Of Merchants & Heros Page 7

  I lifted the lid, and pulled out a fine white tunic with a border worked in green and scarlet, and held it up to look at it. It was better than anything else I possessed.

  ‘Fine work,’ nodded Caecilius, rubbing it with his short, thick fingers. ‘Milesian wool. It would be hard to find such quality even at the best shops in Rome.’ And then, glancing up and giving me a sharp look, ‘This Titus, it is said, likes all things Greek. You are not a bad-looking lad, despite your scarred leg. Make sure you watch yourself at this party of his.’

  Thus, in his expert way, he added vinegar to the wine. I pretended I did not know what he meant, but no doubt my reddening face betrayed my understanding. I had received a gift from a friend, nothing more. But all things, for him, had to have a base motive; and until he had uncovered it he was not content.

  Titus’s dinner-party was indeed very Greek – elegant supper-couches of polished wood and striped, silk cushions; a flautist in the corner, playing a Lydian air; a dinner service of antique silverware, and, upon it, a varied meal of small exquisite portions – Sicilian sucking kid, honeyed fowl scattered with sesame, spiced fish wrapped in delicate pastries – all perfectly prepared and served by well-trained staff.

  When I arrived I asked after Caeso the praetor.

  ‘He is in bed, and will not be joining us,’ said Titus. ‘His wound is troubling him. At last he is heeding his doctor’s advice and resting.’

  He led me in among the couches, introducing me to his friends.

  There were two Romans about Titus’s age, called Villius and Terentius; there was a young tribune from the garrison; and there were two Greeks from Tarentum, who were something to do with the city government.

  I greeted all these people. But the person who drew my eye was seated on the couch of honour next to Titus’s place. It was all I could do not to stare at her in wonder. She must have been well over forty, but she held herself like some exquisite work of art, and was as graceful as the haunting, gentle music coming from the alcove. She wore a silk robe of the darkest blue, worked around the edges with gold filigree; her chestnut hair was bound up and plaited, and held in place with a gilded brooch fashioned in the shape of a swallow. I knew enough by now to realize that she was a courtesan. But from her presence, you might have supposed she was a queen among her subjects.

  She had been speaking to one of the other guests, but as Titus led me to her couch her dark eyes flashed up. They were painted with just a hint of colour. Her look was deep and intelligent and appraising. Titus said, ‘This is my friend Pasithea. I have set you beside her.’

  She smiled up at me.

  ‘So you are the brave young man who fought off the Carthaginians. I have been looking forward to meeting you.’

  I made some shy answer. I felt like some rustic lout, who finds himself in the presence of a goddess.

  But she had made it her business and her art to know how to put a man at his ease; and soon, with a few words, a look, a gesture – I could not tell quite how she did it – she made me forget my awkwardness and think only of her.

  I relaxed, and began to enjoy myself.

  Titus, that evening, was sharing his supper-couch with a girl called Xanthe. She too was a courtesan, as were all the women there; but I could see they were also firm friends, who enjoyed each other’s conversation as much as each other’s bodies. Now and then, with a scarcely conscious movement, she would touch his arm or hand or leg as she talked, or turn her blue-painted eyes to him and smile.

  She was aware of her body, and its effect. But there was nothing crude or distasteful or grasping. Her laughter was like dewdrops, her manners faultless. She was an artist, and one look at Pasithea showed who had been her teacher.

  Titus’s friend Villius was on the couch nearest mine, and while we ate he told me he had recently come from Rome, and had known Titus since they were both boys. He praised my home town of Praeneste, saying he had visited the shrine of Fortuna there; and for a while we talked of home, and places we knew in common.

  Later, Titus spoke of Tarentum. It was his uncle’s wish to restore self-government to the city; he was trying to persuade the Senate in Rome to agree. The good people – the aristocrats, the men of education – had never supported Hannibal, and in his view many men had been unfairly dispossessed in the chaos following the siege.

  The time had come, he said, to put right this injustice and make Tarentines not subjects of Rome, but friends and allies.

  As I listened I thought of Caecilius, and how little this would please him. I was glad the praetor was not there, for it spared me from putting to him Caecilius’s embarrassing requests for business, which, in such company, would have shamed me beyond reason.

  Later, when the guests stood and mingled, Pasithea asked me how I was enjoying the city and what I had seen.

  I had assumed, up to now, that she was Tarentine herself, but she said that, though she had been in the city for some time, and had a number of friends here, she had come from Greece.

  ‘From Athens?’ I asked, imagining her home in some such great and sophisticated city.

  She laughed pleasantly and dipped her eyes. ‘No, my dear. I grew up in a little place called Abydos. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.’

  In fact I had, and told her so, for it was a city Caecilius often mentioned, lying as it did on the shipping route from Greece to the Black Sea, where his ships sometimes put in. I asked her why she had left.

  ‘Oh, it was so dull.’ She leant over and laid a hand on my arm.

  Her touch was light, yet full of feeling. I caught a hint of the scent she wore; it was delicate and bright, like springtime air, with a hidden depth that lured the senses. ‘You know, when I was a girl, I used to think it was just that I was easily bored. Have you ever felt that way, Marcus? But after I had visited Korinth and Athens, I realized it was not me, it was Abydos.’

  She rolled her eyes, and I laughed, as she had intended. She laughed with me, and her gold earrings flickered in the lamplight.

  ‘And so,’ she continued, ‘I left, and went to Korinth, that most delightful of cities. Have you been? Oh, how I adored it after Abydos! I still do. Parties, friends, theatre, music; and always something new to stimulate the mind. I have a little house there on the Kenchreai road, with a pretty garden. But I like to travel, and of course I have friends everywhere.’

  She talked on, telling me about places in Tarentum I should visit, asking about my fight with the Carthaginians, and a little about my life before I came (though not much of that – I think Titus had warned her). She made me laugh; she made me wish to know her better; she drew me out of my shell and made me feel alive.

  As I sat, my tunic hem had ridden up a little, as tunics do.

  Without thinking I eased it back down, to hide my scar. It had become something I did.

  No one noticed, or so I thought.

  But a little later Pasithea placed her hand to my thigh and with a gentle tap said, ‘It is a mark of honour. No decent person could think otherwise. Do not cheapen it by being ashamed.’

  She was full of such acts of attentive kindness. This one, when I was young and vulnerable, I have never forgotten.

  I had heard talk, even in quiet, backward Praeneste, of these famous Greek courtesans, for the boys who had been my childhood friends used to whisper about them, and speculate. Knowing no better, I had assumed they must be like the rough whores that lived in the alleyways behind the market there, who catered for the goatherds and cattlemen when they brought their livestock up from the hills to be sold.

  I realized now how wrong I was. Pasithea had a mind as sharp as a barber’s blade, and wit to go with it. So did Xanthe. The Greeks called them hetairas, which means companion; and that is what they were. Whatever they gave, they gave freely. They did not demean themselves by asking for payment, or announcing a fee. They merely accepted a gift, offered freely by those they counted as their friends.

  They were women who had chosen to be their own masters,
and if there was a cost to such freedom, they were prepared to pay it.

  I returned my attention to the conversation around me. Titus was asking Villius about the elections in Rome, which had recently taken place.

  ‘Scipio was there,’ said Villius. ‘He was canvassing, and putting himself about among the people. Fabius spoke against him, of course. So did—’ and here he named a number of senior men in Rome, men from ancient and powerful families.

  ‘What did they say?’ asked Titus.

  Villius shrugged. ‘The same as always. They say Scipio should make peace, if peace is offered. They are tired of war.’

  Titus turned to me. ‘You see, Marcus; it is as I was telling you.’

  And then, to Villius, ‘By the gods, we are all tired of war. But being tired of war will not turn away our enemies. Now, at last, after so many years, Carthage is at the point of defeat, and these old men want to pull back, like dogs that bark but will not bite. We made the mistake once before, and they came back, even stronger, and many men have died. No,’ he said, with an angry gesture, ‘if we ignore them now, they will be back when our attention is elsewhere, and next time we may not be so fortunate. The gods do not grant luck to fools. It is not so long ago that Hannibal was camped at the very gates of Rome. Do they forget so soon?’

  Villius laughed. Something of a silence had fallen, and he broke it saying, ‘Well I see you haven’t changed. But you know what your father would say.’

  ‘Oh, him!’ said Titus with a dismissive wave. He drew his breath, and I thought he was going to say more. But in the end he just shook his head and took up his wine-cup. Beside him Xanthe made some light comment. He turned to her, and for a while the conversation changed.

  But presently Villius said, ‘While I was in Rome I saw Lucius.

  They have quarrelled again, he and your father.’

  Titus paused. For an instant, such a look of anger clouded his features that Xanthe, who had been resting her hand on his, took it hurriedly away.

  With a quick apologetic smile he took it back and held it in his own broad hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault.’ And then, to Villius, ‘They always quarrel. That is what Father does best. Lucius needs to get away. I shall write to him again and ask him to come.

  He is my brother, after all, whatever his faults, and I must do what I can.’

  The tables were cleared. A dancer came on, a lithe dark-skinned Greek boy from Tyre, who danced to the accompaniment of pan- pipes and a lute. Xanthe, who was sitting on the other side of me, was asking in wide-eyed curious tones about Rome, which she seemed to regard as a fearsome barbarous place, far distant and never to be visited, like the lands of the painted Kelts, or the Hyperboreans. We were speaking lightly, and laughing. The dancer, naked but for his loincloth, moved in the lamplight; the pipes played their prancing melody. Then, like a sudden ice-wind on a summer’s day, from across the room I heard a name that made me jerk my head around and stare.

  One of Titus’s friends, one of the Greeks, was talking about King Philip, king of the Macedonians. But it was not the sound of Philip’s name that jolted me. It was Dikaiarchos’s.

  Titus saw me stiffen and look.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Do you know this man?’

  I said, ‘I shall never forget, and one day I shall kill him.’

  I had not intended to say this. But now the words were out, and so, with everyone’s eyes on me, I explained why.

  When I had finished, Titus’s friend – his name was Mimas – said, ‘Well I am sorry. If you ask me, we are all going to hear a lot more of him.’

  I asked him why.

  ‘He has been seizing Roman grain ships, and nothing is more likely to draw the Senate’s attention than that. Everyone says Philip is behind it, though he denies it of course. But he and Dikaiarchos are guest-friends.’ He raised his black brows, and with a smiling glance about the room added, ‘There are some, indeed, who say they were once lovers . . . But however that may be, they are certainly thick as thieves. You should keep your eye on them, Titus. Scipio won glory by driving Hannibal from Italy. What could be nobler than freeing Greece from under the heel of that bully Philip?’

  Titus stroked the soft boyish beard on his chin. He took up his cup, and his blue eyes shone. I remember that moment, not only for my own sake, but because I saw the end, and what became of it. I have often wondered, after, whether this was the beginning.

  The party broke up soon after.

  While I stood on the porch outside, waiting for the torch-bearers, Pasithea came up and kissed my brow.

  ‘Be sure to come and visit me,’ she said, as if it were only me that had made the whole evening worthwhile. ‘Anyone knows where I live.

  I’ll send my boy with a note.’

  Then the torch-bearer came, and she went off across the garden and under the arch, the goldwork in her long sweeping dress catching in the light from the cressets as she moved.

  FOUR

  SPRING CAME. PRIMROSES SHOWED on the slopes among the cypresses, and the port, which had been quiet for the winter, grew busy once more.

  My stepfather had gone out early, down to the harbour with Florus and Virilis. I was in the garden when I heard from within a great commotion of shouting and rushing of feet. Then Caecilius appeared on the step. He looked as if he had run all the way up the hill from the marketplace. His face was red and blotchy, his breath labouring.

  ‘He’s dead!’ he cried, throwing up his hands. ‘He’s dead!’

  Florus appeared beside him in the doorway, and then Virilis, both of them eager-faced and full of moment.

  ‘Who is dead?’

  ‘Why, the praetor!’ cried Caecilius, staring at me as if I were an idiot. ‘Caeso! He died less than an hour ago, with the dawn. It’s all over the market.’

  ‘But his wounds were healing.’

  ‘Maybe he caught a chill – who can say? But anyway he is dead.

  You must go with your condolences . . . Make sure it is noticed. Go and change those clothes – hurry! Go now, while the news is fresh, before the crowds arrive.’

  I changed my clothes and made my way to the praetor’s house.

  The crowds were already there – flatterers, opportunists, sycophants, men on the make, all of them full of eager showy grief. I left again without speaking to anyone.

  The next we heard was that Titus had stepped in, assuming the imperium from his uncle. He had been doing the governor’s work already; and in due course the Senate, with its eyes fixed elsewhere on the war with Carthage, approved it.

  During this time, Titus was much occupied with the affairs of government, and I with my stepfather’s business. I had not seen him for a while. But one morning I was returning from some errand, and was passing by the gardens of the sanctuary of the Dioskouroi, which, just then, were heavy with almond blossom, when I saw him, standing with his back to me, close to the gateway that leads out to the marketplace.

  It was early, and the stallholders were still setting up. I was rather surprised to see Titus there. It was not his habit to dawdle around the market, and, though he did not go about town with a formal retinue, which he said the Tarentines would resent, nevertheless he would usually have two or three friends with him.

  I crossed along the portico to greet him. As I drew near I sensed there was something about him not quite right. His hair was the same, falling in brown tufts about his neck. But he held himself oddly, as if he were tired or ill. Or – it came to me even as I spoke his name – drunk. But that could not be. Titus never allowed himself to get stumbling drunk anywhere, let alone in the public marketplace.

  He turned and stared into my face with cold unfocused eyes. I felt a chill down my spine. It is a strange unsettling thing not to be recognized by a man you count as a friend.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he said harshly.

  And then realization dawned.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ he said. ‘Do you lack eyes to see?’

  I spl
uttered out an apology.

  ‘Then look and remember,’ he said, unforgiving. ‘I am not Titus. I am Lucius.’

  So Lucius has come then, I thought to myself as I hurried away.

  And then it came to me where he had emerged from. It was the alley behind the portico, where the rough taverns were, the ones that open at dawn to cater for the market traders, and for men who cannot get through the morning without a cup of wine.

  I regretted my mistake. I hoped, when I next saw him, I would be able to make a better apology. But I did not dwell on it, for just then something closer to home had begun to trouble me.

  It had started towards the end of winter, and at first I did not credit what I saw. It was a habit from my childhood to rise each day with first light. One morning I was in the garden alone, sitting on the bench beside the wall, when I saw a girl flitting along the portico.

  She paused by a column, ran her fingers through her hair and straightened her mantle, then, with a quick look about her, darted up the steps and into the inner hall. She had not seen me. There was a spreading jasmine that grew up the side of the house. It had concealed me from her view.

  I sat back and smiled to myself, and at the time thought little of it, supposing she was some friend of one of the slaves. My stepfather forbade such visits. She was leaving before he awoke.

  But when one looks, one notices. A few mornings later I saw her again. She was less discreet this time, more sure of herself. Once again she paused to arrange her clothes, and this time I took a better look at her. She had thick black hair, and wore a cheap necklace of copper and glass beads. The strap of her shoe was troubling her, and as she snatched at it with her fingers a sharp shrewish expression passed across her features. She had the look of a Phoenician or Sicilian, a thin face with a pointed chin; one saw many of them in Tarentum, especially at the port.

  When she disappeared inside I followed, and from the porch saw her exit through the main gateway and hurry off down the street, keeping to the side, out of the light. I returned to the inner garden, and this time followed the direction from which she had first emerged. At the far end of the portico, concealed behind a clump of oleander, was a doorway in the wall, and beyond an open passageway which ran along the back of the house, strewn with dead leaves. At the far end, at the top of a flight of stone steps, was a back door to my stepfather’s sleeping-suite. The girl’s footprints showed in the dust.