Arena (33 page)

One more step. One more.

A wizened oldster made the sign against the evil eye, averted his face. Sword gripped by white knuckles, Julius stared at the cobbles, cursing and cursing under his breath. A muscle in his thick neck stood out like scarlet rope.

The crowd parted. I began to run.

Screaming, struggling, people fought back out of my path. The wind of freedom, of life, was suddenly in my lungs, and the way was open.

From purple shadows beyond the point where the Vestals had paused with their water jars, two men waved as I ran past. I checked, looked back. The dark place where they’d stood beneath the arcade was empty.

Even though they were gone, their faces remained sharp in my mind. Paulus and the young man Marcus, hands upraised in acknowledgment of a debt settled. Even as I had been Marcus’

keeper, so, it turned out, they had been mine. They had endangered themselves to lead the soldiers into the familiar path the Vestals took, to save my life.

The Vestals had resumed their procession. People in the crowd began calling the tribune’s attention to the fact that the preacher and his companion had vanished. Julius shrieked orders.

The soldiers scattered.

But none stopped me.

In the mysterious way that Rome has, the news of my coming traveled ahead. Curious, slack-mouthed people waited as I walked down to the Tiber wharves, no longer hurrying from fear, only from eagerness. I located a river barge and addressed the captain from the quay.

“I am the criminal Cassius who met the Vestals. Take me down to Ostia.”

Making the evil eye sign and avoiding my glance, he said, “Get aboard. The sooner you’re out of Latium, the better off we’ll all be.”

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I knew Acte would be waiting, and she was. Strange to say, never once did I look backward. The gilt glory of Rome was empty sham beside the glory of having her once more in my arms.

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Since that fateful morning when I won life out of the jaws of death only because I once showed mercy to a man who possessed neither wealth nor fame, many things have happened to confirm my belief that what was once a splendid nation is now a decaying house, soon to fall.

The preacher Paulus who dared defy the throne was eventually tried and beheaded. And the Emperor discovered the conspiracy Seneca mentioned to me the last time I saw him. The attempt to assassinate Nero never bore fruit. Old Seneca was arrested and ordered to open his own veins with a knife, which he did calmly, so they say, weary of a life of struggle.

But the blood of the Julian Caesars has run out. Five years after Acte and I sailed from Ostia to Africa, the Legions revolted under Galba. Even the Praetorians turned on Nero, sickened by his excesses. The Emperor fell upon his own sword rather than face execution.

In the next year Rome was ruled by a succession of three Emperors, each more incompetent than the last, until finally the general whom the decurion Publius had once spoken about, Vespasian, was hailed to the throne.

A new day of prosperity and freedom was foretold. In truth, I doubt it, though I see things only from afar, from my vantage point here in Iol Caesaria where I found a modest but satisfying job on the staff of kindly Publius.

Rome will not die before my time is done, I imagine. But perhaps the three good sons Acte and I are raising will face the hour of her doom. Or perhaps their sons or their grandsons. In my time, I have borne enough.

Not long past, Acte joined a small congregation of Christians which flourishes here, despite the efforts of Imperial Rome to snuff out the cult. While I am not by nature a religious man, I feel that at least they preach a way of life more honorable than the code by which I lived for a time, before the scales fell from my eyes.

With my dear wife, I am happy as any man can be who is a part of the bewildering, savage, yet often beautiful place which is this world. After much heartbreak, I have found peace at last.

Still in all, I am a Roman. Thus I will take my leave as they do in the city where I was born.

Vale!Good luck to you!

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