“Take this slave to the house,” a bewildered Endymion heard his new master say briskly to the freedman. “Prepare him and give him clean clothes.”
On the following day Endymion, dressed in a tunic of finest linen, paced restively in the writing room of the senatorial mansion of Marcus Arrius Julianus. He felt wary as a sentinel. As he waited for the great man to find a moment to speak to him, he examined the room in a lucid daze. Atop a cypress writing table was a silver wine service; he realized with dismay that each of its heavy, masterfully crafted cups cost three times what he himself was worth. But the fact that he recognized the cups’ bas-relief as the death of Dido from the Aeneid gave him a fleeting sense of belonging. Behind the table was a water clock in milky aquamarine glass plated with gold. How elegantly the wealthy mark the hour—a slave need know only day and night. Everywhere was a profusion of books, stuffed hurriedly into niches in the wall, or allowed to spill onto the floor with extravagant carelessness. He marveled that he did not snatch up those nearest and begin greedily reading, and would have liked to believe he had attained some of the philosophers’ ability to control the passions, but his pitiless good sense told him that, in truth, the sharp unease he felt was dampening his lust for books. What in the name of all-wise Minerva was wanted of him?
This great-house was a labyrinthine paradise of interlocking gardens and chill, skylit rooms splashed with iridescent panoramas of ancient days that alternated with dim, sumptuously padded chambers aglow with the low sheen of dark precious woods and gold, rooms crowded with the mysteries of smooth-worn family treasures, thrown casually together with a magically sculpted Aphrodite by Praxiteles or Skopas, or the priceless bronzes it was fashionable to collect in these times. This was an earthly Elysium teeming with all those things the true philosopher was not supposed to want. The mansion was built into the side of the Esquiline Hill; from the balcony of the writing room he could see the reeking Subura far below—the steady flow of people and animals in its principal street put him in mind of a dirty, sluggish river. He wondered once if he had been lifted up to the sky in some cruel jest of the gods; soon they would tire of this sport and drop him back into the slime.
When at the fourth hour of morning Marcus Arrius Julianus entered at last, Endymion rose quickly from his place, grimly ready to face whatever might come. He bowed, uttering the word “Clarissimus” with boyish dignity.
“Raise yourself up. You bow too low for a free man.”
“You are freeing me? Why?”
The Senator’s face appeared more wan and worn in the thin glare of the morning light. He signaled to the boy to sit, and then he settled himself facing him, moving ponderously as if his leg gave him pain.
“No, I am not freeing you,” he said patiently. “I cannot free you, because you were never a slave. I went through that stage-act of buying you only to divert the crowd from the truth. I know of but one way to tell you this, and that is to tell you directly. But first, take a good draught of this.”
He took up a flagon, poured unwatered wine into one of the weighty silver cups, then held it out to the boy. Endymion hesitated a moment, his mind unsettled with questions, then he took it. The contents were so strikingly superior to any wine he had ever tasted—the most delicate fruit of autumn, he thought, musky silk—that he doubted at first that it was wine.
Marcus Arrius Julianus seized him with gentle, demanding eyes.
“You are my son.”
The words struck him first like a blow that is not seen coming. His mind was a brilliant blank. Slowly the boy shook his head as he cautiously tested the words on his reasoning mind, as if he were not certain he could bear the weight of them. He felt he hovered precariously between the two existences, the highest and the lowest, separated by a chasm of night.
In one moment he felt he had sensed the truth with some deep knowing, the instant he first saw this man, but it simply had not come to light in his waking thoughts. There was a rightness to it, the feel of a lock sliding in place in the dark.
And in the next, he decided this old man must have simply gone mad, and even felt a stirring of pity for him. He leapt back to the familiarity of the lowest.
“I…I beg your pardon, but I am Endymion, lately a slave of a fuller. I appreciate your kindnesses but—”
“No,” Julianus continued with soft insistence. He put an all-encompassing hand about the boy’s shoulder. In his eyes was a fervent look, blurred with pain.
“You are not Endymion. Your name is the same as mine. The death masks in the atrium are your ancestors. You are heir to this house and to all within it, as well as to lands stretching from Africa to Gaul—it would take a procurator a year to properly sort out everything you own. You are heir to a tradition that goes back to the foundation of this city. You must awaken to this. You must at once stop thinking of yourself as a slave.”
“Why do you tell me this? It cannot be true.”
“You prove it by your very skepticism—an obnoxious family trait. I beg you, listen! I know it is hard to let go what feels right and is well-known, even if it be an evil thing that brings misery. But you must believe. When you were six, I gave you out to a baker’s wife to raise and let it be known that you died in the summer fever. It was necessary, to save you from one who would still seek your life today, should she learn you are alive.”
The boy guessed he referred to Agrippina, the mother of Nero, who in Nero’s youth murdered anyone whom she judged a threat to her son’s sovereignty, either by poison, a treason charge, or an arranged accident in the street.
“But why would she be so roused to wrath by a mere child?”
“Her astrologer Archimedes poisoned her mind against you. There was not a babe born in those times that she did not have its horoscope cast. Archimedes told her that it was quite clearly in your chart that ‘the fate of the whole country would one day rest in your hands.’ Rightly or wrongly, she read that as an imperial destiny.
“And so we—your mother and I—hid you away, in hope that one day her power would be broken and we could bring you out again.”
A faint hoarseness came to his voice then. “But the baker…lost you. You either ran off or were stolen away—he could not say which. I tried every way I knew to trace you, but the streets had swallowed you up. Your mother made offerings every day at the Temple of Juno to no avail. I never thought to see you alive again.”
“But…how can you be so certain? I was little when last you saw me.”
“I would know you now by your eyes alone, which are so like your dear mother’s it near reduces me to mourning joy just to look at you. You have as well her proud chin. But this”—he drew the amulet from the boy’s tunic, handling it with reverence, as though it were a pearl—“would make me swear by my life.”
“It’s a bag of dirt.”
“It is a bag of dirt. And there is not another like it anywhere, except in the far wastes of the north where winter lasts half through summer. In Germania once I gave audience to a tribal prophetess, a Chattian woman called Ramis—a strange and disturbing woman, that was. She came to petition for the life of ten of her tribesmen condemned to die, and when I granted her wish, she gave me this—although it is against their law to give it to foreigners. I am not certain why she gave it to me. It is earth taken from their most sacred ground, called the aurr, and, know well, there is powerful magic in these things. She said, as I recall, that it ‘brings the wearer to his own true destiny,’ whatever that might mean. Perhaps she meant just this, Marcus—that it would return you to me.”
The boy faintly withdrew at the sound of the new name—it belonged to one highborn, and sounded absurd and wrong to him, like mockery. For a long time he sat without moving, carefully trying on this new life in his mind. These things could not happen. But they had. Before nothing was possible. Now what was not possible? The worm in the earth had become a man.
“My mother…she is not living, is she?”
“She died of grief a year after you w
ere lost.” His father turned away, his voice coming with effort. “It is mad perhaps…but when midnight closes round, I feel her spirit strongly about the family altar. She was most brilliantly learned. There, in those niches, are her works—a tragic drama, several medical treatises, and her five books of narrative poetry.”
It was almost unbearable to know he had had a mother and that she had grieved for him while he lived almost within distance of a cry. The boy rose and moved to the books, those fragile traces of her life, and put a reverential hand on one of the volumes. Mother. Brilliantly learned. I see your face!…. Wise brow…proud chin…and your eyes—wells of gentle mystery…the eyes of Minerva.
She, then, must have been the vision in white who taught him to read; she was no wraith; she had a heart and blood and salt tears. In the garden was a sudden ruffling of leaves, as though they were brushed by spectral garments; he sensed a spirit in the wind that was wild, protective, sad, and he wondered if it were her ghost, gladdened at his return.
“Your rescue must, for a time, be a close-kept secret,” his father continued. “Nero’s mother still murders for her son, but her power is declining. She has long been at war with Seneca and the Guards, and slowly she is losing. But the city is still infested with her spies. We’ll have to hide you here. All who see you and all your tutors must be loyal to us and sworn to secrecy.”
The word tutors bore him up once more on a wave of joyful amazement. He would be educated. He should have expected as much, but he had not had time to think through to the end everything now given him. The universe of stars and sea and land and history would become his own country. He would be a philosopher. He would become what he had thought Seneca was, before this day.
The elder Julianus talked on a short time more, enumerating the deeds of his family, answering his son’s rapidly multiplying questions, then abruptly he took his leave, not wanting to overburden the boy at this first meeting.
And in the following days the Senator began the process of preparing his son for this new life, effecting the transformation, as the old man put it, from human animal to young man. A tutor in speech took Marcus in hand, helping rid him of the accent of the Subura, schooling him in the idioms and vocabulary of his class. The house steward instructed him in the rudiments of deportment: He was taught the right and wrong ways of draping the toga praetexta worn by aristocratic youths, the proper way a man reclines at table, the elaborate ceremony that accompanies the reception of visitors. And through it all, Marcus thought: While I am being taught the polite way to address an augur or pronounce the titles of my father’s friends, below me in the muddy streets, Lycas is dying. We are bound to one another. My own good fortune must be his. I must speak for him.
When a month had passed, the chief steward announced to Marcus Julianus the Elder that the boy had become just civilized enough to be allowed to dine with him.
Have I the right to speak for Lycas? Marcus wondered, full of nameless apprehension as he readied himself. I say that I do, whatever the judgment of this world.
They dined in the modest triclinium by the kitchens, not the grand dining hall that overlooked the fountains, which was reserved for official banquets. Marcus Julianus the Elder was settled already on the first couch when young Marcus entered; the boy took a place opposite him, on the third couch. The old man noted with approval how deftly his son managed the oyster spoon, how sparing the boy was with wine.
Twice Marcus heard the hour called, and the sun reddened and sank, lazily setting fire to all that was gold in the room, while the young man sought for the proper moment to ask what he must. When he thought his father had spun out enough battle tales to render the old man as affable and receptive as he might ever be, he spoke.
“Father”—he began, cautiously testing the word; he had not yet used it often enough, and it felt like an awkward bundle he nearly dropped—“there is a man I would have brought here. He will die if he is left where he is, and he has been friend and father to me. He is the slave of the baker Pollio, and his name is Lycas.” Marcus paused, sensing a delicate tension in the silence, as though he had committed some small breach of manners.
A servant interrupted with the third course; the heavy silver platters descended swiftly, silently as if on hawks’ wings. Before them was filleted turbot mixed with goose liver, drizzled with a sauce of honey, oil, pounded pepper, lovage, and marjoram.
“Pollio?” His father gave him a bemused, formal smile and shook his head. “I am sorry, that fellow is not our friend. He is the client of that doddering curmudgeon Publilius who opposes me in the Senate every chance he is given. I will purchase nothing from him, neither his bread nor his slaves.”
“But Father, Lycas will die.” Marcus raised himself slightly on his couch. He was surprised at how quickly fear vanished once the parrying began; in its place was only a bright, hard resolve. “Cannot a feud be set aside for a day for such a grave purpose as this?”
Julianus smiled tolerantly, but his eyes sharpened in irritation. “It is not right for a boy to so question his father, but I will allow it this once because you are ignorant. Do not misunderstand me, your fine sentiments do you great honor. But there’s more to this matter, Marcus—that baker’s been accused of forgery and is due to go before the magistrate. To have dealings with a man such as that does no good for the family name. You are unschooled in these matters. You must not ask such a thing. Now let us eat this fine turbot before it grows unacceptably cold.”
But Marcus rose from his couch, left the table, and crossed to the mullioned window. There was a moment of turbulent silence. When he turned round to face his father, the elder Julianus started at the change in him; the young man’s eyes were alight with such passion and brilliance he might have drawn a sword against an advancing enemy.
“I am unschooled in many things, and you are quite right, I do not know the ways of the highborn,” Marcus said. “But this is a matter beyond high and low and all the estates of society, it is a matter of…of love, a love that is natural to all, and it is the same, rich or poor. I gave my word to him—I know enough of honor to know a man must stand by his word. And as for Pollio, he has not yet made his case before the magistrate. The man who judges before the other party is heard is unjust, even if his judgment is right.”
Julianus stared at his son through the delicately rising steam, trapped between outrage and astonishment. Were not those last words taken from one of Seneca’s dramas?
With no training he weaves the words of the philosopher with rhetoric, as though it were the natural thing to do. And such strength, such well-tempered fire in the voice. And how dare he.
“Enough!” The Senator’s anger was beginning to break loose from its tight bonds. His clenched hands betrayed his desire to rise up and seize his son by the shoulders—but the old man stayed on his couch. A commander sits. A subordinate stands. “You gave your word, you say. You’re but a boy, you must ungive it. A boy has no such right, while his father lives.” He gave the boy his stormiest glare. “I find you willful and filled with ingratitude. My reply is no—and I will hear no more on it.”
Marcus did not move; he met the elder Julianus’ eyes boldly, quietly, trembling faintly as though facing his father required great physical effort, but he showed no sign of the terrified submission the Senator expected.
“Do you respect nothing and no one? Again I say it, no!”
The young man looked away. His voice when he finally spoke was full of effort and pain.
“Then I do not want all these things, however fine.” He removed the chalcedony ring his father had given him and laid it on the dining table. “And I want no place in this world. I think in most matters you are a good man. But in this matter you are ruled by pride and anger. What am I to do? Forget him and walk on, as if he were not suffering almost in my shadow? Among the highborn, you live by your philosophy. When one lowborn is at your mercy, you cast it aside. Lycas knows better how to live than you—he would never set pride over filial lo
ve. I am not your son. I am Lycas’ son.”
Marcus then turned and started bravely for the door. For a moment his father watched him, horrified, unable to move, knowing at once this was no child’s game, but a show of strength of mind far beyond his years.
The boy has been seized by a demon. It cannot be. He truly means to return to the streets.
“Wait there!” Julianus cried out. “You are quite mad. Do you really think I’m going to sit here while my newfound son bludgeons me with Stoic philosophy, then vanishes once more? Halt!”
The boy did not slow.
“Perhaps—perhaps something can be arranged.”
Marcus paused before the richly carved door.
“I…I will do it secretly. I’ll get someone neutral in this matter to buy this fellow in his own name, and then he can turn round and sell him to me. Come now, back to your place. I will not have to pay a master of rhetoric for long; I see you’re already formidably adept at persuasion! Look how you’ve made a beggar out of me! Where do you come by such thoughts? You are utterly confounding. You really meant to leave, did you not?”
Marcus visibly relaxed and smiled awkwardly, a boy once more. A fleeting look of shame and fledgling affection for his father came into his face. “Not willingly, Father. But yes, I would have left.” He hesitated. “Father, I am grateful. What you said of ingratitude—it is not true.”
When Marcus had settled on the couch once more, his father reached across the table and put a clumsy but protective hand over his. After a space of comfortable silence, the elder Julianus said with a new darkness in his voice, “Fine son that you are, I fear you’ll not live long. You’ve little or no notion of what you’ve fallen into. You’ve come aboard a golden ship, you see, but know this: It’s one that’s slowly sinking.”
Julianus was silent while a mute servant came in to light the many-branched bronze lamp suspended low over the dining table. Almost as an afterthought the Senator started to pick delicately at the meal. Marcus could not eat; the boy looked away from the growing cluster of little flames, out into the swift-gathering gloom, and shuddered at how close he had come to spending this night shivering in the Great Drain, struggling against the damp to snatch a little sleep.
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