A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  Now if you've been paying close attention, you may have got it into your head that I didn't like my mother terribly much. You'd be right, too. Truth is, we'd never got on, not since I can remember. I'd never quite been sure why she didn't seem to like me very much. Now, that'd have been understandable if it was just me. But it wasn't. She never seemed to like Callistus much, either, and how anybody could not like him, I could never figure out. He was the original model child — good, obedient, clever, good-looking, you name it — but she was always yelling it him, same as at me, only in his case he never did anything to deserve it. Nothing either of us did was ever right, and a lot of the time she'd just look at us like we gave her a pain. Well, sixteen years of that sort of thing, and are you surprised I wasn't looking forward to seeing her again? Also, she always did like a drink or twelve, and working in an inn, there was always spare booze around, though generally not for long when she was about. One of my earliest memories is Mum in the common room, going round gathering up the winecups and swilling down the last knockings and the dregs before stacking them in the tub. I'd often wondered how she got that way, and over the years I'd explored every possible explanation, from a tragic experience when she was a girl down to liking the way the stuff tastes. Of course, I never asked her, never said anything, in fact, simply did my best to keep out of her way, drunk or sober. Well, that's as may be. They say there are Furies whose job it is to punish people who don't do right by their mothers, and if it's true, I guess that'd explain a lot about the way my life's been. But even a Fury would have to be pretty hard-hearted, or worried about losing her job, to punish me for my bad attitude. Still, I suppose that's the way Furies are, meaner than a bailiff's dog and as keen on rules as a tax collector.

  So I stepped up to the door and knocked. No answer. Could be she was out, could be she was pissed out of her head and sleeping it off face down on the floor like when we were kids, or maybe she'd died last week, and nobody'd noticed. I knocked again, and secretly I was hoping the door would stay shut. If I could say I'd tried, it'd keep the Furies off my back, and I wouldn't have to see her.

  So there I was, stood out in the road like a kid serenading his girl, when someone walked past me, stopped dead, turned round and stared at me; an old boy under a huge wide-brimmed leather hat that made him look like a giant field mushroom.

  'Galen?' he said. 'Is that you?'

  I'm good at voices. 'Hello, Mnesicrates,' I replied.

  'Galen?' I'd known him all my life, on and off, not close, he wasn't family or anything.

  Once when I was about thirteen he'd caught me stealing figs off his tree and chased me halfway to Thebes before he put his foot down a pothole and twisted his ankle. 'Well, bugger me,' he said. 'Didn't think we'd ever see you again.'

  He came back down the road towards me. When I saw his face under that daft hat, I was shocked. He'd turned old since I last saw him, his eyes had sunk back into his head, his cheeks had caved in and his skin seemed to have grown too big for his face. 'Well, here I am,' I said stupidly 'So, how've you been keeping?'

  He stared at me. 'What? Oh, not so bad. Leastways, my wife died, about ten years ago, my son Polycharmus — you remember him, you had a real nasty fight with him once, over some girl—'

  I grinned. 'If you can call it a fight,' I said. 'More like a massacre, if you ask me. Still, she'd have been wasted on me.

  He shrugged. 'Well, anyhow,' he said, 'he died about this time, year before last. My other boy, Polycitus, he passed on beginning of this year — fell out a tree, of all the damned things, bust his neck.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that,' I said.

  'Yeah, well. Lost most of my flock, four years ago come pruning season; scab, they reckoned it was, though I ain't so sure. Then I had a landslip on my terraces, lost my best two-acre of vines. Well went bad on me eighteen months back; I dug a new one but it's barely a trickle, dries up altogether in the hot season. Long barn burned down, year before last, and that was all my seedcorn gone into the bargain, so I had to borrow; don't suppose I'll pay that debt back before I die. Then my eldest grandson — 'Charmus' boy — he ran off to join the legion, so it's just me and Eutychides, though he's no more than a kid still, and he lost an eye in the spring, infected, had to get a barber up from the city to cut it out. How about you?'

  'Me? Oh, can't grumble,' I said. 'Tell me, who's got our place now? The farm, I mean.'

  He scowled. 'Some damned soldier,' he said. 'But he doesn't work it hardly, just stays in the house and drinks himself into a state, then comes out roaring and bashing on trees with a sword. Your grandad, it'd break his heart to see it, rest his soul.'

  'Ah,' I said. 'So you reckon he might sell, then?'

  Mnesicrates looked blank. 'Might do,' he said, as though the idea of buying and selling land had come as a bit of a shock. 'Can't say as I've talked to him much, him being drunk all the time. Don't reckon he's took to farming. I guess you could ask him, anyway 'Thanks,' I said, 'I might just do that. Well, I won't keep you,' I added hopefully 'Oh, I ain't in any hurry,' he replied. 'Just been to look at my beans, but don't reckon they're going to come to anything. Not worth the sweat fetching them in, hardly Soil took sick a while back, can't grow a damn thing in that parcel any more. Reckon I'll just plough 'em under and have done with it. Well, don't know if you're planning on sticking around, but welcome back. Didn't I hear you and your brother went off and joined the legion or something?'

  'That's right,' I said. 'Just got my demob, and now I'm home.'

  He scratched his ear thoughtfully 'Home's best, that's what they say,' he said.

  'See you around, in that case.'

  I wasn't sure if that was a greeting or a threat, but I made nice and said, 'See you around, take care.' He shrugged and walked away, taking his personal black cloud with him. At least I knew now what people in the neighbourhood thought had become of me. As far as Phyle was concerned, I'd gone for a soldier. That suited me just fine.

  All the time I'd been talking to old Miseryguts, there hadn't been any sign of life inside the house, and I was just about to walk on when I saw someone else coming down the road towards me. This time it was a little tiny old Woman, bent almost double over a thin walking stick. It didn't occur to me until she brushed past me and went into the house that it could possibly be my mother. Surely not.

  Last time I'd seen her, she'd been almost the same height as me, a big woman with a round boozer's face, plump stuffed-looking arms like giant sausages.

  Besides, she'd glanced up at me as she went by Surely she'd have recognised her own son? After all, I hadn't changed a bit (more's the pity). Couldn't have been. The old soldier back at the inn must've got his reins tangled.

  But it was no good trying to kid myself. I knew, in spite of everything, it was her all right. I sighed, gritted my teeth, and banged on the door.

  Seeing her face close up, I knew, there wasn't any doubt in the matter. It was as if someone had put her out to dry, along with the figs and the raisins, and then forgotten to fetch her in again. Her cheeks had slipped down under her chin, and her nose stuck out like a rock when the sea goes out; apart from that, she was pretty much the same. 'What do you want?' she said, like she'd just bitten an apple and found me in it.

  Well, I couldn't think of a single thing to say, so I said, 'Hello.'

  She looked at me, and I knew she'd recognised me. 'I don't know you,' she said, 'get lost.'

  That was a bit hard. 'It's me,' I said. 'Galen. Your son.'

  She always had that habit of staring just to your left when you caught her out in a lie. 'What're you doing here?' she said. 'I had word you were dead.'

  'No,' I said, 'still alive, more or less. Can I come in?'

  She clicked her teeth; she still had practically the whole set, the only gap being an old one, from before I was born, where someone had knocked out one of the lower fronts. 'Yes, all right,' she said. And you know what? I was scared.

  Well, you're saying, so what's unusual about that? Fair poin
t. I'm a born coward, I'll happily admit that; no point in denying the screamingly obvious.

  I've been scared all my life — scared of being caught, mostly, scared of what they'll do to me after they've caught me, scared of going anywhere, scared of staying where I am, scared of death, illness, hunger, cold, heat, old age, spiders, snakes, big dogs, small dogs, middling-sized dogs, cows, thunder, birds of ill omen, the gods, justice, fate, boats, bridges, heights, confined spaces, open spaces, chickens, soldiers, the numbers three, four, seven and twelve, left-handed women, tall men, weapons, bats, chariots, clifftops, wells, cripples, fire, snow, the dark, change, any food that's bright red or moves, strangers, pigs, you name it, I'm scared of it. Wouldn't have it any other way, because I've always reckoned that the dumbest last words a man can ever say are, I thought it was safe. I think the gods gave us fear to protect us from all the dangerous things there are in the world, and I'm truly thankful, believe me.

  But who'd have thought a grown man would ever be scared of his own mother?

  Still. They say that true courage is facing up to something that frightens the shit out of you, though I've always thought that was a pretty fair working definition of stupidity. Anyway, I followed her into the house.

  First thing that hit me was the smell. The place stank of shit, with accents of stale pee, rotting food and vomit. It was as dark as a bag, and the floor crunched when you walked on it. When I got used to the dark, I could see it was a shambles in there. Funny, because when we were kids, she'd always been on at us about tidying up. There were pigs' bones and shrivelled apple cores all over the deck, jars stacked against the wall, cups with furry green mould growing in them, flies everywhere. She sat down on a little wooden stool. I stayed standing up, for fear of catching something.

  'Well,' she said, 'you're back, then.'

  I nodded. 'Yes,' I said.

  She tutted. 'Where's Callistus? He with you?'

  'He's dead.'

  Hadn't meant to tell her like that, of course. Of all the ignorant things to say to a mother. But she shrugged her thin shoulders a little and said, 'Well, then.' What was I supposed to make of that?

  'He's been dead for ten years,' I went on. 'In Italy ,' I added, like that somehow made it better. Then I remembered something I'd heard once. 'He died well,' I said. It sounded really, really stupid after I'd said it.

  She thought so too. 'What's that supposed to mean?' she said.

  'He died saving someone's life,' I told her.

  She tutted again, like somebody had told her we'd been stealing apples. 'Yours?'

  I lifted my head. 'His friend,' I said.

  She sighed. 'Stupid bloody fool. You weren't there, then.'

  'Actually, I was,' I said. 'I tried to stop him—'

  'Didn't try very hard, I don't suppose.' She shook her head, to show that the subject was closed. 'You just passing through?'

  'No,' I said. 'At least, I was planning—'

  'You can't stay here,' she interrupted. 'I don't want you stopping here, I haven't got the room.' Well, that was no lie. 'It's all right,' I said, 'I'm staying at the inn. You know, our old place.'

  She looked up at me sharply 'Got any money?' she said quickly 'Yes,' I said. 'I've got plenty of that.'

  She looked at me. It was the sort of look a polecat would give a rabbit. 'You done all right for yourself, then?'

  I nodded. 'I had some good luck,' I said, and left it at that. No point telling her about Amyntas just happening to hire my friends on the grain freighter, or the floating coffin. I could tell she wouldn't be interested.

  'You could do me a favour,' she said, assessing me like she was buying livestock. 'You always were a good boy, kind to your poor old mother.'

  'Sure,' I said.

  'You could go down the inn,' she said, 'and bring me up ajar of wine. Needn't be anything fancy, just the plain stuff.'

  'Of course,' I said, no expression. 'And how about something to eat? Are you all right for flour?'

  'Don't fuss me about that,' she said irritably 'Just get me ajar. Go on, you can do a little thing for me, after all I done for you.

  For some reason I said, 'Such as what?' She didn't like that at all, she gave me a look you could have picked out whelks with, and sort of arched her neck, like a cat spitting. But what she said was, 'Don't be mean, darling. A little jar, that's not so much to ask for your old mum, is it? Only, I been working, up at my veggie plot' —her hands and the knees of her skirt told a different tale, unless there wasn't any soil in her garden — 'and it's given me such a thirst, on a hot day Won't take you a moment just to run up to the inn, fetch down a little jar.'

  So I left the house and walked back down the road, shaking like it was perishing cold; and most of all, I wished I never had to go back in there again, with that terrible old woman. But I found the landlord, mending the sole of his boot outside in the yard with a strip of parchment and a little pot of newly boiled glue, and I bought a two-gallon jar and hoisted it on my shoulder. He didn't ask what I wanted it for, and I didn't tell him. As I trudged back up the street, I felt like that giant in the fairy tale who carried the sky on his neck for the gods, as a punishment for something or other.

  'That you, Galen darling?' she sang out as I nudged the door open with my foot, like I was a kid again, back from fetching the goats in off the hill. 'You're a good boy,' she went on, 'didn't I always say you were? You bring that here, and I'll mix us both a nice drink.'

  'Not for me,' I said, thinking of all the green stuff in the cups. She didn't press the point.

  After a while (she drank off the first cup neat, didn't touch the sides; the next one she mixed half and half, with water from a little coiled jug I remembered from the old days), she seemed to loosen up, like a tired man in a hot bath. 'It's good to see you again, my little darling,' she said, though she was looking at the jar. 'I been ever so worried, not knowing what'd become of you. But you never came to see me, you never sent word how you were fixed, might as well have been dead for all I knew And things haven't been easy I had to sell the inn, that's been in our family for generations, and the farm, it'd have broken poor Grandpa's heart. But what was I supposed to do, on my own like that, not knowing if I'd ever see my darling boy ever again?'

  If that was a roundabout way of saying she was sorry for pissing my inheritance up against the wall, I didn't think a whole lot of it. Still, that's mothers for you, always making it sound like it's your fault, but of course they forgive you. She went on and on like that for God knows how long, and never a mention of Callistus, or a question about him; it was as though I'd been an only child. I told her, when I could get a word in edgeways, that I'd been in the army — a cook, I told her, just in case she was listening, because even in her state she'd never believe I'd been a fighting man, and now I'd got my demob and my retirement, and I was back looking to settle down and farm. 'That's nice, dear,' she said, mixing some more half-and-half, though it was more three-quarters-quarter, as if it was a dry season and water was scarce. 'Always knew you'd do well for yourself in the world, you always were a good boy It'll be nice to live up at the farm again. I miss the old place. I was so sad, letting it go.'

  Fuck, I thought; did I say anything about having her up there to live with me?

  But I didn't say anything, of course. And maybe, if she came to live with me, we could get her straightened out a bit, or at least it'd be cheaper, when I had my own vines. I thought about that, and doubled the amount of ground I'd planned to put down to vineyards.

  Halfway down the jar she fell asleep, and I tiptoed out and left her. Back at the inn, I found my pal the landlord again, still mending his rotten old boot, and asked him to send up another jar next time his boy went up the village. Then I set out for the city to sell my beautiful gold belt.

  Nice thing about going from Phyle into town is it's downhill. I was a bit preoccupied along the way and didn't really pay any mind to looking about me;

  I'd done the coming-home bit to death, I reckoned, and I had
the rotten bloody uphill to look forward to on the way back (one look made me change my mind about the innkeeper's mare: wonderful set of bones it had, and you could see the lot of them through its skin). Athens is a small place compared to some of the cities I've seen, but there's plenty of money about, what with all the rich Romans coming here for their bit of culture, which they gobble down like medicine, fast and with their eyes shut. That's good if you're after an upmarket goldsmith who's looking to buy I had my pick, chose one up by the Tower of the Winds who looked a bit left-handed and shifty, rather like me. I think he nearly pissed down his leg when he saw the belt; didn't ask where I'd got it from, just how much I wanted for it. I grinned, and said it was a legacy from my old aunt, I hadn't got a clue how much it was worth, but I was sure he'd give me a fair price for it. We spent a little while play-acting — me pretending to walk out the shop, him pretending to let me go, all that tedious old game. In the end, I left him with the belt and toddled away with about as third as much again as I'd been expecting, knowing I'd been screwed rotten. Didn't care; after all, it wasn't as if it was mine to sell, not really It did cross my mind that if one poxy little belt was worth more money than my family's seen since Alexander's time, maybe I should've taken the jolly pirates of Scheria up on their kind offer. But I'm not as stupid as that. They were nice people, some of the incest I've ever met, genuinely so. But if I'd gone into partnership with them like they wanted me to, right now I'd be a few bits of bone three foot down in the sea-bottom sludge, and you'd never have heard of me or known I'd ever been born.

  Athens is a quiet place, except at night when the drunks are about, but even so, it doesn't do to wander about the streets buckling at the knees under the weight of your coined money I wasn't quite sure what to do at first, but then I thought, Well, why not? And I couldn't think of a good answer. So I headed for the Market Square , where the bankers have their tables. Athens is a great place for banks, because of all those Roman visitors needing money from home to buy up old statues and the like. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be leaning up against the table of Gnaeus Laberius and partners, offices in Rome , Athens , Lyons , Alexandria . Certainly never thought I'd see the day when the senior manager, having seen the big fat bag of coins sat on his table, suddenly noticed I was having to stand up on a hot day, and sent his clerk scurrying for a stool for me to sit on. He gave me a drink too, several drinks —Falerian, all the way from Italy — and said it was a pleasure doing business with me. Another first, goes without saying. Mind you, it's easy to be a pleasure to do business with when you're rich.