Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  “And what do you think will happen? You think Augustus will take away his province? Send him to Bithynia to live out his days in a mosquito-infested backwater? Of course not. Hell, Varus has already been appointed pro-praetor to Syria next year anyway.”

  “Syria you say? Hmmm, he’s done well for himself then?” I asked, rhetorically.

  “Done well for himself Marcus! Are you insane? If he plays his cards right, he’ll be married off to one of the Emperor’s relatives! Just take his damn money and let’s get out of his way!”

  There was nothing rhetorical in my brother’s words.

  “Money will always come and go Quintus. But where is the glory in that? Balancing the scales of justice, though… A little poke here and there and he’ll be insane with that temper of his. He’ll show up tomorrow morning and make a mistake. He’s not that smart to begin with, you know. Just a little extra motivation and he’ll be tripping over his words to have it out with me in the court tomorrow. That’s the battle we want Quintus. His client is a wretch who practically bled not one but two provinces dry as governor, and Varus got rich on those kickbacks. So what if he had the support of Livia? I get that. But this time, this trial—we’ll air it all, all the dirty laundry.”

  “Wait, what did you say?”

  “That’s right. I intend to throw aside the curtain, to expose for all of Rome to see—”

  “Stop right there. Have you gone mad Marcus? You’re going to accuse Livia of corruption? The wife of the Emperor? Did I understand you right there? And will you maybe throw some accusations at the Emperor himself while you’re at it? You must be insane. You know brother, I think we’ve been having the wrong conversation. I think we should have been planning how it should be me—not Varus’ client—that should be getting out of Rome tonight. Your plan will be the end of us Marcus.”

  “No, no. Relax. I’m not going to accuse the Emperor of any such thing.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and gave me a hard sideways glance.

  “And I’m not going to accuse Livia of anything either. Don’t worry, I'm not an idiot.”

  He looked at me sideways still, trying to take measure, to decide whether I was sane.

  “Don’t worry. The story I shall go with is that neither of them had a clue, of course. The Emperor—hell, the people and the Senate of Rome too—the whole lot of us were victims of Varus. That’s exactly how I intend to lay out my argument tomorrow. You know, I am pretty good at laying out arguments. This is what I do. So no—I won’t accuse anyone of being anything less than blameless. And I certainly won’t accuse the old man himself of any such thing. I simply have the humble duty as a loyal Roman citizen to expose Varus’ corruption. The Emperor will be boxed in. Or maybe Livia, whichever one of them is running things up there on the Palatine tomorrow. Anyway, they’ll have no choice but to move against Varus. That’s why we’re not taking the money Quintus.”

  “So that’s it then Marcus? You plan to take your revenge by boxing in the Emperor so he’ll publicly have no choice but to cut ties with Varus? Why on earth would you do this? This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

  “Because however deeply he might have wormed his way in with Livia, or the Emperor or Apollo for all I care, Varus is, and has always been a little shit. And tomorrow, all of Rome will know.”

  Quintus turned red, and without a word, wrapped up his toga and walked towards the door. But he stopped just short of it. He turned around, and I think I instinctively knew before he said it. My brother’s eyes were as clear as I had ever seen them, but they were welled with tears, and a bitter rage that would have killed me had it come from an enemy. And through those eyes, he looked straight through my soul.

  “My son died for you Marcus. When you were proscribed—when Octavius and Antony drew up their damn proscription lists and you were on it—who saved your goddamn life Marcus? Who? My son, that’s who. He died keeping his mouth shut for you. For you Marcus. For you—it’s always for you. For your ambition—always for what Marcus wants!”

  His eyes were burning now, fire tempered only by tears that streamed down from them. “My boy died for your stupid little revenge fantasy, Marcus. Give it up. Stop it. It’s done.”

  I didn’t say a word.

  “Octavius came back and lifted the proscription Marcus. He forgave you! For the life of me now, seeing what you mean to do tomorrow, I can’t figure out why. But he did. Now let it go. It’s a different world we live in now. It’s Augustus’ world we’re living in. Where has this competition ever gotten you? Up the Cursus Honorum to consul? Who bloody cares! That world is over. How much destruction can come from this ambition of yours Marcus? From this desire of yours to compete, non-stop, over everything? You could be elected consul twice as many times as Marius and Sulla—combined!—but you will never be Augustus. Don’t you get it? It does not matter anymore. Let Varus go already! Let go of this whole competitive revenge fantasy of yours. It will never end until you let it go. Take the million sesterces, forgive the bastard and move on. Move off—there are quite a few quiet, pleasant villas in Greece you could retire to, and write tragedies and philosophy. Hell, we could do it together. We’ll write poetry and read it naked to a harem of girls every night, after we all drink ourselves silly on that resin wine of theirs.”

  He stopped to catch his breath. He did not smile. “Take the damn money Marcus! Just let go and be done with this all. Let go of this bloody ambition of yours and get on with living already. I am your brother. I am always your brother. That’s blood Marcus. But I cannot take getting dragged through another cycle of yours.”

  With that, he turned and walked out the door. I didn’t see my brother in the extortion court the next morning. I didn’t see Varus either for that matter. Varus had no choice but to feign sickness (both his and his client’s). This gave his client a little extra time to put his affairs in order and to slip off, into the safety of his inglorious exile.

  It was, maybe a little ironically, both the high point of my career advocating in the law courts, and also the end of it. Quintus had been right, the Emperor had no choice but to take action. He praised my advocacy of those old Roman values you didn’t see much anymore. The Emperor himself had stood up in the Senate and praised me: “a patriotic version of Cato,” he had called me. “We have no finer example of someone willing to sacrifice himself to uphold the traditional Roman values that this generation is so sorely in need of.” And then, he got rid of me. Just like that, the Emperor sent me halfway across the Empire. To Bithynia to act as legate to the proconsul there. Except for the incessant buzzing of the mosquitoes, it was the quietest backwater province in the entire Empire at the time. The million sesterces I ended up with from the case did not go very far in Bithynia. It's not that things are expensive there. It's that there is absolutely nothing to buy in the whole godforsaken province.

  3

  Three

  “Isn’t eating a dormouse illegal now?”

  The question came from Julia. She was the long-suffering, unhappy wife of Tiberius, the Emperor’s nephew. Tonight, she looked as happy and un-suffering as could be. She was reclining on the third couch of the triclinium, next to the young Senator Gaius Manlius. This, in itself would have raised no eyebrows, as it's long been accepted that three is the optimal number of people to share a couch while eating (although everybody knows two is much better suited to substantive dinner conversation). But with her husband—the aforementioned Emperor’s nephew—off with the army in the North, Julia was here with Manlius. And just now, she was reclining her head on his lap, her mouth pouting open, just the slightest bit. She waited for the female slave attending her to finish drenching the grilled and stuffed leg meat in a perfumed, sweet honey and herb mixture. As she did, Manlius took the opportunity to finger feed her some of the meat he had been savoring. Leaning over so that the folds of his toga brushed ever so slightly against her breasts, he placed the meat between her lips, letting his fingers linger there longer than was proper in po
lite company. She looked up at him, pouting with just her eyes now. Her lips were otherwise engaged, wrapped around Manlius’ fingers, and whatever was left of the piece of meat.

  “That and adultery,” Manlius said in response to the dormouse query. He looked mischievously across the room as he slowly let Julia lick the last of the food off of his fingers. With her husband absent, Julia was the confident lady of the house. The tone with which she spoke to the servants displayed every bit of that confidence, and a little bit extra that usually spilled over to become arrogance.

  The slave girl came over, and the feeding and finger licking ritual started anew. Julia gave a mischievous grin as the meat, now fully slathered in the glowing honey mixture, slid down her throat. Not taking her eyes off Manlius, she lingered on the fingers of the slave girl, whose hand was now in her mouth.

  Then Julia giggled.

  “It’s not illegal when the dinner is under the roof of the Emperor’s nephew,” Quintus whispered dryly as he leaned over to me.

  The dinner party was really the first time I had gotten a chance to talk with my brother since I had been allowed back from Bithynia. He too was here without his wife. He had never really gotten along with her, and I suppose that was my fault. I had found the match for him after our parents had both died. It had brought him neither joy, nor pleasure. They spent more nights apart than together, all in all. As my brother and I dined there that night, his wife was not even in the city, preferring to stay at one of his villas in the countryside. His daughter, however, was here at the dinner party.

  “You should really stay the hell out of match making,” he told me, gruffly and possibly somewhat drunk. Then he stood up and raised first his wine, and then his voice, to make a toast.

  “I would like to thank my dear brother Marcus, who has taken me in to his home since my return to the city.”

  With that, most everyone, except me, smiled politely. Most of the people there either didn’t know what to make of his words, or, more likely this far into the evening, were drunk themselves.

  Quintus, I suspect, actually was somewhat drunk by now. And I suspected this, because it was on just these sort of occasions, when he was lubricated with just the right amount of wine, that Quintus tended to come straight out and voice his most deeply held resentments. These were not the general resentments of a man who has had one too many cups of wine. These were always very specific. Quintus’ resentments were always pointed straight at me.

  “And I would especially like to thank this same dear brother of mine, who arranged the match to my lovely, dear wife who I have been so happily married to every last day for the past twenty some odd years,” he went on grimly, with a sardonic smile as if to emphasize the bitterness of the match I had made for him. “You see,” he continued, “without my dear brother here, I would sadly have lived the lonely life of a bachelor, unmarried and free from the burden of being heckled, not just when I get up to speak in the service of my nation in the Forum or on the Rostra, but also, in that time when I get home, and before I fall asleep at night, and when I wake up in the morning. For, without my dear brother Marcus, I never would have been married to my lovely wife, I never would have had to raise my son only to watch him give his life to protect this same dear brother of mine.”

  I looked down into my cup of wine. Then I picked it up and drank until it was empty.

  He was right. Every word. And I felt terrible too. But it wasn’t enough for him that I carried the knowledge around every day.

  I asked the slave girl to refill my wine. And then I turned my face back down into it and drank some more.

  The conversation turned to Zoroaster, then to the Jews. Then it took a crazy turn into some of the newer cults that had been springing up all over Rome (if you actually had the audacity to call Trans Tiberim a part of Rome: the whole filthy place on the far side of the Tiber was teeming with those Eastern crazy men, and with Jews, and probably with half the city’s criminals—and all of her prostitutes—as well). I was pretty drunk by now though, and that’s about when I decided not to use up any of the precious little attention span I had left on trying to follow a conversation I barely would have been able to follow, even had I been completely sober.

  After the dormice had all been polished off, and while the slaves were pouring more wine and still preparing the next course—ten different species of eels brought up that day from the bay of Napoli still thrashing and (mostly) alive, then grilled and drizzled in an aged garum fish sauce—Quintus turned to me.

  “Let’s go take a walk Marcus. We’ll go out back, maybe throw up, take a shit, and make room for the next few courses.” A smattering of guests around the triclinium thought it was a good idea to do exactly that, and so a whole lot of us stumbled off in different directions out back, as house servants scurried around with pails and buckets, trying to catch whatever came up. Or out.

  “Good idea,” I told Marcus as we got outside and headed towards the toilets.

  “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Quintus told me once we had both finished. “I know you just got back, and we didn’t part on the best of terms.”

  “Or return on the best of terms.”

  “That too. Sorry about that too.”

  I stood there, listening in silence. We had been cordial enough, my brother and I. But no amount of cordiality can take away the pain of a dead son. I had a good amount of time to read and think while I was away in my province. My thoughts always seemed to come back to that last conversation with Quintus. I had tried to apologize when I got back. But I couldn’t figure out any good way to say it. And so here we were, civil and cordial—brothers still—but with a vast chasm between us.

  “Marcus, listen. I don’t want you to think this is because you just got back. It’s not. But I don’t want you to be surprised either. We were invited here tonight as a sort of going away. I’ve been offered the legate position on Tiberius’ staff in Germania. He’s staging another campaign in the spring, and I’ve accepted it. The legions are already there, so it’s just some staff replacements and Praetorians to ride with us. We’re staging out on the Campus Martius tomorrow, and we’ll be off before the week’s end.”

  “Wow, Quintus. I didn’t know. I’m sorry to see you go. I mean, it will be a great opportunity for you.” I looked at him seriously. “Listen, brother. I’m sorry. I hope you didn't accept it, you know—just to get away from me.”

  “No, no Marcus. Of course not. But after everything, I thought getting out of the city, getting out of Italy, would be good for both of us. It’s not easy there with those barbarians, but Tiberius seems to have things in pretty much a good way. I expect I’ll have plenty enough time to finish up the tragedy I’m writing while I’m there.”

  “Be safe brother.” It was all I could think of to say, the impending parting sobering me up quicker than any of those leaves from the apothecary could do. “Well, I would rather see you excel at writing than at war-making, but the gods know there’s no money to be made in writing. What’s your play called by the way?”

  “Not sure yet. It’s a tragedy, about Electra. I suppose if I can’t think of anything, I’ll just call it ‘Electra’ and that will be that.” He grew silent a moment, before looking up at me. “Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t blame you that he was killed. The civil war was a bad time to be a Roman.” He paused before adding, “For all of us. Much better now. And the older Augustus gets, the more things seem to be settling down.”

  I started to answer him, but he threw his arms around me and gave me a strong hug.

  “Listen Marcus, as long as you’re here in Rome, be careful. I’m sure you know, but Varus has Livia’s ear again.”

  “Which means he has the Emperor’s ear. I know. Sometimes I think…”

  “You never should have humiliated him in the extortion court.”

  “That much is quite clear to me now. Still, that was years ago now,” I said, trying to rationalize. But a familiar uneasiness gnawed at me. “
Best I try to stay clear of him. You’re right though. Will do. Thank you for letting me know. You will write me, won’t you? Send back what you have of your little tragedy there, and I’ll see what I can do about putting it together and getting it published.”

  “Sure Marcus. Take care of yourself, okay?”

  We hugged again, and then we both went back in. He left not too long after that, and headed down to the Campus Martius, and the staging area for the new officers heading off to the North. I went back into the dinner. It was a rare night. I drank more than was my custom, and certainly more than was prudent. I suspected as much when I had to be helped up and off the triclinium at the end. I was certain when I stood up and discovered that I couldn’t walk straight. And then I stumbled out, got into my litter and headed back over to the other side of the hill, and home.

  4

  Four

  A few days after Quintus had set off with the other officers to join Tiberius’ staff in the North, I left the city myself. I went down to my villa in Tusculum. After his client had fled into exile all those years ago, Varus had conceded the villa to me, as payment on his client’s debt, along with the small estate that bordered it. Despite the change in ‘administration’ since Octavius had taken up residence on the Palatine and started calling himself Augustus, the extortion courts still worked as they always had, even in the days of the Republic. A man could still do quite well if he dedicated himself to the study of oratory and rhetoric, and took it upon himself to advocate his client's cause faithfully.

  Which I had done, for many years. And now I was happy to spend my time not doing any of it, most months, retiring to my villa here and reminiscing about it all.

  And that’s exactly what I’d done. For the better part of almost three years now I’d stayed there, surrounded by my books and the ideas they contained. Most evenings, I would sip on the estate’s latest vintage while sitting in the villa’s gardens, watching the sunset and slowly teetering off into sleep.