A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  I couldn't make head or tail of this. 'Hiberia?' I said. 'What the hell do you want to go there for?'

  He scowled at me. 'Because it's the furthest country in the world,' he said, like it should've been painfully obvious, even to a dumbo like me. 'You going to help me, or what?'

  'Slow down a moment, will you?' I said. 'Who's after you? What's going on?'

  He scowled mustard at me. 'Have we got to have this conversation in the middle of a field?' he said. 'Why is it you can't do the simplest thing without arguing the toss first?'

  'All right,' I said, 'fine. Follow me.'

  He was a right pantomime, the way he ducked and crept along; I guess he was trying to keep out of sight or something, but all he achieved was to make himself as conspicuous as possible. If we'd happened to bump into one of my neighbours on the way back to my place, they'd have taken one look at him and gone straight home and told the family 'I saw our Galen walking along with this strange man who kept bobbing up and down,' and the story would've been all over Phyle by sunup.

  'So,' I said, trying to ignore his idiotic behaviour, 'now can you tell me what's going on?'

  'Trouble,' he said. 'Philocrates has been arrested.'

  How terribly sad, I thought; oh well, never mind. 'You don't say What's he been up to, then? Thieving tableware at one of your gigs?'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' Lucius Domitius snapped at me. 'He wouldn't do anything like that, he's an artist. No, I was supposed to meet him in the market square, but I was late; and when I got there, he wasn't there. So I asked a bloke I knew if he'd seen him, and he said yes, he'd been standing by the well minding his own business when two soldiers and a big, ugly man who looked like a gladiator had come up and grabbed him. Didn't say anything, just twisted his arms behind his back and hustled him away.'

  I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that; not because I gave a damn about Philocrates, obviously 'Any idea why?' I asked.

  'Shut up and I'll tell you. Anyway, I went over to the prefecture; thought I'd try one of our old routines you know, the ones I used to get you out of stir when you got yourself arrested. God knows, I've had enough practice over the years. Thought I'd try the one where I'm the master and you were my good-for-nothing slave, always getting into trouble. So I went up to the lodge, asked if they had anyone answering his description, told him the tale; but they reckoned they hadn't seen or heard of anybody like that. Well, that meant it wasn't the regular law that'd taken him in, so it had to be something other than ordinary stealing or disorderly conduct. But of course, I hadn't got a clue where to start looking. So I wandered around the town for a while, trying to think of a plan of action; and then by pure fluke, I caught sight of someone.

  'All right,' I said. 'Who?'

  He sighed. 'You remember when we were in Sicily,' he said, 'and we ran into the governor's entourage, and you made a damn fool of yourself when he started asking us questions?'

  I wasn't sure I remembered it quite like that, but I didn't say anything.

  'Yes,' I said.

  'Well, do you remember his front outrider, the one who killed our mules? Him.'

  Took a moment for that to sink in. 'Here?' I said, stupidly. 'In Athens ?'

  Lucius Domitius nodded vigorously. 'No doubt about it,' he said. 'I saw him straight on, no more than five paces away Thank God he was talking to somebody and didn't see me. Or at any rate, I don't think he did. Anyhow, I made myself scarce as quick as I possibly could. Got out of town and came up here, asked a couple of old boys I met on the road where your place was; when I got there you weren't home, obviously, but there was a farmhand in the yard who told me where you were likely to be. Point is,' he went on, 'if I could track you down so easily, so can he. For all I know, his men are up at your place this very minute, waiting for us. I mean, it's no secret you and your brother came from here. Why else would the governor be looking for me here?'

  I felt like someone had just punched me in the guts. 'So what do you reckon we should do?' I asked him.

  He shrugged. 'Impossible to know what to do for the best,' he said. 'But here's my idea. You leave me in that little olive grove near the top of your lane, and go on down to the house, see if the coast's clear. If you don't come back straight away, I'll know there's trouble, and clear out. If not, you can hide me while you're finding a ship for me. Once I'm on my way, you sit tight and wait for them to come to you. They'll search the place, obviously, and question you, so you'll have to tell them something misleading, like, yes, I'd been there a day or so earlier, and I'd said something about going on to Corinth via Megara; anything to send them off on a false trail.' He thought for a moment. 'Best thing'd be to let them knock you about a bit first, so they think they've forced it out of you. That way, they'll be more likely to believe what you tell them.'

  I nodded. 'I could provoke them into burning my barns and cutting down my vines,' I said. 'Maybe even break both my legs, or chop my right hand off.'

  'Whatever,' he said. 'I'll leave the details to you. But everybody knows you're a born coward, so probably you wouldn't have to go that far. Just as long as it's believable. I reckon I'll need at least four days' clear start, so when they do find out which ship I'm on, they won't be able to cut across overland and catch me up. Oh, and I'll need money, of course, and a change of clothes, stuff like that.'

  I looked at him. 'You could have the shirt off my back,' I said, 'only it wouldn't fit you.'

  He just nodded. 'That farmhand of yours I saw,' he said, 'he looked to be about my size. Some of his stuff'll do me, I'm not fussy.'

  'You bastard,' I said. 'You selfish, thoughtless arsehole.'

  He hadn't been expecting that. 'Now what've I done?' he complained.

  'Oh, for crying out loud,' I said. 'You turn up in town, practically back from the dead; and do you even want to know me? Do you hell as like. Oh no, it was, well, I might be able to spare a moment or so to look in on you somewhen, but right now I'm too fearfully busy with my new chum Philocrates, so go away Did you hear what he said?' I added angrily 'He called me a farmer. Who's the farmer, he said, and I was standing right there.'

  Lucius Domitius looked surprised. 'But you are a farmer,' he said.

  'That's not—' I had to make an effort to keep from yelling at him. 'That's not the point,' I said. 'The point is, you come here and you treat me like I'm a bad smell, and now you expect me to let myself get tortured by the Romans, just so you can escape. Well, fuck you, because I'm not going to do it. No way,' I added, in case there was any doubt.

  He frowned. 'That's a stupid attitude,' he said. 'I mean, let's be realistic about it. They're going to find you and they're going to come here looking for me, whether you decide to help me or not. Probably they're going to beat you up a little, no matter what you say After all, you're known right across the world as a habitual liar. They won't expect to get the truth out of you without a bit of persuasion.' He lifted his head. 'So, since it's going to happen anyway, you might just as well do me a good turn while you're at it. No, the only question in my mind is whether you're up to the job. But I've got to rely on you, because there isn't anybody else. I just hope you'll be able to pull it off, that's all.'

  Well, what was I supposed to say to that? I sulked the rest of the way home. We stopped at the little olive grove, like he'd said, and I went on down the lane to my beautiful farm, feeling like I was walking out into the circus at Rome, with the lions roaring at me from behind the bars of their cages.

  But it all seemed to be all right. No soldiers came rushing out to grab me.

  There weren't any horses tied up in the yard. Nobody about, in fact; which was how it should be. So I went over to the bunkhouse, where there was a light under the door.

  Smicro and Ptolemy were there all right, fixing up dinner. Ever since I'd barged in on them at that rather bad moment I'd been a bit wary about going in the bunkhouse when I knew they were there, so I made a point of knocking three times and waiting a bit before pushing open the door. I asked them, had th
ere been any strangers round, but they said no.

  That sounded all right, but I reckoned I'd better be a bit more thorough than that; so I took a deep breath and went across to the main house. I'd far rather not have done; after all, last time I'd seen Mum, she'd told me a tale that had me puking my guts up out in the yard. But either she hadn't remembered anything about last night when she came to in the morning, or else she'd made up her mind to act like nothing had happened. Either way suited me. She wasn't precisely sober, of course, but she wasn't lying slumped on the floor singing the Harmodius either. Anyhow, she said there hadn't been any strangers at the farm that day Also, she added (like I cared), Blandinia was feeling a bit better, but she still wasn't right.

  Well, thank God for that, I said to myself as I shut the door behind me; what a tremendous weight off my mind, knowing Blandinia was on the mend. I trudged back up the lane and told Lucius Domitius it was safe to come out. He'd told me to whistle twice like an owl as the signal that the coast was clear, but really, I wasn't in the mood.

  That just left me with what to do with him. Not the main house, obviously Not the bunkhouse either, because the fewer people who saw him, the better. That left the barn, the stable or the pighouse. I decided on the pighouse; out of spite, mostly Then I went back to the bunkhouse and had some soup and bread with the lads. Pretty good it was, too; and it crossed my mind that really I ought to take some out to Lucius Domitius. But that would have meant thinking of an explanation for Smicro and Ptolemy, and I was all thought out for one day.

  Next morning, though, I woke up early (hadn't got much sleep, in fact, what with one thing and another), which meant I was able to nip out with the crust end of the loaf and a jug of water from the trough in the yard before those two were awake. Lucius Domitius was fast asleep, snuggled up in some dried-up bean helm like a baby kitten. I woke him up with my boot and said, 'Breakfast.'

  He was obviously hungry, because he hardly bitched at all about the bread being stale or the water being a funny colour. He actually thanked me, which sounded pretty strange.

  'Don't mention it,' I said awkwardly 'Look, about finding you a ship. It's not going to be easy, if you insist on going to Hiberia. It's not what you'd call one of your regular destinations.'

  He nodded. 'I was thinking that, too,' he said. 'Even if there are any, it could be months. So what I thought was, if you could find me one that's going to Massilia — that shouldn't be hard — I can either look around for another ship there, or I can go across Gaul overland and get over to Britain from there.

  Actually,' he went on, 'it doesn't really matter where I go, so long as it's far away See what's in dock at Piraeus and use your own judgement.'

  Coming from Lucius Domitius, that was next best thing to an apology. I was almost touched. 'Sure,' I said. 'I'll ride into town today and see to it.'

  'Thanks.' There was an awkward silence; but it seemed like it was more awkward for him than for me, so I let it carry on. Finally, he swallowed a deep breath and said, 'Just getting away, that's all. Not too much to ask, is it?'

  I thought about that. 'No,' I said, 'not really'

  He shook his head. 'I really thought,' he said, 'after I'd survived the shipwreck, being the only one left alive — well, I didn't know about you then, of course — I really managed to kid myself into thinking that maybe the gods had saved me for some purpose, like they were stopping the game and letting me go. I honestly thought I was free and clear.'

  'All your troubles would be over?'

  'Something like that. And now here I am, about to set off for the ends of the earth. Funny, isn't it?'

  'Hilarious,' I replied. 'Want me to come with you?'

  Don't know which of us was the more shocked at that, him or me. I'm betting it was me. I hadn't meant to say it, but once it was past the gate of my teeth, I knew I meant it. And that really shook me.

  'What, you mean leave here and come with me to Hiberia?'

  'Yes. Or wherever it is you end up going?'

  He looked at me. 'Why?' he said.

  I could've hit him. 'Well,' I said, 'I thought maybe you'd like some company I don't know, do I?'

  'But you seem like you're happy here. Settled. Doing what you always wanted to do, and so on.'

  I nodded. 'That's right,' I said, 'I am.

  'Then why in God's name would you want to throw all that away to go traipsing off to some godawful place you've never even heard of?'

  'Because—' Oh hell, I thought, I'm buggered if I'm going to say it. 'So you don't want me along, then?'

  'It's not that,' he said, a shade too quickly 'But what'd be the point?'

  No point at all, I thought, so I decided to lie. God forgive me, I can be really pathetic when I set my mind to it. 'Listen,' I said. 'This is where I was born, I grew up here. Fine. I can't think of any place on earth I'd rather be. When the — when the captain of the ship that picked me up asked me where I wanted to go, anywhere in the whole wide world, I told him here. And now, here I am. I sleep in the bunkhouse with two Syrian farmhands because I daren't go in the main house because I can't stand being in the same building as my pisshead mother for longer than it'd take to pit an olive. I start work at sunup, flog my guts out, fall asleep at sundown. I guess I wasn't cut out for this life after all.'

  He looked at me. 'I see,' he said. 'You see, that's where you and I are so different. All my life, the one thing I wanted was to play music; didn't matter where or who to, didn't even matter if there was anybody listening. And all my life, that was the one thing I couldn't do — not back in the Golden House, because it wasn't allowed, not when we were on the road, for fear of being recognised — until, as I thought, suddenly the gods changed their minds and they staged my death for me, so that everybody in the world would be sure I'd died. After that, I was so positive about it, I knew it was all clear from now on: I was in Athens, the best place in the world for a poet and musician, and I was earning a living — an honest living, damn it — just playing music, with a friend who loved music as much as I did, someone I could talk to, about poetry and art and all the things that matter to me. It felt so right, if you see what I mean. And the thought of going back — you and me on the road again, lying and cheating and staying one jump ahead of the law if we're really lucky — damn it, Galen, I'd rather be dead than go back to that. It wasn't life, it was a really spiteful punishment for all the things I did in the old days. King Pluto himself couldn't have dreamed up anything nastier. No, I'm going alone; and as for you, for God's sake try and make the most of this chance you've been given, to be what you were always meant to be. So it's not perfect. Life's not like that. For crying out loud, Galen, you don't know how lucky you are. You know what? I'm jealous of you. Really, I am, if you can believe that. You've come home. It's as if you'd gone to sleep when you were sixteen and woken up twenty-four years later, got up and gone to work same as usual. You're so fucking lucky it isn't true.'

  I stood up. 'Fine,' I said. 'I'll go into town and get you on a ship. And then I'll never see you again, and you'll never see me again.' I looked away 'I expect you're right,' I went on. 'It'll be best for both of us.'

  'I think so,' he said. 'After all, ten years on the road, and can you remember one single good time? I can't. Look at it this way Callistus died so we could both have a life. If we don't take our chances now, recognise exactly what it is we're meant to be doing and stick to that and never let go, then we're wasting his death, he'll have died for nothing.' He sighed. 'You know something?' he said. 'When I thought you'd drowned, to begin with I was really upset...'

  Upset, I thought. Well, there you go. Almost as bad as missing a boat, or losing your pet rabbit.

  'But then,' he went on, 'I thought about it for a bit, and I had to face up to it. You and me, we were never any good for each other. Both of us, we were holding each other back, like two men in the water, each trying to save the other, so we both drowned. When I realised I was on my own at last — I know, this sounds really terrible, but you know I
don't mean it like that — suddenly I felt like a slave who's just been given his freedom in his master's will. I was sad, of course, and grateful too, in a sense; but mostly it felt like this terrible weight had gone from round my ankle, and I could swim up to the surface and breathe at last. I expect you felt the same way, didn't you?'

  I turned back and looked at him. 'I'll tell you the truth,' I said. 'I was more worried about saving my own skin. I didn't think about you till much later.'

  'Well,' he said, 'there you go, then. I mean, we're friends — I guess we're that, after everything we've been through; sort of like army buddies, if you like. We never had anything in common, apart from the dangers we faced and the horrible shittiness of our life, and the people we'd shared and lost. But that's all; comrades, allies in a common cause, it served each of our interests to stay together for as long as it took for us both to get free and clear. That's all.

  We don't belong together, you and me; it's not like we're lovers, or brothers.

  Now the common purpose has been fulfilled, it's to our mutual advantage to go our separate ways. You do see that, don't you?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'I thought so. I mean, it stands to reason, really And I want you to know, it was sort of nice of you to say you'd come with me, even though I know you don't really want to, because you thought I needed you or something. I guess you were thinking it was what Callistus would've wanted. But it isn't, I promise you.

  He'd have wanted the two people he most cared about to find their proper place and stay there. Don't you agree?'

  'Sure,' I said.

  'That's all right, then.' He grinned. 'You know what? I was worried you didn't see it that way Only goes to show, you think you know someone really well, but when it comes to the point, you find out you don't know them at all. I'd got it in my head that somehow I'd got this duty to look after you — because of Callistus, I mean.; that somehow I'd have to take his place, be a brother to you because I'd cost you your real brother. But that's silly, isn't it?'