by Mark Tiro
I looked on all of this. I looked, and then—I forgot to laugh.
I forgot to laugh.
I did this. It’s all my fault. They’re all dead because of me.
The heaviness started to close in, but I pushed back. I fought it.
No—I can do better! I can choose differently. I can choose again.
This need not be.
Darkness was closing in. In the darkness, I could still see one little thought, a spark of light. I held onto it with everything I had. I pushed back against the darkness, but the guilt grew. It grew heavy and dark, until it smothered everything beneath its shadow.
The shadows took shape, then changed just as quickly. They grew dim; then slithered away just as quickly, only to reappear in a completely different places, in completely different shapes.
Don’t you dare raise your eyes up—or you will die. Those aren’t shadows. They’re the soldiers you killed; the people you murdered. These are the ones you betrayed; the ones who trusted you in vain. They’re all returning now; all to have their revenge.
They’re coming for you; don’t look, lest they see your eyes. If they look in your eyes, you will die. If they catch you, you will die. They are coming for you. You deserve to die.
Run now! Run. RUN!
As fast as you can—go! I put my head down. I run like the wind.
Images float all around, everywhere—as far as I can see. Lives and lifetimes. Relationships, all of it. A web of clouds connecting every cloud.
A primordial soup of images and ideas. All outside of time, all to perceive, right here, right now.
A thousand million images take form all around. Hurry now, before they catch you. It’s a finite choice of endless differences, here now, for you to unspool. Chose one before they find you.
This one will do. Run, hide. Jump. There!
It doesn’t matter which. Just go—any one of them will do. Any one will do. Just hurry—now! Before they find you. Before He finds you. Before your God finds you and kills you for your sins! Just go!
Don’t look back. Never look back.
Then… whoosh.
I jump, into one of them. Into an image.
Into one of these random, shrieking, cacophonous images—I jump. Then I close my eyes tight, not to see.
This one will do. I’ll stay here a while and hide.
This one will do.
VI
A LIFE IN THE SHADE
1
One
I've been here before, I thought as I pushed past the door and walked into the villa, nominally to inspect the place for the first time.
But of course I’d never been here. I’d never laid eyes on it before today. Until a fortnight ago, why on earth would I have ever set one foot into this wretched, gaudy place?
But then I’d won it.
Together with 700,000 sesterces, I’d accepted this remote villa in the Tusculum hills when I agreed to resolve a bribery and corruption case I’d brought against a client of Publius Varus. With that, I’d agreed to let his client slip quietly off into exile. It would stain the poor sot’s reputation, and he would never be able to set foot in Italy again. But really, when did the fate of one exile ever matter to anyone?
In any event, the sot’s family would be able to maintain their status, and as much of their wealth as they could hide too, until a suitably appropriate amount of time had passed. Then—who knows? With the right match for his two children, they might even be able to recover the family honor. It wouldn’t be the first time in Rome. Probably not the last time, either. For me though, taking the money meant I could wash my hands of the whole affair. More importantly to my thinking, I figured taking Varus up on his client’s offer would finally balance the scale between me and him.
That Varus.
I’d had another case against him, long before this one—back when I’d first started my public career, and he’d been arguing cases in the extortion courts for friends of Agrippa.
For Varus, that prior case had been a sort of quid pro quo: his way of acknowledging—or at least of giving a subtle nod—publicly (but without saying it in so many words) that he really did owe his patron quite a debt for having been given proconsular authority over the province of Syria.
That morning, I’d made the trip down to Tusculum from Rome as much to get away from my brother Quintus as I did to inspect the villa I’d received after settling my most recent—and hopefully last—case against Varus. I hadn’t seen Quintus in the past two weeks, but as long as I stayed in the city, I couldn’t get the ill-feeling out of my spleen that I’d had ever since our last conversation.
“Take the money Marcus.”
I looked up from where I was sitting, tapping out my closing speech onto a wax tablet that spread out on the table before me.
“You think taking the money will bring this business between me and Varus to an end?”
“With him, you can never tell. He’s a viper, that one. And I sure wouldn’t trust him until you have both the money and the signed deed in hand.”
“He’ll be good for both. It’s not about that.”
“With Varus, it’s always about that.”
“True,” I laughed. “That one does love making himself rich, doesn’t he? But it’s not his own money Varus is giving away here. It’s his client’s money. His client’s money, and his client’s villa, too. I don’t think he’ll lose much sleep over that.”
Quintus took a deep breath, and pulled the chair up, close to the table. He seemed contemplative, more serious now.
“Are you sure brother?”
“No. Not at all. But I think taking the settlement is the way to bring peace between me and Varus. It’s what he wants, right? A way out so he can save face? And now that it’s obvious that tomorrow the jury’s going to convict him—er, his client—I suppose his client would prefer exile and getting out of Italy, rather than the alternative tomorrow, if he doesn’t.”
“Being strangled to death up on the Capitoline?”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t want to humiliate the bastard Marcus? That’s worked for you before—it jumped your public career in the law courts, didn’t it?”
“Well, yes. And of course I want to!” I blazed. “Of course I do. I want to crush the little shit, to show him up—to humiliate the hell out of him. You don’t think there’d be anything sweeter to my ears than to hear the magistrate read the jury’s verdict, convicting that greedy bastard of a client of his? And right up there on the Rostra in the middle of the Forum, splayed out for any Roman with two good eyes to see! Varus would never live it down. But no—I won’t. I mean, I can’t. Or at least, I shouldn’t.”
He sat, looking intently at me. He didn’t say anything though, giving me the space to gather my thoughts.
“Hell!” I roared, “Of course I resent him. That bastard cost me the election for Quaestor. And then I didn’t make Aedile for a full three years after it was already my year. My year!”
“I know Marcus. You’ve mentioned it, a time or two before.”
“So I might have. Right.” I gave him a wry smile. “So what? I resent the hell out of Varus, sure. But so what? Quintus—it’s time to make peace with the man now. And I think this is the way to do it.”
“Okay.”
“Sure,” I went on, justifying it as much to myself now as to him. “I could deliver my closing speech tomorrow, make him sit through the jeers and derision all morning long, and half the afternoon too. But it’s like the games that open in two days. You don’t think the gladiators, when they’re in training, actually beat the pulp out of each other do you? They need to stay pretty, to win over the crowd. No, when they’re training, they pull all those punches. Just a tap, nothing more.”
“And you think by just tapping Varus—by pulling your punches and not knocking him on his ass and crushing him altogether—that you’ll have peace between the two of you?”
“I don’t see why not? I take the money, and we’
re both happy. I take some time off for a while, and he has an easy way out. This way, Varus can save face—he can extricate himself from this mess he’s gotten into by associating himself with this scoundrel. And of course, he won’t sully his good name.”
“Ha!” Quintus laughed.
Varus’ good name. That was funny. I snickered too.
The only thing good about Varus was how efficiently he could extort taxes from a province, and how much of it he could slip aside, out of the Emperor’s pocket and into his own.
“Did you ever wonder why you want to fuck anything that moves Marcus? Even slave girls?”
I didn’t answer.
Of course I liked to relax a little, every now and then. But really, who doesn’t? And the girls must like it too, I’m sure. Why wouldn’t they? Still, I hadn’t realized I was so obvious; that I’d been so public. I reminded myself to try to be a little more discreet next time.
“Well, I’ll tell you then,” he went on before I could stammer out an answer. “It’s because there’s something inside you Marcus—something that’s always been there, even since we were kids. Ever since dad was still alive. You have something inside of you that just needs to compete.”
“Compete? No. Well, maybe—but only when I’m provoked! I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I protested.
“Let me see if I can find something shiny here, so you can see your reflection back. You really do need to try to look at yourself in it sometime,” he shot back.
“Look at my own reflection—look at myself? What am I, a girl?” I quipped.
“Marcus!” he burst out. “Is there anything in the world that you’re not confident you can master or succeed at?”
“Okay, sure I like to win, but then—who doesn’t?” I shot back. “And anyway, Varus’ client will be gone probably tonight even, long before the magistrate ever says the first word in the extortion court tomorrow.”
“I didn't say ‘win’. I said ‘compete’. It's not about bloody winning with you! It's about competing! You don’t give a shit about winning. Not really. Look under the surface Marcus. It’s in the competing itself where you get your juice Marcus. Without that feeling—whatever feeling fighting with people gives you—you wouldn’t give two shits about winning.”
“That’s absurd,” I protested again, but this time more weakly.
Quintus talked over me. His voice drowned out my words, and anyway, I forgot what point I was making.
“I wouldn't even be surprised if sometimes you didn't lose on purpose Marcus—just to make it more interesting the next go around.” Then he grinned, just the slightest bit, and added, “but you see—there's the rub now, isn't it? That competitive cockroach in your head just would never let you lose on purpose, would it?”
“What's your point then?” I demanded.
“You’ve wanted to get revenge on Varus for the last, what is it? Six—”
“Seven. It’s seven years.”
“See—there you go again! Seven years! Ever since Varus humiliated you in the law court.”
I must have looked at him blankly, because he was talking even more emphatically now.
“Varus prosecuted that case and sent your client into exile just like you’re intending to do tomorrow to his client.”
I sat silent.
“Go ahead then. Get on with it. What’s holding you back? Why are you so quick to let him and his client off the hook?”
“What would you have me do then Quintus? What?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Would you have me march in there, speech all ready to go, make Varus listen to it and squirm, and humiliate them both? To what ends Quintus? Why would I do that?”
“Yes. Do that! To close the circle? You want to, don’t you? What happened to your ambition Marcus?”
“Where’s the point in ambition in this world now? To go up the Cursus Honorum? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Cato and Cicero and all the rest of them are all long dead. No more than ghosts. You go up the Cursus Honorum if Augustus wants you to go up the Cursus Honorum! You know that as well as the next man.”
“For godsakes Marcus, where’s your honor? Do you not want to fight? Are you just going to give up?”
This was not something I’d expected to hear from Marcus. Later, I’d recall that he might’ve had a small, dry smile on the corner of his lips, but just then I was too defensive and wrapped up in my argument to notice.
“No, but I do want to put this business between Varus and me to an end. No more revenge. Anyway, how do you think Augustus would take it if I humiliated Varus publicly? For godsakes Quintus, the man has supporters far beyond just the Palatine.”
“He won’t stop Marcus. You know he won’t stop until he’s full well humiliated you, right? This settlement will rub him just bad enough that he’ll be looking for any opening to get back at you.”
“He’ll be off to whatever province the old man has lined up for him. He’ll go back to what he does best, to lining his own pockets and making himself rich. He’ll forget all about this.”
“He will not forget all about you until he pushes you down. He’s a competitive fuck Marcus, just like… well… anyway, you’ll see brother.”
At that he turned and left.
It was a long while after he’d gone until I finally managed to mutter the words I’d been dying to say to him.
“We’ll see.”
2
Two
I hadn’t been back in Rome from my inspection of the villa for more than a few days now. I’d been arranging for repairs to be done so I could move in and retire there, at least for the next year or so. I’d been kicking around the idea of writing a treatise on natural history. After my first day in the villa when I’d watched the sun set behind the hills, bathing the sky in unusually-calming hues of red and orange, it hit me that Tusculum was about the only place I wanted to be.
I wasn’t expecting the repairs to take long. The bulk of what needed to be done basically consisted of packing and carting off the hideous decor I’d inherited with the place. I planned to make the journey back within the next few days.
A funny thing happened on the way to Tusculum though. It turns out that Varus had support, even more than I’d known. The Emperor summoned me to the next session of the Senate. It was scheduled the same day I’d planned to make the journey back to my villa.
That morning, I woke up early and made my way down to the Curia Julia where the Senate was to meet. I listened as it was announced publicly that Varus was to serve as pro-praetor in Syria the next year. No surprise there. That had been common knowledge since even before I had begun my suit against his client.
The next piece of news announced, however, was not common knowledge. I learned about it for the first time as I was sitting there that morning, together with the rest of the assembled Senators: I was to spend my next year as a legate to the proconsul in Bithynia.
Yes. That Bithynia. The Emperor even mentioned me as an example of someone who exemplified the old Roman virtues—by putting unity with his fellow Romans in the law court above even his own personal interests in rising up the Cursus Honorum.
And those words by the Emperor, there in the Senate house—that was the last time I ever heard my name mentioned in the same breath as the Cursus Honorum.
It didn’t take more than a second before the crushing realization hit me that my career in public office was effectively—irrevocably—over.
Ultimately, I ended up spending just over two years in the brackish backwaters of Bithynia. Those were a long two years before I was able to set foot in Rome again.
By that time, my career advocating in the law courts was over as well.
I never did see the old man again after that day in the Senate, which, considering everything, was no great loss. More of a loss was that I didn’t see Quintus for a long while after that either.
Not being around my brother was a great loss indeed.
Over the n
ext two years, I began maybe five or six different times to write my great treatise on the natural histories. Everyone knows that even the most insightful treatise on any subject must begin with the scribing of one word onto parchment.
But that one word killed me.
I struggled with it. I wrestled with it. I wrote it, and threw it out. I wrote it again, and threw it out again.
The journey, as it turns out, that is writing down in one place all the natural histories of the world, doesn’t end once the first chapter is written. This I found out the hard way, over those next two years of starts and stops of trying to do just that.
As it so happens, while I’d been serving my time in Bithynia, I discovered about myself that I had a natural talent for the logistics of keeping an entire province filled with standing legions provisioned, fed and paid. On time. I had such a talent for it—I learned later—that it brought me to the attention of Livia.
Livia. The wife of the Emperor.
Apparently she’d made it known to close advisors to her—and to Augustus—that I had earned her respect and admiration (though sadly to me, not any fortune or even appointments from her husband to go with it).
It seemed the only thing Livia’s admiration had actually brought me was ‘honor’ of a spending a second year in that wretched land.
Which is when, sometime during that second year in Bithynia, I realized once and for all that no one will ever read a damn word I wrote. Not because it wasn’t brilliant. It was (this was obvious to me at least). More because, as long as I was there, there was always going to be some new tax revolt here, or some raid on a legion’s grain shipments there, that would make me stop what I was doing—stop my writing—so that I could ride off halfway across the province to deal with it. Sure, maybe people would read something I wrote if I were to die in a spectacular, memorable fashion, gaining glory in battle somewhere. Maybe then they’d actually care about a word I had to say.
