The Boat of Fate (11 page)

But such excitements, though not uncommon, barely relieved the tedium of my days. I had not come to Rome to work on sewers, aqueducts and the frames of beds. Certainly I could have changed my lot rapidly enough by joining the army as an ordinary soldier; the Empire was so hard-pressed for men that even Senators had been paying gold to avoid the conscription of their slaves. Marcus stopped me. ‘I didn’t waste all those years on you,’ he said once, ‘to see you thrown away in some scuffle with a pack of yelling savages. You’re in Rome, you’re in a good position to get a commission eventually; until you can make the proper contacts you’ll just have to be patient. In the meantime you’re learning a trade that’s going to be useful to you later on, whether you believe it or not.’ One night I pointed out, bitterly, that my life was my own and he couldn’t stop me doing what I liked with it. ‘Maybe not,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘but I’d have a damned good try.’

I knew perfectly well when he was serious and when he was not; and he was in deadly earnest. After that there was nothing more to be said; I owed him too much to disregard his wishes and despite the disappointment I knew he was talking sense. However, the business was soon to be driven wholly from my mind, for I met Julia.

Winters in Rome are miserable. Icy winds hoot and whine through the streets; citizens, from freedmen to Senators, are muffled and bad-tempered; everybody one meets seems to have a streaming cold or worse, every building one enters is filled with the throat-catching stink of braziers. Funeral processions wind through the Forum, noisy with trumpets and flutes; the only folk who thrive are monumental masons and undertakers. In contrast, summers in the city are baking hot.

The air lies motionless, stifling and thick as a blanket; beneath it the place roars sullen as a hive of wasps. You live with the reek of sewers and garbage-choked gutters; the river falls, baring banks of stinking mud; even the baths bring no relief. They are crammed and noisy, the water warm as soup and tasting of sweat. My first summer in Rome was the hottest Latium had known for years, and tempers rose accordingly. Pointless fights broke out in the streets, running battles with clubs and knives. Once a man was stabbed in our own boarding house. We never found out the rights of the matter; he fled groaning and crying, leaving a thin mulberry-coloured trail, was gone into Subura before the watch could be called. I often wondered whether he lived or died.

Winter and summer, we suffered the nightly thunder of the traffic. Each day, towards sunset, carriages and heavy waggons would begin to line up at the gates. With the last of the light, they burst into Rome like a flood. All produce bound east on the Via Tiburtina, or south into Campania, must pass from Tiberside through the heart of the city; and each driver is obsessed by the urge to get ahead and stay ahead, at any cost. Nobody will give way; collisions and injuries are commonplace, while it’s more than your life is worth to walk along some of the narrower streets. Whips crack, muleteers curse, the din from the iron-shod wheels beats forwards and back between the house fronts. From midnight onwards the wild pace slackens, there might even be an hour or two of quiet; but well before dawn the charge begins again in reverse, empty waggons careering through the streets, racing to reach the western gates before first light. Mixed with them come the raedae and carrucae of the wealthy, back from their all-night feasts, each massive carriage with its train of linkmen and slaves. Chariots, driven with maniac disregard, clatter and bound, horses plunge and neigh. Juvenal once observed that sleep is expensive in Rome; I realised, turning and tossing night after night and waiting for the dawn, just how sardonic had been the poet’s wit. Sleep is impossible, except maybe for the dead.

Springtime alone is a delight. The trees in the many gardens burst into their first fresh green; fountains sparkle in the streets; the air strikes fresh and warm. It was on such a fine spring morning, in my second year in Rome, that I crossed the Tiber on an errand for my uncle. Of late, Lucullus had come to rely on me more and more. I was literate, which was more than could be said for any of the slaves; Abinnaeus could read and write, of course, but he had grown too frail and awkward-humoured to do much more than sit and mumble at his desk. As a result I was frequently charged with duties in and about the city, an arrangement that suited me admirably.

On this particular occasion the job was a simple one, a matter of quotation for the supply of lead piping for a villa extension west of the river. I found my destination, the home of the Senator Julius Petronius Gratianus, without difficulty. It was a huge place, occupying a commanding position that overlooked on the one side the whole panorama of Rome, on the other the slopes of Vatican and the distant outlines of the Alban hills. I presented my estimates, spent half an hour haggling with the Senator’s Greek secretary before taking my leave and heading back down towards the city.

On the way I walked for some distance alongside the wall that enclosed the grounds. Beside it trees and shrubs had grown up over the years, some to considerable height. I was passing one such clump when I heard a sound I had not heard for a long, long time: the faint, unmistakable whirr of a javelin in flight, followed by the thunk as it struck home. I waited, curiously. In a few moments the sound came again; this time I saw the shaft briefly, glinting in the sunlight, before it plunged from sight at the base of the wall.

I was intrigued. Beside me the nearest of the trees promised easy access. I ran to it impulsively, hauled myself into the branches, climbed till I could see above the wall. I parted the foliage and peered down.

Immediately below me was a stretch of smooth grass, neatly scythed and emerald-green. A few yards from the wall stood a graceful summerhouse; beyond it a screen of bushes hid the little nook from sight of the house. In front of them, thirty or forty paces away, was a girl. I stared at her, and felt my jaw slowly sag.

She was tall, slimly and exquisitely proportioned, and almost wholly naked. Her breasts, high and firm, were concealed by a band of soft leather; another, tied at the sides with thongs, barely covered her loins. Her dark hair, bound by a fillet, had partially escaped; she had thrown the javelin down and was tossing a ball high in the air, running and jumping to catch it as it fell.

Mine was, I suppose, a classic case of love at first sight. In my whole life up to that point I had found little time for women, excepting one; now it seemed on the instant I matured. Dizzying prospects spun in my brain while my senses, rendered preternaturally acute, recorded every detail of the scene. I heard her bare feet whisper on the grass; I saw how her arms and shoulders gleamed with sweat, how above her navel was a little dimple and crease of skin, like the lid above an eye; how the tiny drawers sagged low across her belly, tightened by the sweet thrusting of the Mount of Venus. My body reacted at the sight; I could, to be totally frank, have shafted her on the spot. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us if I had.

She had dropped the ball now and was playing with a little dumb-bell, working all the time towards where the javelin lay in the grass. I watched, incapable of movement, till at the last instant she stooped, snatched the weapon up and threw.

A javelin, coming more or less directly at one’s head, is almost invisible. I saw the quick flexing of the shaft in flight, the glint of sunlight running along it, before I lost my hold and fell precipitately from the tree. Above me the spear whispered through the branches and was gone. I sat up to find the vision standing over me, breasts heaving, hands on her bare white hips. I wheezed and coughed, at a loss for words.

‘I shall call my father’s men,’ she said disgustedly, ‘and have you executed, or your eyes poked out for prying. Who are you?’

I somehow stammered out my name and business. She laughed spitefully, but what she would have said was never revealed. A voice called from the direction of the house; she turned anxiously, then stooped to seize my wrist. The touch of her fingers shocked, like fire and ice combined. ‘Quick,’ she said. ‘Into the summerhouse, keep down out of sight. If they find you here there really will be trouble.’

Under the circumstances I would have much preferred to stay sitting down, for my condition had survived the fall from the tree. However, I had no choice; I ran after her, stayed crouched in the pavilion till the slave had gone from sight. She turned from me then, seeming indifferent to my presence; she used a strigil on herself, and a towel, before picking up a wrap from the sill. She wriggled into it, hiding the glory. ‘Your eyes would certainly have fallen out of your face if you’d stared much more,’ she said; then in a softer voice, ‘Anyone would think you’d never seen a woman before.’

What pride I had left forbade me from pointing out that I had not. Not in that state at least. I looked down, tongue-tied once more, and saw between my fingers how the mosaic floor of the building repeated the motif of dancing girls, each clad as she had been clad in narrow bands of leather. ‘I copied them,’ she said. ‘I have two more costumes like the one you saw. I like to feel the sun and air on my body when I exercise; do you think that’s wrong?’

I could only shake my head. She stared at me, and smiled. She had an oddly sweet smile; to me it seemed to light her face, making it like the face of a child. ‘Sit where you are,’ she said, ‘Sergius Paullus from Hispania, while I fetch us something to eat and drink. After all, you’ve had rather a nasty shock. I’m sorry about the spear; but you did really ask for it, sitting up there staring and peering like a great stupid crow. Don’t go away now.’ And she was up, running across the grass, giving me last tantalising glimpses of rounded calves and thighs.

She was back in a few minutes, dressed more normally and carrying a tray with fruit, bread and milk. We ate informally, she lounging on the mosaic, watching up at me from the tails of her eyes. She told me she was an only child, and frequently lonely, although her father was a great Senator and lived in a palace. She asked me about my own life; I tried to describe my little room in Subura, fell silent when she wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, Sergius,’ she said, ‘I’ve never met a boy like you, so shy and sweet. It would be so nice if you could see me again and talk, just as we have today.’

The blood rushed to my head at the very thought. I stammered that I would indeed come again, if only she wished; that I would come every day. She smiled at that, then instantly looked thoughtful. ‘I can’t always promise to be here,’ she said. ‘Not at any particular time, I mean. Mummy’s so
helpless
, I have to see to practically everything about the house. And you have your work, of course, which makes things worse; I’m afraid it’s almost impossible.’

I would have answered that for a mere sight of her I would camp day and night beside the wall, but the words stuck in my throat. Before I could think of anything else she sat up alarmed, opening her eyes and mouth wide. She rose quickly, stood staring through the bushes towards the house. ‘I
think
, she said, ‘I
think
my father’s home. You must go now; but please don’t let anyone see you or I shall get into an awful row.’ I ran to the wall, leaped, and scrambled into the tree. She called after me. ‘Do try and come again,’ she said. ‘I can’t promise to be here. But I will try, honestly. Goodbye.’ She stooped to pick up the ball, then set off, running swiftly and gracefully over the grass.

I was late back at my uncle’s office, but for once his railing fell on deaf ears. In truth I barely heard him. In front of my eyes there floated a luscious ghost. I saw her face again, the darkness of her lashes and hair, the full mouth; I remembered the dress she had worn, the slim gold belt that circled it, how the fabric pulled in little creases round the fullness of her breasts. There was room in my mind for nothing else, nothing at all. I walked through the city that night, hardly knowing where I went. The sun, sinking below the huge bulk of Palatine, touched the sea of roofs with gold, while within the light Julia still danced, shadowy in the brilliant dusk. I watched the nightly rush of waggons into the town, stood above the Tiber to see how the lights of the farther shore sent long disturbed dancing spears into the water.
Julia
, my mind sang,
Julia
.... A woman crossed the bridge, walking alone; I thought it was her, but it was not. Her hair, escaping from the fillet, swung and mocked me; I saw her belly again, the delicious blemish of her navel, startling as a blow. The breeze touched my face, smells of the city mingling with the freshness of night air; while the barges moved upstream, driven by sweeps against the slow, full current, each hull starting a vee of ripples that, broadening, flashed back the light before losing themselves in the shadow-confusion of the banks. Rome roared behind me, or sang; I walked on again to where I could once more see her father’s house dim against the sky, the roof that sheltered her. I drank wine in a tavern then, well content; that the loveliest girl I had seen had given me drink and food, and asked me to come to her again.

Marcus viewed me with suspicion when I finally reached home. I answered his questions lightheartedly, secure in my secret joy. At night, lying on my bed, the visions returned; I lay silent and dreamy, wrapped in the wonder of what I had found, while the traffic rumbled and crashed up from Subura, shaking the walls with its din. An hour before first light I rose and dressed, ran to see the early market stalls put out their wares. The shadowy doorways, windows from which women beckoned and watched, deserted now, seemed invested with mystery; I sang and laughed, knowing that far across the river Julia lay sleeping or awake, that her breasts rose and fell with the steadiness of breathing, that maybe--my mind was drugged with love--maybe she touched herself beneath the sheets, touched the pricking secret warmth and thought of me. While the first street cries sounded, Subura woke--a part of it, assuredly, had never slept--while the light flushed in the sky and grew and sought the zenith and all Rome waited, poised for the new day. I took home crisp miracles of lettuce and fresh vegetables, new milk and eggs and bread; rough, edible, dark sunlight in the crust of it and flesh. I felt the air against me, liquid coldness rolling on throat and arms, the cobbles under my feet; while strangeness of light and form awaited me at every turn of the reborn, brightening streets. So God must have felt, on that seventh glowing dawn, looking down on his new world.