Of Merchants & Heros (32 page)

‘Now is not then,’ he said. ‘The situation is different.’

‘Are you so sure?’ returned Titus. ‘Philip already dominates Greece; our spies report he is in secret talks with Antiochos; Egypt is weak and prostrate. Must we wait until the whole of the East is united against us?’

He turned to the others and continued, ‘No city has the divine right to exist, not even Rome. We survive by our virtue, for so long as we possess it, and by our strength, for so long as we maintain it.

We have staked our authority on ordering Philip to stop, and he has ignored us. If we do nothing now, why should he believe us next time? He will think us weak, and lacking in resolve. Let everyone remember, an idle threat is worse than no threat at all!’

From around the chamber there came murmurs of assent. These men were men of honour, and a man’s word was his bond.

After this I felt a subtle shift, a change in the mood, like the first air of spring in winter. And when, at length, the time came to vote, I knew what the choice would be, and I was glad.

As the hands went up in support of Titus, I recalled Philip’s words to me, that we threatened him at our peril.

Then I thought of the people of Abydos.

I had not failed them a second time.

I took the familiar ascending track, up through the oak forest.

The air was still; the sky showed deep and cloudless, and up on the high rocks, where I had played as a boy, came the familiar clanking sound of goat-clappers.

I drew the air into my lungs, and felt a longing for I know not what: for simplicity; for lost childhood.

Presently I came to the long avenue of poplars that marked the beginning of our own land, and immediately I began to notice signs of change. The brook that trickled down between the terraces, its natural course formed by time and the contours of the mountains, had been hollowed out, widened and dammed. The surrounding woodland had been felled and ploughed, and there were new cattle- pens behind the white-painted block where the farmhands lived.

I arrived unannounced. I smiled to myself, thinking of the surprise. What I had not been prepared for was my mother’s tears.

I found her in her private room. She turned, then started.

‘Mother,’ I said, and crossed the floor to kiss her.

It took me a moment to realize what was different. The room seemed somehow empty and stark, though I could see nothing missing. Then, lifting my head, I realized that the old spreading rowan outside the window had gone.

‘You took away the tree,’ I said. ‘You always liked it.’

‘Your father decided we needed more light.’

I went to the window. There was a sawn-off stump where the rowan tree had once been. I thought again of the scarred land outside, needlessly changed in conformity with some ill-considered plan. A sudden bitterness filled my heart, and before I could stop myself I said sharply, ‘Is there nothing at all he can leave alone? He is not my father, curse him. He will never be that.’

I had spoken harshly, and in anger. Immediately I felt ashamed, for it was no fault of hers. I turned from the window, my face full of regret.

She sat unmoving, staring at the little piece of sewing-work in her lap. Her hair was as it always was, tied back, with careless wisps at the side. But the last traces of fair had gone, replaced by grey.

For the first time, I thought, she looked old. I felt a falling within me, as if the foundations upon which I had built my life were crumbling. It came to me what she had sacrificed to keep the farm.

She had never spoken of it. It filled me with a dull, bleak, impotent sadness.

She turned then, and it tore my heart to see the moisture welling in her eyes.

‘My dear, precious Marcus,’ she said softly, ‘how glad I am to see you. What a shock you gave me.’

She blinked, and touched at her face, and in a firmer voice went on, ‘We received your letters from Athens. You have done so much, and I am proud of you. Your father – your true father – would be proud of you too. And look how broad and manly you have become.’

I looked away, lest she see my eyes. But my voice cracked when I said, ‘But I am still me, Mother. Still the same Marcus.’

I heard her catch her breath.

‘Well he – Caecilius – is not here,’ she said. ‘He is in Patrai; he has business with some king or ruler there.’

I nodded.

There was a painful silence. Then she said in a small quiet voice, ‘The farm was important. Understand that. I would not see it lost.’

It seemed then that all my pent-up grief broke out. I had wanted her to speak to me, to open the closed door, to drop the mask of duty just for a moment. And now that she did so, my emotion swept over me like a wave.

I let out a sob, for her loss, and my own, and for the deep unending brutality of the world, which even the shading rowan tree could not withstand.

I hurried across the room and knelt, and took her hand in mine.

‘I know, Mother,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’

She touched my hair and cheek. After a short while she released her hand and stood, and went to gaze out of the window.

‘Your sister has missed you,’ she said. ‘She loves you dearly. Did you know? Perhaps some god brought her here, knowing what she needed most. She has found a brother in you. Scarcely a day goes by that she does not speak of it.’

‘I have brought books for her.’

‘She will like that. Go then and see her. You will find her down on the lower terrace, where the old oak grows above the summer pasture. It used to be a favourite place of yours. Do you remember?’

She swung round startled when I called. She had a heavy winter cloak wrapped around her, and a book spread open on her lap.

‘Marcus!’ she cried.

She set her book aside and came running.

‘Why didn’t you send word? I thought you were in Greece.’

I explained, and she listened with her wide intelligent eyes on me.

When I had finished she said, ‘Another war. Well, there has been talk of it long enough.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Will you have to fight?’

‘Perhaps. I have fought before . . . Oh, I almost forgot, there’s a big parcel for you up at the house. I went shopping at the bookshops in Athens before I left.’

She caught her breath with joy. ‘Oh, Marcus,’ she cried, and kissed me on the cheek.

‘But first,’ I said laughing, ‘you must tell me how you’ve been.’

‘Oh, I have been happy,’ she said. ‘I treasure each day. I have your mother with me, the people from the farm, and your father’s books.’

‘Then I’m glad.’

I paused for a moment and met her eye. ‘And how is
he
?’

Neither of us needed to say whom I meant.

‘He is in Greece,’ she said with a shrug.

‘I know. Mother told me.’

‘You ask how he is. Well he is richer, of course, and he makes sure everyone knows it. He is fatter. He listens less.’ She glanced out over the sloping pasture towards the far hills. ‘Did you ever look down into the valley from here, and notice the farm houses, and the animals, and the men working in the fields, all tiny and distant, as a bird might see?’

‘All the time,’ I said. ‘I used to sit in this very place.’

‘Far away you can see it all; the cart on the track; the stallion with the mare; the boys swimming in the river; the servants about their work. Not one of them can see the other; yet from here I can see it all, as, surely, a god must see it, all of a oneness, in its true proportion. And so it is with him. Before, I thought of him as my father: that was all I knew, it was the limit of my world. But when he comes here now, after his long absences, I see not the father, but the man.’

‘Has he changed so much?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Marcus. I have changed. I see what I did not see. Riches are no longer enough for him, though he talks of them often enough. Now there is something else: he has caught the scent of power, enough to know that he wants more. But he does not understand it, or how to win it, or what it can do to a man. Have you seen his study yet?’

I said I had not.

‘Then go and look, if you have the stomach for it. You can learn a lot about a man by seeing what he desires, and what he regards as beautiful. He has filled the room with every fashionable vulgar trinket he has set eyes on. Bronzes of kissing naked boys; satyrs on nymphs; goddesses reaching at their privates; it is a mirror to his secret soul.’

I considered her serious, intent face. Yes, I thought, she had changed indeed. She had looked into the dark places, and from there she had drawn a calm wisdom, born of knowledge, and of pain.

Then I asked, ‘Does he bring women here?’

‘Not here, thank God. He knows your mother would not stand for it. He has sense enough for that, at least.’

I nodded, and we said no more about him. For a while we talked of matters of no consequence. But presently she said, ‘You are different. Something has happened to you.’

I smiled.

‘Well I am older, I suppose. And I have seen things I had not seen before, not all of them good.’

‘Yes,’ she said. She paused for a moment. ‘Yet there is something else; I can see it in your eyes.’ Then she said, ‘Are you in love?’

I laughed out loud. ‘You see a lot, little sister.’

‘Sorry. I should not have asked. You need not tell me.’

‘No, I want to.’

And so I told her about Menexenos.

I went on far too long, as lovers do. When I had finished she said, ‘I thought it was something like that. It must be a wonderful thing to have such a friend. Is he like a brother to you?’

‘A brother?’ I shrugged and smiled. ‘Why, I cannot say; I have never had one.’

‘Nor I.’ And with a shy sideways glance she added, ‘Until now.’

I remembered my mother’s words. Turning to face her on the bench I said, ‘And I have a sister. I could not hope for a better one in all the world.’

Her serious face brightened, and then she smiled her rare, round-faced smile. ‘I hope you’ll bring him here one day. I should like to meet him.’

I imagined with happiness bringing Menexenos to Praeneste and showing him my childhood world.

‘I shall,’ I said. ‘One day soon. You and he would be friends, I am sure of it.’

One day that winter, while I was out on the land, I saw a horseman making his way up the long track. It was a special messenger from Rome, and he brought a letter from Titus.

I sent the man round to the stable house at the back, where he could get a meal for himself and his horse. Then I broke the seal and read.

The letter said, ‘Titus to his friend Marcus, greetings. In ten days the elections take place. All is in the balance. Come if you can.’

I went round to the kitchens at the back, and found the messenger over a steaming dish of bacon and beans, with the house slaves clustered round, listening to his news. When he looked up I said, ‘Tell him I shall see him in Rome.’

Standing against Titus that year was an old senator put forward by the faction opposed to war with Philip, or to any foreign venture.

Titus’s own father, I had heard from others, was part of this faction.

Titus feared the vote would go against him; but in the event he was elected comfortably, aided by the votes of the veteran colonists he had helped settle in new lands. To celebrate, Titus held a banquet. It was almost like the old days in Tarentum. He had hired a Greek kitharist, and a renowned cook from Neapolis. But now, of course, everybody wanted to be his friend, and I was only one of many guests.

There was one notable absence, however. His own father did not come, claiming, so I heard, that he had other commitments.

The consuls, though they are elected in the winter, do not take up office until the Ides of March of the following year. While he waited, Titus made his arrangements; and of these, one in particular came as a shock to me. The Senate, on Titus’s advice, had appointed Lucius his brother to the command of the fleet.

I do not know if they expressed misgivings. If they did, Titus did not tell me; and, as you may suppose, whatever I thought of this appointment I kept to myself. Titus, who usually saw so clearly, had a deep loyalty to his brother, which I knew better than to question.

At the time, Lucius was away, on some army business in Gaul. I gave the matter little thought. But then, one day that winter, Titus said, ‘Philip is pressing hard on Attalos and the Athenians; we must do what we can to relieve them. I’ve written to Lucius asking him to sail to Athens as soon as the sea routes are open. You know the Greeks better than he does: I want you to go with him. Your advice will be useful, and besides, it is time you had a formal command of your own.’

I thanked him, wondering if he had forgotten about Lucius’s quarrel with me in Tarentum. Titus was too greathearted to think of such things. Lucius, I sensed, was not.

That winter, as I got to know Rome better, I liked it more.

I spent time with Villius and his friend Terentius, and, with them as my guides, I began to discover the secret places behind the drab exterior.

As Titus had said, at that time teachers, actors and artists of every sort were being drawn to Rome. One heard them in the little backstreet taverns, and found their workshops in secluded courtyards in the unfashionable quarters where one would not think to go. Quietly they practised their trades, and passed their skills on from old to young, master to apprentice, as they had done since time began and men had first gathered together to live in cities, and civilize themselves. There were potters working in the Greek style; there were vase-painters; there were silver- and goldsmiths; sculptors, painters and architects. In time the loaf would be leavened. They would beautify Rome, and they would spread their knowledge like rays of dawn light to the furthest reaches of the world, where barbarians wandered naked and beasts roamed untamed.

One day, Villius and Terentius took me to hear a visiting philosopher from Rhodes, who had come to deliver a series of lectures.

He began by praising the Good, in words of such polish and beauty that my very soul seemed to soar from my body. But then, afterwards, deliberately, and with equal skill, he demolished everything he had said, leaving my head reeling.