The Gods of War (34 page)

‘Would it help if I drew it for you, Lady?’

‘Drew it?’

‘Yes. This charm. If you describe it to me, I will do the best I can, to give you something you can show to others.’

‘Claudia,’ snapped Sextius, his lips pursed in frustration.

‘Please do so.’

‘I distinctly remember you calling him a “poor man”,’ said Claudia. She was sitting at a table while the Greek maid dressed her hair for dinner with the Barbinus overseer.

‘Well, he’s not poor now,’ replied Sextius, sourly. ‘I’ve never been charged so much for a bust in my life.’

‘It must be the cost of the stone.’

Her husband just grunted; really he was wondering if he could get the Greek girl to dress
his hair as well. Claudia slipped the drawing out to sneak another look and the girl’s sharp intake of breath merged with Claudia’s yell of pain, as her hair was tugged violently by the heavy tongs.

‘What happened?’ asked Sextius. ‘Did she burn you?’

‘An accident, Master,’ said the girl, still looking at the piece of linen in Claudia’s hand. The hair trapped between the hot tongs started to smoulder and the girl pulled it abruptly away. Sextius stood up, towering over her. ‘If you pull my wife’s hair, or burn her again, I’ll see you whipped.’

‘Why don’t you go and have some wine, Sextius,’ said Claudia, with a tremor in her voice.

She had noticed that, denied any outlet for his main pleasure in life, he had taken to drinking a great deal. Sextius looked at the back of Claudia’s head, then at the girl who had tugged her locks so painfully. The smell of burnt hair lingered in the atmosphere and he ran his hand over his smooth silver thatch, thinking perhaps it would be a bad idea for him to put himself at similar risk. He fixed the girl again with his sternest Roman frown and left the room.

‘You recognise this?’ Claudia demanded, her heart beating wildly as she held up the linen.

The girl shook her head violently. No slave
volunteered information to anyone; it usually got them, or someone they cared for, into trouble. Claudia fought to stop herself shouting at the girl, knowing instinctively that to do so would be fatal; instead she reached out and lifted the tongs out of the girl’s hands.

‘Your name, child?’ she asked, though the girl was far too old for the title.

‘Phoebe,’ she responded, so quietly that it was hard to hear.

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’

Claudia was cursing Sextius as a bully; clearly part of the girl’s fear would be a hangover from his strictures. Phoebe nodded, forcing her eyes away from the drawing, lest by looking at it she betray herself. Claudia felt an ache in her belly, being so close to the truth, yet so far away. If she pressured this girl, she would shut up completely, and Claudia was in no position to call the master of the house and threaten to have the information beaten out of her.

‘Do you have any children, Phoebe?’ she asked, her voice as soft as she could make it. The girl nodded slowly, as Claudia continued. ‘Can you imagine how you would feel, if your child had been taken from you at birth, and you’d never seen him since that day?’

She looked Phoebe in the eye as she said that,
encouraging the younger woman to respond to her next question. ‘Does the name Aquila Terentius mean anything to you?’

Sextius came back in to find the slave girl in floods of tears, and Claudia sat frozen in her chair, her face a mask. She’s beaten the wretch, he thought. Serve her right. A bit of pain will do her good. He was wrong of course; all the pain was in the heart of the stony-faced woman who was not crying.

‘I cannot fathom women at all, Barbinus. Perhaps you can tell me what makes them the way they are?’

Sextius took another large gulp of wine. He was very pleased to be back in what he considered to be near civilisation. He would be home tomorrow, for this, near Aprilium, was the last stop before Rome, brought about by Claudia’s insistence that she be allowed to buy the Greek girl Phoebe and her daughter.

‘It’s not sex, is it?’ asked Barbinus, who owned Phoebe, as well as her child, and was afire to know why they had brought her all the way back here to secure his agreement.

Sextius fixed him with a jaundiced eye. Barbinus was flabby now, with all the texture gone from his skin. He still tried to be the man he
was as a youth, though the years were against him. Not only that, the potions and love philtres he was constantly swallowing in the hope of reviving his flagging libido had taken their toll on his complexion as well.

‘For if it is,’ he continued, ‘you can have her for free if I’m allowed to watch Claudia with her.’

Sextius gave him what he considered was his manliest look. ‘The gods will have fun with you, Barbinus. I’ve never met such a rogue.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘It most certainly is not, and if you see them together you’d wonder at why Claudia wants the girl. All they seem to do in each other’s company is cry. It’s a mystery to me.’

‘Well, if Claudia insists on having her, take her as a gift.’

‘No, no, friend. She will insist on paying.’

‘Do you think she might pay in kind? She’s still a handsome woman.’

Sextius snorted. ‘I have a terrible fear, Barbinus. There is an eastern cult that believes that when we die, we return to the earth as animals.’

‘So what’s your fear?’

‘I’d hate to return as one of yours, say a pig or a sheep.’

Barbinus grinned, his lopsided lips thick, wet and red. ‘Nice idea. I could roger you, then have you for dinner.’

The shared memory was important to Claudia, even the knowledge her son had grown up, only to become a rebel against Rome – perhaps because it was in his blood – but not before he had enjoyed a relationship with Phoebe and left her pregnant.

‘He went with the overseer, Didius Flaccus, to Messana,’ said Phoebe, ‘and that was the last time I saw him. All I know is that Flaccus came back in a towering rage and, after accusing me of being to blame, he sent me away. I heard later that Aquila had joined the slave army to fight Rome, but after their defeat I heard no more.’

Then he had disappeared, a victim, no doubt, of Rome’s revenge in the clampdown that had followed the collapse of the revolt. Sometimes she harboured a feeling that he might have survived, but Phoebe insisted that, if he had, he would have come back to her. That produced a slight twitch of jealousy, since this girl had experienced a love that she had been denied. They walked by the riverbank, trailed by the girl that Phoebe had borne after being sent packing by Flaccus.

She was tall for her age, with long raven hair 
that, when it caught the sun, had a tinge of fire to it; and she was beautiful, with pale skin like alabaster. Looking up from the gurgling waters of the Liris to the mountains in the distance, they could see the extinct volcano with that strange-shaped top that looked like a votive cup. Where had they put him? Claudia wanted to know, wanted to ask Cholon, who would surely tell her now that the boy was certainly dead. She would erect a small shrine on the spot, as a memory to him.

The young man tickling fish in the river was so intent on what he was doing that he failed to hear them approach. This was Barbinus’s land, not that she cared, except perhaps that she should buy the whole place from him, then she would know that the land on which her little boy had been laid was definitely hers. The poacher stood up abruptly, water dripping from his arm and he turned to face them with a nervous smile. Something about his looks tugged at Claudia’s memory, so she walked closer and addressed him directly.

‘Do I know you?’

Rufurius Dabo could see that she was rich. She wore enough to buy ten farms on her neck alone and he dreamt of owning a farm, but Annius, his elder brother, had got everything when their
father died. The younger Dabo had just built a hut on a vacant spot, which someone informed him was the place where old Clodius Terentius and his wife Fulmina had lived. Given the stories he had heard about that peasant, Rufurius often wondered if that was why he stayed poor.

He replied to Claudia’s question with due deference. ‘No, Lady.’

‘Odd, I thought I did.’ Claudia smiled, and indicated his dripping arm. ‘I shouldn’t let Cassius Barbinus find you doing that. He’ll feed you to his dogs.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘I think Fabius enjoyed it more than me,’ said Aquila. ‘They thought he was a general too, and entertained him accordingly.’

Talking about Fabius was a blind; he was determined to stay off the subject of what had happened to him at the Bregones encampment, given that he had much to ponder, and none of it was any business of his general or Cholon the Greek. His situation, as an envoy of Titus, had precluded questions, and to show curiosity about what was happening might have jeopardised the whole prospect of a truce. Aquila’s height and colour had attracted attention all his life, as had the charm he wore round his neck, but both had deeply affected Masugori and his priests, and had in some way contributed to, if not brought about, the final decision to leave Numantia and Brennos to their fate.

He took the charm in his hand; perhaps, as 
Fulmina had insisted, it had some magic potency. Though he saw it as his lucky talisman, the prospect had always alarmed him and he had no desire that it should be more than that, especially if he was unable to understand its meaning. Suddenly he realised that both the other men were waiting for him to elaborate and he dragged his thoughts back to Fabius.

‘Don’t be surprised if be behaves like a patrician from now on.’

‘Did he learn anything of use?’ asked Titus, slightly terse at what he saw as levity in a situation that demanded that his envoy be serious.

‘He informs me that, though the Bregones women are ugly by thirty, they are fine at around fifteen, though the drink they brew, a coarse grain spirit, seriously interferes with a man’s ability to test out the notion.’

‘I suppose we should be grateful he came back.’ Titus liked Fabius, because the ranker insisted that no Roman citizen need be overly polite to another, a right he exercised whether he was talking to a consul or a quaestor. Cholon frowned darkly, since another Fabian maxim was that Romans should always be rude to Greeks. ‘But I am less interested in what he was up to, Aquila, than what you did.’

‘I have told you, you have your truce.’

‘Well, all I do is repeat our congratulations. You’ve succeeded beyond my wildest hopes, but I still don’t quite understand how you managed it?’

He lied smoothly. ‘It was so easy, General. I can only think I was telling them what they wanted to hear.’ Then he waited, hoping the look on his face would deter further enquiry.

‘Will they keep their word?’ asked Cholon,

‘I’d say yes,’ Aquila replied. ‘But I am, by nature, a man disinclined to trust anyone too much.’

‘You’re right, you can never totally trust the Celt-Iberians,’ said Cholon, emphatically.

‘I wasn’t just talking about them,’ replied Aquila coldly, still convinced that notion of sending him off alone had emanated from the Greek’s mind. ‘I mean everybody.’

‘Cholon is writing a section of his history on the Duncani chieftain.’ said Titus, as the Greek flushed with embarrassment. ‘As you know, I’ve had a lifelong interest in the man.’

‘Brennos?’ asked Cholon, looking at Aquila. ‘You say that it’s not a common Celt-Iberian name?’

Aquila’s eyes flashed angrily; Masugori had told him that he looked very like Brennos, just as
he had also told him where Brennos came from. ‘Did I?’

Titus put his hands up, slightly alarmed, to stop the Greek. ‘No, Cholon, it was I who told you that. Tell me what you found out about him that we don’t already know.’

Cholon reached over to pick up his wax tablet. ‘It would be helpful to me, as well. The more complete my history, the more it will serve as a guide to others. The Romans must learn to make peace as well as war.’

‘Your legate, Marcellus Falerius, seems to be doing well,’ said Aquila, desperate to change the subject. ‘We haven’t even had a sniff of the Lusitani.’

The
legatus
in question was often prey to doubts, for, mostly alone, thinking about the numerous nature of his enemies, as well as the limited force he had at his disposal, he could easily imagine them being pushed back into the sea. When they had first landed he had had no idea of the magnitude of the task facing him. As the largest single tribal grouping in the Iberian Peninsula, with an identity quite distinct from most of their Celt-Iberian neighbours, the Lusitani boasted a more unified command, one that could put warriors into the field in quantities that he could
never defeat. That he held on at all was a testimony to both his determination and his inventiveness.

Normally it was the tribes that avoided pitched battles with Roman forces; here in the west it was Marcellus Falerius, with the small comfort that, by his presence, he was keeping them from interfering in Titus’s operations around Numantia. These were the spectres of the dark hours of the night; in the morning, his diligent nature would force him to a more positive approach and he would put aside the thoughts that he considered unworthy of a man of his breeding. Never mind if others won triumphs, received the thanks of the Senate, and rode garlanded down the Sacred Way. He was doing his duty and that was enough.