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The Last Stoic

Page 3

by Morgan Wade


  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Patrick Jr. had watched and waited in vain that night, and then had fallen asleep on his bench. He was awoken with a start when the old cook-woman rattled his booth with her mop. He rubbed his eyes roughly and stared out the window. The old car in which Mark had spent the night was gone. Patrick rose unsteadily to his feet and lunged at the old woman like he was going to strike her. When she cowered, he pulled back and tumbled away to get himself an egg sandwich and cola for breakfast.

  An hour later he was in the passenger seat of a rusty Ford 150 picked up by a shift worker on his way home. Trundling down the freeway about twenty minutes outside of Newark they passed the empty Phoenix.

  “Stop! Stop the truck!”

  The driver, startled from his after-work stupor, now regretted his generosity.

  “This is the freeway. I can’t stop here.”

  “Just pull over to the shoulder and let me out. It’s important.”

  As quickly as he was able, the driver eased the pickup to a halt on the shoulder, with the impatient, morning rush hour traffic bustling by. The truck had barely stopped before Patrick jumped out of the passenger door and slammed the door behind him. The truck squawked back into traffic.

  Patrick descended on the derelict car. He checked the gauges; there was still three quarters of a tank, but the temperature was high. He lifted the hood, examined the engine, and quickly found the leak in the radiator. The car had overheated. Abandoned. He must be in a hurry, the keys are still in the ignition. It occurred to Patrick that if he could wait twenty minutes to let the engine cool on its own, he could limp off the freeway, find a garage and pick up a bottle of Bar’s Leaks to dump in the radiator. Provided no cops came by first.

  He rummaged through the glove compartment and found nothing but maps, some batteries, a roll of Lifesavers, and a half empty tissue box. On the back seat there was a bag of pita bread, several empty beer cans, an unrolled sleeping bag, and some clothing. In the trunk he found a mouldy dome tent and a flashlight. And the hunting knife Andy had given to Mark as a departing gift.

  He’s roughing it. Doesn’t want to be seen?

  Under the driver’s seat he found a pile of four notebooks containing drawings and schematics. It was part of Mark’s graduate thesis; designs for an experimental parallel computer. Patrick, who had dropped his drafting and electricity and computing courses in high school, did not see an ingenious supercomputer in those plans; he saw a nefarious blueprint. A bomb. Some sort of nuclear device. “Mark” was printed neatly inside the cover of each of the notebooks along with a phone number. Under the passenger seat he found the nine millimetre Glock Andy had stashed there.

  Patrick didn’t have long to consider all of the terrible and exciting ramifications of what he’d found. He became aware of a distant siren wailing from the north along the freeway. His discoveries were stuffed back into their hiding places. The debris in the back seat was arranged so that it didn’t suggest quite so much anarchy. He didn’t bother to close the hood. Instead, he sat back in the driver’s seat and fingered the keys lightly. Within seconds, a motorcycle patrolman was at the door. Patrick swallowed and lowered the window.

  “Morning son,” the cop said, eyeing Patrick cautiously through his mirrored, aviator sunglasses.

  “Good morning officer.”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “The radiator. She overheated. I think I must have a leak.”

  “Do you need a tow?”

  “I was hoping not. It’s a small leak I think. I was going to let her cool, try again, and then see if I can make it to a shop.”

  “Will she start?”

  “I haven’t tried for a little while.”

  “Well, it can’t stay here. You’ll have to start her up and get off the freeway, or I’ll have to call in a tow truck.”

  “Right. Can I try it?”

  “Ok, best hurry up.”

  Patrick gestured to the hood. The patrolman nodded and closed it.

  He switched the key and the engine sputtered to life. Patrick turned and smiled.

  “Thanks officer! It looks like she’s ready to go again.”

  “Follow me to the next exit. There is a garage two miles west of here. Have a good stay in New York.”

  The patrolman returned to his motorcycle and proceeded to give Patrick a short escort off of the freeway. The runaway from New Ravenna felt like his luck was changing.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Mark was roused from his uneven slumber by the jabbing of a finger in his ribs. He’d hoped to snatch a few extra hours of sleep while in the Newark station waiting for the next bus into Manhattan. Instead, he now stared into a man’s pallid face. Long shiny strands of coal-coloured hair fell from the top of the man’s head and spilled down past his shoulders. A two-inch iron rod pierced the septum of his nose, three heavy iron rings punctured his lower lip, and each of his two ears were similarly perforated with silver hoops, loops and bars. Thick kohl was daubed around the man’s eyes and eyelids sweeping back toward his ears.

  “Hey dude, gotta smoke?” the man asked.

  The question was as unexpected as the questioner.

  “Sorry dude, did I wake you?”

  Mark had been busy dreaming. He’d been dreaming of being on the run, of a vast tapioca pudding of a man popping tiny dark-skinned people into his mouth like they were chocolates.

  He told the man that he didn’t have any cigarettes. Mark propped himself up on his elbow to watch him depart and saw him join a group of men and women standing close by in a loose circle. They all looked the same, in their way; black hair, black clothes, and very white skin. Each one of them displayed a wide variety of metallic ornament, punctured through all manner of their facial features: lobes, lips, noses, chins, brows, cheeks, and tongues.

  Goths.

  FOUR

  “Marcus Aurelius Antoninus…, Germanicus…, Alamannicus…, Alexander of Rome! At long last, thanks to your bold vision and inestimable courage, we behold a monument worthy of your greatness, worthy of the glory of Rome under your unwavering guidance and generous patronage. Our eternal city has never seen such magnificence, nor will it again. It is a fitting tribute to your majesty, our father…, our Hercules…, our chief…, our commander. Witness… the Thermae Antoninianae!”

  A score of trumpeters commenced their bright fanfare as massive bolts of cream-coloured cloth fringed with imperial purple dropped from the twelve storey external ramparts of the newly minted baths of Caracallus. A thunderous clamour arose from the many thousands who had assembled at the broad, grassy plain beyond the old Servian Wall and just south of the busy Via Appia. Onlookers thronged well back from the face of the baths up onto the hillock crested by the Via Ardeatina and all the way back to the Porto Capena gate in the Servian Wall. Curious youngsters managed to scale the sides of the new Aqua Antoniniana, the aqueduct that provided these latest baths with their fresh water, and sat perched on top shouting and laughing as officials tried to remove them. Just like everyone else in attendance, Marcus, who was standing on the highest ridge of the Via Ardeatina, craned his neck and stood on his toes to see what was taking place at the foot of the bath’s ramparts.

  The curtains fell away to reveal the most spectacular building Marcus could imagine. At the centre towered the magnificent domed caldarium; the hot room, its bright bronze roof reflecting the midday sun with blinding intensity. The cavernous arches that opened from the circular tower were four stories up from the ground and extended four stories in height, on all sides, allowing light to pour into the pools within. Ledges and cornices were festooned everywhere with lush, colourful garlands. Marcus guessed that the exterior walls of the baths stretched from the caldarium at least three hundred feet in either direction, breaching eight stories on both sides.

  Baths. For a race of giants.

  Marcus was in Rome at the exact time that the Thermae Antoninianae were to be officially opened. A year earlier, when Vincentius had rec
eived partial plans of the proposed edifice from his old colleagues and Marcus had brought them in to the academy at Verulamium, professors and students had scoffed at the blueprints. “They have the vaulting resting on gratings of copper and bronze,” Rufus Caementarius had said, when Marcus laid out the sheets and admired the scale of the project, “they’ll never bear that kind of weight. It’s folly. You’d never catch a self-respecting architect here building anything like that.” Shows how much Rufus knows. Here it is. What would they say if they knew I was attending the unveiling of Rome’s most impressive architectural feat? What will grandfather say when I tell him? He’ll be pleased.

  Marcus scanned the monumental walls again and remembered his last meeting with Vincentius before he departed.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The steady, measured clomp of his hobnails echoed along the corridor.

  Vincentius appeared precisely as he had since as far back as Marcus could remember. The lamp threw shadows and accentuated the many crags and fissures in his corrugated face. A shock of silver hair grew straight back from the sides of his head, as though caught in a gale. Vincentius stood just over six feet, but his long legs and narrow frame made him look taller. Marcus shifted uncomfortably under his furs and looked up into grey-blue eyes which were just beginning to cloud from developing cataracts.

  “Good morning, grandfather.”

  “Still in bed? Carpe diem, carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! Trust as little as possible in tomorrow! I assumed I would find you preparing for your journey.”

  Marcus nodded toward a bulging rucksack in the corner of the room and smiled weakly.

  “All packed.”

  “Probus. Ut sementem feceris, ita metes. As you sow, so shall you reap.”

  Vincentius spoke with a purer, older dialect of Latin, not the patois adulterated with local mannerisms, slangs, and rustic accent that most of Marcus’ contemporaries favoured. The old man pulled up a stool and perched himself on it next to Marcus’ bed. He put a large bony hand on Marcus’ calf, his calliper-like fingers gripping the flesh firmly but affectionately, like he might clutch a skittish sheep. He leaned in toward Marcus, his prodigious white eyebrows animated above his widened eyes.

  “You must be very excited lad.”

  “Yes grandfather.”

  “A great adventure awaits you Marcus. Seeing you here, green as a lily, I’m reminded of my first trip to Rome. I was there when your namesake, Marcus Aurelius, was emperor. I even had the great fortune to meet the man, face to face.”

  Marcus murmured without commitment. He’d heard the story in its entirety and in all its variations at least a dozen times.

  “Oh yes,” Vincentius continued, “as a young apprentice. I worked for the engineering firm founded by Sextus Frontinus. The original Sextus Julius Frontinus. Many consider him to be Rome’s finest engineer. His De Aquis Urbis Romae is still the definitive work on aqueducts.”

  “We studied Frontinus at the Academy.”

  “Of course! He was a Gaul too. An Averni, but still a Gaul. Interesting, isn’t it, how some of the best Romans come from Gaul? And Iberia. And Greece. Rome’s strength nowadays comes from the provinces. As Virgil says, E pluribus unum. ”

  Vincentius pulled out a torn, yellowed map of Rome.

  “This is where I used to live,” he said, pointing to a smudge of ink in the left corner of the map. “I’ve heard from my associates that Caracallus is building a spectacular set of baths just near there, below the Via Ardeatina. The architecture is said to be breathtaking.”

  The old man hunched over the map with the sort of childlike enthusiasm he might have displayed when he and a younger Marcus examined a water pump, “If I were you that would be the first place I would go when I got to Rome.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Marcus was brought back from his reverie to those very baths by a collective gasp rising up from the assembly.

  He looked to the foot of the thermae. A chariot led by a single black charger burst from the end of a long portico and into the square space of the arena that lay directly in front of the soaring caldarium. The charioteer, his black and dark purple cape billowing wildly behind him, drove to the center of the square and stopped with a vicious tug of the reins. The crowd erupted.

  “Asinus!” spat the thin, young German called Rauthwulfs standing nearby.

  Marcus had met Rauthwulfs and his fellow Marcomanni at the way station on the Via Flaminia near where he’d parted company with old Phoenix and they had traveled the last few leagues into Rome together.

  “Who is it?”

  “That’s our noble Caracallus.”

  The charioteer wore a caracallus; a long, hooded cloak that extended mid-calf in the German style. Marcus had only ever seen his likeness on coins, but there was no doubt it was Caracallus himself, just one hundred yards away.

  “You don’t like the emperor?” Marcus asked.

  “Why should I? He hasn’t done me any favours.”

  “He made you citizen didn’t he?” Marcus said, gesturing at the mob that pressed forward toward the iron fencing circling the arena. “Those citizens seem to like it.”

  “You know the Romans, they love a circus.”

  A tremendous roar erupted from near the bath’s outer wall and radiated outward with the violence of a searing, desert wind. Four centurions wheeled a lion housed in a five foot by five foot iron cage into the arena. The soldiers marched away from the cage pulling behind them a heavy hemp rope and when they reached a safe distance they pulled to raise the iron gate. The lion emerged from the cage, shook his mane, and appraised his surroundings with a long, low growl.

  “Good Jupiter! He’s going to fight a lion?”

  “Yes. It’s nothing. Second lion this year. And scores of bulls, stags, bears…let’s see, an elephant, …a crocodile…, a giraffe. A hundred boar in one day last year. He’s an accomplished killer.”

  “Yes, but…, on his own? Against a lion?”

  “Don’t be a rube. It’s been handicapped.”

  Marcus looked carefully and he could see a bright red smear on the creature’s hind leg. It hobbled as it prowled near its cage.

  “Hamstrung, of course. And mostly likely declawed and defanged.”

  A half dozen archers standing behind the iron fence at the west end of the arena loosed arrows from their bows and two of the six missiles hit their target, plunging deep into the animal’s flank. The lion bellowed again, a booming, rattling rumble that reverberated ten miles up the Tiber. He made an attempt to charge the archers, snarling and butting his head against the metal grating, and though he moved awkwardly the crowd at that end of the arena recoiled in thrilled horror. The lion snapped his massive head back and shook the sky.

  With one hand Caracallus lashed the reins against the black charger and the chariot leapt forward. In his other, he raised a lance. The lion shook his massive collar and turned to face his foe. The chariot bore down on the immobilized lion and Caracallus drove his lance into the animal’s ribcage, goring him badly. The lance was ripped from the emperor’s hands and fell to the dusty ground. Another anguished roar gusted from the arena out over the plain.

  Marcus shifted his weight from his left foot, to his right, and back again. Anticipation of further violence tightened in his stomach like a fist.

  Caracallus rounded the chariot back to its starting point and readied his charger for another run. He pulled a pilum from a sheath on the outside of the chariot, weighed it carefully in his right hand, and then hoisted it above his head. The lion, scarlet from the wound in his chest streaming down his damp flanks, dragged himself up from the ground until he was standing, swaying, on all four paws. He turned again to face Caracallus. With a bark and a sharp lash the chariot lurched forward. Caracallus raised the pilum high in the air and hurled it down at the lion. The heavy javelin of ash and iron sailed through the air, past the waiting lion, into the soft ground.

  The emperor missed.

  Rauthwu
lfs snorted. “Ha! Typical.”

  The crowd, expecting the final blow, groaned.

  Caracallus turned the chariot and rounded the arena. Still the lion did not move. The emperor grabbed another pilum from the sheathing on the side of the chariot with his right hand. Again, Caracallus let the javelin fly. Again, there was a collective moan as the pilum whistled wide of the panting, growling lion and sank harmlessly into the dirt.

  There were six more javelins fastened to the chariot. By the fourth lap, the lion had sunk to his haunches and forelegs, his head drooping low. By the sixth lap, the lion was lying fully prone in the dust, his head lying awkwardly to the side, his great limbs twitching. There wasn’t a seventh lap. The lion bled to death. Caracallus stopped his exhausted charger thirty yards from the motionless beast. He approached now on foot and when five feet away he launched his final pilum, piercing the dead animal’s eye. Tossing his cloak, he whirled around to face the crowd in triumph.

  The Praetorian Guard that lined the perimeter of the arena thumped their shields with the butts of their short swords. Some guardsmen entered into the crowds, demonstrating their enthusiasm, encouraging others to join in. Before long, a boisterous din sustained itself for several minutes as dozens of dignitaries, senators, consuls, praetors, and other men of eminence began to filter into the arena and pay tribute to the emperor. Macrinus, the Prefect of the Guard, stepped forward and signaled to the centurions to cease their drumming. The rest of the assembly quieted.

  “The emperor would like to say a few words!”

  Caracallus strode to the center of the arena.

  “My fellow Romans!” he cried. Marcus and the others around him on the Via Ardeatina strained to hear.

 

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