fast asleep in the thick road dust at midday Well, the nearest spot on the coast to Phyle where you can put in a ship is Eleusis; four hours' walk and you're there.

  Whether it was a practical joke or they just couldn't bear the thought of disturbing me, they carried me off the ship, still snoring blithely, and propped me up against the trunk of a small fig tree, so I wouldn't burn in the sun. Next to me they put a new pair of boots, a purse with thirty denarii in it, a skin of good wine mixed two to one, and a little wicker basket of bread, cheese and olives, and then they must've got back on their ship and sailed away, back to Scheria or off to look for the gold or whatever. I never saw or heard of them again, never mentioned them to anybody It's like they were a dream, except most dreams don't carry you halfway across the world for free, and give you money while you're asleep.

  So I opened my eyes, and instead of seeing the mast and sailors fooling about with ropes and buckets, and the sea bobbing up and down in the background, I saw the incredibly familiar shape of the north-east Attic mountains, looming up in the distance on the far side of the plain, with the Cephisus sparkling in the sun in the foreground. I was stunned. It was all still there, exactly how I remembered it. They hadn't dug up Mount Parnes while I'd been gone, or built a new city on the plain, or flooded the whole thing to make an artificial lake for rearing table swans.

  Well, I said to myself as I stood up and yawned (pins and needles in both feet; nothing's ever bloody perfect), here I am, then; what in God's name possessed me to want to come back here? Offhand, I couldn't think of a reason; seemed like a good idea at the time, or something of the sort.

  Then I remembered something fairly important, and felt my waist. It was still there: a bloody fortune in gold and jewels, wrapped up in bits of old rag, my salvation, my future, all my troubles over. Just to make absolutely sure, I untwisted the rag just a wee bit and peeked down. There it was, gold, glinting between the coils of cloth like a pretty girl winking. Yes! I thought. Just for once, I've walked away from the game and taken something with me. True, I'd managed to lose everything else, my brother, my best friend who'd been just like a brother, twenty-four years of my life, and the few bits of me that'd been decent and good; but on the other hand, I had a fucking great big gold belt with gemstones the size of camels' balls. It was a better deal than I'd ever managed to strike before. Was I complaining? Well, what do you think?

  I shuffled my feet a bit till they stopped hurting, and said to myself, Well, it's no good hanging around here, time I was on my way I felt like I had an appointment up there on the hill, and if I didn't get a move on I was going to be late, and the opportunity would slither by So I picked up my feet, and off I went.

  It's not in my nature to complain, as you know, but those Attic hills are steep.

  Trust my shit—for-brains ancestors to settle in Phyle, right up in the mountains. If my old mother was to be believed, we'd once been rich noblemen, with estates all over Attica, but time and inheritance and bad luck and lawsuits had all taken their toll, until all we had left was the one poxy little bit of dirt; and we couldn't have clung on to the land in the Mesogaia or the Paralia, or the nice fat, flat stuff in Acharnae. Oh no, it had to be bloody Phyle, the roof of the world.

  But I had a new pair of boots, I was rested after my luxury boat ride, well fed, Roman money in my purse. There are worse things than walking uphill hour after hour after hour on a searingly hot day. And I was going home.

  If you remember (no reason why you should) Callistus and I left home when Grandad died. My cousin Therion got the farm, my cousin Plutus got the inn, and we were slung out with our inheritance, which you could fit in a scent bottle without taking the scent out. I'd never exactly got along with Therion and Plutus, the way rats don't get on with ferrets; the chances of them running out to greet me and killing the best goat for a celebration dinner were as thin as a day-labourer's dog. But so what? The point about an inn is, they're obliged to feed and shelter you so long as you've got the money to pay, and I'd be lying if told you I wasn't looking forward to seeing the expression on Plutus' ugly face when I plonked down a silver denarius on the table and said, Sorry, I haven't got anything smaller. Petty, I know, but I'm a petty sort of guy What I was going to do after that — hadn't though that far, to be honest. Sooner or later, I was going to have to take my courage in both hands (assuming I could find it again after so long) and go into the city, find a goldsmith who didn't ask irrelevant questions and turn my wonderful belt into clinking money Once I'd done that, I supposed I'd take my time, look around for some land to buy, build a house, hire or buy some workers, settle down, make a start on my life (twenty-four years late, but better late than never); and then I'd really have come home, I'd finally be free and clear, and all my troubles would at last be over.

  I trudged up the last mile of the road thinking, well, one thing for sure, I'm not going to buy any land that's up a fucking hill, and while my mind was elsewhere, suddenly I arrived. There it was, my home village. It'd sort of snuck up on me, and pounced.

  Years ago, Lucius Domitius and me, we were stranded in some ghastly garrison town out in Asia, and because there was absolutely nothing else to do, we wandered along to the old Greek theatre to watch a bunch of local actors putting on a play It was one of the classics — that means the writer's been dead for centuries, so he doesn't want paying — The Bad-tempered Man, by Menander. It was billed as a comedy, though I've seen funnier hunger riots. The point is, I'd just snuggled myself down on a hired cushion and was peeling an apple when this bloke came on in a mask and said the first line of the play, which happens to be:

  Imagine this place is Phyle, in Attica —

  I remember, I jumped so much I cut my thumb with the paring knife. Bloody nerve, I said to myself If I'm going to pay three copper pennies to imagine I'm some place, it sure as hell wouldn't be Phyle. It's not a lovely place. In fact, it's a dump. Now it's perfectly true to say, I grew up there, of all people I should have known it was a dump, so what was I cribbing about? But somehow after everything I'd been through, all my horrible adventures, crowned by my amazing run of inexplicable, amazing good luck, I'd been expecting it to be different; let's face it, better. Not sure how better; burned to the ground and grown over with bindweed would've done. But it was just how it'd been when I left it, and for some reason I felt that wasn't good enough, as if I'd come home after a hard day and the dirty dishes from breakfast had still been on the table. Still. I was here, the place I'd chosen out of the whole world. I walked down the street, and there it was, inevitably, exactly the same. Our inn. One long stone building, rounded at the far end, flat roof, crumbling plaster; stables at right angles to the square end, across a scruffy-looking yard. It'd been there since Theseus was a kid, and nobody'd got around to giving it a name. There was the gate, probably the same bit of mouldy old string holding it on to the post as when I'd left; there was the mounting block, half crumbled away, with weeds growing up though the cracks. There was the well, and the staked-off rectangle of gravel we tried to grow beans in, and right next to th
e back door, the midden — maybe a tad taller and nastier-smelling than it'd been in my day, but you can't really call that progress. And there— I blinked. It couldn't be. Dogs live — what, fifteen years, if they're really lucky? I never heard of a dog living to be twenty-four. But just before I left home, the old thee-legged bitch had had puppies, and one of them, scrawny little thing with four black socks and one ear bigger than the other, had this disgusting habit of sprawling all over the side of the shitheap during the day, then treading muck all through the house at night. Speedy, we called him, because if you tried to catch him to give him a dip in the rain butt, he'd be off like a shot from a catapult. And there on the side of the midden was this incredibly old, blind, decrepit excuse for a dog, with four black socks and one ear bigger than the other.

  'Speedy?' I said.

  He lifted his head, and barked feebly For some unfathomable reason, I was in floods of tears. I sort of stumbled across the yard, and reached out my hand to pat his head. He bit me.

  Yes, I thought. I'm home.

  Nothing for it but to knock at the door, so that's what I did. No reply; the dog growled uneasily, but no voices or footsteps. So I knocked again, louder; I didn't call out, just in case Plutus recognised my voice. I wanted to give him a surprise.

  Well, I was standing there thinking it had all gone wrong, nobody was at home, when I heard rushing footsteps behind me, and there was this short round man with a shiny bald head. Not Plutus, not even after twenty-four years. 'All right,' he puffed, 'just a moment, hold your water, I'll be there in a tick.

  Just the one night, is it?'

  I looked at him. 'Excuse me,' I said, 'but I'm looking for someone.

  'Oh.' The expression on his face changed, as he reclassified me under 'time-waster'. 'Who'd that be, then?'

  'My cousin Plutus,' I replied. 'He owns this place.'

  The fat man lifted his head. 'Not any more,' he said. 'Sorry to have to tell you, he died.'

  'Oh.' That came as a bigger blow than I'd anticipated. God knows why, since I'd always hated Plutus, possibly even more than I hated Therion. I guess I thought he was cheating, skipping out on me like that and not being there to see my triumphant local-boy-makes-good homecoming.

  Porkchop nodded. 'Must've been, what, ten years since. Fever, there was quite an epidemic. Of course, keeping the inn, he was one of the first to catch it.

  Sorry. I guess you were close.'

  I didn't answer that. 'How long have you been here?' I asked.

  'Me?' He looked surprised that I was interested in him. 'Oh, it must be, what, six or seven years now His brother inherited, you see—'

  'Therion.' I read the look in his eyes. 'He's dead too, isn't he?'

  'Afraid so. Heart, they reckoned.'

  That didn't sound right, or it was news to me that Therion had one. 'I see,' I said.

  'Well,' the fat man went on, 'after he died, which was, I don't know, nine years back; after he passed over, of course, it went to his aunt.' He stopped, looking awkward. 'Would that be your mother? Sosistrata?'

  'That's her,' I said. 'Her too?'

  'What? Oh, no, she's still alive.' Oh, I thought. 'Anyhow, she got the farm and the inn, but she couldn't make anything of either of 'em, so she sold up, and I bought this place, with my retirement from the army—' He stopped, as it occurred to him that, if I was Mum's son, I should have inherited, not her, which meant his purchase might be invalid. Suddenly he didn't like me any more. Not one bit.

  'Go on,' I said.

  'That's all there is to it, really Mate of mine had the farm, if you can call it that. I had this place.'

  'You aren't from round here,' I said.

  'Too right. We're from the city. Did twenty-four years in the army, took the cash instead of land when we came out — wanted to come back to Athens, see, and the land they offered us was some godforsaken swamp on the German border.'

  'Twenty years,' I said. 'It's a long time.' Then an idea hit me, and I added, 'Isn't it?'

  He looked at me again. 'Right,' he said. 'So you're ex-service too, are you?'

  I nodded. 'Pretorians,' I added. I don't know what possessed me to say that, because they only take the biggest, strongest, meanest blokes for the imperial guard; but then, it was practically the truth, since hadn't I just spent ten years guarding the emperor of the Romans?

  'Get on,' he said. 'You too?' Oh fuck, I thought. 'I was in the Guards eight years.

  'Small world,' I said. 'I was in for four. Who were you with before that?'

  'Tenth.'

  'Ah, right. I was with the Twenty-First. Started as quartermaster's clerk, worked my way up to QMS. You?'

  'Mules,' he replied. 'Well, if that doesn't beat bull-wrestling. Was old Lasher still CSM when you were with the squad?'

  I lifted my head. 'CSM in my time was a bloke called Barbillus. Spaniard, filthy temper.'

  'Barbillus.' He scratched his nose. 'You know, that rings a bell. I'm sure I was billeted with a Spaniard called Barbillus. In fact, I'm positive.'

  'There's a coincidence,' I said; and it was, since I'd just made Barbillus up.

  'Well, who'd have thought it?'

  He didn't hate me quite so much now, though he was still a bit wary of me. 'Odd how things turn out,' he said. 'So,' he went on, 'how long've you been out?'

  'Few months,' I replied. 'I dossed about for a while, but I'm like you, I guess, I always figured on coming home.'

  'Well, it beats getting shunted off to Germany ,' he said. 'So you're back looking for a place, then? Retirement burning a hole in your purse?'

  I nodded. 'Most of it, anyways,' I told him. 'I'll be honest, I've pissed some of it up against the wall, who doesn't? But I've got a tidy bit left, so that's all right.'

  He hesitated; then I suppose he decided that since we were old comrades in arms, followed the dear old eagles together and all that shit, he could probably trust me with the truth. He said: 'Strictly speaking, I suppose, you might have a claim on this place. In law, I mean. Like, if you're the old — if you're Sosistrata's son, by rights this place should've come to you...

  I tried to make it look like the idea had only just hit me. 'Good God, no,' I said. 'Well, maybe in law,' I went on, 'but who gives a shit for all that lawyers' stuff? No, if you paid my mother good money for this place, then as far as I'm concerned it's yours; and if you want to go along to the prefect's office, I'll swear to that, no worries.'

  Poor fool looked at me like they'd cut him down off a cross and said, Sorry, just kidding. 'Oh, we don't want to go bothering with any of that crap, not a couple of old boys like us. So.' He breathed out, a bit ragged. 'You're looking for a place to buy, then?'

  I nodded. 'Well, first things first. Before that, I want a bed for the night and a bite to eat, not to mention a jug or two of half-and-half'

  'Oh, I think we can manage that,' he said, just a shade too cheerfully 'On the house, naturally,' he added, and I sort of got the impression that he didn't say those words all that often; they seemed to hurt his throat coming out, like he was puking up thistles.

  'That's very kind of you,' I said.

  'Least I can do, for an old boy,' he replied, grinning lopsidedly So we went inside; and if anything had changed, I couldn't see what (except that Plutus was dead, and so was Therion; and Callistus too, of course, which left me. And mother too, I reminded myself). My old army buddy, whose name turned out to be Apollodorus, parked me at a table, then went stomping and yelling for food and wine. I'll say this for him, he turned on all the taps for me. Bacon and bean stew with leeks and fresh bread, good domestic wine half-and-half, with honey, oatmeal and grated cheese; he even turfed his old dad out of the second-back loft room so I could sleep there (strange coincidence, since that had been mine and Callistus' when we were kids, and the big ugly damp patch on the wall was exactly like it'd been as far back as I could remember). At any rate, when the sun woke me up the next morning, I was feeling extraordinarily bright and breezy and cheerful. So, first order of busines
s for the day was to change all that. I went down into the yard and found Apollodorus on his way to the stables with a big jar of horses' barley 'I think I'd better go and see my mother,' I said. 'Where can I find her?'

  Speedy the dog, curled up on the dungheap as usual, put his ears back and snarled at me. I could see his point. Still, if the gods had meant us to be happy, they wouldn't have given us family 'Right,' Apollodorus said. 'Turn left out of here, down the street about two hundred yards till you come to an old house with a double door—'

  I nodded. 'You mean Telecleides' place?'

  'Of course, I forgot, you were raised here. Yes, that's the one; only, the old boy who used to live there—'

  He didn't have to say any more. Pity. I'd liked Telecleides. 'Joined the majority?' I said.

  'About ten years ago, so I was told. Your mother's got it now; at least, it belongs to the Roman bailiff, but he lets her live there.'

  I frowned. If she'd sold the inn and the farm, how come she was living on grace and favour? But I could ask her that; no need to discuss family stuff with an outsider. 'Thanks,' I said. 'I think I'll wander down there now After that, I've got to walk down to the city—'

  'No you don't,' Apollodorus said. 'You take my mare, she needs the exercise anyhow'

  'Thanks,' I said, a bit taken aback. 'That's very generous of you.'

  He shrugged. 'Why walk when you can ride? Anyway, if you want something to eat or a drink when you get back, give me a shout, don't worry if it's late. Well, obviously I mean, I don't suppose I could tell you anything about running an inn.'

  I thanked him. He said not to mention it. If we'd been any friendlier, we'd have had to get married, if only for the sake of the children.

  Well, you can't put off horrible jobs for ever, so I strolled down to road to Telecleides' old house to see my old mum.