Of Merchants & Heros
Page 38
‘I have killed many men.’
He did not remember, any more than a man, years later, might recall what he ate one day for his dinner.
Something broke in me then. My eyes burned, my feelings bled, and I felt the power of the god within me, like fire surging through tinder. And it seemed to me he said: I have brought you here, this is your destiny; blood must answer blood, and even gods yield to necessity.
And then we closed, one on the other, and fought. I remembered Antikles and his lessons, and knew then, for the first time fully, what he had sought to teach me. I was nothing and everything. I knew each motion of his body, and the intention of his muscles, even before he moved, as if we were united in one being; I released myself from fear and death, existing in one timeless moment that was like a high drawn-out note of music. His knife cut me – across the chest, the forearm, the thigh – but I felt no pain, or no more pain than I had always felt, and as we locked and struggled and kicked and swerved and fought I moved with his motion, breathed with his breathing, and danced to his own deadly dance. At one point, when we were locked together each brandishing his knife, each wet with mingled sweat and blood, he said again, ‘Who are you?’ but this time with no laughter in his voice. I was warding him off. His wrist slipped from my grip, and his knife came down at my throat. I evaded it like a cat, twisting and curling, and the blade sliced into the sand at my ear. In that instant his eyes locked on mine, and, knowing what must follow, some deep knowledge passed between us.
I struck, and pierced him with the mortal blow, and for a moment he held my gaze and smiled, before, with an exhalation of breath, his soul left him.
For a long time after that I sat in silence, on a low rock at the edge of the water, searching my mind for feeling, trying to regain the person I had been. After a while I knelt down beside the body. I touched his hand, and felt with my fingers the contours of his palm, and the bones beneath his skin. He was warm still, and his skin was soft. I knew he was dead; and yet I could not comprehend it. I took my hand away, and saw it was wet with his blood. For a long time I stared; then I touched it to my lips, and tasted it with my tongue, and on the far side of the rock a lizard sat watching me, judging me with its basilisk eye. I became aware of sounds, and realized that my comrades were calling. I got to my feet, and took up my knife, and walked away.
Caecilius had been locked in an outhouse, a foul stone-built hovel behind a latrine-pit, beside the muddy sty where pigs were kept.
He must have heard the distant sounds of battle. Now, hearing the approach of men, and unable to see who they were, he supposed we had come to kill him, and from behind the locked door began wailing out for the gods to take pity on his plight.
He came stumbling out stupid with fear, dressed still in the expensive clothes he had been taken in. His hair, and the fine wool of his clothing, were caked in filth and mire.
We seated him on a log, and told him it was all right, that he was safe, and need not fear. As we spoke he sat muttering to himself, angrily snapping his hand at the flies that buzzed around him, and blinking at the light.
The others, shamed perhaps at the sight of a man who had lost so much of his dignity, left him to recover himself. But when I turned to go he snatched at my arm and said, ‘Why are you here?’
‘We came to find you, sir, as I told you. I have come to take you home.’
‘Look at me! Look at my clothes!’
‘I will find you something clean to wear. But rest now. You have had a shock.’
He gaped at me. Menexenos had cleaned my wounds, and bound the deep cut in my thigh, and helped me dress because my arm was stiffening. But no doubt I was a fearsome sight.
‘What have you been doing?’ he said sharply, in a tone closer to his usual voice.
‘I was in a fight; but it is over now.’
‘Have you found my money? There were at least ten talents, in a casket. Go and search, will you? It must be somewhere hereabouts.
Go on, go now, before someone takes it. No one can be trusted, you know, and I cannot afford to lose it.’
I looked at him, and looked away. My throat tightened, and I was overcome by a sudden urge to weep, filled with a grief I had no name for. My wounds were starting to hurt. I felt changed, and new, and vulnerable. I had believed, in the deep place in my heart where instinct dwells, that somehow the whole world must be changed with me. But this vain and foolish man, who had so nearly lost his life, and a moment ago had been calling upon the gods to save him, was just the same, fretting on about his petty concerns while all about him were blood and death.
He began speaking again, but I no longer listened. Without another word I turned and left him, and behind me, as if I were still there, I could hear him chattering on, cataloguing his troubles.
Menexenos found me sitting alone beside the sea. He sat down beside me and looked out. The sun was sinking to the west. The air was clear, and clean, and filled with light.
‘They have found his money,’ he said. ‘He is counting it. He seems much better now.’
‘Nothing changes him,’ I said.
‘No one changes unless he wills it. To little men the gods send little things. It is always so.’
I smiled, and picking up a fistful of white sand, watched as it fell between my fingers.
‘But you have changed,’ he said, after a pause.
I cast away the remains of the sand. The tiny grains scattered in a cloud over the water.
‘Yes. I feel different . . . empty, as if something within me has died.’
‘You killed what needed to be killed. The god knew that.
Everything has to be paid for, Marcus; and it is the price we pay that makes us men.’
I nodded at his words, and let out my breath. And together, in silence, we looked out at the setting sun.
HISTORICAL NOTE
MARCUS AND MENEXENOS ARE invented characters. Titus is the historical figure Titus Quinctius Flamininus (229–174 BC), and the story covers the period between 207 BC and 196 BC when Titus rose to prominence and led Rome’s fight against Philip.
Philip is the historical figure Philip the Fifth, king of Macedon (238–179 BC), and at this time he dominated Greece as described in the story, and threatened, or was perceived to threaten, Rome. He should not be confused with the more famous Philip the Second of Macedon (382–336 BC), who was the father of Alexander the Great.
At the time the novel is set, Rome’s territory was largely confined to Italy; it was not the great empire it later became. There was no emperor: its political arrangements were still those of a republic, ruled by the Senate and people, and headed by two elected consuls who held office jointly for one year. The rise of Philip coincided with the final victory of Rome against its old enemy Carthage. Carthage, led by Hannibal, had nearly destroyed Rome. There were many at Rome who feared that Philip was another Hannibal: they were not prepared to wait until a Macedonian army was at the gates of Rome, as Hannibal had once been. It remains an open question whether Philip did in fact pose the threat Rome feared. Certainly he was vaunting, dangerous and unpredictable; and he had been caught out helping Carthage against Rome.
At this period in Rome’s history, two important changes were under way: first, there was a great flowering of interest in Greek culture, with Greek teachers, artists and ideas flowing into Rome and Italy; second, the merchant class was on the rise, taking advantage of Rome’s growing political dominance and the accompanying opportunities for trade and profit. In the story, the tensions between the old and the new are reflected and explored in Marcus’s relationship with his stepfather, and Titus’s with his father.
Titus was a philhellene, a lover of Greek culture, and his time spent in the Italian–Greek city of Tarentum (modern Taranto) is in the historical record. There is no reason to suppose that his wish to free Greece from tyranny was not genuine, except among those who look for baseness in any noble motive.
Lucius, Titus’s brother, is a historical figure, and mention is made in
the sources that he was removed from the Senate for dissolute behaviour. The sources also mention Lucius’s boyfriend, though no name is given. He appears to have been equally dissolute.
Dikaiarchos is a historical figure, though to suit the purposes of the story, I have merged part of his character with another historical figure, Demetrios of Pharos.
It should perhaps be noted that bisexuality was ubiquitous in the ancient world, and well attested in the sources. Such behaviour was not, in itself, an object of censure, and this remained true until the end of the classical period when the Church, wielding its growing political power, began to impose its own uniform blueprint on human relations.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Maps
Forward
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
HISTORICAL NOTE