The Last Stoic
Page 16
“Gus!” Marcus exclaimed. “Thank Jupiter! You must tell these men, they’ve made a mistake. We’ve done nothing.”
“All right! Keep it quiet!”
“Gus.”
“I’m sorry Marcus,” Gus said, his hands outstretched, palms up. “I’m not sure what can be done.”
The soldier returned and handed the bloodied knife to the decanus.
“Read the inscription,” Patricius said, rocking lightly, left to right.
The decanus scooped a handful of leaves from the ground and wiped blood from the knife. He examined the engraving below the blade’s spine.
“I don’t recognize these words.”
“It’s in the British language,” Patricius said, “I can read it for you.”
“Can anyone read British?” the decanus asked his men, ignoring Patricius. A man with an enormous moustache stepped forward and took the knife.
“Lugurix, of course. Go ahead.”
“Safe travels, Fortuna bless you.” the soldier said aloud.
“The other side,” Patricius said.
Lugurix flipped the knife and saw Marcus’ full name along the length of the other side, just below the spine, which he also read aloud.
The decanus turned to Marcus.
“Is that your knife?”
Lugurix took the weapon to Marcus and held it before him. Marcus stammered as he tried to understand how that knife, given to him in Verulamium by his brother Annaeus, a going away gift, his for less than week, left at the roadside with Phoenix, had found its way into Nasir’s hands and into the taxman’s neck. He searched for an explanation.
“Seize him.”
Soldiers wrenched Marcus’ arms behind his back. Sura lay jumbled at his feet, looking up with terror.
“Please,” Marcus said, “Gus, you must look after Sura. She has no one. Promise me you’ll do that.”
TWENTY THREE
Mark regained consciousness and gasped. He was fully enveloped in canvas.
“This one’s awake.”
“Is he?”
“Looks it.”
Mark yelled when a heavy boot crunched into his thigh.
“Yes, he is.”
“Stay calm. There are air holes.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Shut it.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
The steel-toe boot thudded again into Mark’s midsection, bouncing off his ribs, leaving him momentarily breathless with pain. He writhed, and cried out, wanting to crumple himself into a protective ball.
When the pain had subsided he remained quiet. He listened. He heard engine noise. Helicopter rotors. His ears began to pop.
“We’ve changed our minds.”
“You’re of no use to us.”
“We need information.”
“You’re useless until you talk.”
“You haven’t asked me anything yet.”
“Quiet.”
“But you just said…”
“Quiet!”
“It’s too late. You’re of no use.”
Mark heard the clang of metal and inrushing air. He dug his feet into the floor, shifted his buttocks, and hoisted himself backward, trying in vain to move from the sounds. The canvas impeded him and he had nowhere to go. The helicopter’s bulkhead was at the back of his neck.
There was commotion. There was shouting. A man protesting. Then quiet again except for the whirring. It was louder now.
The material of Mark’s shroud was yanked upwards and he was hoisted unsteadily to his feet.
“You’re next.”
He was dragged several feet across the swaying floor of the helicopter. The rotors roared. The wind buffeted his canvas covering.
“Please! I’ll tell you anything. I don’t want to die.”
“You should have thought of that earlier.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
Mark experienced a feeling of weightlessness as he dropped through the air. His heart stopped. His lungs collapsed. His brain seized. His bladder emptied. All before he hit the ground.
He felt the landing and it hurt. The pain intensified. His knee was bruised and his wrist sprained. Pain? Mark worked his wrist back and forth. Do the dead feel pain?
The front of his fabric prison was unzipped. He looked up to see the looming helicopter, khaki and brown like a drab dragonfly. It hovered just five feet from the ground. Two uniformed men pulled him to his feet and led him onto the tarmac of the landing pad. Looking back he saw that he’d stepped out of a body bag. Another, still occupied, lay just a couple of feet from his own. Was it Nasir? Was he dead?
The helicopter climbed back into the sky.
“That’s a preview. You are preserved as long as you are useful. Follow the rules. Speak only when you’re spoken to. Tell us what we want to know. You’ll live.”
One of the soldiers pointed at Mark’s trousers. There was a large dark patch where he had wet himself. Mark looked down stupidly. Humiliation blended with the rich cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins and he retched.
“Get him cleaned up and report him to the corporal.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark sat at a hard, steel chair directly in front of an immaculate metal desk. Soldiers stood on either side of him.
“Head straight! No movement!”
The door behind him opened and the corporal marched heavily into the room. He was accompanied by another man who restrained an eager black and tan dog. The corporal stepped behind the desk and with an economical, fluid motion sat down.
“That’s fine.”
The two soldiers snapped their boot heels, saluted, and exited.
“Name.”
The interrogator sifted through the papers in front of him. He asked Mark his name, age, place of birth and other personal questions, occasionally flicking sheets of paper with his pen, before shouting into the intercom.
“Bring in the first one.”
A tall man in a faded jumpsuit was brought in. His cheeks were two divots in a worn, weary face and his drooping eyes were devoid of expression. A carpet of coal black stubble covered his head, emphasizing the sallowness of his skin. He looked familiar.
“Do you know this man?” the corporal asked.
Mark shook his head.
“Speak please!”
“No.”
The corporal frowned and scanned his papers again. Mark looked again at the prisoner, sitting on the chair across from him, whose head now drooped to his chest and rolled to the side in profile. There were holes in his ears and lips. Mark pictured him now with long thick strands of black hair. He envisioned three large, metal rings in the pale, bloodless lips and a metal rod puncturing the septum of the nose. He imagined an array of silver ringing the conspicuous ears and streaks of thick black lining the eyes. I do know him, he thought. Rudy. The Goth. The one who nearly got me arrested in New York.
The corporal found what he was looking for in his briefings and returned to his interrogation.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I don’t know him.”
Mark smiled. Involuntarily. He blinked. The corporal stared at him dispassionately, saying nothing.
“Take him away,” he said, finally, “bring in the next one.”
Nasir was dragged into the interrogation room. He had a badly blackened eye, his arm was in a sling, and a long string of saliva drooled from his slack bottom lip.
“How about this man? Do you know him?”
Mark scrutinized Nasir’s slouching, lethargic form like a doctor examining a patient, hoping he would appear helpful yet stumped. He could not stop clearing his throat.
“Are you aware that he has been linked to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations? That we suspect he is part of sleeper cell?”
Mark laughed. Nasir the beggar. Completely harmless.
“Funny?” asked the corporal.
Mark always assumed that Nasir didn’t do much beyond solicitin
g passersby for alms. What else did he do?
“Do you know this man or not?!”
“No.”
Mark cleared his throat again, as though he were regurgitating, as though he had just snapped at poison bait.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes sir. I saw him for the first time at the rally. He was talking gibberish. Everyone noticed him. I tried to get as far away from him as I could. I wanted to hear the President’s speech.”
He was talking too much.
“That’s what happened.”
“You’re sure.”
Mark nodded.
The corporal snapped the folder containing his briefings together sharply.
“Ok. That’s all for now. Take them back to detainment. Separate cells.”
TWENTY FOUR
Abwûn d'bwaschmâja
Nethkâdasch schmach
Têtê malkuthach.
Nehwê tzevjânach aikâna d'bwaschmâja af b'arha.
Hawvlân lachma d'sûnkanân jaomâna.
Waschboklân chaubên wachtahên aikâna daf chnân schwoken l'chaijabên.
Wela tachlân l'nesjuna
ela patzân min bischa.
Metol dilachie malkutha wahaila wateschbuchta l'ahlâm almîn.
Amên.
[1]
The emaciated, cross-legged man rocking back and forth in a cage repeated these words, in a low, trance-like voice, over and over. They were the only words he’d spoken since Marcus had been deposited in the adjacent cage thirty minutes earlier.
After the brief interrogation by the Tesserarius, Marcus had been led outside to a series of enclosures attached to the main building, a long, wooden post and beam structure, against which at least a dozen cages abutted, in two rows, with the cages facing each other. Most of the pens contained men. Several contained dogs.
“Kennels,” one of the guards said.
Marcus was placed in the final pen, the one furthest away from the main building. The morning sun, already very warm, poured through the iron bars and continued to heat the still, sticky air. It reeked of parched vegetation, sweaty, fermenting bodies, and effluent.
There was nothing in the three foot by three foot space except for a layer of sawdust, a mound of straw, and endless cockroaches. The clumsy giants, with their rigid, vestigial wings shut firmly against the black sheathings of their bodies, weaved in and out of the debris in the corner of the cage. Each displayed the image of a crimson skull on its back. Marcus closed his eyes tight. He flicked out his lower leg to remove one from his sandaled foot and he shook his tunic out too.
“Where are we?” he hissed through the iron bars of his cage.
His neighbour took no notice, continuing to rock back and forth, arms extended, chanting his verse. He was a crude scarecrow, a slender stick of a body lashed to the crossbeam of his lanky, outstretched arms, with a rotting mass of tattered rags draped over. Stringy whiskers hung from his chin. Oily, matted hair fell from his head. His ribcage, shoulders, jawbone, shins, all were perfectly articulated through the thin covering of his skin. It was like there was no intervening musculature, like his skin would slide and puddle around his ankles if he were to stand.
Marcus re-examined the cockroaches. Is that really a death’s head? It can’t be. Only thirty minutes in the carcer and I’m seeing things. Marcus glanced across to his neighbour. How long before I’m like him?
Marcus turned back to the baked landscapes beyond the cages. The soil, yellow and brittle, was covered with a fine layer of dust, as if fired in a kiln. Here and there anaemic weeds pushed through cracks in the ground. Beyond the immediate vicinity of the cages, the land became hilly, punctuated with sharp outcroppings of rock. Along a ridge sixty yards away there was a corridor of scrubby vegetation: squat, ugly trees, pugnacious-looking bushes, and low-lying succulents with thick skins and gelatinous insides. A trio of scavengers cruised high in the sun-seared sky, dark silhouettes undertaking broad, leisurely circles aloft the plentiful thermal updrafts.
The other prisoner had finally ceased his chanting. His head began a slow descent to his chest, the top of his forehead resting against the bars of his cell. His body seemed to fold in on itself, to compress, until he was caved in and motionless.
“What’s wrong?” Marcus asked. “Are you alright?”
No response.
Marcus surveyed what he could see of the other pens in his vicinity. Nothing stirred, not even the dogs in the facing cages. All was quiet and unmoving under the intensifying sun.
“Excuse me, hello? Can you tell me… where are we?”
Marcus saw a tremor along the sharply ridged back. The prisoner unfolded himself, emerging like a wood louse, the kind that Marcus used to torment as a child, poking with a stick or finger so that it curled into a tight, armoured ball. The man snatched a cockroach from the filth on the ground and brought it sharply to his mouth, bit it in two, and chewed. Still hunched over, he hopped across his pen. He pressed his face against the bars dividing the two cages, popped the other half of the roach into his mouth, and crunched.
Only half a dozen palms separated their faces. I know this man too, Marcus thought, but from where?
“It’s not too late,” the man croaked, speaking for the first time.
“Sorry?”
“It’s not too late. For you. You can save yourself. Put your faith in Jesus Christ, King of kings, Lord of lords, and the Kingdom of Heaven will be your reward.”
Marcus stared back open-mouthed. It was Sebastianus, the Christian.
“Jesus tells us that God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes,” Sebastianus said, “and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.”
Sebastianus pressed his face further into Marcus’ cage, his eyes wide and unblinking, showing no signs of recognition.
“And neither shall there be any more pain,” he said, emphasizing each word.
“Sebastianus! It’s me Marcus!”
“For the former things are passed away.”
“Sebastianus! It’s me. What are you saying? Why don’t you recognize me? It’s Marcus! How long have you been here?”
“Those who are beheaded for the witness of Jesus,” Sebastianus continued, “and for the word of God, and who have not worshipped the beast…”
“Nasir is here too,” Marcus tried again, now in a low whisper. “We were at the Emperor’s speech. I didn’t do anything. Nasir…”
“…neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands…”
“…he started yelling and shouting nonsense. The soldiers arrested us. They didn’t take Sura. Jupiter knows where she is.”
“… and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
“Where are we Sebastianus?” Marcus asked a third time. “Where are we?!”
“You don’t need to know that.”
Marcus turned. He looked up to see the two guards who had brought him in.
“You don’t want to know,” the guard added, looking around. “Exile.”
“There’s no point in talking to him,” said his partner, nodding towards Sebastianus.
“Troublemaker. Zealot. Refuses to make a sacrifice. Refuses to renounce the dead Jew. Refuses to profess love for the Emperor.”
“Madman. He refuses food.”
“These fanatics are all the same. Superstitious like women, stubborn like mules.”
“It’s perverse, like he wants to die.”
One of the guards shook the cage.
“Cannibals! They don’t like our food. They want the flesh and blood of their own kind.”
Sebastianus retreated from the bars of his cage and huddled in the corner, saying nothing.
“Mark this Christian,” the guard said to Marcus. “Do not what he does. Spare yourself. Minimize the pain. You’ll survive.”
His partner kicked dust into the pen.
“But learn quickly. He doesn’t have long.”<
br />
Marcus clutched at his mid-section as the bile rocketed up his esophagus and burned the back of his throat. His eyes watered. He clenched his teeth. A misunderstanding, he thought, a mistake. I just need to explain. Make them understand. His breathing was ragged.
“I’m a Roman citizen! I’m a free man! You can’t torture me!”
The guard gestured to the inhospitable surroundings, the scorched, yellow ground, the stunted vegetation, and the crumbling buildings.
“Do you see any baths? Temples? Amphitheatres? Romans?”
“This is a military tribunal. A maiestas trial, perduellio. On trial for sedition. All of you are.”
“Vae, that’s enough,” the guard said, “he doesn’t need to know any of that.”
“Sedition? What sedition?”
“I’ve said enough.”
“But there is some terrible mistake! I’m not a traitor, I’ve done nothing, said nothing.”
“That will be up to the magistrate.”
“Give the magistrate what he wants, and you might survive.”
“I must talk to the magistrate. Whoever is in charge. I work for Paulus Cornelius. I’m an architect. I’ve never said a bad word against the Emperor.”
“That’s a good start. Save it for the magistrate.”
“I’m not even from Rome. I don’t belong here. I’m from Britannia.”
“I’d keep that to yourself.”
The guards moved on.
Sweat streamed from Marcus’ hairline. The sun was now at full strength and was beating down into his cage. He scraped his tongue against the paste coating his palate.
“Water.”
Now he screamed.
“Some water, please! I’m thirsty!”
The guards were out of earshot. He’d have no water. He looked back at the cadaverous Christian, Sebastianus, who’d returned to his shell and was again rocking and murmuring his prayers. He’d be no comfort. Marcus pressed himself into the sliver of shade thrown by the wooden beams, trying to avoid the sun’s direct path.
A series of piercing ululations came from several pens toward the main building. The call was so sharp and loud that even Sebastian paused from his meditations to listen. Marcus recognized the voice; it was Nasir. What is he doing? Is he being tortured? He was howling out something specific in his native Parthian, but it was indecipherable. And then just as quickly as it started, it stopped. At that moment Marcus, roasting in his cage, brushing roaches from his feet, blood bubbling in his veins, hated Nasir like he’d never hated anyone before.