Downstream of the granaries was the Quinctian Meadow, named for Quinctius Cincinnatus. It was here, back in the mists of time, that the Roman hero had been summoned from his ploughing to become dictator and save the republic, and it was here, to his oxen and back-breaking labour, that he had returned on laying down his exalted office. Although buildings had long since covered the meadow, the association with frugality and hard work remained. The riverfront of the district was lined with the huts of poor fishermen.
Ballista walked into the darkness between the jumble of clapboard dwellings. There were few people about. He could smell the river and mud, damp ropes and tar, wet stone and fish.
On the opposite bank of the Tiber was the navalia, and Ballista’s gaze travelled over the pitched roofs of the ship sheds. Under the tallest, he knew, was preserved the flagship of a long dead Macedonian King. The navalia was a curious complex, put to more than one use. Originally the home of the Roman fleet, for centuries now it had been a naval museum. Yet, apart from such things as the ship of Aeneas, it also housed animals destined for the games and certain hostages from beyond the frontiers. The latter were as much exhibits as the dusty war galleys or the savage tigers or long-lashed ostriches.
Ballista did not know what hostages were confined there now. They might include men from the far North. Yet it was of no account. One or two individuals would be of little help this night. There were northern warriors in Rome, a thousand of them, all armed. Among the emperor’s German bodyguard would be men who would follow Ballista as a member of the Woden-born Himling dynasty. But those not on duty around Gallienus were quartered in the Gardens of Dolabella to the south-east of Rome. They might as well still be on the Rhine or the shores of the Suebian Sea.
As a youth Ballista had not been confined in the navalia. His father’s diplomatic importance, and the Roman citizenship that Ballista had been granted for his role in assassinating Emperor Maximinus Thrax, led to Ballista being housed in the Palace itself. There on the Palatine he had been educated at the imperial school. His companions had been the sons of leading senators and the governors of armed provinces, each one guaranteeing the loyalty of his father, as Ballista guaranteed the loyalty of his.
It had been a bad time. Ballista could never forget the day that the centurion arrived at the hall of his father, and announced that the emperor demanded one of his sons as a hostage. It had been years before Ballista could understand, let alone forgive his father’s choice. His schoolfellows had not harmed or even insulted him. Such behaviour was beneath their dignity, and anyway they were too closely watched. But they had treated him with silent contempt and ostracised him. Gallienus had been one of the few that ever spoke to him. For the first time, Ballista had been lonely. There on the Palatine, he had realised something important about the Romans. For all their philosophers’ fine orations about free speech and liberty – the things they claimed set them apart from every other people – the Romans, at least those from good families, could not say aloud what they thought. Ballista had learned to guard his tongue. The habit had become ingrained.
Yet it had not all been bad. He had been young, and he had money; both that sent by his father, and an allowance from the imperial treasury. When he could escape from the school, he had explored the city: the drinking holes and gambling dens and brothels. Although he liked reading, he had never been destined for an ascetic or philosophical life. The chariot racing in the Circus had been his especial delight. He had felt safe enough in his wanderings through the teaming city, for Calgacus had always been at his side.
Calgacus had seemed old to Ballista. Yet, looking back, he could not have been. Ugly, sharp tongued and querulous, Calgacus was a Caledonian slave assigned to the young Ballista by his father. Been wiping your arse since you were a baby, as Calgacus frequently liked to say. After the Palatine, when Ballista entered imperial service, Calgacus had accompanied him on all his postings. Together they had journeyed to Africa and Hibernia, fought on the Danube and in the East. Always there, always complaining – working my fingers to the fucking bone – Calgacus had been one of the very few people after his exile to whom Ballista could speak openly. Ballista had loved Calgacus.
Two years before, out on the Steppe, Calgacus had been killed. It had been Ballista’s fault. The murderer was Hippothous, the Greek. Ballista had appointed Hippothous his secretary, brought him into his familia. Ballista had failed to see the Greek’s madness. Ballista had failed to save his friend. He had given chase, but Hippothous had got away.
Ballista had made no vows to the gods – his record with oaths was not good – but he would not rest until Calgacus was avenged.
First, of course, he had to live through tonight.
CHAPTER 5
The Tiber
I
N THE DARKEST SHADOW OF AN ALLEY, Ballista sat with his hood drawn up, and his hands and feet tucked out of sight. The dockside was quiet. Perhaps, with the river running so fast, many of the fishermen had gone to watch the fire. Certainly crowds had streamed up from Transtiberim, past Ballista’s hiding place, to view the spectacle. The City Watch had summoned ladders and pumps. They were aiming water on the neighbouring warehouses. Torsion artillery had been brought up ready to tear down buildings and create a firebreak. Yet so far they had managed to confine the conflagration just to the original granary. Even so, the fire had lit the night sky purple. The air smelt strangely homely, of burning wood and toasted grain.
A few night fishermen were busy preparing to go out. Ballista had selected one. He was not proud of his reasoning. The man’s boat was at a distance from the others that were being readied. The man was old. If necessary, Ballista could overpower him, and take his boat before anyone could intervene. The thinking was both dishonourable and inept. Having grown up on the shores of the Suebian Sea, handling a small boat under oars was second nature to Ballista. Of course he could row to the opposite shore, but the whole point was to do so discreetly.
The old fisherman was working in his hut. The door was open, and his endeavours lit by a single candle. He was checking and repairing his nets. It was not just the candle that proclaimed his poverty. Ballista could see that every time he found that a weight was missing, he replaced it with a pot shard. In some he must have bored a hole, as he strung them on to the net. Others he tied. In the latter he must have scratched grooves, and smoothed the sharp edges, so they would not cut the cords.
The scene summoned up a vivid memory. Last spring, a waterfront bar in the remote town of Olbia, off the Black Sea. Another aged fisherman outside stringing nets. Ballista had been drinking with Maximus and Tarchon. He remembered that the wine had a cloying taste of elderflower. Another friend had been with them; Castricius, the strange, little Roman officer. They had been unhappy, grieving for the murdered Calgacus. Some off-duty soldiers had been drinking with some whores. The afternoon had ended in a fight. Two of the soldiers had died. One of the whores had got her nose broken. A sordid, violent afternoon, but Ballista not been alone. He had been embraced in the companionship of his friends. He pushed away the loneliness that threatened to unman his resolve.
Twice the old man got up and carried nets to where his boat sat on the slipway. Both times Ballista prepared to approach him, but the fisherman returned to his hut. Ballista remained in cover, studying him. He was balding, with a stubby beard, his face haggard. His stained tunic hung loose from an emaciated frame. The veins on his neck were dilated, stood out like whipcord. When he walked, it was obvious that his back was hunched.
There was a market in Rome dedicated to selling deformed slaves. The rich liked to keep them as pets. At drinking parties they brought out hunchbacks, dwarfs, cripples, grossly obese women, as part of the entertainment. It was rumoured that cruel fathers mutilated young children for profit. It was not just the living. The homes and gardens of the wealthy often boasted finely sculpted and expensive statues of the grotesque. It was a common belief that such unfortunates attracted the evil eye, that they would def
lect any malice or envy from their owners. Ballista also had heard it argued that the practice was to provoke philosophical thought; a demonstration that the body was nothing, that true beauty resided only in the soul. Somehow, he suspected that many had less elevated motives, that the twisted and wasted bodies of their ornaments and playthings simply made them feel superior. Perhaps, at heart, the malformed were nothing but a source of cruel amusement.
The old man got up again. This time, along with a net, he carried a lantern.
Ballista emerged from the alley, and walked over.
The aged fisherman gave him a sharp look, but did not seem unduly alarmed.
‘Are you going out tonight, Grandfather?’
‘The fish do not catch themselves,’ the old man said. ‘A man has to eat.’
Ballista nodded, as if weighing some serious thing.
‘A lot of the Syrians down in Transtiberim don’t eat fish.’ The fisherman grinned. He had few teeth. ‘Thank the gods – the native gods of Rome – that is one of their eastern customs that has not spread. Not like their fucking crucified god.’
‘Christians to the lion,’ Ballista said.
‘Christians to the lion.’ The fisherman repeated the traditional phrase.
The old man clambered on the boat to hang the lantern from the sternpost. ‘The markets will open at dawn. By the third hour, if the gods are willing, I will have some coins in my wallet, and bread on the table.’
‘I was wondering, Grandfather, if you would take me over to the other side?’
‘I may be ill-favoured, but do you see a three-headed dog?’ The old man wheezed with amusement at his own joke. ‘Do I look like Charon, the fucking ferryman?’
Ballista said nothing.
‘Why not use a bridge?’
‘I will pay you more than the obol Charon receives.’
‘Why would you do that?’ There was a crafty look on his face.
Ballista decided a fragment of the truth might help. ‘The City Watch are after me.’
The words provoked another bout of senile mirth. ‘I know. They were round here, asking for a man of your description: a huge, pale barbarian from the north with long hair, speaks good Latin, can pass himself off as one of us – as if! Dangerous, they said you were.’
Ballista tensed, ready to seize the boat, whatever it took.
‘They never said what they wanted you for.’
Ballista relaxed a little. But this was going on too long. He needed to be away across the water.
A sudden look of suspicion crossed the fisherman’s face. ‘Not something to do with the fire, is it?’ A hooked knife for gutting fish appeared as if by magic in his hand. ‘No, wait. The bucketmen were round hunting you before the fire.’
‘Not the fire, gods no. Nothing more dangerous in the city than fire.’
The old man had not put down the knife. Ballista measured the distances and angles between himself on the slipway and the fisherman in the boat.
‘Tell what you did, and I will think about it.’ The knife was still out.
This was getting more like the Odyssey all the time. Ballista hunted for a suitable story.
‘No confession, no ferry,’ the old man cackled. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I have got a knife. And one shout and the Terentius twins down the way will be here. Nasty bastards, they are.’
Speechless, Ballista let his shoulders drop, like a sullen donkey with too heavy a load.
‘I don’t think you’ve got all night.’
Ballista mumbled something inaudible.
‘Speak up.’
‘I had just got my hand on it, when the dog started barking, the door burst open, and there was her husband.’ Ballista opened his cloak, to show the various cuts and bruises on his limbs.
‘Gave you a hiding, he did.’ The old man sounded pleased.
‘He had two slaves with him.’
‘Been within his rights to kill you. I don’t hold with adultery.’
A fisherman with old-fashioned morality. That was not good. Crafty Odysseus himself might have had trouble talking his way out of this.
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Ballista was thinking fast. ‘The bitch told me she was a widow. I had to jump out of the window, leave my wallet, leave everything of value.’
The old man looked a fraction less stern.
‘The whole thing was set up.’ Ballista pressed on. ‘Never should have trusted the Syrian bitch.’
No longer the stern arbiter of sexual mores, the fisherman laughed. ‘Lucky he and his slaves didn’t fuck you up the arse while they were robbing you.’
‘So you will take me?’
‘Wait. You said he got your wallet. No payment, and you can wander this shore like a lost soul until the City Watch take you.’
Ballista pulled the gold ring from his finger, reached up, and handed it over.
The old man bit it with one of his scarce teeth. ‘A northern barbarian with the gold ring of an equestrian, eh? Equestrian or not, you been slumming it in Transtiberim, and got caught with your britches down. All right, put your shoulder to the stern, and run her out. We’ll have you on the other side in no time.’
The keel lifted from the ramp, Ballista hauled himself aboard, and the current caught the boat. The fisherman was skilful. At first he let the river rush them downstream, close in to the bank. Then, with a few deft sweeps, he angled them into an eddy that pulled them out into the stream, and swung them around, so that the prow pointed into the flow. Now the old man set to with a will; long, powerful strokes combating the force of the river. In the blackness, water creamed down the sides of the boat. Although he appeared emaciated, working in perfect rhythm, as if one with the vessel, the aged rower edged them across with little leeway.
‘Where do you want me to set you off?’
‘Near the stables would be good.’
It dawned on Ballista that the old man’s bent back was not congenital, but the result of a lifetime of this labour.
Secure in the hands of the fisherman, Ballista stretched his aching body, and looked around.
On the west bank, the warehouse still burned brightly. The roof had gone. Every now and then a muffled thump could be heard over the water, as a store of grain exploded. Once there was a thunderous crash as an internal wall collapsed. Little black figures capered in front of the flames, like some strange sect’s vision of infernal damnation.
Ballista hoped the two nightwatchmen had been rescued. He thought of the one that he had killed. At least the man had a magnificent funeral pyre. That was heartless. The nightwatchman had only being doing his job, but Ballista felt little guilt. When he was young, he would have done. Life had not changed him for the better.
To break the chain of thought, Ballista looked away at the dark water.
‘Tiber, the river most dear to heaven,’ he said. The line of Virgil surfacing from his schooldays.
The fisherman spat over the gunnels. ‘Kindly old Father Tiber saving the twins, snagging their little wicker basket in the roots of a fig tree, delivering the founder to the foot of the Palatine. People talk all sorts of bollocks about the river.’
He rowed in silence for a time, as if meditating, then spoke.
‘Only fools who don’t know the river praise it. They drone on about how the Tiber supplies their needs, gives them work, flushes the city clean. Once a year you see the vestals come. Watched by the good and the great, they throw a few handfuls of dust into the water. Young idiots swim in it. Greek doctors make invalids stand in the shallows. You hear gluttons in the market waxing lyrical on the taste of its fish. Our fish, they say, nothing tastes like our fish caught between the bridges.’
He shook his head at the folly of the world.
‘The river is foul and cruel. The sewers pump it full of offal and shit. The fish gorge on the filth, stuff themselves with it. I catch them all right – no one does it better – but you wouldn’t find me eating one of the fuckers. Suicides jump off the bridges. Murderers t
hrow in the corpses of their victims. The number of men I’ve seen floating face down, guts all bloated, stinking, ready to burst. Cats, dogs, cattle, any animals you care to name – dead in the water. I saw a camel once. All those boards of senators, appointed by the emperor himself, for the care of the riverbanks, what good to they do? They put up a lot of inscriptions in their own honour, but how often does the river rise, flood the city? Honest folk – young and old, babes in arms – swept to their deaths, or crushed when the waters undermine their tenement, bring the whole lot down on their heads. The whole city stinking for a month or more, and then comes the sickness. The corpse carriers working all night, every night, those that catch it being added to the cart. But you know the worst of it?’
‘No,’ Ballista said, knowing he would be told.
‘All the shit that flows up the river. Syrians, Jews, Cappadocians, all sorts of sly little easterners, jabbering in their nasty languages, worshipping their weird gods, doing decent Romans out of work, corrupting our ways. No chance of decency or virtue with those fuckers loose in the city. No wonder the empire is going to the dogs; revolts, barbarian invasions, the emperor’s own father a captive, the Persian king using him as a mounting block.’
A new type of divine punishment, Ballista thought, to be trapped for eternity in a small rowing boat with a homespun, xenophobic philosopher.
‘Romulus welcomed foreigners into his city,’ Ballista said.
The old man again spat over the side. ‘That was then, this is now.’
‘Times change,’ Ballista said.
The fisherman grunted. ‘You northerners are not too bad, if you can be kept from drinking and fighting.’
‘No one accuses us of cunning,’ Ballista said.
The old man laughed. ‘Too true. Know yourself. That is what the oracle said, know yourself. Nearly there now.’
He brought the boat bumping in against a set of stone steps, held it fast to an iron ring.
‘I’ll hang on to your ring for a couple of days, if you want to buy it back. You know where to find me.’
The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome Page 6