A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Why did you come at all?” he asked her, enchanted.

  “I do not know,” she answered. “Who are you? Lucius calls you Chick-pea, or Vetch. You are not rich; you are not noble. You were not born in Rome, but in this lonely place. You are not so handsome as Lucius, who looks like a god. You are not worldly. Your clothing is not rich. You are a country youth. Your conversation was not learned when I saw you last. You will never be invited to great houses; you will never stand in the Forum before multitudes. You are, as my cousin has said, of no consequence.”

  She gazed at him candidly.

  “Nevertheless, what I have said is of no importance, nor what the others have said. Why have I come here today, and all the other days, to see you even if you did not see me? I do not know.”

  She pushed back her masses of glowing hair with restless hands and stared into the distances. “Why did I tell you about my parents? I never speak of them to anyone. Why is the look of you pleasurable to me, and a comforting? Why do I think of you when I awake, a youth I spoke to but once?”

  She looked at him and frowned, as if he had offended her.

  “Tell me, Marcus Tullius Cicero.”

  “I do not know, either,” he said. “But you have seen me searching for you. Why did I search?”

  “We ask each other only questions,” she said. “It explains nothing.”

  “Nothing can ever be explained,” said Marcus. There was no world; there was only this girl on the pile of crimson leaves, with her white wool chiton outlining her body as noble marble outlines a figure on a monument.

  She considered. Then she said, “It is because you speak like me, and think like me. No matter what I say you do not smile as if at folly. When I am with you it is as wonderful as if I were alone. I am not conscious that you are another being.”

  Marcus, who was never in love before, said a wise thing: “That is the essence of oneness, that one is not alienated, not aware that another is a separate being, but only one with one’s self.”

  He was suddenly dazzled, for the girl’s face was radiant. “Yes, it is so,” she said. “It is what my parents must have known.”

  She held out her hand frankly to him, and he fell on his knees before her and took the white and slender fingers. She made a murmurous sound of satisfaction and she smiled at him tenderly.

  A ragged oak leaf, large and scarlet, drifted down from the tree and settled directly on the girl’s left breast and lay there on the whiteness of her clothing like a splash of blood. It was a little wet and it moved with her breath and she was unaware of it.

  Marcus was a Roman, and Romans are superstitious, and a long stiffening ran over his body as he looked at that leaf which resembled nothing more than a bleeding wound. It was nothing to him that his logical mind cried that he was absurd and that this was only a leaf. A curious darkening seemed suddenly to invade the forests, in which the girl’s face was as white as death and her eyes too still. The evil splash on her breast appeared to expand ominously. Marcus felt all the fear and dread that he had experienced when he had dreamed of the violent death of his beloved brother, Quintus, and he shuddered.

  “What is it, Marcus?” asked Livia.

  He reached out and took the leaf, and she watched in wonderment, bewildered by the pallor of his cheeks and the trembling of his lips. He flung the leaf from him, and it was as if he had removed something evil and hideous. “It was only a leaf,” he said. He clasped the girl’s hand firmly; he was sweating a little even in the coolness of the forest and he could hear his heart in his ears. The girl’s eyes narrowed with curiosity and they were brilliantly blue. “Something has disturbed your mind,” she said. “Has a god whispered something to you?”

  This disturbed Marcus even more. He knew of premonitions; he had had them on several occasions and Archias had scoffed at him. Only a short time ago he had dreamed that the gutters of Rome were filled with bleeding and howling men, and Archias had laughed. Yet something was now happening in Rome and in Italy, and he, heedless youth! had not been listening to the alarmed conversation of his grandfather. His thoughts had been with this girl.

  She suddenly pulled her hands from his and jumped to her feet, even while he was struggling with his thoughts and trying to control them. She ran from him through the aisle of the forest, and it was some moments before he could get up and follow her. Now she was waiting, in full autumn sunshine, on the bridge, leaning over the parapet and watching the green water.

  “Listen to the rivers sing,” she said as he joined her; she did not look at him. “They are singing of the mountains and the forests and the ferns, of nymphs and satyrs and Pan with his pipes, and they are singing of the winter which is coming.”

  Marcus had regained some control over his emotions. He watched the green and rushing water; it was full of the voices of Echo, melancholy yet tumultuous and full of longing. The bridge appeared to move and the water to carry it along. The sun was hot on Marcus’ face but there was a cold wind about his shoulders. Livia’s white elbow was near him and he put his hand upon it with something like a fierce protection. She began to sing with the rivers, a strange and murmurous song, and she was far from the youth at her side.

  “You must not marry Lucius Catilina,” he said.

  She sang a little more, then turned her head idly and looked at him.

  “But I have been betrothed to him since I was ten years old,” she said. “Why must I not marry him?”

  “He is evil,” said Marcus.

  The girl half-turned her body and gazed at him thoughtfully. “I do not find him so, Marcus. The opinions of one man are not always the opinions of others. To me, Lucius is very amusing and full of enchantment; he looks like a god. He has a great name. I am rich. It is a fair exchange.”

  “Nevertheless, he is evil.”

  “Because you two are enemies?” The girl’s eyes were a little mocking.

  “No. It was my belief from the beginning, before we fought. He is cruel and without mercy. He strikes at the weakest and the smallest. He has the fascination and beauty of a deadly animal.” Marcus paused. “He will cause you suffering, and that I cannot bear to contemplate, Livia, because I love you.”

  She shook her head in denial. “You must not say that to me, for I am betrothed. My guardians have arranged it. It is a matter of honor; one does not repudiate such. No, you must not say you love me, for that I must not hear.”

  She laughed sweetly, and the blue of her eyes glittered. “You have not yet gone through the ceremonies of adolescence, but Lucius is a man, and it is to a man that I am betrothed. I am fourteen years old, and of an age to marry. Should I repudiate Lucius my own honor would be lost, and I am an obedient girl and my guardians know best. You must not speak to me of this again.”

  Marcus was desperate. “But, in the forest you declared that what we felt for each other was what your parents felt for each other! Shall you deny that?”

  Her face became clouded. “What has that to do with marriage? It is good and beautiful to dream, but marriage is not for dreamers. My mother was a willful girl; she was betrothed to another, and then she loved my father. Against all the wishes of her parents she married him, against the tears of her mother who had seen an omen. She offended the gods, and especially Juno, the virtuous matron. I have told you how they died, my parents. I dare not invoke the wrath of the gods against us, Marcus.”

  “You will invoke calamity,” said Marcus, still gripping her elbow. The feel of her warm white flesh in his hand made him reckless.

  “So you say.” The girl was curious again. “Are you a seer, Marcus?”

  “I do not know! But I have strange dreams and premonitions!”

  The girl made the sign against the evil eye and she was troubled. But she said, “Let us be sensible, for a moment. I am betrothed; you are not even a man. We must not speak of it again. You frighten me.”

  She pulled her elbow from his hand and ran from him down the arch of the bridge to the mainland, her clothing wh
irling in the wind. She did not look back.

  “Come tomorrow!” cried Marcus after her. But she did not answer. As quickly as she had disappeared before she disappeared now, and there was only sunshine and wind with him and he was alone on the bridge.

  Desolation sickened him. He looked at his hands on the parapet and he had the sensation that they did not belong to him because they were empty and meaningless. He heard the rustling of dead leaves; a cloud of scarlet oak leaves fluttered in the air and fell on the green water and they were washed away. Somewhere a bird called. The forest lay on either side of the bridge, gold and red and dark purple, filled with hollow bluish light. But it was no longer beautiful to Marcus, overwhelmed as he was with his terrible forebodings. He believed that in some way he could and must rescue Livia from awful danger. He thought of Lucius Sergius Catilina and so intense were his emotions that he was seized with a desire to kill and destroy, a desire so alien to his nature that it appeared to him that he must be going mad. He thought of all that Lucius was, and he said aloud, beating a clenched fist on the parapet, “No. No!” He looked at Arpinum on its hill and at the silver of the olive groves about it and its cypresses, and it took on a sinister light to him in the autumn sun, as if it hid evil secrets.

  Then heavily he returned to the island and walked miserably along the bank, occasionally glancing at Arpinum, which changed its aspect as he walked. Whom could he consult? What god should he invoke? To whom could he tell his desperate fears and his crushed longing? There was his mother. She knew or knew of all the great families of Rome. He experienced a sudden relief. He did not need philosophy now, from Archias, nor the latter’s poetry; he did not need the stare of his grandfather’s eyes and the mention of honor and the pledged word; he did not need his father’s faith in God and obedience. He needed the sensible advice of his mother, who had no philosophy except that concerning a woman’s household, no poetry except work, no hopeless resignation.

  He came on Quintus, squatting and fishing on a steep bank. He was dropping the bait into the rustling water and swinging it about. Beside him lay a basket of reeds, and in that basket writhed a number of jeweled fish.

  Marcus was always happy to see his younger brother. Quintus’ olive-tinted face, smooth and bright, was flushed with rose. His eyes were almost blue in the sunshine, for they were as changeful as his mother’s, but more lively and vigorous. His thick black curls poured over his sturdy round skull and down his nape. His shoulders were broad and muscular under his brown tunic, and his bare knees were domes of strength, his toes clutching the muddy bank.

  “Why not use a net?” asked Marcus. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the bridge clearly.

  “Then I should have only fish,” said Quintus, reasonably.

  “Is that not the object?” said Marcus, squatting beside him and looking with distaste and pity on the dying fish in the basket.

  “Not at all,” said Quintus. “A net gives fish no opportunity; they are merely dragged from the water to be eaten. But this pole makes the contest between me and them equal; it also gives me pleasure to outwit a fish and deceive him and lure him to my bait. Fish are very clever, indeed, and are not easily deceived.”

  He sounded, thought Marcus, with affection, exactly like his sensible mother. At that moment Quintus gave an exultant cry, flung the pole up into the air. A fish had taken the bait, and it was a wet, gemmed flash of colors against the sky. It struggled in the air. Quintus deftly pulled in the thin flaxen rope, seized the fish and disengaged it and dropped it triumphantly into the basket. “We shall have a good dinner!” he exclaimed. The fish plopped desperately on the bodies of its mates.

  “It seems cruel,” said Marcus.

  “You did not say that a few days ago when they were broiled in fat and lay on your plate,” said Quintus.

  “I did not know how beautiful they were,” said Marcus.

  “You need not eat these,” said his brother, casting his bait again. “There will be more for me. Do you prefer to eat weeds? Like our father, who shudders at meats since he became fond of a little goat?”

  Marcus did not answer. Quintus said, artfully dangling his bait, “I saw a spider a moment ago devouring a beautiful butterfly, a harmless creature all red and white. The spider was ugly. Nevertheless, it lives according to its nature. When the butterfly was only a worm it devoured fruit, and left the fruit worthless for our eating. That was its nature. The hawk takes the pretty rabbit, and the pretty rabbit destroys our mother’s garden, which she lays in the spring. The eagle takes the hawk, which eats vermin.”

  “A philosopher,” said Marcus with indulgence. “Is Archias teaching you well, then?”

  Quintus made a comical face. “Archias has only thoughts. I have observation. What a thing it is to be a philosopher! One’s stomach is never revolted.”

  He caught another fish and Marcus averted his eyes. He saw the distant bridge. He remembered Quintus’ arch, sly glance. “Did you see me at the bridge?” he asked.

  “With that girl?” said Quintus. “Yes. Who is she?”

  “She is visiting in Arpinum. Her name is Livia Curius.”

  “You were very interested in her,” said Quintus, preparing new bait. “I could see that she seemed pretty. Are you going to marry her?”

  Marcus felt a deep convulsion in his heart. “I wish to,” he muttered.

  “She ran away,” said Quintus. “Like a nymph. Girls are tiresome. And, is she not very free, to be wandering away alone from her relatives? She ran wildly, too. Did you offend her?”

  “I do not know,” said Marcus.

  “You have seen her before?” asked Quintus, with deep interest.

  “Yes.”

  “But we do not know her.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you must speak to Grandfather and our mother, Marcus.”

  “To our mother, Quintus. I have already decided that.”

  “She is wiser than Grandfather, our father, and Archias put together,” said the young boy. “There is no folly in her. If you want that girl and mother is pleased, then she will contrive that you have her.”

  “It is not so easy. She is betrothed to Lucius Catilina.”

  Quintus frowned. “She is content?”

  “She obeys her guardians.”

  Quintus shook his head. “Then you must seek another wife.”

  Marcus stood up. He looked down at his brother’s head, then tugged playfully at the glossy black curls. “It is not so easy,” he repeated, and went away. He thought that Quintus immediately forgot him in his sport. But the younger boy looked after his brother and his face was disturbed. Quintus knew of the stern stubbornness of Marcus and his quiet resistance when opposed on important things. It was far less arduous to move a heavy stone than Marcus when his will was set. He had the strength of ambushed armies.

  Marcus found his mother as usual among her slave girls, spinning industriously, for she was preparing the new blankets for the winter. She saw his face and dismissed the girls kindly, twisted a recalcitrant thread then remarked, “You are troubled. What is it, my son?”

  He sat on a stool near her and she stopped spinning for a moment or two. “Do you know the Curius family, my mother?”

  Helvia considered, then she inclined her head. “Not closely, but enough. They have fallen on degenerate days, all but one branch of the family. What have they to do with you, Marcus?”

  He found, to his astonishment, that he could speak freely to his mother and tell her of Livia. The spinning wheel was humming again; Marcus could see his mother’s profile, thoughtful, full of life and youthful vitality and color. Her expression was never mobile; once she frowned slightly at the mention of Lucius Sergius Catilina. Otherwise she listened with calm passivity, sometimes smoothing a thread. Her plump feet never stopped at the wheel. The late sunshine touched her riotous black curls, as glossy as Quintus’. Then when he had finished she dropped her hands in her lap and fixed her beautiful eyes on her son and considered him. />
  “You will not be a man until the spring,” she said. “Yet, you are in love. I speak no ridicule. I saw your father from behind a curtain in the women’s quarters of my father’s house. He had come to visit with his father. When I saw him I fell in love at once. He seemed a young Hermes to me, and I was no older than your Livia.”

  “Hermes? My father?” said Marcus, who thought the imagery very humorous. She was smiling at him, as if following his thoughts. “I, too, was young,” she said. “I told my father that night that there would be no other for me. I was not betrothed to another; no word of honor had as yet been given. My father was not agreeable, but I was his only daughter and one knows how men dote on their daughters. It was much of a surprise to your father,” Helvia added, her eyes fixed on those days. “I think it frightened him. He was hardly older than you. If he could indeed have taken flight I am certain he would have done so. But wiser heads prevailed. Including mine.”

  I, too, have been wise, in consulting my mother, thought Marcus. But he could hardly believe that once springtime had run wildly in his mother’s veins.

  Helvia said, “But in the case of your Livia—and how fearful it is now that young girls run about so freely and meet strangers in strange places—the honorable pledge has been given. She is betrothed. Troth is not pledged lightly, even in these days of the decline of our country. You have not said she is unwilling.”

  “No,” said Marcus. “But she is young. She does not know Lucius.”

  Helvia smiled. “Women know more than you know. However, I agree with you that the Catilinii, though a great patrician family, have become very wicked and decadent. Still, wicked men have been known to adore their wives. Moreover, she spoke of honorable troth, did she not?”

  “Yes, it is so. But she does not know truly of Lucius’ character. She spoke of him as enchanting.”

  “All the Catilinii are remarkably handsome. And remarkably vicious.” Now Helvia was no longer detached. “That girl is not for you, Marcus; I know of the tragedy of her parents. The girl spoke to you of her parents and did not reproach her father for his willing death. Nevertheless, though she spoke bravely, and with the innocent heart of a young girl, she did not truly forgive her father for deserting her, and she a child of but five years.”