by Mike Ashley
He not only survived, but coming through game after game virtually unscathed gave him celebrity status. Marcus delighted in trotting him out at banquets, showing him off like a prize Arab stallion. It became fashionable for other patricians to invite him into their homes and to court his favour.
Hengist accepted this patronage placidly. Popularity, he knew, led to freedom. When, in the Taurine Amphitheatre, he was awarded the rudus or wooden sword of liberty the crowd went wild. He disappointed many of his admirers by refusing to free-lance, choosing instead to retire to a wineshop in Campania with a woman whose freedom he had purchased from the Ludus Magnus.
Hengist was not surprised to see the magistrate Aulus Piso coming through his portal. Those who had wagered on him and cheered at his victories still thronged to his shop to discuss his exploits and past triumphs and to eat the best food to be had in Campania. Even Claudius, the Emperor’s uncle, had said he only visited Pompeii to eat at Hengist’s wineshop. Aulus was cousin to Marcus Valerius, but of all patricians he alone treated the ex-gladiator as equal and friend.
Piso blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloom after the glare of the noonday sun. His glance swept over the wall murals of rustic gods, Ops in the fields, Ceres blessing the corn, Liber Pater making the grapes ripen.
‘How refreshing after the austerity of the courtroom.’
‘The illustrious Piso brings honour to my humble shop,’ murmured Hengist.
‘Don’t use that tone with me, you rogue. I’ve seen you slice a man to his second beard, remember.’ The magistrate was a plumpish man with a balding head and a fiery complexion. ‘Anyway, I’m the bearer of an invitation. From my cousin, the illustrious Senator Caius Marcus Valerius. To the banquet he gives tonight.’
Hengist frowned. ‘Am I still in favour? I’m hardly the hero of the hour.’
‘No, that fame belongs to Basso,’ replied Piso, bluntly.
‘Will he be there?’
‘Naturally.’
Hengist’s frown deepened. ‘Marcus isn’t planning a contest between us for the entertainment of his guests, is he?’
‘My friend! What do you take me for?’ Piso lifted his hands in mock indignation.
Hengist noticed he had left the cumbersome toga, symbol of his rank and profession, on the floor of his chariot, and was at ease in his white, maroon-bordered tunic.
‘So you have come to share prandium with me,’ he observed with a bland smile.
Piso hesitated, savouring the aromas of the wineshop with dinted nostrils. On a long wooden table the cook prepared all meals in the sight of the patrons and then baked them in his charcoal stove.
‘Oysters and mussels while we’re waiting, then native thrushes with asparagus, cooked in sweet wine, honey and spices with an excellent garum from Cades,’ Hengist tempted, adding ‘Pro gratis, of course.’
The magistrate relaxed. ‘How can I refuse such generosity?’
Hengist bowed and led his guest to his own table. ‘Wine, Tassia.’
Piso glanced up as Tassia crossed the shop with a pitcher of wine. As she caught Hengist’s eye she swung her hips ever so subtly. His lips shaped a kiss. Tassia was a sensation to be indulged in.
‘Truly, you are blessed with the comforts of life. I envy you.’ The magistrate mopped his florid face with the hem of his sleeve. ‘You may think me a wealthy man, but I’m not. No one in Rome’s a wealthy man these days, not with Caligula fleecing us.’
‘Speaking of invitations,’ Hengist turned the subject deftly.
‘Oh, yes.’ Piso looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Actually, your invitation comes from a different source than my illustrious cousin. He was persuaded to include you in tonight’s company.’
Hengist watched him and waited, his craggy face expressionless.
‘By a lady.’
‘Not by his wife, Valeria Julia. She was scarce of an age when I was in the arena.’
‘By his sister, Valeria Claudia.’
‘The Vestal?’
‘You do remember her.’
‘Only as a remote and regal figure in white sitting in a privileged loggia in the midst of her sister Virgins. Of course I knew of her through Marcus.’
‘She’s finished her thirty-year tenure at the House of Vestals and emerged into the world. She expressed a wish to see you again.’
‘I can’t think why. I’ve never exchanged a word with her.’
Piso greedily devoured the shellfish. On his bench the cook chopped lovage, the wild celery of Campania, the staccato sound an undercurrent to their confidential conversation.
‘Why not come? You would be relieving me of boredom. I’ll find the rest of the company deadly dull.’
‘Even Basso?’
‘That oaf! He’ll spend the evening flexing his muscles and boasting of his latest bit of slaughter. He’s been awarded his wooden sword, you know, but decided to free-lance. He likes the adulation of the crowd and the lusting after him of silly women. Most of all, he likes to kill. In the bloodiest way possible.’
‘Who is the brute, friend? He who kills or he who watches?’ quoted Hengist, softly.
‘Don’t throw Seneca up at me. I like a good show as well as any man. And don’t let Basso stop you from coming tonight. You’ll enjoy the food, maybe even steal a recipe or two.’ Piso let another oyster slide down his throat, following it with a gulp of wine.
‘What’s the occasion?’
‘Marcus is betrothing his daughter Paulina to Lucius Maro.’
Hengist opened his grey eyes wide. ‘Rumour had it she was destined for the House of Vestals.’
‘Marcus says her health won’t permit it.’ The magistrate gave an undignified snigger. ‘We both know what that means. She’s no longer a virgin. And possibly with child. Healthy enough for marriage, indeed. And to one of equestrian status, when Marcus prides himself on his Valerian ancestors. Who’d want to boast of lineage from Mark Antony, a man who deserted wife and country for that whore of a queen, Cleopatra? Families!’
‘I wouldn’t know. In fact, I wouldn’t recognize my own parents if they came into my shop. Or vice versa. But this affair of which you speak sounds less of family than of pride.’
‘Injured pride. Of course, Claudia’s disappointed. The girl was her protégée. Just as once Claudia was the protégée of the Empress Livia. Now there was a harridan.’
‘I think I shall go to your cousin’s banquet,’ interrupted Hengist. ‘Caution forbids me, but curiosity compels me. You have assembled the cast for me. Now I shall go and watch the play.’
On the peninsula of Misenum not far from the city of Pompeii stood the villa of the Valerii, which the artistry of man had created in perfect symmetry as a defiance against the rugged architecture of nature. A portico of pillars enclosed the house on three sides. The villa was built so far out on the edge of the promontory that the view from two sides of the tablinum showed a sheer drop to the sea crawling in on the rocks below. On wintry days the sea made thunder below the windows, pounding and throwing up a torrent of foam.
But this was the time of summer when the warmth of the sun pleased the skin and gilded the cold marble and made the fruit ripen on the boughs.
Fresh from an afternoon at the baths and wearing his finest linen tunic under a brown woollen pallium, Hengist arrived at the portal. He was simply dressed, his sandals new but of plain leather not gilt, the fibula fastening his pallium at the shoulder a plain bronze pin unembellished with jewel or filigree. His only ornaments were bracelets of bronze and silver stretching from wrist to elbow. They had been an anonymous gift after his first fight and it had been a whim to keep them when he had sold off so much else to buy his wineshop.
The doorkeeper who admitted him was an elderly man who had probably served at the villa before the time of Augustus. He was too well-trained to blink in recognition or evince surprise that the guest had arrived on horseback and without slaves, but behind his imperturbable façade he was ruminating, It’s getting as bad as the Palati
um. All kinds of riff-raff admitted. Charioteers, gladiators, actors. They’ll be welcoming tax-collectors next.
‘You are the first guest to arrive.’ There was the merest hint of reproach in the doorkeeper’s voice. ‘Will you wait for the domine in the atrium?’
The vestibule led into the pillared courtyard with its water-lily pool reflecting between flat leaves the shifting moods of the sky. The mosaic of tiles on the floor depicted Neptune in his sea-chariot, surrounded by a bevy of green-haired nymphs and all manner of creatures from starfish to octopi. From wall niches, the busts of Valerian ancestors gazed out in marble supremacy.
The atrium led out to the peristyle with its aluvium and potted shrubs. The steps from the peristyle lured the visitor into the sunken garden, where peacocks uttered their haunting, melancholy cries and spread their tails to capture glints from the sun on their rich hues.
All that would grow so close to the sea bloomed in profusion here, but designed by a gardener’s hand into an idyllic landscape. Grottoes and rock-gardens, fountains and statuary, arbours and fish-pools, freshwater canals overhung by bridges and pergolas.
Valeria Julia wandered along the path; the earth was so soft and yielding she had cast off her sandals and walked barefoot in comfort. Curling around the pergola above her head were red and green vines which cast fleeting patterns of colour on her sunlit face.
She seemed fashioned of gold in the radiance of the sunset, dressed in a palla of gold Cos gauze over a saffron stola. Her hair, washed all week in Gaul soap to heighten its blonde sheen, was braided and coiled under a gold diadem. The light yet vivid blue of her eyes was enhanced with kohl and her lips subtly ripened with carmine.
Her eyes flickered with initial disappointment as she recognized him. He was quick to make an exaggerated gesture of deference and admiration. Her glance flicked over him, then lingered on his body as if she could penetrate his tunic to the scars of the arena. Her lips parted slightly, a pulse throbbed in her throat and her eyes glistened with an almost-greed, not-quite-hunger.
Hengist recognized the look. He had seen it many times and experienced more than a look from the matrons who had bribed lanistae to be smuggled into his cell. It was a fascination, a lust to touch the flesh of a man who had spilled the blood of other men and who offered his own body to the sword.
Julia was a seeker of the exotic, he had heard, a devotee of the goddess Isis. Both cousin and wife to Marcus, though many years younger, she too claimed descent from the passionate and wayward Mark Antony.
‘Isis pales before such beauty,’ he said, greatly daring. ‘I behold Julia and no longer worship at the shrine of Egypt.’
Her nostrils flared, but she was not offended, merely offered him a hint of hauteur.
‘I’m sure you were an amusing fellow once, but your hour has passed. Beyond the hedge you’ll find one more of an age to be flattered by your tributes. I leave you to my sister-in-law, Valeria Claudia.’
His bland smile betrayed no sense of rebuff. He stood aside to allow her to enter the peristyle and then obediently made his way along the path to the break in the hedge.
He found Claudia sitting on a travertine bench under an apricot tree, watching the multi-coloured fish darting about in the euripus, one of the miniature canals criss-crossing the garden. She had reached middle age and her hair was grey under the silver diadem, but her expression was serene, almost sweet. She was, he saw, celebrating her release from the House of Vestals, laying aside her virginal white for a stola of the rarest colour of all – blue – in cross-weave linen and silk. She greeted him with restrained warmth and made room for him to sit beside her.
‘Does such apparel become me?’ she asked, noticing his look. ‘Or am I too old for such bedizenments?’
He gave the only answer he could. ‘You’re still a very handsome woman.’
A dimple appeared unexpectedly in her cheek. ‘How tactful! Handsome is a word used for women who no longer attract men.’
‘Vestals have been known to wed when their tenure is over. You have many years left to enjoy such pursuits.’
‘I’ll be content to sit in the sunset and watch the fish. I’ve had a privileged life as a Keeper of the Flame. No women are as well-protected as Vestals.’
‘I believe I owe my presence at this banquet to your kind request.’
She slid him a sidelong glance. Her eyes were like bitter lemons or the rim of the sky just before twilight, a greenish-yellow.
‘I wondered what had become of you, if the years had drawn your teeth or if you still bite. I remember your first fight in the arena. The Ides of September. The Great Roman Games.
‘I remember too the scandal of the murdered pugile. The lanista tried to insist he died of his wounds, but you proved him guilty.’
Hengist shrugged. ‘It was an easy deduction to make. The men were enemies. The lanista was too fond of the whip and the pugile was proud. And a sword makes a deeper wound than a cestus.’
‘Still, your accusation and its outcome – the arrest of the lanista – was much talked about.’
Hengist shrugged again. ‘It was years ago. Talk to me of this evening’s banquet. Is it a happy occasion for your little Paulina?’
Claudia raised expressive eyebrows. ‘He’s presentable enough, this Lucius Maro. An equite, but wealthy. And Marcus needs wealth. Not too much, just enough to appease Caligula from time to time, not enough to make him jealous.’
‘Is the Emperor so impoverished? I thought the Treasury was full.’
‘So it was. But what Tiberius hoarded away during his reign, Caligula squandered in a year. He’s always thinking up new taxes to fleece his friends.’
‘Wealthy or not, is Paulina happy with the match?’
The first breeze of the evening shook the apricot tree, casting shadows over Claudia’s face.
‘She would much have preferred the House of Vestals. She was one born to be a Virgin. And I would have been happy to sponsor her.’
‘Yes, I heard you had made a favourite of her. As Livia made a favourite of you.’
‘My mother died too soon.’
‘Why did you ask me to come tonight?’
She leaned towards him in a touching way, resting her hand not on his arm but on the striped bronze and silver bracelet. He looked at her hand; delicate and blue-veined, it seemed weighed down by her many rings.
‘Basso will be here tonight. I wish Marcus hadn’t invited him. He’s noisy and quarrelsome and he always gets drunk. Lucius is quite a prig, despite his equite status. I don’t want him upset. You have a way with you. You know the nature of patricians and you certainly know gladiators. I trust in you to pour oil on any troubled waters.’
‘Do you fear the betrothal will be broken?’
‘Yes. Basso and Lucius . . .’ She spread her hands wide apart, searching for a smile.
‘Would it be such a tragedy if Paulina’s heart’s not in it?’
‘She must marry. It’s the only course open to my little Proserpine.’
Hengist was silent, thinking of Piso’s suspicion. Claudia glanced over her shoulder at the house.
‘The slaves are lighting the lamps. It’s time we went in.’
‘How many dine tonight?’
‘Eight. By tradition no fewer than the three Graces . . .’
‘And no more than the nine Muses. I have attended Roman cenas before.’
As they rose, he reached for an apricot hanging low on the bough. Claudia gave his hand a sharp rap, her rings clashing against his bracelet.
‘You’ll spoil your appetite.’
The triclinium where the guests were invited to dine was hung with garlands to absorb the intoxicating elements of the wine. The door had been rolled back to invite the cool night air and for visitors to admire the vista of cold, pale statues rising against the dark foliage of fig and mulberry branches. In a semi-circle about a single table were the three couches that gave the room its name, each one large enough to accommodate three reclining g
uests.
Hengist observed the solid silver legs of the table and the rare wood of the couches with its undulating grain and colours that shifted in the play of light like the unfolding of a peacock’s tail. If Marcus was crying poverty now, he had possessed money once and lavished it. Like many patricians he owned two residences, a domus in Rome and this villa by the sea, where he could escape the malaria and summer heat of the capital.
Caius Marcus Valerius had the aura of a man dissatisfied with life. His once-handsome face was marred by deep grooves about his nose and mouth and his dark hair was coarsely threaded with grey.
He greeted his former slave in an off-hand manner to veil a latent hostility. Hengist was puzzled. He could appreciate the Senator’s reluctance to include him in the gathering. His fame had faded, he was only a common shopkeeper and lacked humility.
But Hengist read something else in his demeanour. A disquietude in the ex-gladiator’s presence, a something that almost smelt like the fear of a man who knew before the fight he would lose.
A likely cause for Marcus’ discontent was the indifference of his beautiful wife. Julia pulsed with a passion for life, she seemed on the brink of some about-to-be-realized expectation and it was patently obvious it was not to be shared with her husband.
His prospective son-in-law Lucius Maro was a small, flaxen-haired man with a prim, lack-lustre personality. Not even the arrival of his betrothed evoked a smile. He surveyed the extravagant festivities with mingled bewilderment and disapproval.
As for Paulina, she looked more like a girl being led to execution than to her wedding. She was the daughter of one of Marcus’ previous wives, a dark-eyed delicate creature, demurely dressed in white. Hengist noted how she clung to Claudia’s side as if still under the protection of Vesta.