Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  Maybe.

  But I didn’t count on it, and at some point, I stopped writing altogether.

  I did still have a fair amount of time over those two years to do a lot of thinking though.

  I’d tried to settle differences with Varus, and look where it had gotten me. Quintus, I think, was right. I shouldn’t have let that bastard and his client off the hook. I should have humiliated him, in the court, in full view of everyone. Oh, how things might have played out differently had I done that. Those thoughts played out a lot, over and over, in my head during those years there.

  Why was I so blind? why had I chosen so wrong?

  I had pursued peace. I’d tried to let go of my resentment of Varus, despite my utter resistance to the idea. And for all my efforts, I’d been given the honor of two years in a hellhole, away from Rome, away from my family. I did the right thing—hell, even the soon-to-be divine Augustus had said as much in front of the entire Senate. Old Roman virtues, putting country above self-interest, blah, blah, blah…

  Bastard.

  And still—I had tried to do the right thing, to walk the noble path. But the noble path, as it turns out, is apparently covered in donkey shit. And more importantly, you’re likely to find your ass on that noble path, after the door hits you there, on your way off to Bithynia.

  I had done the right thing; I had decided to take the deal from Varus—I had chosen for peace and not for payback. And now, where had it gotten me?

  Where on earth had I gone wrong?

  3

  Three

  “I’ve been over this in my mind a thousand times Quintus,” I told my brother in the cool night air, after I’d finished pissing out what seemed to be like a full amphora’s worth of wine.

  “Did we really drink this much wine?” Quintus asked after he finished pissing too.

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s those damn dormice that make you just keep going and going. Fuck, I feel like an old man already.”

  “You are an old man Marcus.”

  “Good point.”

  “Listen, I know it must’ve been eating you up inside—what with Varus having been off in Syria while you were stuck in Bithynia. He was in Syria, making the Emperor a small fortune—and making himself a big one. Tell me again, how did you pass your time in Bithynia?

  “Thank you for reminding me.”

  “Of course,” Quintus retorted smartly. As soon as he’d fixed his toga back into place, he walked over and put his arm around me.

  “Listen, I know it’s been eating you up. It was the right thing you were trying to do though. Sometimes you know, there’s just no good move to be made. You just do the best you can. But I’ll tell you one thing—one thing I’ve learned Marcus, to lighten the anguish.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, curious now. “What’s that?”

  “You do the best you can, whichever way it works out. I mean, try your best, right? But then just let it go. Stop thinking about it. Since you’ve been in that province of yours, how many times have you played out in your head whether you made the wrong choice with that lawsuit?”

  “A lot. I think, I don’t know. I’ve looked at it from every angle, and I think it would’ve come out the same no matter what I’d done. But you never can know for sure, right?”

  “Maybe not. But you can’t stay stuck there, either Marcus. You can’t keep playing it over in your mind for years, again and again and again. You’re just making the grievances fester more. This resentment of Varus that you have—I’m worried it’ll become like an abscess and infect your entire soul. That’ll kill you, you know—more surely than anything Varus could do to you.”

  “I know, I know.” But I said it weakly, and my voice trailed off.

  “So then, let it go. The whole business, it’s done now. Do you know the one true thing you can say about the past?”

  “What?”

  “That it’s not happening now.”

  What could I say? He was right, it was true. The one true thing you can say about the past is that it’s not happening now. But I just felt so down now, I had no energy for anything anymore. I just sat there and listened, hoping he wouldn’t go off again, berating me. I’d already berated myself enough, and I didn’t have the energy left to do anything other than sit there and take it.

  “Listen, it’s okay,” Quintus said. “The law courts, Bithynia, Varus—they’re all past. You’re a private citizen now. Enjoy it.”

  “I’ll try,” I said weakly. “But you know there’s still this part of me that just wants to keep going at it with him. Sure, there’s this other part of me that would just as quickly walk away. I guess that’s the rub,” I said. “It’s not easy. I guess you were right—I am a competitive fuck. But it makes me who I am. It’s hard to walk away from that. It’s like there’s this burning desire in me to go at it with him one more round. And I feel like if I just walk away, I’d be giving up who I am.”

  “Even after everything that’s happened, you still feel that way?” he asked gently. “Even though it must be perfectly clear just how much your competitiveness and resentments have cost?”

  Just then the two slave girls who’d been serving us platters of food inside, came out to fetch us. Probably because the next course of food was ready. Either that, and maybe also because Julia our hostess, had had enough time by now to have been well-satiated by Gaius Manlius, the young Senator ‘accompanying’ her for the evening while her husband was gone from Italy.

  At least, I think they that’s what they came out for. One of the slaves was very cute. I think she must have been Nubian, or maybe upper Egyptian but of some Greek origin, seeing as she spoke perfect Greek. I had quite enjoyed looking down her light tunic every time she’d leaned over to refill my wine.

  As the other girl took Quintus by the hand and led him back to the triclinium, I caught the slave girl’s eye. She was not my slave girl, and belonged to someone else of course—which was part of the rush for me. It was kind of like borrowing a neighbor’s horse for a ride, but getting the beast back to its stable before the neighbor ever knew it’d been gone.

  We lingered there, looking into each other’s eyes maybe an instant longer than was appropriate. I intended to linger there a little longer, and then maybe lock more than just eyes with her, as well. I started to look around for a secluded place I could take her behind—and from behind—but just then Julia came out personally, looking for me.

  There was no more lingering, and the slave scurried back in. Julia walked in just behind her, and I trailed behind last, slightly bent over trying to conceal the extra fold that had popped up in my toga while I was with the slave girl.

  “At least with your commission up in the North, you’ll be away from the mess these Eastern cults are making of Rome,” Julia said just as the slaves were bringing out the next course.

  “Not a day goes by here when one or another of your freedmen or your clients gets ensnared in one, and then comes traipsing back over the Tiber, asking you for money.” Manlius droned on, reaching for the plate of food the servant had brought around. “Isn’t that right honey?” he added, nodding to Julia, as he pressed his body up against hers. After we’d all come back in, she’d laid back, pushing tight into him on the triclinium. Neither made any pretense now at hiding the affection between them.

  “I think your husband has enough on his plate…” Quintus started saying to Julia. But he suddenly realized just how out of place his words were, under the circumstances. And so he quickly stopped himself, then turned away, focusing on the plate of food in front of him.

  Gaius Manlius now had one hand permanently cupped around Julia’s breast. His other hand was nowhere to be seen, although from time to time, there were unexpected movements beneath the folds of her toga. Fortunately, it was late in the evening, and we’d all had more than our share of wine by this point.

  Quintus now decided to make another go of saying what he’d meant to say before—hopefully more delicately this time—despite the da
nger of uttering a wrong word due to the sheer volume of wine we’d all consumed.

  “I mean, I think Tiberius has enough on his plate with those German tribes to worry about which direction those people bow down when they pray. I hope to find out soon enough, when I arrive there with the reinforcements to his army.”

  Either that plate of food was particularly good, or Manlius was doing something with that second hand that was even better, because Julia let out all manner of sounds of pleasurable approval.

  Whichever was the case, one thing was clear. Her little squeals of approval were most certainly not a response to Quintus’ ill-advised reference to her husband.

  Rather quickly, they turned into a whimpering, breathless moan. Just as quickly, Julia put the wine to her lips and drained the entire cup. Then she closed her eyes, leaned back and smiled to herself.

  “I didn’t know you’re going up North,” I said softly, turning to Quintus.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you earlier. This was kind of a going away we were invited here to. I think. Or maybe Julia is hoping that by inviting me, her behavior will get back to her husband when I arrive. She does that sort of thing a lot, you know. It’s like she just wants to humiliate the man.”

  “You’ll be with Tiberius’ staff then, in Germania?”

  “As a legate, yes. He’s staging another campaign in the spring. The legions are all in place, so it’s just officers and some Praetorians we’ll be riding up there with.”

  “I’m sorry Quintus. I just got back, and now you’re off again. It’s like the gods have conspired—”

  “Nonsense. I’m expecting to have time enough, anyway. We’re staging at the Campus Martius, and we should be off before the week’s out. But I can’t imagine anything much will happen before winter.”

  “I hope you’re not planning on writing tomes of melancholy Greek tragedies to pass the time until spring. It can get dreary enough with all those grey skies up there, without you adding your own Greek tragedies on top of it.”

  “Oh god no,” he laughed. “That sounds so depressing, doesn’t it? No more tragedies for me.” He smiled. “Maybe I’ll try my hand at Greek comedies instead, although for the life of me, I can’t tell that there’s much difference between a Greek tragedy and a Greek comedy.”

  “The difference,” I said, “is that in the comedies, everyone’s not supposed to die at the end. Try to keep that in mind while you’re writing it.”

  “Of course,” he smiled. “That doesn’t sound too much like a tragedy though? I mean in real life, no one actually gets out alive either, do they? To me, it all seems like just a matter of timing.”

  “Uh, okay,” I stammered.

  “Lighten up Marcus. What’s the worst that could happen to me up North anyway?”

  “In that frozen tundra? Oh, I don’t know Quintus. Maybe, well, you know—maybe something like… you could die?”

  That much seemed pretty obvious. I don’t know why he didn’t see it.

  “Exactly brother. See, it’s not so bad then.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I was,” he answered, looking serious now. “I was crazy, sure—after my son died. And for quite a while after that too. I blamed everyone. I blamed the Emperor, the gods… you. Hell, I even blamed my son. Imagine that! Of all people, I blamed my own son for being killed. You know what though?”

  I just listened, without saying a word. After all, what could I say?

  “No matter how much anger I worked myself up into, I could never get away from that terrible guilt. That it was my fault that he was dead. That it was my fault that it was me who had lived. That it was my fault, and that he was dead—because I had lived.”

  It had been years since I’d thought of that terrible night. Even now, it must have been that we’d drunk so much wine that I could even let myself remember it.

  “But you know—and if truth be told, this is why I’m going away tomorrow. This is why I’m always going away Marcus, one place or another. Everyone thinks it’s to get away from my wife. And true enough—I can’t stand that woman. But it’s not her that I’m always trying to get away from. It’s that when I’m off on the frontier, or in a province, or an army camp somewhere, it’s that I can lose myself there. Basically, I can be alone, with my own thoughts, no matter what’s going on around me. I can breathe there. Either that, or I’d probably kill myself here in Romulus’ shithole, racked with the weight of it all.”

  I was listening, intently actually. But I couldn’t bring myself to utter even a word. Quintus looked at me with a deep kindness I’d never noticed before. I had looked in his eyes, expecting anger. At the least, I’d expected to feel his judgment on me, and condemnation.

  But his eyes held none of this.

  His eyes were perfectly kind.

  His eyes were life.

  That’s the moment I began to cry.

  “You know, after all that time off by myself, contemplating, thinking—I get it. It was such a weight off me, when I got it.”

  “Got what?” I murmured through tear-stained eyes.

  “It’s never the event, the ‘what happened’ part that causes the pain. It’s our judgment on what happened that causes all of our pain.”

  “So you actually learned a little in your time on Rhodes, I see.”

  I said it dryly. But I couldn’t help letting myself smile, just a little. Truth is, I had never seen my brother look as peaceful, as serene as he did right this moment.

  “It’s in our judgment of things where our distress about them comes from,” he said. “The flip side of that coin though is that the way out of our pain is to lay aside all of our judgments, and to just look at the thing as it actually is.”

  “And that’s the reason you laughed when I said the worst thing that could happen to you up North is that you could die?”

  “Without judgment, it’s not so bad. See? Even though my son is still dead, I can feel love for him now. All my resentments had stopped me from feeling it, but I’ve let them go now. Once in a while Marcus, I close my eyes and I just sit there, inside that love. And you know what? He’s not dead. His body might be, sure, but he’s right there. This vast, pulsating love, he’s there in it, the same as everything. And it’s wonderful.”

  “He’ll be there waiting there for you, just on the other side of the river Styx.” I said it trying to comfort my brother. But it was pretty clear he’d already made his own private peace, and he didn’t need comforting. He was okay now. If my words were needed to comfort anyone, it was for me alone.

  We hugged and parted. Quintus got in his litter, borne off to the Campus Martius, while I got into my own litter, and was borne off back up the hill, to my home.

  4

  Four

  After a long, restless night trying to sleep off the wine, and getting up over and over to piss more out, I finally fell into a deep sleep just before dawn. I fell into the sleep and, finally, I dreamed.

  In my dream, I closed my eyes too. I did this to avoid meeting Quintus’ gaze. Even here in my dream, his lack of judgment made me want to cry. I also closed them against the memory I knew was lurking there.

  The memory was always lurking there.

  I was in the room now. That Room. But I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see.

  And then… I did.

  First I remembered, and then I was there. Then I was reliving that horrible night, experiencing it, in every terrible detail.

  I’d been hiding.

  We’d been hiding—me and Quintus both.

  Both of us were on the proscription list. Agrippa’s men had tracked us down relatively easily. We were much too slow, and we hadn’t even come close to getting out of Italy in time.

  And so the slaves, with help from some of our freedmen, had hid us there. These men who’d found the house we were at, of course, they didn’t care about the details one way or the other. They just wanted to cut off our heads and take them back t
o Rome so they could collect on their bounty.

  So there we were, Quintus and I, hiding in this underground storage cellar, which was itself hidden beneath the slaves’ kitchen. No one would ever think to look for a Senator beneath a slaves’ kitchen, right?

  But Quintus’ son was there. He was outside when they came. They’d found him and dragged him in there with them, hoping to use him to lure us out.

  But it didn’t work. He’d refused to say a word. That boy—he couldn’t have been more than fourteen—they tortured him. All through that night, and halfway into the next day, they tortured him until he died. Quintus and I could hear his screams all night long from where we hid. At least until they cut off his tongue. After that, it was just sick gurgling sounds, as he struggled with each breath to cough and clear out the blood that ran from his severed tongue, down his throat and filled his lungs.

  Quintus had to be held down, so he wouldn’t run out and try and save his boy. That would’ve betrayed the hiding place of the whole lot of us—the slaves had their babies there as well, plus Quintus’ niece was with us. She couldn’t have been more than six at the time. And so the slaves had to bind Quintus’ mouth and feet both, so that he wouldn’t run out to try to save his boy.

  But they couldn’t bind Quintus’ ears to make it so he couldn’t hear his son’s screams.

  They couldn’t bind any of our ears.

  That was the worst night of my life.

  A couple days after Quintus had left for Germania, and before I left for Tusculum, I’d requested a commission, hoping that I might join him in the North, during his assignment there with Tiberius’ legions.

  I’d waited in Rome a while for a response, but when none came, I headed off to my villa as planned. Three years passed there. I heard nothing regarding my request, which it turned out, was just as well. I would have been in no shape to help with much of anything.