Carbo ignored the mention of Rufa’s daughter. He had avoided her again today, and hated himself for it. He cursed himself as a coward, but was struggling too much with his own pain to feel he could be helpful to the little girl.
“I’m going to string them up. A rope around their neck, until they are half hanged. Then slit them open, and let them see their guts fall out.” He stroked his chin. “Or maybe burning? That’s supposed to be pretty painful, isn’t it?”
“It is,” confirmed Vespillo, the vigiles commander, who had seen many men burn in his time fighting fires in Rome. He regarded Carbo with sympathy, and some alarm. He had seen his friend go through a lot, but he had never seen him so coldly and viciously angry. But he couldn’t fault him for it. He knew, from his own past, exactly how his friend felt.
Melanchaetes started barking, a deep and booming noise that alerted the farm’s occupants, while intimidating visitors. Theron appeared from his quarters and slowly and stiffly went to answer the door. Shortly he returned with Quintus.
“Quintus Sempronius Blaesus to see you, master,” said Theron.
“Thank you, Theron, I can see who it is,” said Carbo, then regretted his terse tone. “Go and have some lunch yourself.”
Theron inclined his head and backed out.
Carbo stood and extended his hand. “Quintus. Good to see you.”
“And you, Carbo. Vespillo.” Quintus shook hands with both of them, then accepted the seat Carbo offered him.
“How are you?” Quintus asked Carbo. Carbo opened his mouth to speak, and couldn’t find anything to say that didn’t sound either overly emotional or too cold. He closed his mouth and shrugged. Quintus nodded, eyes expressing sympathy.
“You, Quintus?”
“I’m well, thank you.”
“Your brother and father?”
“My brother seems unlikely to change. Bored, frustrated, wanting more from life but not sure what. Maybe Rome would hold more interest for him than Nola.”
“He wants to start a political career?”
Quintus laughed. “Ha! Publius? No, he has no ambitions beyond his own amusements. I was thinking that Rome, with its festivals and chariot races and gladiatorial contests and an endless supply of whores would be to his liking.”
Vespillo smiled. “So why doesn’t he go?”
“My father won’t allow it. He gave me a small amount of money to sustain myself on my tour of Greece - I think he liked the idea of being rid of me for a few years actually - but he has made it clear that Rome is forbidden to us.”
“Do you know why?”
Quintus hesitated. “I’m… not supposed to.”
“But?” prompted Vespillo.
“I don’t suppose you have something to drink? I’m parched from the journey over.”
“Of course,” said Carbo. “Apologies for my poor hosting. I’m not really used to visitors. Marsia!”
Marsia came into the kitchen, and Carbo opened his mouth to speak, then noticed something odd.
“Marsia, are you wearing make up?”
Marsia blushed furiously, something Carbo had never seen before.
“I was just…Thera said I could borrow…”
Carbo frowned in confusion, then waved his hand dismissively. “Get Quintus a drink.”
“Yes, master.” She turned to Quintus “What may I serve you, sir?”
Quintus smiled at her, and they locked eyes for a moment, before Marsia looked down, embarrassed.
“Water will be fine, thank you, Marsia.”
“Yes, sir.” Marsia hurried over to a pitcher standing on a table by the wall and poured Quintus a cup of water from it. She brought it over to him, and as she passed it, her hand trembled and a few drops fell into Quintus lap.
“Marsia, what’s wrong with you?” barked Carbo.
“I’m so sorry, master,” she said, and before Quintus could protest it was nothing, she had fled from the room.
“What’s got into her?” wondered Carbo.
Vespillo laughed. “Oh dear. Apologies, Quintus, I think Carbo’s slave rather likes you.”
“Really?” asked Quintus, looking genuinely pleased. He turned to gaze at the door through which Marsia had just retreated. Vespillo grinned at Carbo, who raised his eyebrows.
Vespillo gave a little cough, which seemed to bring Quintus back from a daze.
“You were telling us about your father and Rome, I think?”
Quintus nodded.
“Like I say, I’m not supposed to know. This goes no further than this room, agreed?”
“Of course not,” said Carbo and Vespillo nodded emphatically.
Quintus took a deep breath. “There is much I don’t know. Some things I can only guess. But my brother, he is older than me. He remembers more, and when he is drunk, he lets things slip, things that father has clearly told him should remain secret.”
“Like?” asked Carbo.
“Like the night our family fled Rome.” Quintus sipped from his cup, and Carbo noticed that he was gripping it tight enough to whiten his knuckles. He hoped it wouldn’t break.
“I was a baby. I mean really tiny. Days old. My mother… she had just died. Giving birth to me. My father has told me about this, many, many times. How I was presented in the wrong position, how my mother screamed in agony for hours trying to expel me. How the Roman and Greek physicians were helpless, and how, as my mother’s strength faded, he found a Jewish doctor who claimed to know the procedure by which a baby could be taken from the womb through a hole in the mother’s side.”
Carbo looked surprised. “You were cut from the womb? Under the Lex Caesarea?”
“The Lex Caesarea dictates a baby must be cut from the womb when the mother is dead. My mother was still alive and the Jew claimed to be able to save her.”
“He failed, then,” said Carbo sympathetically.
“At first the operation seemed to be a success. He seemed very skilled, and I know that among the Jews in Rome, many women do survive the procedure, though the Greek and Roman doctors swear it is impossible. I was pulled alive from the side of my mother, while my father held her down and tried to keep her still as she thrashed about. Afterwards, I’m told, she fed me, and smiled, and promised to love me as long as she lived.
“It seemed like the operation had worked. On the first day she seemed to grow stronger. Then suddenly she started vomiting, became delirious. The Greek and Roman doctors smelled the wound and pronounced, with some satisfaction apparently, that it had putrefied. In her last lucid moment, she made my father swear to look after me. She died within hours.”
Quintus looked down into his cup, swirling the water around, lost in thought.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Vespillo.
Quintus looked up. “Can you count it a loss, a woman I never knew? And yet I feel it as a loss. My father was insane with grief apparently. My brother remembers him raging, punching walls, breaking furniture, while my uncle tried to calm him. My brother says he swore vengeance on the one who slew his mother. I don’t know who he meant - the Jewish doctor I suppose. The next night my father and uncle left the domus. When they returned, they were covered in blood. That same night, the whole familias, father, brother, uncle, slaves, left Rome with as many possessions as they could take, and my father’s fortune in gold. None of us have ever been back.”
The three of them were silent. Carbo struggled to keep his own emotions in check. He knew exactly how Quintus’ father had felt, and found himself feeling that maybe he shared a bond with the cantankerous old man. Blaesus certainly seemed to have reacted the same way Carbo had. He had obviously exacted vengeance on the one he thought responsible for his wife’s death, just as Carbo had so sworn.
“Justice never sought your father then?”
Quintus shook his head. “My father is rich. I’m sure he knew who to pay to prevent a prosecution or a private vendetta from the family of whoever he killed. But he also knew that it would be foolish to remain in Rome,
that the authorities would not tolerate the presence of a murderer among them. So he took himself into a voluntary exile, and the rest of us with him.”
“It was so long ago, though,” said Carbo. “Surely you could return now?”
“My father won’t discuss it, won’t hear of it. He is paterfamilias. He has the power of life and death over his family. Even if I’m sure he wouldn’t kill me for going to Rome, he would cut me off and leave me destitute, I’m certain.”
“I’m sorry,” said Carbo. “You are trapped by events that happened when you were a baby.”
“It’s not so bad. I like Nola, it’s my home. I like the people. And I have travelled. I would like to see Rome, and maybe I will one day. For now, though, all I really want is for my father to…” He stopped. Carbo knew what he had wanted to say, but was too embarrassed. All he wanted was for his father to love him. Carbo feared that if after eighteen years, his father still blamed him for the death of his mother, that situation would never change.
“Would you join us for some lunch, Quintus?” asked Carbo after a few moments.
“I would be honoured,” said Quintus. Carbo yelled for Marsia again, and she appeared, seeming to be more in control of herself. She entered the room stiff-backed, and Carbo noticed the makeup had been removed.
“Fetch Quintus some bread and cheese and olives.” He looked at Quintus. “Will that suit you?”
“That would be fine,” said Quintus. “Thank you, Marsia.” He smiled at her, and she bit her lip, blushing as she prepared the food. Theron returned, and picked up the plates that Vespillo and Carbo had emptied.
“May I begin preparations for the evening meal, master?” he asked.
Carbo nodded, and Theron busied himself at the kitchen work surface with peeling, chopping and dicing vegetables.
“So what brought you out here, today?” asked Carbo.
“I wanted to see how my comrade in arms was doing,” replied Quintus. “And whether you had made any progress in catching… them.”
“Maybe,” said Carbo. “Have you heard of a man called Rabidus?”
Theron hurried out of the farmhouse. Carbo had shown little interest when he had told him that he had to go to town to get some more ingredients for the evening meal, and now he was on the road to Nola. His old bones protested at the pace he forced on them, but he had to do what he needed to do, as well as actually return with some produce to avoid arousing suspicions.
He felt guilty. He liked Carbo, and the poor man had been through so much. But he would not risk his safety, and more importantly the safety of Thera, to protect the man. When the thug had cornered him in the marketplace, threatened him and his daughter unless he gave them the information they needed, there was no doubting he would agree.
The thought of Thera caused his throat to close. He loved his daughter more than sometimes he thought he could bear. So like her mother, intelligent, vivacious. What a waste that she was a slave, when she could have made such a wonderful wife and mother to some worthy man. Still, she had as much freedom as a slave could have, as the daughter to the steward of the farm. Or she had until Carbo arrived. Not that he was a bad master. But he was still their master.
None of that mattered though. Things could have been normal, stable, if only Carbo hadn’t encountered the bandits, if only Rufa hadn’t been killed. Now, Carbo was on a collision course with a deadly adversary, and Theron was right in the middle of it. He wished fervently that he could just disappear with Thera, run away. But he knew what happened to runaway slaves.
Besides, his master was not the only one he feared.
Atreus would expect to be told what Theron had just heard. If he found out that Theron had been holding out on him, he would kill him and his daughter.
Theron increased his pace.
“Tell me, Menelaus. What do you understand by the term otium?”
“Rest. Relaxation. Leisure.”
Atreus rubbed his face thoughtfully.
“Yes, many think of it like that. Tibullus for example. Have you read him?”
“No, father.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. I must see to your education as well as your martial skills. Tibullus’ poems are full of praise to love and leisure, to the simple joys of the farming life. He wanted to live in a simple world, with no wars, no conflict. Just relaxation, a little agricultural labour.
“’Give, if you will, for gold a life of toil!
Let endless acres claim your care!
While sounds of war your fearful slumbers spoil,
And far-off trumpets scare!
To me my poverty brings tranquil hours;
My lowly hearth-stone cheerly shines;
My modest garden bears me fruit and flowers,
And plenteous native wines.’”
Menelaus listened to the verse with apparent attentiveness, though Atreus knew he had no interest in poetry.
“Very pretty lines, father,” said Menelaus.
“Tibullus was a fool,” said Atreus. “Do you know what I think another term is for otium? Boredom. I have all the leisure time I could want. I have all my worldly needs, all the entertainment that this backward part of Italy can provide. But I am bored! No chance to prove myself in politics. No military campaigns. Just leisure.”
“I understand, father.”
Atreus narrowed his eyes and looked at his son.
“Maybe you do. But understand or not, I am glad you are here with me now. Helping me relieve the boredom of endless otium. And of course making money at the same time.”
They sat on damp ground a few miles from Nola, sheltered from the road below by an overhanging rock, watching the traffic. It was late afternoon, and pedestrians, laden donkeys and ox-drawn carts passed their position regularly, but not frequently.
“How about that one?” asked Menelaus.
Atreus looked down at the horse and rider and shook his head.
“Imperial courier. We don’t want to attract that sort of attention. Besides, he would be gone before we could strike, those horses are fast. No, we have our information, we wait for the merchant our little spies in the town tell us they are expecting.”
They let the courier trot on by, and waited quietly a little longer. The sound of cloven hooves and the rumble of iron rimmed wheels on the cobbles alerted them to the next traveller before they came into view. Soon they saw an ox-cart driven by a weathered looking merchant, who was drinking from a large flask. By his side was a younger, larger man, facial resemblance suggesting to Atreus this was the merchant’s son. The son carried a large axe sideways across his lap, gripping the haft tightly at the end and near the head. The cart was full of expensive clothing from Rome. Atreus knew though, that after he had sold the clothing in Nola, the merchant’s main business was to buy locally made jewellery and sell it back in Rome at a huge profit, and that he had a large amount of money with him to make the necessary purchases.
Atreus smiled and pulled on his tragedy mask.
Menelaus fastened the comedy mask around the back of his head with its tight leather straps, wincing as the buckle caught in his dark, curly hair. Just before the cart reached their position, Menelaus vaulted off the overhanging rock, and landed agilely in front of the travellers. The oxen looked up in surprise, and stopped plodding along. The merchant and his son gaped at the man wearing the comedy mask who had come from nowhere to appear in front of them.
“It’s him,” gasped the merchant. “That bandit they are all talking about.”
“The world will be less one bandit soon,” growled his son, and jumped off the cart, hefting the axe in both hands. Menelaus drew his sword and stood his ground, feet placed a little apart, eyes staring out intently through the holes in the mask. The merchant’s son swaggered towards him, his bulk and heavy weapon lending him confidence.
“Careful,” warned the merchant. “They say they fight well.”
“Let’s see if his puny sword can stop my axe then,” said the son, and swu
ng the axe high, then brought it down towards Menelaus’ head. Menelaus dodged easily, and gave the off balance axeman a shove, sending him staggering to one side.
The merchant’s son regained his balance, let out a roar and charged towards Menelaus, shoulder down. Menelaus side-stepped again, leaving a foot out to trip the axeman, causing him to sprawl forwards on the road. Menelaus laughed as the man slowly regained his feet. He was now side on to the cart, from where his anxious father looked on. More cautiously now, he swung his axe, from left to right, from right to left. Menelaus swayed out of the way, not even moving his feet from where he had planted them.
A gasp came from the axeman’s left, from the direction of the cart. He turned, and saw his father staring at him, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. Then blood started to pour out of his father’s mouth, and he now saw the tip of the knife protruding from the front of his father’s neck. Rising up from behind the cart was the man who had wielded the knife, a man wearing a tragedy mask.
“Father,” cried out the axeman in distress, and took a step towards the cart.
There was a swish through the air, and the axeman’s head leapt sideways away from his body. Blood spurted high from the severed vessels in the neck, and the body crumpled as the head hit the ground and rolled, eyes blinking a few times, before all was still.
Atreus pulled his mask off, and Melenaus did likewise. He reached into the cart, pulled out a bright red dress and held it up against himself.
“I wonder if my bed slave would like this?” he said out loud.
Menelaus shrugged, and Atreus tossed it aside.
Menelaus patted the still bleeding merchant down, and drew a purse out from under his tunic. He opened it and smiled. “Not bad, father. Maybe enough for a new statue?”
“Or a new bed slave?”
Menelaus cocked his head on one side. “Maybe you should be more careful with your pleasure slaves, father. How many more bastards should you sire?”
Atreus laughed. “As many as I damned well please.” He looked along the road, saw no one.
“No slaves this time,” said Menelaus.
Bandits of Rome Page 13
