Render Unto Caesar

by Gillian Bradshaw

  The rest of the afternoon and evening passed in a daze of erotic intoxication. Maerica got up at one point, put on her wet tunic, and went to buy some supper. Then they sat on the floor together feeding one another morsels of leek and sausage and talking about Rome and Alexandria. He started trying to teach her Greek.

  Morning brought a visitor. They’d risen—late—and Maerica was preparing to go out to buy food and fetch water when there was a knock on the door. She opened it warily and found Gellia.

  “Sorry to disturb you two,” the landlady said with a leer, “but Calvus wanted a word with your ‘employer’—heh!—if you can spare him for a minute.”

  Maerica went red: the color stained even the back of her neck and her ears, which were all Hermogenes could see of her face. They hadn’t taken into account how flimsy the apartments were. Probably the whole building had heard his shrieks for mercy.

  Embarrassed, and eager to show solidarity with his embarrassed lover, he hurried forward. Standing nervously on the landing behind Gellia was the old man from the party, Sentia’s music-loving husband.

  “Ah!” said the old man, with relief. “There you are, sir.”

  Hermogenes smiled politely. “Greetings, Calvus.” He was glad Gellia had mentioned the name: if he’d ever heard it, he’d forgotten it. “You want to speak to me?”

  Calvus nodded and edged past Gellia into the apartment, still with that nervous air. Hermogenes suspected an appeal for money, and braced himself to refuse.

  Maerica surveyed the old man a moment, saw no threat, and picked up the amphora to resume her errand. She scowled when Gellia, avid for gossip, followed her off down the stairs.

  “What I come about,” said Calvus, as soon as the door shut, “is—I don’t know how to say this, sir. That partner you mentioned, the one you think cheated you—I think he’s looking for you.”

  Hermogenes blinked, off-balance.

  “See, they were talking about it at the barbershop wheres I get myself seen to,” Calvus went on, into the silence. “How the word’s out from Vedius Pollio that a Greek called Hermogenes stole something from him, an’ I know you said your name’s Herapilus, but they said a short man with a cut on his face and a bad foot. There’s an offer of a denarius for news.”

  “Did you collect it?” Hermogenes asked sharply.

  The old man shook his head. “I remembered what Gellia tol’ us, that you suspected your partner was keeping money you give him as a present for this Titus you was asking about, and that he turned you out of his house in the middle of the night when you asked him about it. I thought to myself, maybe he wasn’ tellin’ us the whole story, maybe he did mean that villain Pollio. I always heard how that scoundrel has lots to do with money matters in the East. And it seemed to me that if it was you Pollio wanted, it wasn’t nothing to do with anything stolen; no, it’d be because he knew you were going to show him up to Statilius Taurus, and he wanted to kill you before you could. So I didn’t say anything, and I warned my friends not to say anything neither. But I thought probably you’d like to know.”

  “Yes,” Hermogenes said grimly. “Thank you very much.” He regarded the old man a moment with respect, then added, “I’d like to give you the denarius you lost by your silence. My bodyguard has the money, but if you’ll wait until she gets back—”

  “That’s all right, sir,” Calvus interrupted with a smile. “I couldn’t take it from you, not after you were robbed on the street, and turned out of the house by that scoundrel, and falsely accused an’ all. Anyway, you got my Sentia singing cantica again. She hasn’t done that since our boy died, and to hear her sing again is worth more to me than a hundred denarii. I just thought you should know. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes,” Hermogenes replied, humbled. “Thank you. I have an appointment to speak to Statilius Taurus tomorrow, which should settle the matter.”

  “Ah, he’ll do right by you!” Calvus declared, with satisfaction. “They all say he’s a man of honor, and he never liked that Pollio. You should never have gone to such a rogue in the first place—but I suppose that bein’ a foreigner and all, you couldn’t know that. You just lie low then, till tomorrow, and you’ll be fine.”

  He shook hands with dignified formality and took his leave.

  When Maerica returned with the water and a loaf of bread, he told her the old man’s news.

  “Huh!” she exclaimed in disgust, banging the water down in the corner. “I told you!”

  “So you did,” he admitted. “You were right.”

  It didn’t seem to appease her. She hunkered down on the floor, ripped a chunk off the loaf as though it were a mortal enemy, then sat scowling at it.

  “What is the matter?” he asked in surprise.

  “Gellia!” she spat. She set her chunk of bread down, gazed up at him in anguish, and cried, “People heard us yesterday! Gellia congratulated me: she thinks I set out to catch you!”

  He didn’t know what to say. “You know you didn’t,” he managed at last, “and I know you didn’t, so what does it matter what Gellia thinks?”

  “Because she won’t be the only one!” snarled Maerica. “A man like you—a rich man who’s lost a wife—lots of people must’ve tried to catch you. And I’m an ugly barbarian—”

  “Not ugly!”

  “—an ugly barbarian who was sleeping in temple porches and living on scraps when you hired me! I was a gladiator, which means I’m no better than a whore, as far as the law’s concerned. I’m infamous—you know what that means?”

  He did, vaguely. As a term in Roman law, infamy meant a diminishment of legal status. An infamous person could not normally appear as a witness in court, and was unable to marry, inherit, or undertake most sorts of legal contract. He’d been aware that prostitutes were infamous, but not that the status also applied to gladiators, though it wasn’t really surprising.

  “We can try to get your status changed,” he said after a silence. “After all, you’re not a gladiator anymore.”

  “Then what am I?” she demanded miserably. “You said I can be anything I want, but it’s not true. I can’t be a respectable woman again. Nobody’s going to believe that I didn’t set out to catch you the moment you crossed my path, and they’ll think it’s a terrible shame I succeeded. Even your courtesans will turn up their noses, and say, ‘How could he love her, after us?’ All your friends will be horrified. Your aunt will be furious, and your wife’s family. They’ll all think I’m a disgraceful old whore!”

  He remembered how desperately she had resisted that trade, and understood some of the anguish. He came over and sat down beside her. He considered putting an arm around her, then reconsidered.

  “I will tell my friends you’re nothing of the sort,” he promised. “If they are my friends they’ll believe me, and if they’re not, I’m well rid of them.”

  “Huh! None of them will believe you, but the ones who are your true friends will tell you you so, and the ones who aren’t will be polite to your face and laugh at you behind your back. Everyone who cares for you will tell you to send me away. They’ll be especially horrified if you let your daughter be friends with me.”

  “What am I to say?” he asked impatiently. “It will not be easy, and I’m sorry, but I can live with their opinion if you can. Eventually they will see that they were wrong.”

  “Maybe you’ll decide they’re right,” she whispered.

  “I will not,” he said flatly. “Maerica, please.” He held out his hands to her. She did not take them, though she looked into his face.

  “What would your father say if he saw you now?” she asked bitterly.

  It stung. He lowered his hands.

  “He was an important man, wasn’t he? He made you what you are, a gentleman and a businessman and a Latin-speaker; you always listened to him, didn’t you? And he would be as horrified by me as your aunt, wouldn’t he?”

  He let out his breath unsteadily. “He’s dead,” he pointed out.

  “If he
were alive, he’d make you send me away.”

  “I wouldn’t have obeyed him.” Even as he said it, he realized with a shock that it was true. He could not remember ever having defied his father, but he would have, over this. “Please. It won’t be as bad as you think. I am a respectable businessman, not a silly youth, and you are a sober woman, not some extravagant dancing girl or scandalous actress. People may raise their eyebrows at my choice, but if I say I want to keep you as a concubine, they—”

  She looked shocked. “Keep me as a what?”

  “A concubine.”

  “No! I won’t accept that!”

  He hesitated, puzzled by the ferocity of that cry—then remembered that most of her Latin had been learned in a gladiatorial school. “Do you know what the word means?” he asked gently.

  She frowned suspiciously. “It’s a kind of whore, isn’t it?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “It’s a kind of wife. Men of my rank not infrequently fall in love with women who for some reason they cannot marry. Maybe he’s Alexandrian and she’s Egyptian, or he’s a Roman citizen, and she isn’t, so there’s a legal bar, or maybe it’s just that she’s a slave and he’s rich and of good family—for some reason, he can’t marry her. If they settle together anyway, she is called a concubine. It is a far more respectable title than ‘whore’ or even ‘mistress.’ Only a wife’s name is more honorable.”

  “Oh,” she said, and looked at his face searchingly.

  “I’m not lying,” he told her. “You’re not a citizen, so concubinage is the best I can offer you. There are things we can do to improve your status, though. We can apply to get you the status of a free resident of Alexandria, and we can get you title to some property. Maybe you could try running a business. You are a clever woman, and so strong that even the school of Taurus couldn’t crush you. However bad this is, it has to be better than the arenas. Don’t surrender to the opinions of fools!”

  She bit her lip. “This word ‘concubine’—do you really mean that you would marry me, if the laws allowed it?”

  He was silent a moment, shocked by himself, by the certainty of his own feelings. Then he said simply, “Yes.”

  She looked as shocked as he felt. “I … didn’t expect that.”

  “You were talking about having children!”

  “Yes, but … I don’t know what I was expecting. Not that.”

  “You keep telling me what a strange man I am, but do you think there’s another woman like you in all the world? The whole weight of the Roman Empire fell on you, and you not only survived but preserved your soul in integrity. Don’t you see how extraordinary you are? That cruel Taurus—he thinks he owned you, that you were his slave, property at his school. He was wrong: he never even knew your name. You never sold yourself, never yielded your consent to any of the degradations they forced on you, never broke. But what all the power of Rome could not force from you, you gave to me. Do you think I don’t know that that is a jewel beyond price, and treasure it?”

  To his astonishment and horror she burst into tears. He exclaimed helplessly and incautiously put an arm around her shoulders. For once there was no recoil, and she flung herself into his arms, sobbing loudly. He kissed her and murmured endearments in Greek, and slowly she calmed down.

  “I’m sorry,” she managed at last. “Oh, dear heart. I never thought anyone would love me again.”

  “I already told you I love you!”

  She shrugged, warm in his arms. “Yes, but that was in bed.”

  “Am I supposed to feel less loving when I’m in bed with you?”

  She looked into his eyes a moment, then kissed him. “No, you’re supposed to feel less loving once you get up.”

  “Well, as it happens, I don’t. My dear life, in all truth, people won’t despise you as much as you fear they will. We can make you a place in Alexandria. We will simply have to work at it.”

  “You said I should run a business?” she asked disbelievingly.

  He thought about that. “Yes,” he concluded. “It will be important for you to have some property in your own name, first because a woman who owns property is immediately much more respectable than a woman who doesn’t, and second because I do not want you to be dependent on my heirs if anything should happen to me.”

  “But—run a business?”

  He shrugged. “I could buy you a farm, if you prefer. The trouble with that, though, is that I don’t know anything about farming. I could help you with a business.”

  “I don’t know anything about business! In Cantabria we barely even used money!”

  “Well—what about leatherworking? You seem to know something about that, and not many Egyptians do.”

  “I can mend my shoes, but nobody would pay me to mend theirs!”

  “I was never for a moment suggesting that you should set up as a cobbler! No—can you tell whether a hide is cured well or badly, and whether it will be useful for shoes or stitching or something finer?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So, there you are! You know more about it than most people in Alexandria. Leather isn’t made much in Egypt, and what is made tends to be inferior stuff. I know, because most of the ship captains I deal with refuse to use Egyptian leather on their vessels. One man I know swears by Iberian; another prefers Numidian. Somebody who knew about leather, who could pick the best hides and sell them on to the most appropriate users, who could deal with the captains—somebody like that could make a lot of money. I could set you up in it, get you a good scribe, introduce you to people. You could make it a success.”

  She was silent a moment. Then she laughed weakly. “Och, oh, what you mean is that someone like you could make lots of money!”

  He held her more tightly. “No. I don’t know enough about leather.” He was beginning, however, to warm to the idea he’d thrown out at random, and he went on, “With your knowledge of leather, though, and my business contacts, this really could be a very profitable venture.”

  She looked at his face earnestly. “Do your laws allow women to run their own businesses?”

  He sighed. “It’s customary for a woman to have a male guardian to represent her in law. There are plenty of women, though, who run their own affairs and just get a brother or a patron to sign for them. We’ll have to get legal recognition for me to sign for you—or, if you prefer, you can employ somebody else.”

  She was silent.

  “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he told her, though he found that he was liking the idea more and more. “You could pick a different business. Or a farm, if you prefer.”

  “And you don’t think your friends will be even more disgusted to see you giving so much away to … to me?”

  He shrugged. “If you were a man who had saved my life, and I set you up in business or bought you a farm as a reward, everybody would simply accept it. Yes, they’d say it was generous, but they’d also believe it was appropriate. Because you’re a woman, they will raise their eyebrows—at first, anyway. But I don’t think it will be as bad as you fear—and if we can make a success of a partnership, everyone will say how very wise I was to take up with you. Money, I fear, is the chief god of the Alexandrians.”

  She was silent, playing with his face.

  “Do you really not even use money in Cantabria?”

  She laid a finger on his lips. “You talk too much, and you question everything.”

  “Of course: I’m Greek.”

  “I don’t want you to talk now.”

  He began to smile: the crisis was over. “What do you want me to do instead?”

  The rest of the day passed in the same intoxicated haze that had engulfed the previous afternoon. At dusk they moved the mattress from the bed onto the floor, as a compromise between floor and bed, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  He woke at dawn, instantly aware of where he was and who was beside him, but aware, too, of what was to happen that day, as though it were a toothache. Maerica was already awake, l
ying motionless with her head inches from his own, watching him with wide quiet eyes. When their eyes met, she whispered, “I dreamed of the mountains last night.”

  He stretched. “Is that a good omen or a bad one?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It is a long time since I dreamed about home, that is all. I think I know why I dreamed it now, though.”

  “And?”

  “You are like the mountain I dreamed about.”

  He laughed. “It take it this is a small mountain.”

  She smiled, but shook her head. “It was near home, and we called it the Vulture, because of its shape. The lower slopes are good pasture. They are open, and covered with flowers. There are pure streams, many of them, all good sweet water, and the grass is thick and rich. It is a very beautiful place. Everyone would take sheep and cattle up there in the summer, and it would feed and support them.”

  “And this reminded you of me? I am flattered.”

  “I am not finished. That was only the lower slopes. The heart of the mountain is a pinnacle of rock, sheer and strong and too steep even for goats. Only the kings of the air, the great birds go there—the vultures we called griffons, for their size, and the breakers of bones, the lammergeiers and the eagles. In my dream, though, I had wings, and I flew up the cliff face, and I turned on the air and saw how all those pleasant pastures were held up by the stone, and when I woke I knew that really I had been dreaming about you. Because people meet you, and they think you are kind and gentle, such a pleasant man, and they don’t see that underneath it there is stone. I don’t mean that you pretend, because you like to be pleasant to people, and maybe the Vulture liked to support our flocks—but it was a mountain, not fields that could be worked with a plough.” She laid her palm against his chest. “If you love me, I think it is because I am the only woman who has gone above the slopes, and met you on the steep places, there, in your heart, where there was only stone and snow and silence.”

  He found that he was holding his breath, and he let it out slowly, then made himself breathe again. “That’s very poetic,” he managed. Inside he cowered at the frightened sense that, whether or not he was like a mountain, she had certainly reached some part of himself which no one before her had ever touched, and which was very much harder and colder than the self with which he was familiar. It was the part of himself which had insisted on the attempt to humble a Roman consul, even if it cost not just his own life but the ruin of everyone he loved. Stone and snow, yes, and the sheer cliffs of his pride. It felt—strange—to have someone else there. It felt as though she had suddenly acted out some secret dream which he had never divulged to anyone, both achingly sweet and frighteningly private.