Killer of Rome

by Alex Gough

  He tossed the sword aside in disgust. Vespillo let out a relieved breath. Carbo reached out a hand to help him up, but Vespillo ignored it, and struggled to his feet under his own power, one arm clamped across his injured side. Slowly, he limped over to the fallen sword and picked it up. Carbo didn’t move, didn’t try to prevent him.

  ‘Come with me, Carbo,’ said Vespillo, his voice full of sadness. ‘You’re a danger to yourself as much as to others.’

  Carbo hesitated. It was so tempting. He could let his friend take him away, and then await whatever Fortuna had in store for him, be it exile or death. It would all be out of his hands then, he could just surrender to fate.

  But somewhere deep in his guts, a spark of pride, nearly extinguished, still glowed faintly. He hadn’t done these things, he was sure. And the world thought he had. It wasn’t right.

  He turned his back on Vespillo and limped painfully out of the tavern. Vespillo made no move to stop him.

  ‘Shouldn’t you go after him?’ said the tavern-keeper.

  Vespillo let out a laugh that was cut off sharply, replaced by a grimace of pain.

  ‘Go to the nearest vigiles station. Get them to send a couple of lads here. And a medicus.’ He slumped onto a bench by the wall.

  ‘And get me a really big cup of wine.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The tomb of Eurysaces the baker was situated just outside the pomerium, the ancient sacred boundary of Rome. The inscription read, ‘This is the monument of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, baker, contractor and public servant. Obviously.’ And it was obvious. The tomb stood over thirty feet high, and was a very different style to the classical tombs in the city. Among its stand-out features were the circular holes that represented kneading basins, just the right size to hold a unit of grain. There was a frieze below the cornice showing all the steps of baking, by which the eponymous baker had accumulated his riches.

  None of this mattered to its current occupants. The spacious tomb had become a shelter for the destitute and homeless, and though the weather in Rome was not as inclement as it had been in Germania at this time of year, it was still no fun to be out all night. In the middle of winter, the temperature would occasionally fall low enough to freeze the fountains and water troughs, and on a rare year, snow might even fall. It was cold enough to kill those not in shelter, especially the very old, the very young and the infirm.

  So huddled into the resting place of Eurysaces was a motley collection of the lowest strata of Rome’s population. Even many slaves looked down on these people, and thanked the gods that, however bad their lot in life, at least they weren’t one of them.

  Some of the derelicts here were in fact former slaves. Some were freed in the wills of their former owners, some generously freed after a long service for the most altruistic reasons. Some were cynically thrown out when they became too old to be of use, and manumission then meant one less costly mouth to feed, one less body to house. For many former slaves, freedom was a sentence of destitution, starvation and death.

  Others residing in the tomb had been born free. A variety of quirks of fate had led them to this place and situation. Born into poverty, orphaned, too ill to work, invalided out of the legions, too fond of wine and chariot racing. A score of unfortunates huddled together, sharing the shelter, sharing too in each other’s company. Being homeless could be a heart-rending and lonely experience, the have-nots begging on the streets looking longingly at the haves in their family groups and households, meeting their friends for drink and food or a gossip around the fountain.

  But even in the company of all these other people, Carbo felt completely alone. The other vagrants had some sort of community. A pecking order. A veteran with a scar running up from his forehead and disappearing under his hair-line, one arm ending in a stump just after the elbow, was clearly in charge. Though he may not be much use for manual labour, he was big enough and dangerous enough that none of the others would challenge him if he gave an order.

  A straggle-haired, gap-toothed woman, nursing an infant, clearly belonged to him. He made an obvious show of ownership whenever Carbo looked over, kissing her hard, putting an arm around her, squeezing a breast, all the while defiantly challenging Carbo with a hard stare to try to take her away from him. Even if Carbo had had any interest in women since Rufa, he didn’t think he could keep his lunch down if he found himself in any sort of intimacy with her.

  He couldn’t remember when he last ate. Although his stomach contracted and gurgled, he felt no motivation to find something to eat. He sat on his own, gazing blankly at the wall, avoided by the others who knew a dangerous beast that should be left alone when they saw one. His nostrils flared at the stench of unwashed bodies, urine, faeces, rotting food and dental decay. He clenched his fist and unclenched it. Over and over. Over and over.

  He hadn’t chosen this sanctuary at random. This was the place to which Rufa had fled when pursued by the soldiers who had been working for the mad priestess Elissa. It was here that Carbo had found her, hiding with little Fabilla, shaking in the aftermath of a sexual assault.

  Lucky for her assaulter that she had already killed him when Carbo arrived. He would have made him suffer far worse than death.

  Though Carbo hadn’t paid much attention to the other denizens of the tomb at the time, apart from to castigate them for their lack of aid when Rufa was in need, he thought that the occupants were different. The homeless population of Rome was ephemeral, constantly changing. Some moved on, a rare few pulled themselves up out of the streets, some joined criminal gangs, most died. Life expectancy was short, food scarce even for those who qualified for the corn dole. Violence, starvation and disease ravaged the population mercilessly.

  He didn’t know if any of them recognised him. His size, his thick dark hair and his limp marked him out for those that knew of him. No one approached him, or used his name, or gave any indication that he mattered in any way. That was as it should be, he felt. He could just stay here, with the others who Fortuna and Providentia had turned their faces from, and just fade away. No one would notice. No one would care. And one day, maybe soon, he would just be another body swept up by the public slaves, thrown into a cart and dumped in a mass grave outside the city walls. And then at last there would be an ending.

  He closed his eyes, and despite, or maybe because of his misery, sleep overwhelmed him.

  * * *

  He woke with a thick tongue. He could smell his own breath, stale and sour. He felt an overwhelming desire for something to drink. Something stronger than water. Sunlight filtered through a gap in the roof, just enough illumination to see by. He realised with surprise that he had slept through the whole night. He looked around his fellow tomb-dwellers. Some were still asleep. Others were stirring. Some had already departed. A small girl holding a dirty, moth-eaten rag doll stared at him with unblinking eyes above the filthy thumb that was deep in her mouth. A sudden, guilty thought of his abandonment of Fabilla hit him like a punch in his gut. He looked away.

  Did any of these creatures have any wine? It seemed unlikely. He got painfully to his feet, put his hands to the small of his back, and tried to stretch the cramps away. He was hungry and thirsty. How did you get food and wine in a city, when you had no money?

  He pushed past an elderly man who was dithering in his path, and walked out through the broken doorway that provided the ingress to the tomb for its living inhabitants. There were few clouds in the sky that morning, and he looked up, blinking at the bright blue. The gentle warming of the distant winter sun did nothing to improve his mood.

  He stumbled to a nearby fountain, where a jet of water spurted from the mouth of a nymph to collect in the basin below. Slaves and women filled buckets for their households, others washed faces, bodies and clothes, or just drank the liquid they had scooped up in their cupped hands.

  Carbo pushed aside a large slave woman who was bending over the fountain, her ample backside blocking access. Her curses faded in his ears as he plunged
his head under the surface.

  The icy water sent a shock through him, and it hurt and felt good. He opened his eyes, seeing a blurry view of the bottom of the basin, green with algae, shiny with offertory coins, punctuated with dark leaves of lead on which were scribbled prayers and curses.

  He lifted his head back up, water streaming in chilly rivers down his back, and gasped a deep breath. He drank deeply, the liquid quenching his thirst but accentuating how empty of food his stomach was. He looked around.

  The tomb was located at the junction of the via Praenestina and the via Labicana on the Esquiline. Much of the housing on the Esquiline was at the luxury end of the scale, but as with most parts of Rome, there were also shoddily constructed buildings for the poor, and of course the homeless and destitute wandered freely through the streets.

  He looked along the busy street heading west back into the centre of the city. That way lay the Subura, and he didn’t want to go anywhere near his old haunts. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, but more importantly, the vigiles might be on the lookout for him.

  He found a dirty piece of cloth on the street, ragged and full of holes. He wrapped it around his head in a makeshift hood to disguise his hair, then set off walking, trying not to limp, though it worsened the pain from his leg.

  He wandered east a short way, then having no real purpose, he sat, back against the wall between a fishmonger and a potter’s shop.

  The fishmonger shouted at him to move on, but Carbo ignored him and drawing his knees up to his chest, closed his eyes. He heard some customers at the stalls, haggling for goods.

  ‘I’m not paying that for a week-old turbot.’

  ‘That’s slander. Caught last night that was.’

  ‘Doesn’t smell like it.’

  Another customer: ‘I’ll have some sole, but if it makes me throw up like the last lot, I’ll be coming back to have words with you.’

  And at the potter’s shop: ‘I’ll take it off your hands at half price. It’s got a crack in the lip.’

  Carbo let the words and arguments wash over him, his world comprising only the emptiness inside, physical and spiritual. His stomach clenched in a particularly vicious hunger pang. He opened his eyes, and looked up at a wealthy looking man studying the wares of the fishmonger.

  He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Not quite believing he was going to say the words.

  ‘Spare a coin for a veteran, sir?’

  The rich man glanced at him, then turned back to the fishmonger as if he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Sorry about him, sir. Next time the Urban cohorts do a patrol I’ll have him moved on.’

  The wealthy man made his purchase and walked away. But having debased himself once already, it was easier the second time. The next customer looked like a well-cared for slave, maybe the steward of a rich household.

  ‘Spare a coin, for a soldier who Fortuna has turned her face from?’

  The steward looked at him with pity. ‘I would, but it’s my mistress’ money, and she insists every as is accounted for. I’m sorry.’

  It was his fifth attempt, a Roman matron shopping with her maid in close attendance, that tossed him a copper as. She walked away and made some comment to her maid, who put her hand over her mouth and let out a shocked, high-pitched giggle.

  Carbo looked down at the blue-green, partly corroded copper coin. It bore the profile of a young-looking Augustus and the legend ‘IMP CAESAR DIVI F AVGVSTVS IMP XX.’ He got slowly to his feet and walked a short distance down the road to where a baker was selling gorgeous-smelling loaves of freshly baked bread. He looked at the goods for a moment. Then he turned his back and approached the tavern opposite.

  The tavern-keeper took one look at his filthy hood and dirty face and wrinkled his nose at the smell. ‘Move along,’ he said.

  ‘Wine,’ said Carbo, offering him the coin.

  The tavern-keeper hesitated, and them more in pity than avarice, took the coin, filled a cup and passed it to him.

  Carbo drank deeply. The taste was sour, little better than vinegar, and it sat in his empty stomach, burning. Still, it took a bit of the edge off. He walked back to his place between the fishmonger and potter, much to the tradesmen’s chagrin, sat, and extended his hand. The next coin he was given, he resolved, would buy bread.

  He actually used the next three coins to buy more wine, enough that he started to feel more relaxed even as his stomach ache grew worse. But a kindly shopper, an older man, gave him bread instead of coin, and thereby provided his first meal of the day. He tore the firm loaf with his teeth and swallowed large chunks hungrily, almost choking in his hurry. Then he felt suddenly sick. He put a hand over his mouth, willing the bread to stay inside him, to not waste it by spewing it onto the streets.

  ‘Hey, if you’re going to chuck up, do it somewhere else,’ said the fishmonger. ‘I have enough people claiming my food makes them sick without a visual reminder.’

  But Carbo kept the food down. Mildly drunk, and fractionally satiated, he sat in morose silence and watched the people go about their business.

  He had nowhere to go. He had no family. His best friend thought him a murderer.

  He thought about leaving the city. But what could he do? It would have been easier if he still owned the farm, but moving to a country retreat was no longer an option. Maybe he could offer his services with a sword to someone as a bodyguard. Or even join the bandits who preyed on the travellers down the via Appia.

  But any of those things would require him to get off his backside, to have a desire to somehow change or improve his lot. What was the point of any of it? Better just to rot away on the streets of this city that he called home. At least Rome itself had not turned her back on him.

  He put his hand out again.

  ‘Spare a coin for a veteran of Germania?’

  * * *

  He woke up to a gentle shaking; a hand on his shoulder rocking him softly.

  ‘Carbo. Carbo, wake up.’ The voice was soft, high.

  He didn’t open his eyes. He was still in that half-state where it is uncertain whether the last dream was real or not. In Carbo’s case, that last dream had involved sitting in a tavern with Vespillo, dicing and drinking and laughing. The reality of his situation returned with a crash, and he started and opened his eyes.

  A face swum before him that he couldn’t immediately recognise through his sleep-blurred vision in the gloom of the tomb. He blinked hard, rubbed his face, squinted.

  He had been living in the Baker’s tomb for about a week, though he was not keeping any strict track of the passing days. The generosity of strangers in providing food and coin, as well as some petty theft, had kept him fed enough to stay alive, and just drunk enough to stop him collapsing into a trembling ball. It wasn’t really living. He doubted if it was really enough for him to survive for any meaningful length of time. But he wasn’t dead yet.

  He stared hard at the face. A young girl. Kind of familiar.

  ‘Carbo. It’s me. Sica.’

  For a moment, Carbo couldn’t connect the name to the presence of this person before him now. It was too incongruous.

  ‘Sica?’

  ‘Yes.’ She held out a hand. ‘Get up. We go get you sorted.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t need to. Take hand.’

  Carbo hesitated then grasped the outstretched hand. It felt tiny as his sausage-like fingers closed around it, but she pulled with surprising strength, and despite the aches in his back and knees, he came upright. He towered over the young girl.

  Wordlessly, she led him out of the tomb, a dozen pairs of eyes following them with mild curiosity. It was night, and the Esquiline streets were bathed in white moonlight. The air was chill, a wind whipping through the streets and through the holes in his tunic, so it seemed to penetrate into his very marrow.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My home. Shelter. Warm.’

  She led him through the dark streets. They were
full of night traffic as usual, but she skirted the busiest streets, and took a long route round, avoiding the Subura. Carbo marvelled at her knowledge of the city, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised – she had been resourceful and a quick learner since he had known her.

  He peppered her with questions, but she put a finger to her lips. At last they crossed the Tiber into the Transtiberim area of the city. He kept his head down as they walked over the narrow bridge, but it was too dark, and people were too concerned with their own business, for anyone to recognise him, even if there had been anyone in this region that had known him.

  Sica led him to an insula a short distance from the main docks area. The ground floor shop was a laundry, and there was a strong smell of urine, the cleaning agent of choice, so important that hard up Romans could sell their waste liquid for cash to the fuller.

  Sica’s apartment was on the first floor, accessed like many by an external staircase. The stairs led up three more storeys, and Carbo was impressed that the young freedwoman lived in one of the better flats in the block. He assumed at first that she had found herself a moderately comfortable tradesman, and that the apartment was rented or owned by him.

  But when she unlocked the door and led him inside, there were no other occupants. She lit an oil lamp, and he saw a single chair and table, an unlit brazier, and a few clay figurines and other decorations. One in particular held pride of place on a shelf on the wall, a terracotta statuette of a man wrapped in a cloak and holding a horn overflowing with fruit and corn.

  Sica bowed to it, and whispered a few words in her native Dacian language. She turned to Carbo. ‘Derzelas,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘God of my people. Make you healthy.’