Roman Dusk

PART II Chapter 3

Most of the north wall had fallen, leaving charred rubble strewn into what small portions of the house remained standing. The front door, burnt and askew on its hinges, revealed the street beyond where two Urban Guards stood watch while Melidulci made her way through the ruins, Sanct-Franciscus at her side, a large basket slung over his shoulder on a broad leather strap; the intense heat of early afternoon and the pervasive odor of scorching provided uncomfortable reminders of the fire.
"I know I said I wanted to take some of my things with me, but now ..." Her disconsolate gesture finished her thought for her.
"Would you prefer to leave?" Sanct-Francisus offered, aware that nothing of value remained here.
She shook her head. "No. Not yet; I have to look," was her dazed response as she walked a short distance away from him, puzzling out what had been there only a few days ago. "That was my bed-chamber, just over there," she said, pointing toward the destruction on her right. "With the window opening in that direction. The apple trees all burned. Nothing is left of the garden. Not even the bake-house is standing. And they found Nyssa's body, didn't they?"
At the mention of Natalis' cousin, Sanct-Franciscus pressed his lips to a thin line. "Yes."
"You are certain it was she?" Melidulci looked strained.
"Oh, yes. The corpse was nothing but blackened bones, but there was a ring on her finger which held a cracked opal. Natalis identified it as hers. They-the Urban Guards-believe she hid in the pantry, hoping the bricks would protect her."
"They didn't," said Melidulci bluntly. "Nothing would have saved her."
"No," he said, remembering the look of engulfing sorrow that Natalis gave him when he realized his cousin was dead. "I have arranged for her burial, beyond the Porta Caelinus, in a simple boxtomb."
"Most Romans wouldn't do so much as that. They would arrange for the body to be carried outside the city walls and put in one of the charnel pits for dead slaves and poor men." She studied him. "Do you do this for me or for your servant?"
"For myself, and for the two of you." He caught sight of something in the rubble and bent to pick it up, rubbing the small gold object with his thumb before dropping it into the basket. "It is part of my touching that you so deplore." There was no condemnation in his observation, only a kind of desolation that was revealed in the depths of his dark eyes.
"For the same reason you will permit me to stay at your villa for many months, if I wish to." Her lower lip quivered.
"Yes," he said. "I understand how keenly you feel your loss; I wish to provide what succor I may."
"Do you?" She looked over at him, tears welling in her eyes. "I should think you would not, after your ... But you are an exile, so perhaps ... This is all so much changed."
"The floor is largely intact," said Sanct-Franciscus gently.
"The tiles are ruined. You can see the heating channels where the flooring buckled; all useless now," she responded. "The holocaust will have to be rebuilt if any house is to stand here. Everything will have to be rebuilt, on a stronger foundation-this one cracked." She sighed. "What will the next house be like, I wonder?"
"It is likely to be the same as yours," Sanct-Franciscus said. "Enough of the foundation remains intact to be built on. The shape of the house is clear if you-"
"If I what? If I imagine what my house was?" She began to cry, her sobs more like coughs than keening. Her hands were gathered into fists and though the heat was sodden, nothing could stem the emotion that poured from her more exhaustingly than sweat. "I hate this! I wanted to be safe here! That's why I came here! This house was supposed to be safe."
"It is a sad thing that you have lost your house," said Sanct-Franciscus, trying to number the dwellings he had lost since he had come to his undead life, more than two thousand years ago. Each recollection had a pain of its own, and his heart went out to her, knowing what her deprivation meant to her: to live away from the lupanar had been a brave decision, and now she feared that she had done it all for naught. Approaching her carefully, he reached for her hands.
"I'm not crying for grief," she said as her fingers tightened on his. "I'm not!" She blinked hard, twice, then added, "I'm crying because I'm angry."
He believed it. "With good reason," he told her.
She glared at the destruction around her. "The Urban Guard told me that gangs of humiliora, and worse-gangs of robbers-were looting the place before the embers were out. The Urban Guard regretted that so much was lost, but they had other fires to attend to, more dangerous than this one. They lost nineteen houses on Mid-Summer Eve." She stared at the fallen wall, saying musingly, "They had too many fires everywhere in the city to spare men to guard what had been burnt."
He continued to hold her hands. "You needn't make up your mind at once, Melidulci. You may remain at my villa outside the walls for as long as it suits you to stay there. No one would expect you to make up your mind about something so major as going to Misenum to live while you are still assuaging your losses here; I hope you do not feel compelled to commit yourself quickly, for that could bring about disappointment. I ask you to be sure of what you want to do: you may decide that you wish to stay here instead of going to Misenum." The coastal city near Neapolis was an odd choice, but one Melidulci was intent upon.
"I expect a swift decision of me! I have to make up my mind, not flounder like a bird with a broken wing," she responded sharply, sniffing to stop her tears and pulling her hands free. "I must find a place where I no longer fear every sound in the night. Your villa is pleasant, and your slaves and servants most attentive, but it is still your villa, and I am beholden to you for extending your hospitality to me."
"You make it sound as if housing you were a burden," he said, feeling a pang of sadness.
"It must be, if not at present, then in time." She looked away from him. "You will grow bored, or annoyed, or you wish to extend your ... kindness to someone else. I know what men are, and I know you will not always want my presence, let alone my company."
"I have told you before I am not like most men," he said, almost serenely.
"You are not that unlike most men," she said. "You say you seek more from me than I have provided, for you want more involvement than sweet pleasures bring. In time, that will be less acceptable than you claim it is now." She frowned. "Then you will be relieved to have me gone."
"I doubt that would happen, Melidulci; I cannot force you to experience anything that does not gratify you," he said, knowing it was useless, that she had already begun to pull away from him.
She shook her head and wiped away her tears, leaving tracks of soot on her cheeks. "You need not continue to shelter me, even if you are able to. I would rather part now and continue to be friends than remain and become as tolerated as a dependent. I don't ask that support of you. I don't expect it."
He said nothing for a short while, then said, as he stared around them, "There isn't much left, is there?"
"No, not much," she said, her eyes starting to shine with tears again. "And if nothing is left, why should I bother to try to recover it? Anything worth saving has already been picked clean." She scuffed her foot on the blackened floor. "This was such a pleasant place."
"Ah," said Sanct-Franciscus. "You anticipate more trouble."
"Don't you?" Her eyes widened.
"I know it may be possible that there will be more disorder in the city," he said as calmly as he could. "So long as the Emperor comports himself as he does, there will be unrest among his people. If he neglects them further, they will grow ungovernable, and that would be an invitation to chaos."
"He! care for his people!" she jeered.
"He is Caesar," Sanct-Franciscus reminded her, his voice low. "His good-will is important to all those living in the Empire."
"His mother's good-will, you mean; she is the one who is Caesar, not her capricious boy," said Melidulci.
"And his grandmother's good-will. Mother and son depend upon the grandmother," said Sanct-Franciscus, and fell silent as he saw that Melidulci was not interested.
"It's useless. All of this is useless." She stood very still, her burnished hair hanging around her shoulders, limp and almost straight; her long, bronze-linen tunica clung to her where her body was wet, its hem darkened by the ash around them. "I am so tired," she said at last, her body drooping to punctuate her words.
"Then shall I appoint some of my household to come here and search for small items, or-"
"No." She held up her hands and wiped her face. "No, let it all go-all of it."
"Then if you will allow me-" He indicated the Urban Guards. "I will inform them that we are leaving."
"Yes. Yes, if you would," she said, turning toward him. "Let us leave this place." She could not bear to call it her home any longer.
"As you wish," said Sanct-Franciscus, starting toward the remnants of the door, his step firm but not too rapid, making it possible for Melidulci to keep up with him without effort over the ash and detritus of the fire. "If you want to come back again, you may. I will be glad to bring you."
"No," she said. "What would be the use?"
He nodded to her; as he approached the Urban Guards, he said, "We are finished here." He offered four denarii to both of the men, although they were not due a commoda.
"That's very gracious of you, honestiorus," said the older of the two, taking his coins and slipping them into the wallet that hung from his belt.
"I take it you didn't find anything much," said the younger as he jingled the coins in his hand before tucking them away.
"Nothing of any value. Except this." He took the gold object from the basket and held it out to them.
"A melted lump of gold. It's worth something," said the older Guard, examining it closely.
Melidulci came and stared at the gold. "It looks something like a fish. Not the sort of thing I would wear."
"Then it isn't yours?" The Guard studied her narrowly as he put the object in her palm, as if he expected her to snatch it away from him.
"I don't recognize it," she said after a brief scrutiny; she handed it back. "I would guess that most of my jewelry is gone, and not because of the fire."
The younger Guard had the ability to show chagrin. "We have to patrol, Domina, and we don't have enough men to be everywhere."
"You should have hired private guards," said the older.
"So that I could be robbed only by the guards' associates?" Melidulci suggested, going on before either man could answer. "Oh, never mind, never mind. It doesn't matter now, does it?"
"I suppose not," said the younger, and hitched up one shoulder. "We've done what we could."
"And have been paid for it," said Melidulci, her voice dulled with indifference. "I'm done here," she added, signaling to Sanct-Franciscus. "Take me back to your villa. I don't want to linger."
Sanct-Franciscus started away to where his biga waited, two handsome mouse-colored horses with black points harnessed to the chariot. He unknotted the reins from blackened tie-post, stepped into the biga, set the nearly empty basket in the large pocket on the inside front of the vehicle, then shoved the brake-lever forward and kissed to the horses to set them moving. Drawing up next to Melidulci, he reached down to help her into the chariot. "Is there somewhere you would like to stop before we-?"
"To your villa. I need to rest. This venture has tired me. I didn't realize what an effort it would be." She blinked three times as they swung away from the wreckage of her house and turned onto the cobbled street that would take them to the Porta Viminalis. "It is good of you to do this for me."
"I am sorry that it has to be done at all," he said, maneuvering between another biga and a cart drawn by a large donkey; he pulled in to a slow walk.
"And I," she said, staring toward the roof of the building at the end of the street where slaves were working to replace charred parts of the roof. "Dangerous work they're doing."
He nodded. "Many are doing similar work, throughout the city."
"How could that young fool have allowed such ... such wildness to rule the city? Fires, and hooliganism, and more malign mischief than I would have expected of barbarians from the Dacian frontier." She shook her head, then put her hand to her lips. "I'm sorry. I keep forgetting you're from Dacia."
"But I am not a Daci; my people were gone from there well before the Daci came," he said, unperturbed; by the time the Daci had reached the Carpathians, the descendants of his people were spread through the north of the Italian peninsula. He moved his biga around the donkey-cart and started out toward the fountain-square where five streets came together.
"You don't sound like a Daci, that's why I don't remember-" she said, after giving the matter consideration. "Your Latin is excellent, if a little old-fashioned, but you have an accent, not pronounced, but still ... I've never heard one like it before-and I have heard a great many of them." She paused, giving him time to respond; when he remained silent, she went on, "That's something I do miss about leaving the lupanar. I no longer meet men from the limits of the Empire. I didn't think that would bother me, but I miss it."
"You kept many of your former Patroni, did you not? You invited them to visit you at your house?" he asked, turning toward the city gate some three hundred paces up the busy street. "You have not completely set aside the favors you have enjoyed for so long, have you?"
"Yes, I have Patroni still; but they are all Romans, and not interested in talking about the ends of the earth, unless they had some claim to glory there." A touch of cynicism made her smile brittle. "Not that they didn't talk-they did, but of other things. Most of the foreigners who came to the lupanar were eager to boast of their homes and their peoples."
"What did the Romans boast of?" Sanct-Franciscus regarded her with curiosity and a trace of amusement.
"Their prowess, mostly. Then their wealth, their power, their lineage, their sons. A few would recall their victories in the field." She sighed deeply, world-weariness making her seem ancient. "I let them talk, of course, and praised them when they succumbed to doubts, or became morose ..." Her voice trailed off, and she remained silent for a short while. "It's a terrible thing about Nyssa. She came to me for protection, and then this happened."
"You are not to blame," said Sanct-Franciscus, settling down to a place in line for the city gate.
"She was in my household. All the rest got out, slaves and freed alike. But that poor woman ..."
"As you say, it is an unfortunate thing," said Sanct-Franciscus, watching a man with a train of four mules arguing with the Praetorian at the gate. "But you did not bring her into your household with the intention that she should burn to death, did you?"
"No, of course not." She stared at him as if she feared he was mocking her; the steady gaze of his dark eyes reassured her. "She was new to the household. No one was used to her yet. So they didn't miss her until it was too late to go and look for her."
"You had others of your household who were missing for a time, did you not?"
"Yes. Three slaves were missing for almost half the night." Fidgeting with her belt, her answer was little more than a mumble.
"Understandable in the midst of such a fire," said Sanct-Franciscus, noticing that the man with the mules was finally moving through the gate.
"Yes. I know." She bit her lower lip. "It doesn't change anything in regard to Nyssa, does it?"
"Probably not," he allowed, setting his pair in motion again.
They reached the gate, answered the usual questions put to them by the Praetorians, and were about to pass on when the centurion addressed Sanct-Franciscus. "How long will you be gone from the city?"
"I should return tomorrow," said Sanct-Franciscus. "I have matters to attend to at my villa."
"So you said," the centurion conceded. "If you are not back within two days, I must report you as missing."
This was a new stricture, and Sanct-Franciscus reacted with surprise. "Why such limits, Praetorian?"
"The Emperor has decided that foreigners must not be allowed to come and go as casually as they have done before. He fears spies." The centurion pursed his lips, revealing his disapproval of the new regulation. "More work for us, of course, and policies that the people dislike, but the Emperor demands it."
"Of course," said Sanct-Franciscus, handing over the gate-toll before signaling his pair to move out.
"That seems a bit unreasonable, asking foreigners to conduct their affairs so restrictively," Melidulci said as the biga picked up speed.
Sanct-Franciscus passed an ox-drawn carpentum laden with fruit and melons bound for the Praetorian Camp, and then said, "It is another show of authority."
"Do you think so?" She held onto the rail as the biga swung past the Praetorian Camp.
"What else can it be?"
"An excuse for more taxes," said Melidulci, laughing sarcastically.
"That is part of the intent, without doubt," said Sanct-Franciscus, narrowing his eyes as he studied the road ahead. "It also provides closer accounts on the whereabouts of foreigners."
"You are too mistrustful. Heliogabalus is not so subtle as that."
"His grandmother is," said Sanct-Franciscus.
Melidulci shook her head and laid one hand on his arm. "You make it much too complicated. The Emperor has to pay for his extravagances somehow. And the company he keeps is expensive."
"His companions expect his indulgence," said Sanct-Franciscus.
"More fool he for keeping them," she said, leaning with the biga at the turn onto the drive that led to his villa. "Expensive boys are a luxury."
"Heliogabalus is an expensive boy himself," Sanct-Franciscus observed.
"My point exactly," she said. "Roma cannot afford him."
"Then you do expect trouble," said Sanct-Franciscus, pulling his pair to a walk in order to give his slaves the opportunity to open the main gate.
"Is there good reason not to?" She looked at him in disbelief.
"Expected or not, trouble tends to arrive," said Sanct-Franciscus, passing through into the courtyard where three grooms came running to take the biga in hand. He handed his reins to the nearest of the three. "See they are walked before you water them, then give them hay, a handful of grain, a handful of raisins, and a ladle of oil. Turn them out in their paddock when they've eaten." He stepped down from the chariot and held out his hand to assist Melidulci to alight.
"Yes, Dominus," said the groom holding the reins.
"I know I should thank you, and I do, but it is not sufficient for all you have done," she said, walking across the courtyard at his side. Her composure had returned and she spoke with the confident ease of a woman long used to dealing with men.
"Must I remind you that I need no thanks?" he countered lightly.
She kept on, determined to say what she had rehearsed mentally during their journey from her burned house to his villa. "And you mustn't think I don't appreciate all you're doing for me-"
"But?" he suggested kindly, crossing his threshold on his right foot, for luck; his vestibule was cool, and his native earth under the flooring gave him respite from the sun.
"But can't it be enough that we enjoy one another? I know you are convinced I can achieve more than I do. You are an accomplished lover, even given your ... incapacity, and no doubt you have found that depth you seek in other women. I revel in what you offer me. Why must you always attempt to find that greater closeness you ..." She looked about the atrium, noticing the tubs of flowers that had been moved into place in the sunlight. "I am what I am, and that may mean I lack the capacity to accomplish what you desire? Why can't you be content to bask in pleasure, like those blossoms?"
"I am not uncontent," he said, the hint of a self-deprecating smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yet I know there is more to have."
"And it disappoints you that I won't seek it with you?" she asked.
"Not disappoints-saddens, perhaps." He kept in the shadow of the roof as he made his way toward the second atrium.
She stopped, tugging at the short sleeve of his black-linen dalmatica, and turning him to face her. "But you will come to my chamber tonight, won't you?"
His smile was filled with profound loneliness and the promise of the passion she yearned for almost as much as she sought to avoid it. "Of course I will: believe this."
Text of a letter from loantius Imestius Renae at Narona in Illyricum to Rugeri of Gades in Roma, carried by commercial messenger.
To the prudent and honorable Rugeri of Gades in Roma, Ioantius Imestius Renae at Narona sends his greetings along with his annual report of the commercial activities of the Eclipse Trading Company's business in this city.
As you are no doubt aware, the continuing debasement of the denarius is still eroding Roman trade throughout the eastern half of the Empire. I, myself, have followed the instruction to conduct all the Eclipse business in aurei rather than denarii, and for that reason alone I am able to report that things are not as bleak for us as they are for many other merchants not so forehanded as honestiorus Sanct-Franciscus is. When the policy was given a year ago, I thought it was overcautious and unnecessarily stringent, but no longer: I now see that the denarii are becoming as useless as ae.
I have to report that the heavy cotton canvas ordered from Tarsus has not yet been delivered, and I have received no information as to the reason for it, although I have made repeated inquiries. Neither the weather nor the engagements of the Legions can account for it. All I have received is the assurance that the order will be filled in good time, and nothing more to explain what has transpired. I am also still awaiting news from Pergamum, where a shipment of sacking has yet to arrive; with the harvest coming, sacking will be needed, and soon.
Some say that there is unrest to the east, and many goods are being confiscated by the Legions as part of their efforts to protect the Empire. While this may be true, it is also possible that pilferage and outright theft are being tolerated now as they have not been before. The loss of value of coins has caused many to fall back on direct exchange rather than the use of money. I have seen it with farmers in the fora here, and so it seems possible that there is an inclination among the people to demand value as much as substance in all dealings. In this regard, I must mention that the aurei I have on hand will not last through the year, and if this is the standard I must maintain, I will require more gold before the winter storms begin.
I know Sanct-Franciscus dislikes the slave trade, but I ask you to implore him to consider such an undertaking for a year or two, at least until the monetary problems have ended. I have consulted a sibyl, who has predicted that wealth can be had through trading in slaves from the east, for it serves the Legions to have captives sold away from their homelands, and the value of a man or woman can be almost as certain as gold. For the sake of his trading company, Sanct-Franciscus would do well to put aside his dislike long enough to shore up his fortunes and earn the gratitude of the Legions at the same time. Other merchants are taking advantage of this state of affairs, and it would be wise if Sanct-Franciscus did, as well.
A sworn copy of my records and accounts is appended to this report, all of which I submit to you with thanks on this, the 16th day of July, in the 972nd Year of the City. May Fortuna and Neptune desert me if I speak false.
Ioantius Imestius Renae
manager of Eclipse Trading Company
at Narona, in Illyricum