The Shield of Rome

by William Kelso

  The sudden question caught her by surprise. It was true. She had never been close to her mother. They had shared little in common and at times it had seemed to her that all they did was compete for Numerius’ attention.

  “Yes,” she nodded, “She was so different. Was that why you sent me away to be a vestal?”

  Numerius smiled and took her hand in his, “Vesta is lucky to have you as her priestess,” he said with sudden warmth. “And I too am lucky to have you as a daughter.”

  Pompeia felt the warmth of his hand and it brought back a thousand memories.

  “Why did you marry mama?” she asked suddenly.

  Numerius raised his eyebrows. “A man needs a woman,” he stopped himself sharply.

  “It is alright,” she said, “I understand the full nature of my vows to Vesta.”

  Numerius took a moment to study her.

  “Well, I married Claudia for her money and family status. She was Fabius’ niece after all.”

  “Why?” Pompeia asked.

  “To honour my father,” Numerius replied. “It was his wish.”

  “What about love?” Pompeia said.

  Numerius turned his eyes to the ground.

  “Marriage is a sacred vow and must never be broken”, he said sternly. “The laws of our ancestors gave me the right to govern my wife in any way I like.

  I did not rule her harshly or too kindly. You must understand that we had never seen each other before we were married. It was all arranged by the families”.

  “What about afterwards, did you love her?”

  “I suppose in a certain way,” Numerius hesitated, “But we were never really intimate.” He glanced at her with a sad smile. “After you arrived we agreed to have no more physical relations with each other.”

  Pompeia was silent for a while. “I understand Papa,” she said at last. “They say that I am married to Rome but sometimes I too find it a loveless relationship.”

  ***

  It was growing dark as her carriage made its way back to the temple. In her hand Pompeia held the sealed will that her father had given her. The news that he was dying had changed everything. She was no stranger to death but now that mortality had come so close, its touch had made her think about life and what really was important. There had been a reason why she had asked her father about her mother. Pompeia was in love.

  She blushed as she remembered the last festival of Lupercalia, the Wolfs festival, that had been held in February and to Lucius Cantilius. No one knew about Cantilius. He had been one of the young handsome priests belonging to the college of the Luperci, a minor religious cult that worshipped the God Pan, and who clad in goatskins had run around the ancient walls of the Palatine hill lashing out at the crowds with their thongs. From the first moment she had seen him she could not take her eyes off him.

  The festival and its sacrifice to the She Wolf who had suckled Romulus and Remus would purify the city and ensure its fertility. Women had lined the path along which the priests had run and had held out the palms of their hands, hoping to be lashed by the thongs and thus blessed with fertility. She knew it had been a stupid and highly dangerous thing to do but unable to resist her desire, she had done it anyway, and so disguised with a long cloak and hood she too had pushed her way to the front of the crowd and had held open her palms, for what was life worth without someone to share it with.

  Chapter Nine – On the road to Rome

  It was still dark when Titus slipped out of Canusium. He rode the same horse which had helped him escape from the battle eleven days earlier. In the days that had followed the shocking Roman defeat, Scipio, the Tribune had kept him busy. Titus had first been dispatched to the town of Venusia with a message for the Consul Varro. The sole surviving supreme war leader of the Roman people had found shelter in a simple house in the town and it was here that Titus had met him. Barely thirty men had escaped together with the Consul and Varro had looked exhausted and crushed. His face had the haunted look of a man who knew he had been responsible for Rome’s worst ever defeat. A man like that would have no friends and his families name would be mud for all time but Titus had not felt sorry for the consul. The man’s incompetence had caused the deaths of every single soldier in his company. If Varro’s shame was too great to bear then he could always fall on his sword.

  After reading Scipio’s dispatch the consul had managed to collect himself sufficiently to give orders that all able bodied men should follow him to Canusium. Titus had ridden back that same day, ahead of the troops with the news that the Consul was coming to take charge of the survivors. When Varro had finally arrived a force of around 10,000 men was being assembled, the pitiful remnants of an army that once had mustered 80,000.

  And now Titus was off again on another errand. Idly he touched the leather case around his neck which contained the despatch, which the consul had ordered him to take to the Senate in Rome. Don’t stop for anything or anyone he had been told. Ride day and night. Speed is essential. The new orders had thrilled him. He was going to Rome! He was going home at last. He would be able to visit his mother and sister and reassure them that he was alive for news of the great disaster at Cannae must surely have reached the city by now. And there was something else.

  Titus smiled to himself as he thought about the summons to Scipio’s improvised HQ. The young officer had received him alone and before handing over the Consul’s official dispatch had presented him with a private letter. It was an introduction, to be delivered to a retired lawyer in Rome, an acquaintance of Scipio’s, and the letter formally asked the lawyer to agree to undertake Titus’ education once the war was over. The man is not the best teacher, Scipio had added, but at least he won’t mind teaching a Samnite. You will have to wait until the war is over I’m afraid but my reputation will not let you down.

  Titus had not known what to say. Ever since his father had died he had decided that he would make something of himself. He had set his heart on rising above the station to which he had been born. It would not be easy, he knew that. He was not a Roman citizen, only a poor second class citizen, without the right to vote in the assemblies or stand for office and despite the boasts of the Romans that their institutions were fair and open to everyone, a strong racial prejudice against foreigners still existed amongst the leading Patrician classes. He had quickly realised that the key to success was education, but education cost a huge amount of time, which he did not have, and money, money which he would never likely possess. But now at last he had a chance, a huge chance and his smile grew and grew until it split his face from ear to ear.

  Now as the dawn approached he rode carefully down the hill side heading northwest. He thought again of the conversation with Scipio. The officer had changed his mind about the reward, he didn’t fully understand why, but it probably had something to do with publicity for Scipio had asked him to keep the matter private. That was how the rich and powerful acted he thought; they said one thing in public and another in private. It was the same with women he thought disapprovingly. To Titus, honesty and speaking the truth were virtues but he knew enough to know that if he wished to make something of himself he would have to have to learn to act a little, like the rich and powerful.

  He glanced up at the towering hills whose peaks were becoming visible in the early morning light. The hills always reminded him of the place where he had been born. The peoples of Italy had been divided into lowlanders and highlanders since the dawn of the world. The Romans and their Latin kinsmen along with the Campanians in Capua and the Greek city states in the south had all been lowlanders, making their living from farming and trade. In the highlands however the Samnites had lived in small isolated villages’ eaking out a living from their flocks of sheep and now and then raiding the lowlands when times were tough. The Romans were proud of their heritage and their nation but so too were the Samnites and war between lowlander and highlander had been bloody and continuous until a few generations earlier the iron will of Rome had finally endured and the pr
oud Samnites had been forced into the domain of the growing Roman Empire, and so had become allies of the Senate and People of Rome.

  Titus had however had a happy childhood in the mountains. He had learned the craft of the mountaineer and the herdsman. He had started work nearly as soon as he could walk for all hands were needed to help run the family business. There had been no time or money for such luxuries as education. His father had always scoffed at the idea of becoming a Roman citizen, but once he’d given his loyalty to Rome he had never wavered in his oath to the city or spoken against her.

  ***

  For the first part of the morning he pushed his horse as fast as he dared. Titus loved horses. He had grown up with them in the high mountains and the beasts had been treated as part of the family. His boyhood home had been a mountain farm where his father had raised and traded horses. Then one terrible day a band of horse thieves had come and stolen the whole herd. His father had been away and Titus, still just a boy, had not been able to stop the thieves. The feeling of unfairness and powerlessness that he experienced that day still haunted him. Unable to raise fresh funds the business had collapsed and the family had been forced to move to Rome. It had been a hard decision to make but his father had said it was for the best. There was work in Rome for a skilled man and the future of Italy now lay in Rome the old man had told his family.

  His father had found work in a blacksmiths and so Titus had become a blacksmiths apprentice. The crowded slums of Rome had been a huge change from the fresh mountain air and freedom of the high woods and lonely rocky crags but Titus had put his back into his work for the family needed to eat. Rome had been so unimaginably different, but the people in the slums had not judged his family or persecuted them for who they were or where they came from. They had given his father a chance to make a living and over time accepted the family as one of their own.

  Then one day his father had been struck down in the street by a loose roof tile and the accident had killed him. It was not an uncommon occurrence. His father’s death had come in the year that Hannibal had arrived in Italy and by the following year Titus had been conscripted. The elderly blacksmith for whom he and his father had worked had promised to look after his mother and sister but the man was old and Titus had worried what would happen if the man died or moved away. It had been nearly a year since he’d last seen or heard from his family.

  ***

  It was just before noon when Titus spotted the smoke in the distance. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The smoke was drifting lazily to the east but he couldn’t see the source of the fire for his view was blocked by a wooded ridge. He glanced back down the mountain track he’d been following but saw no one. Dismounting, he started up the path leading his horse by the reins. This part of the track was high up in the mountains and he’d seen very few people. When he reached the crest of the ridge and emerged from the trees he paused. A meadow with a stream lay before him and in the meadow, all alone, was a small farm. The farmhouse was on fire. As he stared at it, a section of the roof crashed inwards with a great roar. There was no sign of anyone. He tapped his fingers on his leg unsure for a moment of what to do. But his path led him directly past the burning building.

  The roar of the flames grew louder as he approached but the breeze was blowing the smoke away from him and he had a good view. The first body lay beside the mountain path. It was a woman. She lay face down in the dirt, arms splayed apart. Blood had spilled out in a puddle beneath her chest and her fingers grasped at the soil as if she had been trying to drag herself along. Titus crouched down beside her and touched the body. It was still warm. He looked up anxiously. Whoever had killed her may still be close by. He glanced again at the farm. There was another body just beyond the porch. It was a child whose head had been bashed in.

  Titus glanced up the track and then back the way he had come. This was none of his business. His orders were clear. Speed was essential and yet he hesitated. The scene brought back memories of the day that horse thieves had come to his farm and ruined the family business. On that day he had followed his instinct and had not resisted the thieves and because of that decision his family had escaped with their lives. But that had not happened here. Killing women and children was barbaric. What could these simple mountain folk possibly have done to deserve such a death? He stared at the burning farm and then slowly tied the horse’s reins to the wooden farm fence and turned to face the flames. It was then that he noticed the dead oxen in the meadow. He frowned with growing curiosity. Why kill them?

  Titus felt the heat on his face and kept a hand to his mouth to ward off the smoke. Carefully he skirted round to the side of the farm and as he did so he came across the third corpse, the body of a man. The smoke was thicker here and it billowed away blown by the breeze so that his view was partially obscured. The corpse had been decapitated and was stark naked. Even his shoes had been taken. Titus crouched down beside the body. Why take the man’s clothes? He reached out and touched the corpse. It was still warm and the blood had not clotted. All of the farming family had been killed and very recently too.

  As he rose to his feet he saw the man. The stranger was crouched over an odd looking machine with tripod wooden legs. As Titus caught sight of him the nose of the bow like machine swivelled and there was a sharp twanging noise. A bolt hurtled away into the distance. There was a dull thwack and one of the cows, a hundred paces away, keeled over onto the ground. Titus stood rooted to the spot. The man had large scars across his arm. Some distance away a horse stood tethered to a tree.

  The man stiffened and straightened up as he caught sight of Titus. For a long second the two of them stared at each other. The stranger was old but tall, muscular and fit looking, with a clean shaven face and dressed in a plain farmer’s tunic. In his hand he was holding another bolt ready to load into the machine. There was something menacing about him that made the hairs on Titus’ neck stand up. The man was wearing the farmer’s clothes. That was why the corpse was naked.

  Without saying a word Titus turned and fled. He felt the heat from the burning farm on his face. The noise from the roaring fire drowned out all other sounds. His horse was where he had left it and he threw himself into the saddle risking a glance behind him. The stranger was running towards him. He had a sword in his hand. Titus dug his heels into the horse and the beast lurched forwards up the mountain path. He thundered up the track and after a few moments glanced back over his shoulder. With no hope of catching up the stranger had stopped and was standing in the middle of the path watching him with his hands on his hips.

  Bandits, Titus thought darkly as he stared at the solitary figure. Titus hated bandits, they were nothing but scum. The countryside was full of them now that war had ravaged Italy for over two years and law and order were under pressure everywhere. But there was something odd about this one. For a start he appeared to be alone and what bandit had a machine like that man had? It looked like some kind of bolt thrower. Titus shook his head. Bandits didn’t care who you were. The man had killed the farmers, simple decent people like himself. The scum should be thrown from the Tarquin rock he thought spitting onto the ground before wheeling his horse around and galloping away up the track.

  Chapter Ten – The house on the Palatine

  Fabius’ house was a mansion on the Palatine hill. The Palatine was the grandest and most desirable of all addresses in Rome. It was the hill on which the original city had been founded by Romulus some five hundred years before. It was the neighbourhood where wealthy aristocrats rubbed shoulders with new money. The streets were clean and free of rubbish; there were no towering apartment blocks, seedy brothels or cheap looking shops. If the rest of Rome locked its doors at night and hid its wealth away from stranger’s eyes the Palatine chose to flaunt its wealth, its residents competing for attention and status. Their efforts showed in the elaborately decorated doors, the mosaic in the vestibules and the grandeur of the stone work. You were nobody in Rome if you didn’t own a house on the Palatine.

>   From the street Fabius’ house however looked surprisingly ordinary, with a stout plain wooden door set in a shallow vestibule. Numerius was shown into the atrium and found Fabius engaged in his morning prayers to the Lares, the household gods. Numerius gripped his walking stick tightly so that it would hide his trembling hand. That morning he had felt the attack of Malaria coming before it happened and he’d had time to lie down on a couch and prepare himself. But despite his preparations the fit had left him soaked in sweat and feeling weak and exhausted. The disease would return again and again and each time it would weaken him until eventually he would die. It was afternoon now and he did not feel much better despite the potions the doctor had given him. But he had to keep going for there was a new crisis and Fabius needed his help.

  “They have asked to address the Senate,” Fabius said as he slowly got up on his feet. “I fear that they will demand the impossible.”

  The old patricians face looked troubled. Numerius nodded. That morning when he was being seized by his fit, ten Roman noblemen, members of the senate who had been captured by Hannibal, had ridden into the city and had confirmed everyone’s worst fears about the recent battle. The nobles had asked to plead their position before the Senate.