Asterius

by Nhys Glover

  But I had to find his home here in Rome, if he was in Rome. Maybe he had returned to his country villa to escape the heat of summer.

  After a lot of questions in the forum, I found out the equestrian Natalinus owned a villa in the countryside just outside the city. ‘To the north’ was all the directions I got.

  So I made my way through the teeming masses, who were likely trying to make the most of the slightly cooler temperatures of the very early morning to get their work done. As I headed for the north gate, I was conscious of an oppressive sense of doom closing in on me. It had started as I galloped the roads from Aternum to Rome and was growing more encompassing the closer I got to my goal.

  I was not a person prone to inner reflection. I left that to my brother, Typhon. For me, life was lived as it presented itself, without asking too many questions about the whys of it all. So I was not inclined to ask why I felt the way I did. I assumed it was simply worry or a warrior’s gut telling me to be ready. I always heeded my instincts.

  When I arrived at the Natalinus villa, a magnificent structure high on the hills outside the city, I immediately knew there was a problem. When I announced who I was to the harried-looking slave that answered the door, I was immediately taken to the tablinum where Natalinus was leaning over a map.

  He looked up in surprise when I entered.

  “A slave sent from Publius Ennius Corvus, Master,” the slave announced

  Natalinus turned to face me and sighed in relief, his anxiety evaporating a little.

  “So, Corvus knows of the present crisis?” he demanded.

  I nodded. “I told him what his wife was planning for his daughter. He has sent me with documents to counter her influence. But I am to get Ennia Corva away until the Master arrives to deal with the woman himself.”

  I handed over the relevant documents.

  “That is all well and good, but it may be too late. Marcus took Ennia, dressed as a slave boy as I understand it, to friends in Ostia. Though I have had countless messages from Camellia, I have been able to honestly say that I had not seen her missing daughter. But I have been in constant contact with my son through messengers. And this morning my messenger returned to say that he thinks he was followed.”

  He turned back to the map. “Look here.”

  I moved closer and glanced at the map over his shoulder, trying to keep a polite distance, not only because we were patrician and slave but because I was only too aware that I had days of sweat and filth on my body and it was already a steaming hot day.

  “This is us and this is Rome,” he pointed out the places on the map. Then he pointed at the coast south west of Rome where the Tiber River met the sea.

  “My messengers traverse this route to get to the Rufus villa just outside Ostia. About here he noted riders come out of the forest and join the traffic heading west. He did not pay it any mind until he left the main road to follow this one to the villa. The riders took the same path. On his way back, he noted one of the riders again, and this time he paid special attention to when he left the road. He left the road here.” Natalinus pointed to the same spot he had indicated before. “Which, if he followed the ridge, would provide a prime spot from which to view my villa, here.” His fingertip stabbed at another spot, covered with illustrated trees, not far from the villa as a crow flies.

  I could see what he meant. One hill over, a man or men could easily camp and watch the comings and goings from Natalinus’ estate unobserved. When someone left the villa to travel west, the observers could follow by joining the road at the point Natalinus had indicated.

  Camellia had men watching Natalinus, which made sense. And it was likely that the messenger going to Ostia had led them directly to their prey. But why had they not done it earlier than this?

  “I receive regular notifications from all my estates and often send out messengers to all my properties. When my ships dock at Ostia I receive word. Actually, my ships use Porta Augusti north of Ostia because the port charges are less than in the harbour. And the new road into Rome is better. If they followed all the messengers coming and going they would be kept busy. But they might note that more messages went between here and Ostia. It would have taken time for them to figure that out. And with my man noticing... well, I am more than concerned for Ennia’s safety. And my son’s. As he will surely defend her with his life.”

  “If he only saw one of the riders on his way back, then some likely remained in Ostia to watch for, or try to take, Acc... Ennia Corva,” I added, seeing what he may not have registered.

  My blood was pumping so loudly in my ears I had trouble hearing him. This then was the trouble my instincts had warned me about. The predators were closing in on their prey. If they weren’t to succeed I needed to get to Ostia and get Accalia away immediately.

  “You are right. Yes, that would be what they did. Some remaining and others following to make sure the messenger returned here. Or maybe they returned to their leader who might be up here on the hill.”

  I nodded my agreement. I had to get to Ostia fast.

  It hadn’t been worth the time it would have taken to hire a horse from one of the stables just outside Rome’s walls, so I’d run the distance to the Natalinus villa. But though I could have run all the way to Ostia—which was about twenty miles—if need be, it would be faster riding.

  “Can I borrow a horse?” I asked politely, not sure how to talk to a man who was so above me in station.

  “Of course, of course. But may I suggest a quick bath and clean clothes while the horse is being readied. Your master’s daughter will be horrified at your current state. She is a gently raised lady, after all.”

  I had to school my features to avoid showing my amusement at this. He clearly didn’t know the girl I did. But I was vain enough not to want Accalia to see me as I was, so I agreed readily, although I chafed at the wasted time it would take.

  In the end, I didn’t bother with the normal bathing ritual. I simply threw a bucket of water over my naked body, lathered and applied a soap stone, and then slooshed it off with another clean bucket of water. A slave girl brought me fresh garments and I wouldn’t have been a man if I didn’t notice how avidly she took me in. I was good looking, I knew that. But in this moment, I didn’t much care how attractive I was to this girl. Another girl, more important to me than life itself, was waiting for me, her life dependant on me reaching her in time.

  I threw on fresh clothes and the dust-stained sandals my master had provided to replace the ones I’d ruined running to reach him. Outside the villa I saw a horse awaited me. I threw myself up onto its back without a word to the slave who held it.

  Before my hair had a chance to dry, I was on the road that skirted Rome’s wall and taking the Via Portuensis to the coast. The harsh sun beat down on my head. Sweat and dust was already making the bath a wasted exercise. It was not yet mid-morning, but less people than I expected were on the roads. I supposed this might be because they travelled at dawn or dusk to avoid the heat. Or maybe most still used the road to Ostia, rather than this one built solely for the new Portus.

  After the salt flats, there was the turn off to the new villa owned by Rufus. I paused long enough to study my surroundings. Ahead, in the distance, I could see the glittering villa. The sea was a vibrant blue in the distance behind it. The road off the main Via Portuensis ran straight up to the villa, but another went south from the villa in the direction of the Portus Augusti’s docks rather than the town of Ostia.

  I knew from geography lessons that the new port built by Claudius was still no competition to the harbour of Ostia, but the port charges were less, as Natalinus pointed out, so he and many others were beginning to make use of the new port for their vessels.

  Along the other track I could just make out a cisium with two occupants. Two riders following behind it. Once the cisium was out of sight behind a dune I saw five more riders leave the cover of another low dune to follow behind the first group of travellers.

  These were li
kely Camellia’s men. More than I expected from what Natalinus had indicated. Maybe they had enlisted more men from town to help them. I had no idea how long they’d been keeping watch on the villa. The messenger probably arrived the evening before and left to return home at first light. That would have given them the night to find extra men at the harbour who wanted to make some fast money and didn’t mind hurting someone to get it.

  My brain became crystal clear as I formulated a plan. This was what I was trained to do. This was what I was bred to do.

  In my mind I pictured the map. There was no way to cut across from where I currently was to the other track. But the main road went on directly to the port and a circular road led to the northern entrance to the port. If I rode fast I might just make it to the docks before the five men reached it.

  Would they try to take Accalia on a busy dock when she had three men protecting her? It would likely be easier that way. The chaos of loading and unloading ships would mean they could approach and attack without being noticed. Slaves scattering to avoid the fight that ensued would allow one man to escape with Accalia. That’d be how I’d do it, anyway.

  I had to get to the docks before the predators!

  I urged my mount into an even faster gallop, scattering the few travellers on the roads and leaving them yelling abuse in my wake. By the time I reached the docks my horse was lathered and blowing hard. Throwing the reins to a slave, I took off at a run, dodging dock-slaves as I went.

  It took me more time than I wanted, to pick Accalia and Marcus out from the ants on the docks. When I did my heart missed a beat. Accalia was covered in blood!

  Gods, was I too late? How badly was she hurt?

  My clear mind became chaos as fear for her claimed it. I was too late. Gods, why had I taken the time to bathe before taking to the roads again? My vanity may have lost my girl her life!

  Chapter Eleven

  ACCALIA

  We had been at the Rufus villa for almost a month with no word from Pater. Only the monotonously regular messages from Marcus’ father apprising us of the situation, saying that Camellia continued to ask yet again about me and warn him he must return me if he saw me. My nerves were at breaking point. It was hard enough acting the part of a slave boy attendant every minute of the day, but it was even harder when I had nothing to occupy my mind but thoughts of the harpy and what she had planned for me and those I cared about.

  Marcus tried to distract me with strategy games and taking me to the docks to watch the ships load and unload their cargo. It would have been interesting, had I not been constantly looking over my shoulder for my enemy.

  On one such day well into July we walked the docks, the heat a sweltering shroud around us. It was barely past mid-morning, but the temperature had already climbed unbearably high and was clearly taking its toll on the slaves working around us. They seemed lethargic and listless. The overseers were wielding their whips more often than usual. I hated the sound of the crack and slap of it, accompanied inevitably by the pained cry from the targeted slave.

  As we passed one ship, a pallet of stone amphorae broke free of its ropes and fell on the slaves directing the load from the dock. Men cried out and people dashed from everywhere to help, the lethargy of the moment before gone in an instant.

  Marcus and I stood not far away watching in stunned horror. One black-skinned slave obviously had a severely broken leg. I could see the ragged bone jutting out of the skin, and from the way blood spurted out in throbbing bursts, I knew an artery had been severed.

  I dashed forward, pushing my way through the legs, until I was at the man’s side. Before anyone could stop me, I reached into the open wound—ignoring the thrashing leg and the slave’s increased screams of agony—found and pinched off the artery with my thumb and forefinger.

  Marcus came to my side, crying out when he saw the blood that now covered my previously pristine cream tunic. Or maybe it was seeing me with my hand in a slave’s open wound that upset him.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, looking around as if someone might see what I was doing and throw me in a cell for my crime.

  “I am saving this man’s life. He will bleed out if this artery is not closed off,” I answered tersely, trying to keep hold of my slippery possession as the slave writhed. “Hold him still, will you!”

  Marcus immediately jumped into action. Later, I wondered what a sight we must have made. A slave boy with his fingers buried inside a man’s leg, while his patrician master jumped to do his will.

  It was one of those times when Marcus’ strength served us, as did the narrow purple band at the bottom of his tunic and his trabea, the shortened toga allowed to the equestrian class. Men saw him and stepped back out of his way in deference.

  I needed to get the artery tied off. With my other hand, I flipped open the pouch I wore attached to my belt. Feverishly feeling around inside, I finally found what I needed: a small roll of thread I used when sewing up wounds.

  But I couldn’t unroll the thread and cut it off while continuing to pinch the artery closed.

  “Marcus, use your dagger to cut me off a piece of this. About a foot long,” I demanded.

  My companion repositioned himself on the writhing man, placing a knee on the shin of the injured leg he was holding down so he could free up his hands. Drawing a dagger from his belt he severed the thread as I indicated and handed it to me. For several frustrating minutes, I worked to wrap the thread around the bulging artery and then pulled it tight, so the blood flow was cut off. Once I was done, I relaxed a little and sat back on my heels. Thank the gods the man had dropped into unconsciousness some time during my wrestling match with his artery, because his pain would have been horrendous.

  A none-too-clean looking man pushed his way through the crowd and said, “I’m the dock physician. I’ll take over.”

  I stared at him in shock and horror. How could a man so filthy be considered a physician? Then I remembered Ariaratus’ stories about the quacks who passed themselves off as medical practitioners. Surgeons were often butchers who found they made more money severing the limbs of a human than those from beast’s carcass. Cleanliness was not seen as important. Only in the army was it required of surgeons in their makeshift hospitals.

  But even as all these thoughts flew through my mind, I realised the chances of this slave surviving his injuries with or without my aid were slim. The docks were rife with filth carried on the air, all of which could easily get into the wound. In fact, my hands, though clean enough, could have carried such filth into the wound. I had worked to save this man’s life in the short term when he would probably die of putrefaction or blood poisoning in the long term. And suffer a much more painful and extended death.

  Defeated and bleak, I stepped away from the unconscious man and wiped the sweat from my brow. I must have transferred blood to my face by the move, because when Marcus drew me away from the centre of the action he gently wiped blood from my face with his white kerchief. Although there was not much he could do for my hands and bloody tunic with his one small square of fabric.

  “I think we need to get you cleaned up,” he said with equal gentleness.

  I noted a man had lowered a bucket over the edge of the dock and was now offering up the foul dock water to me. Not wanting to offend and knowing that at least I would look better without blood coating my hands—even if I was no cleaner—I immersed my hands into the bucket and rinsed off the blood that had sprayed right up to my shoulders. My bare legs were also covered in blood, so I upturned the bucket over them to wash as much off them as I could.

  There was nothing to be done about the tunic. It would have to be turned into rags, as the blood-stain would not come out.

  With a grateful nod I handed back the bucket to the kind bystander and let Marcus guide me clear of the mass of stinking, sweating bodies.

  “How did you know to do that?” Marcus demanded as we walked down the dock. For the first time, I noticed our two guards clearing the way for us. H
ad they been responsible for Marcus reaching me so quickly? I had used my small size to get past the onlookers, but Marcus would have had a harder time of it, unless he had help.

  I dismissed the thought and rubbed at my still slightly pink arms. I would need to scrub them to get the blood and sea muck off them. And from under my nails. Gods, that would take an age.

  I tried to focus on anything else but the knowledge that I had likely increased the poor slave’s pain. If I’d left him to bleed out, his suffering would have been over quickly. Now he had days and maybe weeks of agony ahead. And if he survived, he would have a limp or a missing leg that would make him unable to work. He’d be sold and likely end up begging on the streets until he died of hunger or disease.

  Why had I felt the need to step in?

  The answer was, I didn’t think, I just reacted. I saw what was happening and knew how to stop it. So I did.

  “Ennia? I asked how you knew how to do that?” Marcus repeated a little more impatiently.

  I turned to smile up at him, embarrassed to have to share my secret with him. Although how long it would remain a secret now that his bodyguards had witnessed me at work, I did not know.

  “I have been training with Ariaratus when Pater was away. I enjoyed it and it made time pass faster.”

  He stared at me in surprise. “So that was why you were concerned about your old physician? I could not understand why you included him among those you feared Camellia would take her revenge out on.”

  I nodded. “Yes. She threatened to tell Pater about the Wolf Pack and what I had been doing with Ariaratus. I did not know what Pater might do to them. Now you can see why I was so worried to go against that harpy.”