Of Merchants & Heros (15 page)

Lucius had gone white. For a moment he did not move. Then, all of a sudden, he swung round, and his eyes settled on my face. He started. I do not think, until that moment, he knew I was there.

And then he lost all control.

At the top of his voice, in front of everyone, he accused me of every sort of baseness, saying I was trying to steal his quarry after he had chased it to its covert, and that I was a thief who snatches the trophy without running the race. ‘Oh yes!’ he shouted, jabbing his finger, he knew what I was about. ‘But have you stripped for him yet? Has he seen your ugly white-scarred thigh?’ He spat in the dust.

‘He is haughty and superior, this conquered Greekling, and I am not good enough for him. Do you suppose, then, he will look at a runt like you? You would disgust him.’

He ceased. Everyone stared. Even the boxing trainer, coming in from the next court, had paused in the archway, his mouth fallen open.

At some point in his tirade, Lucius’s Greek had failed him, and he had used the Latin terms. I imagine most people there did not know them. It was little comfort. It did not take a seer to guess what they meant.

Lucius seemed suddenly to grow conscious of where he was. He looked wildly about him at the gathering, silent crowd and bit his lip.

I think even he realized he had gone too far. Then, with a cry, he turned on his heels and ran out under the archway.

I had never felt more ashamed in my life. Wounds in battle were nothing compared with this. I wished only that the earth would open up and swallow me. The last thing I wanted to do, that day, was go to the praetor’s residence. But when, at length, I returned home, there was a message from Titus, asking me to call on him that afternoon.

Titus’s steward, Sextus, who knew me, said when I arrived, ‘Ah yes, Marcus sir, he is expecting you. You’ll find him in the gardens, on the bench at the end of the walkway. Verginius has just finished with him; I expect you’ll pass him on his way out.’

As he predicted, I ran into Verginius on the terrace. He was a military tribune of the Roman garrison, and we had always got on well. He paused and greeted me, and we exchanged a few words. He was something of a talker, which was just as well, for I had not recovered from the morning, and could scarcely string my words together.

He spoke, as I recall, of the campaign in Africa, which was coming to a head, and would bring, so everyone hoped, an end to the war. Finishing off, he said, ‘Well, it’s time I got back to barracks.

You’ll find Titus down there near the herb-beds, but I’d wait a while if I were you. Lucius has just arrived. He seemed rather agitated . . .

Why Marcus, you’ve gone grey as a corpse; is something wrong?’

‘No, Verginius,’ I managed to say. ‘Thank you for telling me. I think I’ll wait here then, until he’s finished.’

He left me, and I sat down on the stone bench behind me, and held my head in my hands, wishing I were anywhere else but here.

Then I jerked my head up and stared in horror. From somewhere beyond the tall myrtle bush which divided the terrace from the garden came the sound of Lucius’s voice, approaching along the path.

I leapt up. I think I should have run off, and thought of an excuse after. But the only way out was back the way I had come, which meant crossing the corner of the garden. To walk straight into them as I tried to flee would be even worse.

So I waited. The voices drew closer. Titus was saying, ‘But Lucius, it is in your own hands. Do you not see that?’

Then came Lucius’s voice, answering in a wailing tone, ‘But he is so noble and so beautiful! I need him!’

I stared into the myrtle flowers, scarcely daring to breathe. A song thrush, sitting among the leaves, stared back at me, its head cocked to one side.

Then I heard Titus say sharply, ‘You have been at the wine again.

I can smell it on you.’

‘Well wouldn’t you?’ Lucius flared back. ‘You are beginning to sound like Father.’

‘Don’t bring him into this. But he was right at least in one thing: the world will not fashion itself to your wishes, no matter how much you rail at it.’

‘But I want him!’ moaned Lucius. ‘He
must
love me! I have given him gifts . . . everything . . . I have given him everything.’

There was a whimpering sound.

I looked about, thinking: I must not be found here.
I must not!
There was a pause, and the sound of sniffling.

And then, ‘Oh Titus, my desires frighten me so. What am I to do? ’

More gently, Titus said, ‘This is wine talking, not my brother.

Wipe your eyes, Lucius, and try to remember yourself. A man cannot buy love; no, not even you. If the boy is not interested, then that is that. Come now, there will be others. But no one will love a drunkard. You must govern yourself, little brother. What else will you have me do? Put the wine under lock and key?’

This set him off again. But at least I could allow myself to breathe once more: the voices were receding back down the garden.

When, eventually, Titus saw me, he gave me a brief, searching look, and I wondered what else Lucius had said. But it may just have been that, by then, I must have looked as though I was sickening for something. We spoke of whatever business it was that had brought me there, though it was clear that both our minds were elsewhere.

Afterwards, when we were walking back to the house, he said, half to himself, ‘You know, if you beat a colt long enough, and hard enough, and often enough, it will shy even from its own shadow. A creature can be broken . . . and so can a man. . . . My father has a lot to answer for.’ He drew in his breath in a long melancholy sigh. ‘But forgive me, Marcus. I am talking of my own concerns. Come, you look as if a cup of wine would do you good. Now that I think of it, I could do with one myself.’

We returned to the terrace, where the steward had left wine, and a dish of honey-cakes. He must have brought it out while I was with Titus. I noticed that one of the cups had already been used. Titus, I saw, noticed it too. He raised his brow; but to me, at least, he made no comment.

The summer weather remained close and airless, and my bleak mood stayed with me like a cloud that will not move.

After that terrible morning at the palaistra, I had done my best to apologize to Menexenos.

‘For what?’ he had said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

Yet I could not dispel the thought that I had brought shame on him, and that, but for me, the appalling scene at the palaistra would not have taken place. Lucius had said I would disgust him, and in my melancholy state it seemed that it could be no other. I felt all my ugliness, and was sure he must perceive it too.

Bad as this was, it was only part of what troubled me. I began to ask myself what he must now suppose of my own motives, which he had heard described in such detail by Lucius. For all I felt for him, I could not bear to have him think I was some suitor in Lucius’s mould. Since I felt unable to explain any of this, I began to grow quiet and withdrawn with him, and took less trouble to seek him out.

I knew he noticed it. Once or twice he said, ‘I looked for you at the palaistra today, Marcus,’ or, ‘Where have you been these past days? I have missed you.’

I would make some bland excuse, blaming work, or whatever came into my head. Perhaps he sensed I was lying. Before long he ceased to ask, and I left him to think what he wished. It seemed better that way.

But I suffered. I had been touched by light. The return to night came twice as hard.

When next I saw Pasithea she fixed me with her wise brown eyes and said, ‘You have scarcely spoken two words this evening, Marcus.

I think it is time you and I had a talk. Come and see me, the day after tomorrow. I shall send my slave Niko to fetch you.’

Two days later, at the time of lamp lighting, Niko came to fetch me, a black-skinned slave-boy from Memphis in Egypt, with shining eyes and large gold earrings. Though he was a slave, he was clearly learned, and I guessed he had been schooled by Pasithea, of whom he spoke with great fondness.

In due course we came to a pink-washed house built on a terrace on a slope, shaded by a hanging vine.

Pasithea was waiting for me at the back, sitting in the little private high-walled courtyard, beside a pool of water lilies fed by a tinkling fountain. She had dressed carefully, as always, and tonight she was wearing a light dress of sky-blue silk, woven with flying and sitting swallows picked out in gold. Her hair was loose, adorned with a garland of roses.

Niko brought a jar of cool honey-coloured wine, and a bowl of bread and black olives, and a little yellow-glazed plate of goat’s cheese, and while he was busy with this, Pasithea chatted, telling me of her plans to travel to Greece in the autumn, where she planned to visit her home in Korinth, and stay with friends elsewhere. Then she paused and looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I hear your stepfather has been entertaining his friends.’

‘You heard about that then?’ I said miserably, supposing his grossness must be the talk of the whole city.

She smiled. ‘Don’t be so surprised. I am one of the first to know of such things. After all, my friends talk to me; and I have many friends.’ She caught my eye and winked. ‘I suspect, though, that your stepfather’s little gathering was not quite to your own taste. Is that what has cast you down, or will you carry on suffering alone and not tell me?’

And then the words came.

I had not realized how much I needed to talk to someone. I do not know if was the wine, or her gentle comprehending smile, or the peaceful courtyard under the stars. But all of a sudden, like a dammed-up torrent, out rushed all my pent-up feeling. I told her Caecilius was a brute, that he humiliated me for his sport, that he brought dishonour on my mother, who was good and honest and true. I lamented the day he had married her, and supposed I must have displeased some god to suffer so much ill luck. It seemed to me, I said bitterly, that there was no beauty in the world, that the only truth was baseness and self-seeking.

I went on for far too long; I spoke in anger, resenting the world and my place in it.

But when, at last, I had finished, she placed a comforting hand on my forearm and said gently, ‘All this I understand, Marcus my dear.

You are not the first to think this, nor will you be the last. And it is true that a man who is intent on finding ugliness will not need to search for long. But is that really the only truth?’

I shrugged. ‘I look about me and that is what I see: men who are no better than beasts, who walk on two feet instead of four, and snatch at what they desire like starvelings at a feast.’

‘You are talking to me of man’s place in the world, yet you tell me he is the worst you can conceive. Is all else a dream then?’

‘What else is there?’ I said sulkily.

She sat back and regarded me with irony in her eyes.

‘What then?’ I said.

‘Look to what you love.’

Our eyes met.

‘Yes, indeed, my dear. That is your guide. It is there you will find your proof that man is more than you describe.’

She paused, and with her finger stirred the bubbling water of the pond. The spreading lilies bobbed their petalled flowers at me. Then she smiled softly; not mockingly, but wise and knowing.

Lightly she said, ‘I hear, too, that our friend Lucius has been making something of a scene.’

I sank my head in my hands. ‘Truly, Pasithea, nothing escapes you. Do you have eyes even in the palaistra, where no women go?’

She laughed. ‘Nothing so mysterious. The boxing-master is a friend.’

‘Even you have heard about it then?’

‘Who has not? It is all round the city.’

It was worse than I thought. I shuddered, remembering the things Lucius had called me. ‘It is a great humiliation,’ I said, blushing to my ears.

‘For Lucius, yes. But you have no reason to be ashamed. Nor does Menexenos. Every person with a shred of taste knows the truth, that he would not concern himself with an uncouth sot like that. Lucius thinks he is free, because he takes what he wants. But now he has found something he cannot take – not for money, nor persuasion, nor threats. I doubt he has ever experienced such a thing before.’

I sat forward and pressed my knuckles to my eyes. ‘I should go away. Menexenos is disgusted at me. I know it. You did not hear what Lucius said.’

‘It does not matter. Anyway, the boxing-master gave me a good enough report, and, believe me, I have heard worse . . . But why are you so troubled? Is it that it is a lie, or that it is true?’

I jerked my head up. ‘It is a lie of course! How can you think otherwise?’

She smiled. ‘Menexenos has beauty enough to draw husbands from their wives. There is many a young hetaira who would be only too pleased to entertain him, if only he would have her.’ She raised her cup and glanced at me over the rim, adding, ‘And many a youth too, I daresay, though you would know more about that than I.’

‘Oh no, Pasithea!’ I cried. ‘You do not understand. It is not like that. It is true that I have seen him, and he has been kind enough to show me something of Tarentum, and made me feel at home. But there is no more than that.’

She sat back, regarding me.

‘You fear your desires,’ she said eventually.

I knew I was blushing. My ears were burning. I wanted to hide my face. But I owed her more than that, so I looked back at her. ‘I have seen what desire does to a man,’ I said.

‘If you despise the glutton, do you therefore turn away from food? No, Marcus, you do not. And nor can you banish desire: it is part of your very soul. So you must learn to know it, and master it, and let your reason guide it. There are many good things that the young have, but always they lack one thing . . .’

She paused, until I said, ‘What thing?’

‘The god says, “Know yourself”.’

‘Easy to say,’ I answered frowning. ‘But hard to do.’

‘I did not say it was easy. But it is necessary. Come now, Marcus.

The truth is written all over you. There is something in our souls that knows when it has found what it seeks. You know it, but you will not acknowledge it. Must you let it slip away?’ She raised her hand and continued, ‘But I shall say no more, or you will be cross with me.