“Tell Camilla that I love her. You’ve been a good friend, Rufus. You’re a good man,” Manius said, eking out what words and energy he had remaining, despite the excruciating pain he experienced when he spoke. The blade seemed to be biting into his innards.
“You’ll be able to tell her yourself. Just stay awake. Keep talking. Say something,” Varro pleaded, feeling helpless. Hopeless. He witnessed his friend close his eyes and his head loll to one side.
“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep,” Manius wryly whispered, after reviving one last time.
He passed shortly afterwards. Some people die with a shocked expression on their face, as though the inevitable still takes them by surprise. Skin can be like cheap leather, or ashen or translucent. A mouth can be comically contorted, in agony or in a silent, primal scream. Raging against death, or life. Manius appeared at peace however, which is more than could be said for his friend, who remained by his side, clutching his lifeless hand. Weeping.
Ravilla returned with a surgeon, but it was too late. The praetorian descended the stairs, his caligae seemingly soled with lead, and reported the news to his commanding officer. At first Vulso couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing – and asked Ravilla if he was sure. He was. The world was somehow less noble and less courageous with Manius no longer being a part of it. Vulso stood dumbstruck for a period of time, before he cursed the gods and ordered one of his men to pour out a jug of wine and take it up to his grieving friend. All the wine in the world couldn’t wash his sorrow away though, the soldier dolefully imagined.
22. Epilogue.
Granite coloured clouds marbled the sunless sky. The breeze whipped itself into a gust. Another storm was due to come in from the coast, Varro predicted. He sat out in his garden, in Arretium. The tint of the sky reminded him of the marble he used to mark the burial plot of his friend, a year ago. So much in life reminded him of Manius’ death. It was the refrain, or Chorus, to his existence. Not a day went by when Varro didn’t think about his companion. But it was a good thing to remember him. Honour him. Raise a cup to him. Varro sometimes felt that, without his grief and guilt, he would be nothing.
His hair was mottled with grey patches. Dark rings, like bruises, circled his bloodshot eyes. Varro finished the dregs of his wine and poured himself another measure. A wax tablet lay on his potbelly, as he reclined on his favourite chair. Varro had spent part of the afternoon making notes for his next play. He only composed tragedies nowadays. His heart wasn’t in writing any comedies. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of, or believe in, any happy endings.
“I am just going to put the baby down for his nap,” Lucilla called out, from the house. “I’ll try to catch up on some sleep too.”
“That’s fine,” Varro replied, half-hearing his wife. He envied how much the baby could sleep. Be dead to the world.
The baby.
The day after Manius died – was killed – Varro ignored Agrippa’s orders to return to Rome and rode back to Arretium. He desperately needed to see Lucilla – and he also wanted to be the one to tell Camilla about her husband’s passing. As much as he dreaded the scene of conveying the news to her, Varro didn’t experience any sense of relief when he realised that he would be spared the difficult encounter.
The emotionally and physically exhausted agent reached home. He was met by Lucilla. Her eyes were puffy - and her face was pale. She could barely speak, from her sore throat and bouts of sobbing. She buried her head in his chest and told him her news. Camilla had died, just after giving birth to her son. When she asked where Manius was, Varro told his wife his news.
But the baby survived. Manius Appius Varro. It was the easiest decision he ever had to make in his life, to adopt the child. It was bittersweet, to say the least, to bring up his dead friend’s son. The infant brought Lucilla a boundless amount of joy, albeit she sometimes felt twinges of guilt. The baby was a wondrous gift, which had come at a terrible price.
If only Varro could have been just half as content as his wife. He drank heavily. He slept fitfully. Nightmares forced him to relive Manius’ death, over and over. During his waking hours he was haunted by a thousand “what ifs”. He blamed an army of people for his friend’s death. Caesar. Agrippa. Pulcher. Vulso. Maecenas. Stolo. But most of the time Varro blamed himself.
He would walk and swim alone in the morning, while Lucilla attended to the baby. The clouds which hung over him never showed any sign of dissipating. Work and his family helped. But not enough. His sorrow was the only thing which seemed real. Guilt followed him around, like a shadow. He was married to it, as much as he was married to Lucilla.
They barely made love anymore. But Lucilla was patient, understanding. And he remained faithful. Manius wouldn’t have approved if he took a mistress, now that he was a father, he believed.
“I know that I have not been at my best of late,” Varro said, with habitual understatement, shortly after Manius passed. “But I’m still aware that you’re the best thing in my life, Lucilla. I love you, thankfully more than I hate myself. Whenever you catch me in a gloom, and I seem distant, just come up to me and hold my hand or kiss me. And hopefully I won’t be in such a gloom,” he added, with a faltering smile.
To help lift him out of his gloom Lucilla arranged with Fronto for Viola to come and live at the villa. The sweet mongrel could sometimes be as mournful as her new master, as she pined for her old one, but Varro could never be wholly unhappy in her company.
Fronto passed six months after Manius, dying in his sleep. Varro never got to say goodbye properly, to tell him how much he loved him. But Varro knew Fronto was pleased that he finally had a child, of sorts, who could carry on the family name. The estate manager had never quite been the same, after learning of the bodyguard’s death. Varro was always conscious of how much Fronto had been a surrogate father to him over the years. But he hadn’t quite realised how much Manius had been a surrogate son to the old man. Part of Varro was envious of his fate, when he passed. He occasionally pictured Fronto and Manius sharing a jug of Falernian in the next life, waiting for him to join them.
Shortly before Fronto died he visited Arretium. The estate manager asked his master what he intended to do with the rest of his life. Varro shrugged his shoulders and replied that he would try to be a good man and a good father. To try to make Manius proud.
“Unfortunately, I fear I’m failing. I was a better agent than I am a father,” he lamentably confessed. “I’m just a sad man, as opposed to a good man.”
Perhaps life shouldn’t be about rolling a boulder up and down a hill. Sisyphus should have given up before he started, Varro reasoned. Instead of admiring Hector as a tragic hero, should he not consider him a absurd figure, for continuing to fight a losing battle?
We men are wretched things.
Fronto wasn’t the only visitor to call on the retired spy during the course of the past year. Agrippa visited and stayed one evening. The first thing he mentioned was that his visit was just a social call. The nobleman could continue to enjoy his retirement.
“You’ve already given enough to Rome. Too much.”
“How is Caesar?” Varro asked, out of politeness rather than genuine concern.
“Caesar is Caesar,” Agrippa answered, revealing everything and nothing.
Whether both men felt they were wiser or not, compared to when Agrippa had initially recruited Varro, they certainly felt wearier. The conversation was sometimes stilted, especially when they mentioned Manius, but the wine flowed.
As well as bringing a consignment of his friend’s favourite vintage, Agrippa delivered the news that his daughter was going to be married. To Tiberius. Caesar had suggested the union. “It will be a good, political match,” Agrippa asserted, trying as much to convince himself, as his friend, of his argument. Agrippa felt like he had given enough – too much – to Caesar and Rome as well. Varro had met Vipsania a few times. She was a beautiful, intelligent young woman. A credit to her father.
Her mother’s daughter.
“Tiberius should consider himself a lucky man,” Varro remarked. He couldn’t bring himself to say that Vipsania was as equally fortunate. He couldn’t share the truth about his prospective son-in-law. The truth wouldn’t do anyone any good. Varro had his own family to worry about. The truth could make a son fatherless, or a father childless.
Agrippa no longer wrote to him - or proposed another visit. Perhaps Varro was dead to the spymaster, now he was no longer an agent. Now he would no longer work for the glory of Rome.
Agrippa did furnish Vulso and Macer with ample leave though to visit their friend – although the archer suitably spent more of his leave time of late in the company of his new wife, the freedwoman Sabina.
If any of the visitors who came to the villa noticed the change when they crossed the threshold, they didn’t mention anything. But, shortly after Manius died, Varro painted over the mosaic in the doorway, containing the quote from Aristotle:
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Varro thought he would be deceiving his guests - giving them false hope - if he allowed the words to remain visible.
End Note.
I hope you have enjoyed the Spies of Rome series, despite or because of its rather sombre ending. I certainly enjoyed putting the plots and characters together, to the point where I nearly succumbed to the temptation of continuing the series.
I still might. Do get in touch should you want to see more Spies of Rome books. There is scope to cover some of the events and assignments which happened between the three novels. In the meantime, should it be of interest, you may wish to read A Brief Affair, a short story included in Rubicon: A HWA Collection, which features Rufus Varro.
Should you have a taste for reading more about the real history behind the period than I can recommend the following: The Roman Revolution, by Ronald Syme; Dynasty, by Tom Holland; The Twelve Caesars, by Suetonius. In relation to some historical novelists you may wish to read, I can recommend Steven Saylor, Peter Tonkin and Nick Brown.
I have also written several other series set in Rome – including Augustus: Son of Rome and Sword of Rome: The Complete Campaigns – which touch upon some of the characters and events mentioned in Spies of Rome.
I will now be taking a break from writing about the era, in order to put together a series set during the First Crusade. Do please contact me however if you have enjoyed Spies of Rome, or any of my other books.
Richard Foreman.
[email protected]
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