Baebia paused on that. He looked at Kaleb and said, “You’re not writing.”
It was true. Kaleb had stopped writing when Baebia mentioned Sertorius. He must not know that Sertorius had been murdered. That wasn’t surprising, as the news had just reached them. In pausing to think this, Baebia’s words had streamed past him. Kaleb had just listened instead, wanting to hear it finished.
“I know why you stopped. Have you just realized it? You were here the very moment I brought my news to Crassus. You were here when he marched out to make use of it. Did you ever once think that you should grab one of your master’s horses and ride? Would anyone even have stopped you? You seem to be able to come and go as you please. You could’ve ridden to Spartacus and told him what Crassus intends. A man like him, with that information, would have turned it on Crassus. You could’ve done that, but you didn’t. Why not?”
Kaleb had no answer. He had thought of that, but it didn’t seem possible. And even if it had been, such a betrayal would be too much of a risk. Freedom would mean nothing without Umma, and only Crassus could give her to him. He said, “Go on. Finish it. You became Roman again.”
“Yes,” Baebia said, as if it cheered him to hear the words repeated, “I did. Castus and I, we stopped to water the horses at a stream. Dismounted, Castus bent and began to fill his waterskin. He was talking, I remember. Some foolishness about his gods. Castus was wondering if the dead warriors in Valhalla are only with their own kind, or if the gods and heroes of different nations sometimes come together. I think he wanted to believe that he’d meet Spartacus again in the afterlife. That’s what he was talking about when I smashed him in the back of the head with a river stone. He fell forward into the water. I drew my sword and stabbed him through the back. I don’t imagine that’s the sort of death that wins him Valhalla.”
“Did you hate him so much?”
“Castus? No, I liked him. He slept with men, but he didn’t try that on me. Kaleb, it wasn’t about him. It could’ve been anybody kneeling by the stream, talking of his gods. It just happened to be Castus. I did what I had to do because I am a Roman. I’d been tempted to forget it, but because of that deserter I remembered. Because I could imagine the unimaginable, I remembered. Because I realized that Spartacus is too great a man to be beaten without treachery. We’ve done it before. Don’t believe what the historians write, Kaleb. Rome’s rise is a long accumulation of betrayals.”
“Sertorius,” Kaleb said.
“What?”
“You mentioned concern that Sertorius would prevail over Pompey. He won’t. He was killed by one of his generals. At a banquet.”
“Was he now?” Baebia asked. For a moment he looked stunned by the news, but then he shrugged it off. “See? It’s as I just said. Our great nation has been built upon a long accumulation of betrayals. That will always be true of Rome. Anyway, for all the reasons I mentioned, I seized a moment when I saw it. I killed Castus and took his horse—she was finer than mine—and I rode here. I took the message I was supposed to take to the Germani and instead gave it to Crassus. Maybe, by doing so, I’ve saved my nation.”
Looking at the prisoner, Kaleb thought, Maybe you have. He thought it, but he took no joy in it. The snakes in his belly writhed on.
—
Now, though the trumpets have announced Crassus’s return to the camp, it seems as if ages pass in the tent without his appearing. Kaleb’s head swims with barbarian names, with the descriptions of them from Baebia’s lips and with quoted words attributed to them. He half-wishes he hadn’t heard them. Because of it he no longer knows what outcome he should be hoping for. The success that Crassus wants? Or the failure he fears? Kaleb wants both in a manner he hadn’t before sitting with the prisoner for the days that Crassus has been away. Success, because that would put this insurrection a step closer to being destroyed. It would fill Crassus with satisfaction, and some small measure of that would mean a reward for Kaleb. There’s only one thing he wants. For Umma to be his. For her to be safe from abuse. So he wants success, for the things it wins them both.
But after his long interviews with the prisoner, it’s hard not to share a sliver of the dream that drives Spartacus or to marvel at how close the Thracian is to overturning the order of the world. It seems a huge, dangerous, maybe glorious possibility. Toss out the world as Rome has made it. Replace it. Kaleb has no notion of what he’d replace it with, but the very idea yawns enormously. Maybe there would be a place for him and Umma in the new order Spartacus wants. He hasn’t considered this before. Now he can’t help but do so.
He’s so deep in thought that he doesn’t hear the arrival he’s so long waited for. He simply looks up to find Crassus inside the tent, with several soldiers behind him. He looks to his face. Crassus’s craggy features reveal nothing. It’s not a face at all, but more a mask worn over one. He strides in, wearing the full regalia of his office. He walks by the prisoner without comment and goes to his desk. He doesn’t so much as glance at Kaleb, who moves aside to give him room. For a moment Crassus sorts through the waiting scrolls and parchments with the tips of his long fingers. Kaleb should look down and make his face blank, but he can’t keep from studying his master’s profile. What’s happened? He needs to know, because otherwise his heart is going to pound, pound, pound itself to death.
Crassus picks up one of the tubes, cracks it open, and scans the missive inside it. “Huh,” he says, and then drops it to the table, as if he found it less interesting than he’d hoped. Only then does he glance at the prisoner. He says, “Take him outside to the lictors. They have my orders for what’s to happen to him.”
“But”—Baebia stammers—“what…what happened? Crassus…sir…you are well. You prevailed. I can see it. I helped you, didn’t I? Please just tell me—”
One of the soldiers has dragged him to his feet. Baebia’s so frantic in his speech that he doesn’t see the other one swing for him with a ringed fist. The blow catches him on the mouth, snapping his head to one side. A second punch does more than that, leaving his mouth bloody, his two front teeth bent inward.
Crassus raises a hand to stop more blows from falling. “You ask me what happened? Oh, I see. You thought that what happened out there was to have a resulting effect on your fate. No, that was never the case. What happens in this conflict no longer concerns you. One thing concerns you now. The manner of your death. Here it is. You are to be buried up to the shoulders in hard-packed earth. A sign is to be hung around your neck that names you as a traitor who fought with the rebels. The troops are to be encouraged to come and visit with you, to treat you as they will—so long as you’re left alive. You’ll be on display for a day and night. No water except for the urine men will rain on you. Obviously no food. After that you’ll be dug up, tied to a pole, and scourged until the bones of your back are visible. In conclusion, you are to be nailed to a stake, hands above and feet below, and hung there until death. It will be a slow misery of a death. No soldier that sees your fate will repeat your crimes.”
Baebia, holding his mouth delicately, tries to say something. He doesn’t get even a complete word out before the soldier punches him again.
“Stop!” Crassus snaps. “I don’t want him insensible.” The soldiers begin to remove Baebia, but Crassus says, “One moment. Now that I think of it, Rufius Baebia, there is something I’ve been wanting to say to you. Last summer, after Gellius was defeated, the rebels took up Roman garb and marched to join Clodianus. They pretended to be Roman to get close enough to begin slaughtering them. It was a cunning plan, but it worked for only one reason. Someone, a Roman by all accounts, brought a feigned message that convinced Clodianus the army marching toward him was Gellius’s. Everything was in order, done to our protocol. The messenger, he spoke as a Roman. He knew Roman ways. He was Roman. Because of him, many Roman soldiers died that day. I have decided that you, Rufius Baebia, were that man. Do you deny it? It won’t change your fate if you do, but just give me the satisfaction of knowing for sure.”
Baebia hangs supported by the two soldiers. His arrogant confidence is gone completely. Kaleb can’t quite read his expression. There’s anger in the flare of his nostrils. Misery in his swelling lips. His eyes, though, are wet with a more vulnerable emotion. A tear escapes one of them and runs down his cheek and falls away. He closes his lips, purses them as he does something with his tongue. When he opens them again, he spits out his two front upper teeth.
“I’ll consider that answer enough.” Crassus looks to Kaleb for the first time. “I don’t imagine he confessed that to you, did he?”
“No, master,” Kaleb says.
“No surprise that,” Crassus says. “You got the rest of his testimony? All the things I wanted from him?”
“Yes, master.”
“Then he is no further use to us.” Turning to the soldiers, he says, “Take him away.”
They do. Once they’re alone, Crassus leans on his desk. He rubs at his neck for a moment. He is often stiff in the neck after riding. When he straightens, he looks at Kaleb with an expression that’s, for once, readable. “I did it, Kaleb. The Germani. They were just where the traitor said, spread out, foraging and caught unawares. We had them in every way to our advantage. They tried to escape at first, but we hemmed them in. I deployed cavalry to flank them. Once they saw the lay of the land and their position in it, they could do nothing but fight us. They fought like barbarians, each of them trying to win the notice of his god. Bless them for it. We slaughtered them. They’re destroyed, and my men are elated. This is almost over, Kaleb. This traitor, he’s made me, though nobody will ever know it.”
There’s so much passion in his voice, and animation in his features, that Kaleb responds instinctively, saying what’s expected before he’s even allowed himself to form thoughts truly his own. He says, “It’s deserved, master. When this is over, they’ll award you a triumph, surely.”
“They’d better. They’d give Pompey a triumph just for blowing his nose. They can at least honor me for freeing Italy from the tyranny of gladiators.”
Crassus calls for slaves. The tent suddenly bustles with them. Kaleb half-hears him giving orders for food and drink to be brought, saying he’ll relax on his own until the twelfth hour, when the senior officers are to join him for a planning meeting. Kaleb tries to remind himself that Crassus’s victory is positive. It means good things for his master, and a small measure of good things for Kaleb as well. That’s all he could ever hope for. He tries to move his mind away from the swirl of notions Baebia had let into his head, the names and personalities and virtues of the men Crassus is so intent on wiping from the earth. He tries to convince himself that Baebia was wrong. All the pieces could never have fallen together in just the right way for the Risen to prevail. The gods had never planned to allow that. Surely not, and surely the gods did not allow men like Baebia to shape the world instead of men like Spartacus. He wanted, desperately, not to be wishing that somehow Spartacus might yet prevail.
“Kaleb, come back to this world.” Crassus stands before him, holding out a goblet of wine. “Remember how we toasted the beginning of this venture. You and I? Let’s toast again, the beginning of the end in this case.”
Kaleb takes the wine, holding it as awkwardly as the first time. He glances up and sees the young scribe, watching him. He sips, barely tastes. He thinks of Baebia, how he’d been so pleased at Crassus’s return. What is he thinking now? Have they started burying him? How does one go on breathing knowing that nails are to be hammered into his hands and feet and that his death will be a slow torture?
Crassus stands as his body slave strips him of the regalia of his office, then of his armor. The slave has yet to keep the trembling out of his fingers, but for once Crassus doesn’t seem to notice. He instructs Kaleb to read to him his private correspondence. First the letter from his son. Then the one from his mistress. After that missives from acquaintances. His second son’s tutor. Kaleb leaves the wine largely untouched, more discomforted by it than enjoying it. He reads the letters with a flat, neutral tone, conveying the words but expressing no opinion about them. Normally, this is easy. Today it requires all his attention. He continues with this when Crassus is stripped naked and washed, then laid on a low, padded table, and massaged up and down his body by a slave who specializes in such things. He maintains his tone without faltering when the Celtic woman arrives, ushered in by Crassus’s steward, who disappears as soon as she’s presented. She too is to massage Crassus, though he sits for her. As she starts to squeeze his shoulders, he says, “Press against me.”
Kaleb keeps his eyes on the words he’s reading, knowing that the woman has ample breasts, which may be the main thing Crassus likes about her.
“You might as well read Tertulla’s,” Crassus says, after Kaleb concludes with a letter from his cousin. “I wouldn’t want my wife to come last.”
Kaleb can tell by the throatiness of his voice that Crassus has his eyes closed and that he’s achieved the looseness he wants. He’ll soon send Kaleb from the room. He is discreet with the things he makes the Celtic woman do with him. Kaleb finds the scroll, pins the upper edge down with a finger, and unrolls it. He reads without a hitch for a time—the usual with Tertulla, small digs at her peers, complaints about the city, revisiting old, unfulfilled requests—until he finds himself saying, “ ‘Arrius sent his man around the other day. A little shrew of a eunuch, I don’t like him at all. At least I know he’ll not bother Umma. Not as true men can, at least. So Umma’s sale is finalized—’ ”
The smooth flow of Kaleb’s words ends. His gaze slides back to stare at the name of the person whose sale has been finalized. Umma. He blinks, but it’s still there. So Umma’s sale is finalized…Barely a whisper, he says, “You said she wouldn’t be sold.”
“What?” Crassus asks absently.
Kaleb repeats, “You said she wouldn’t be sold.”
Though he’s looking at the parchment instead of his master, he knows when Crassus looks at him. He senses that deep crevices take possession of Crassus’s forehead, and that his lips draw together in the pucker that presages anger. “Address me correctly, and speak with more clarity.”
Kaleb inhales a breath, lets it out. He indicates that he’s referring to something on the page he’s holding. “Your wife writes that Umma has gone to Quintus Arrius’s house. It says, the ‘sale is finalized.’ ” He turns to meet Crassus’s gaze. That’s not an easy thing to do, but he can’t help himself. This time when he speaks, he remembers to address him as suits his station. “Master, I understood that you wouldn’t send her from the household. But this says it’s been arranged. Is there some mistake?”
“No, there’s no mistake. It’s as plain as it’s written. Arrius was insistent. He’s a defeated man, Kaleb. No doubt he wanted to lift his spirits, and Umma stirred him. It’s done. Not that it was charity. The terms favored me. He paid handsomely for her, and she is his indefinitely, though in point of fact she remains my property. She’s not sold. My wife doesn’t understand that. She’s…rented out. Leased for a time.”
“But you said—”
Crassus tenses. “You say ‘but’ to me?”
The Celtic woman draws her fingers back from his shoulders.
“No, I don’t—”
“You say ‘no’ to me?”
Kaleb begins, “Master, I thought—”
“Do not think unless I ask you to.” Crassus clears his throat and rolls his head, as if the tightness in his neck has returned. He pushes back a little, until the woman begins to knead his shoulders again. Eyes closed, he says, “I knew that you lusted for her. It was clear as day every time she came into the room. You grew distracted. Too much so, but I looked the other way. That was a mistake, and I realized it when you asked after her. She is my slave, Kaleb. Mine. As are you. Just like everyone in this tent, and many thousands all over Italy. Mine. The moment you expressed care for her, I knew that you’d forgotten that. I hadn’t planned to give her to Arrius until that p
oint. Then I thought it for the best. You are of use to me only so long as you know your place. You had forgotten that. Now I’m sure you remember. Go, Kaleb, leave me. I don’t have time to be cross with you. I’m here to relax, to enjoy a few pleasures, and then to plan an end to this uprising. Go.”
Kaleb couldn’t have hidden the fury on his face even if Crassus had been looking right at him, instead of sitting, eyes closed, back pressed against the breasts of a gray-eyed Celtic slave. Rage. It comes over him slowly, not a hot flash of anger but something colder, as if his body were slowly going hard, icy. He doesn’t have a precise thought yet, but he also doesn’t care if Crassus—or any of the several slaves looking at him—knows the depths of his loathing. If he goes for Crassus, they will try to stop him. The man who did the body massage: his grimace is a warning. The youthful scribe who sits at a small table, staring at Kaleb, afraid. The several others who stand, still as beams, at the edges of the tent. Even the Celtic woman will likely shriek if he acts on the rage he feels. They will all try to stop him, but if he moves slowly and doesn’t betray himself…if he simply walks, as he has to do, nearer to Crassus in order to make for the exit…surely he’ll have a moment to snatch a knife from the fruit tray and slam it into his master’s neck.
The Risen Page 48
