Master and God

18

Faces. So many faces… So much armoured battledress. So many fit men, all reeking of cleansing oils, with wonderful teeth. Such bustle and purpose.

The prisoners shied from their colleagues. Aware of their shabbiness, lost molars, fungal skin and mental rot, the unshaven lank-haired men who had been brought out of Dacia by Diegis shrank into a tight knot, as nervous as colts.

Rehabilitation would be a brisk process. They were given the option of returning to their former units, serving in other legions in quiet provinces with only goldmines to guard, or taking their discharge. Almost all opted to continue in service, some deliberately staying on the frontier in the hope of taking some revenge. They had all sworn to be blood brothers, though undeniably they would lose touch.

Vinius requested discharge. He knew when he had reached his limit.

Domitian generally had two Praetorian Prefects, one military, one with an admin background. Replacing the slain Fuscus, here on the Danube was Casperius Aelianus. He seemed well briefed and perhaps knew of Domitian’s previous role as Vinius’ sponsor. Whether that, or simply reluctant to lose a man with good years left in him, Casperius Aelianus nagged Vinius to stay on.

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘That’s nothing. You can’t retire; you’ll need employment.’

Capitulating, Vinius demanded the vigiles. Instead, Aelianus offered a headquarters post; he would remain a Guard, with the salary and security. There was an unstated agreement that he could stay in Rome as a non-combatant.

He was to work under the cornicularius, dealing with records; that suited him. A desk job. Some soldiers or paramilitaries, who are prevented by wounds or mental troubles from carrying out the full range of duties, fret against it. Not him. He would suit this posting just as he had enjoyed the vigiles, though without having to put up with a stream of thieves and arsonists.

Before reassignment, the prisoners rallied slowly. They were all fragile, becoming worse before they improved. Most refused to talk about the past four years. The first time they went to the fort’s bath house no one could get them out of there; the bath keeper complained they left him an infestation and stole all the rope-soled footwear. The barracks barber had to work overtime tidying them up. Some rushed to the local good-time girls, though they came back subdued, shocked by their inability to function.

The Emperor gave them what were called generous gifts of money and arms; that meant he confirmed their four years’ back pay and rearmed them without the usual deduction from salary. Better, his personal medic attended them. They needed his help. Drink, after four years of abstinence, had disastrous results. Even food caused upsets; they fell on their first Roman meal, only to vomit or to find it dashed straight through them. Vinius fainted; the doctor said it was because he was tall. The imperial quack imposed a strict planned diet to wean them back to proper nourishment. They joked nervously that they hoped he was not the man who had tended Titus in his death throes, which was how they felt. For a time they were all quavering invalids.

Eventually Vinius was despatched to Rome. He wanted to march home, head high, but he was stretched ignominiously in a wagon for most of the trip. It took weeks. From Carnuntum, you had to avoid the Alps. He had a lot of time to think. Mostly he just cleared his mind and waited.

At the Porta Flaminia, he clambered off his transport to stagger into the city on his own feet. As he took the long, straight ceremonial road that ran from the triumphal gate to the Forum, his first reaction was indignant. He had seen Domitian’s new buildings going up; yet during his captivity, the Rome in his mind had been the old city, the city he grew up with as a boy, before the fire. This glittering vista horrified him. Rebuilt and improved buildings in the Campus Martius — the Pantheon and Saepta Julia, the Temple of Isis — looked larger, were larger, now so fabulously ornate and garish that to him they seemed tasteless. The new Temple of Jupiter, an outsize golden blur atop the distant Capitol, was as unfamiliar as an architectural fantasy on a wall fresco. Instead of feeling he had woken from a nightmare, Gaius was living in one, shaky and disorientated.

He could not imagine the best way to announce to his family that he was home from the dead. Until now he had done nothing about them. He had enough imagination to become worried what reaction his sudden appearance might cause.

Reluctant to walk in and give his brothers heart attacks, he went for a decent Roman shave and haircut. He sat in the chair with his chin in a warm napkin, as uncertain as a teenage boy on his first visit.

What lotion, soldier? Iris? Cretan lily? I can do you a lovely sandalwood…

Hades. Scrap that muck. Camomile I like. Just camomile.

He decided to go to the Praetorian Camp. This meant he had to cross Rome over the northern heights, a slow, gentle, healing stroll through the Gardens of Sallust; it was a good idea and gave him time to adjust. Then a Guard he knew from the old days took time to visit his family for him, to break the news gently.

Felix rushed to fetch him. Shamefaced, he showed his brother their father’s memorial, now with its respectful mention of his own heroic death. ‘Shit, Felix — ’ His brother was in pieces; Gaius also choked. ‘Not many people get to inspect their own tombstone. Thanks!’

He ought to be dead. So many colleagues had failed to make it back — why him? Hideous guilt clamped down on him. Although his brother, who had been a soldier, looked as if he sympathised, Vinius was already trapped in bearing all this alone. Seeing the memorial had increased his unspoken shame that he, fortune’s random choice, had survived the catastrophe.

That evening screams, tears, embraces, slaps on the back, far too much food and far, far too much wine were lavished on him. Aunts who had brought him up — their number now reduced — tottered in to squeeze him, pinch him, slobber tears into coloured handkerchieves, grow horribly tipsy on many cups of sweetened wine. ‘ Just a finger; you know I never drink… ’ His brothers and their wives alternately sobbed or grinned disbelievingly. The two young girls, Marcia and Julia, who could barely remember their uncle, peered around Paulina shyly, then crept up and put garlands on his neck, while their little brother hid under a table and peered out, having no recollection at all of this scary soldier. Even though they were not his children, Gaius was deeply shaken by how much the trio had altered in the years he had been away. The girls were little ladies; the toddler now a boy.

Nobody mentioned the children’s aunt; nor did Gaius Vinius.

Plum Street next morning looked safely unchanged.

The knife shop was still there. He could have done with his folding multi-blade in Dacia. The tassel shop, latterly a sponge emporium, was now occupied by two beauticians. One young woman was giving a manicure to someone seated on a stool on the street; some sixth sense brought the other dainty practitioner from her customer indoors, to stare at Vinius. He gave them a nod. Both girls looked hostile. He needed to work on his act.

They watched him all the way up the stair under the archway. He had no key. He had to knock.

A cute black slaveboy of about seven answered. This prettily tunicked novelty was none too keen on today’s spare, terse apparition but Vinius forced his way in.

Peace.

A pleasant central corridor with civilised wall frescos. Wood floors. Household gods in a niche, flowers in a posy-holder. Women’s voices, relaxed and conversational.

After the boy scampered anxiously into the workroom, his mistress emerged.

‘Don’t faint,’ said Gaius, as he had been planning to say. ‘It’s me.’

‘ Vinius! ’

She had been tending Aurelia Maestinata who was seventy-three and saw no reason to change her lifelong style. It involved a central parting with three deep formal waves descending to each ear. For denting in the waves, Lucilla used a hot metal rod, which she was holding in her right hand. So, it was her left hand she clapped over her mouth to stop herself shrieking. Gaius immediately noticed her wedding ring.

‘Flavia Lucilla.’

He simply spoke her name, in that low, strong voice she had thought she would never forget. The way he said it made Lucilla feel that someone in the world believed her truly excellent.

Her eyes. Gaius could not believe those great brown, wide-set, exotic eastern eyes that she had inherited from her mother had somehow managed to elude his memory despite all the times had had thought about her. She had beautiful, beautiful eyes.

Lucilla was unable to speak. She was agonised with panic, shock, horror at the changes in him. His stick-thin arms, grey flecks in his hair, intangible hints of suffering. He even smelled different.

I thought you were dead.

No.

I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead.

Well, I’m bloody well not, darling.

‘Maybe,’ suggested Vinius, very polite, ‘once you have finished with your customer we could have a word?’ Appalling the slaveboy with his familiarity, he walked uninvited down the hall to the room with the couch — my room, my couch; get used to it, sonny — indicating he would wait there.

As he passed Lucilla, unable to prevent himself, he gestured with one forefinger, a vigiles signal: pointing at her gold ring.

‘I married.’

‘Of course you did.’

Ironically, Vinius had warned the other prisoners, when they were still his men: ‘ Be prepared. All the luscious girlies who swore they were yours forever will be fat mothers of three and married to tipsy mule-drivers who beat them if their dinner’s late. The oldest child may well be your own, but you won’t get the bint to admit it, so don’t even bother trying… ’

How stupid to be caught out himself. How lucky he had realised his error in time. And of course she had never sworn anything; in fact, she ran away from him.

‘Yes, I have been married for over a year now. To a teacher of philosophy and literature.’ Even Lucilla could hear her voice was flat.

Vinius, still the investigator, hissed: ‘So where is he?’

Lucilla faltered. ‘In Rome we live with his parents, in the Third Region.’

‘With his parents? Trust me, that’s a mistake!’

As Vinius went into their sitting room his voice and expression did hold a trace of his old good humour with her. After all, what was the point of blaming anyone? She had never been his, so he had never lost her.

He was trying not to let her see how overwhelmed he was by how far the world had moved on in his absence. He really felt like his own ghost. A dead man.

He waited quietly. Half lying on his couch, the one he once constructed from the bag of parts. Gazing into space. Revelling in the luxury of being in his own place, at leisure. Interrupted only by Flavia Lucilla’s boy who kept bringing him nick-nack bowls of olives and nuts. His mistress came eventually, carrying two dainty cups.

‘I make refreshments for my customers. I’ve brewed fresh for you.’

‘Appreciated.’ He gulped. A mulled honeyed wine mixture that must hold a hint of naughtiness for a bunch of women gossiping. ‘Bacchus! Your matrons like their tipple strong.’

Lucilla took a throne-shaped chair opposite Vinius with a low table between them, the kind used for serving food at dinner parties: ivory legs, citronwood top, very far from cheap though it must have been her purchase. She stared, finally taking him in properly. Vinius was wearing a tunic Fortunatus had lent him; Fortunatus was a big man and the vast green garment hung in empty swathes on his brother.

She was wearing blue, with deep panels of embroidery at hem and neck. Hair in clouds of curls around her head and down her back. Jewellery; presents from the husband? She had not gained much weight but her body had rearranged itself subtly. Vinius wondered if she had had children; he would never dare to ask whether he himself had left her pregnant.

She was smart, fashionable, fairly composed in the circumstances. He tried to pretend to himself that the way she looked was none of his business, yet he drank her in.

Lucilla felt him assessing her. She knew she must have altered in the past five years, gained aspects of maturity, lost heart in some ways. Her hand shook as she sipped her drink.

‘So! — Nice war?’ she asked, keeping it wry for safety.

‘Every amenity.’

‘And what…’ she finally ventured ‘… happened?’

‘Came home by the long scenic route…’ Vinius was staring down at the table edge. He sighed, then spoke bitterly. ‘No. As you see: a brief idyll in Moesia, then I had four years of ruination — a captive in Dacia.’

‘Nobody knew.’ Lucilla’s voice was low.

‘We guessed not. That was the worst dimension.’

‘Can you talk about it?’

‘No.’ He looked up, however. ‘Not yet.’

He saw that her gaze was kindly; his in reply held gratitude.

Lucilla burst out suddenly, ‘I don’t know what to say. It is just so good to see you.’ Then, urgently, she had to put things right. Words tumbled out: ‘Everything of yours is here. I can give you back your door key. Everything is in your room, except I used the money for the rent-’

‘Settle down.’

‘No — Your will was read. I was deeply touched. I have to say — I just felt, I was acting as your custodian. I paid for the apartment — ’

‘So I did the right thing,’ interrupted Gaius lightly.

‘I kept everything of yours — ’

He was startled. ‘What — for me?’

Lucilla paused. ‘No, I won’t say, “I knew you would return one day”. I never thought that, and I don’t hold with mystic nonsense. We believed you were gone.’

‘So what would have happened here,’ asked Gaius, waving a hand to indicate his side of the apartment, ‘if I really had never come back?’

At that, Lucilla dropped her face into her hands, though she soon looked up again, simply at a loss. ‘I don’t know.’

After a moment, Gaius murmured, ‘My turn to feel touched.’

Lucilla was fumbling with her earlobes, tugging off her earrings. ‘I must give you these back. Understand, I have been wearing them for you — ’

She reached over and placed them on the table beside his empty cup. They were small gold bars, from each of which hung three pendants ending in small pearls. Gaius stared uncomprehendingly.

‘I was told they had been your mother’s.’

‘I can’t remember her…’ He was distressed. ‘Please try to calm down. None of this is important. I am finding it — ’ He faltered. ‘Hard. Hard to cope. When people are excited.’

Lucilla fell silent immediately.

Gaius picked up a snack-bowl, the one with enormous green queen olives. He ate one olive, slowly, then worked his way through the entire bowl. He looked as if he might tear the arm off anyone who tried to remove the food from him. He chewed each olive stone completely clean before replacing it in the ceramic bowl. Once he had devoured every olive, he placed the bowl back on the table, with a small knock that sounded much too loud in the completely still apartment.

Lucilla was grave. ‘Shall I fetch you more?’

‘No. No, thanks. Back in civilisation now. I must stop gobbling like a prisoner.’ He stretched, arms right above his head, gazing at her. ‘So. You married. Tell me about the new husband. What’s he like, this paragon?’

Lucilla was aware that she flushed slightly. ‘As I mentioned, he is a teacher. He taught me to read.’

‘You didn’t need a teacher!’ Gaius felt oddly annoyed. ‘You signed your lease. You and your sister were sufficiently competent to forge a “guardian’s” signature!’

‘I meant, Nemurus taught me to read literature.’

‘Oh that’s lofty!’

Nemurus. She’s married an intellectual. Have to give him the once-over. The bastard.

Gaius had noticed that this room contained scrolls. Not in fancy silver boxes, but either in boxwood, or no container at all, just collections tied around with ribbons. Written works as owned by people who either lacked cash or were too miserly to go for expensive containers, but people who read for pleasure.

Out of his league. Out of his sphere of knowledge, anyway. He really had lost her.

‘And how are you finding marriage?’

‘Oh, we exist in a state of mutual exasperation.’ Lucilla’s answer was honest, apparently satirical. ‘Absolutely normal, I suppose.’

Gaius stood up. Time to be leaving. Lucilla jumped to her feet too, running from the room to fetch his door key as promised.

Out in the corridor he took the key on its old wire ring, which he stuffed in a pouch on his belt. At parting, he offered his hand, feeling her shock at his weak grip. His knuckles looked too large for his fingers. He had lost his rings, stripped off him by his captors in Dacia, she realised.

Gaius then turned Lucilla’s hand over, opened her palm and closed her own firm, slim fingers over his mother’s earrings. ‘I want you to keep these.’

Lucilla said nothing, once more too close to tears.

From the door he turned, asking sadly, ‘Are you happy, Lucilla?’

She thought about that. ‘As happy as anyone.’

‘Oh,’ replied Gaius. He sounded depressed. ‘Not very, then!’

So that was it. Whatever it was, or might have been.

Gaius had been in love with a memory for four years, but it was all a mistake. Well, it had kept him going.

Lucilla was too polite to say that when she had first walked out into the corridor, she almost failed to recognise him. She was so upset and confused, she never managed to say all she should have said to him.

Once he left the apartment, it was too late.

Gaius Vinius reported for duty with the cornicularius.

Staff officers in the headquarters unit, the Praetorian Prefects’ back-up team, were responsible for all it took to quarter, feed, clothe, arm, locate, discipline and, where necessary, bury ten thousand men. He was first allocated the lowest, least-coveted role, looking after the property of the dead. It had been neglected for years. He was put to work on the backlog, which he did not object to, since it involved colleagues who died at Tapae. Identifying bequests and rooting to find legatees, even writing the sad letters to friends and families, was his kind of job.

Gaius buried himself, diligent and methodical, but the task affected him more than he realised. Finally he pulled up short when he came upon the unfinished affairs of his old centurion, Decius Gracilis. He went to his room and wept.

For two whole days he kept to himself, wrecked. Luckily, no one noticed.

Shaking off the misery, he took his unease about the centurion’s will to the cornicularius.

‘So how much is involved?’

‘Savings, plus property in Spain. Some kind of business.’

‘Tell you what. We’ll split the cash, you sell the land, then we’ll go halves on that too.’ Though uncertain how to take this, Vinius saw he had been a fool to speak. ‘Only joking. Halves won’t do. Normally the split is eighty-twenty in my favour. Just check that he never wrote a will.’

Vinius moderated wrath that welled up on behalf of his lost centurion. ‘Oh Decius Gracilis was a stickler. There is a will.’

The cornicularius growled. ‘Why bother me then? We do not override the testaments of our beloved deceased comrades. Tally up the value, pay the putrid inheritance tax to the putrid Treasury, then hand over the loot to the heirs.’

The officer misunderstood why the new boy felt leery, arriving here and straightway handing a bequest to himself: Gracilis had left everything to him: ‘my deserving beneficarius, Gaius Vinius Clodianus’.

For some reason, when he came back from Dacia he started using all his names. At the Camp from now on, he was Clodianus. A weak attempt to distance himself from what had happened to him.

Clodianus pulled himself together.

‘Right, sir. The loot goes promptly to the heir. Actually, Cornicularius, my feeling is, our regular split should be sixty-forty.’

‘You’ll go far!’

‘Very good of you to say so, sir.’

I suppose you want my putrid job?

Just looking, sir.

The cornicularius was not all bad. On the verge of retirement, he was a rough gem of limited talent but very long service, who had been posted here when the authorities ran out of other options. Nevertheless, he made few mistakes — that is, few that came into the open; he was liked, as far as anyone liked staff officers.

He knew men too; he was a good superior. He now allocated time for a pep talk with Clodianus, whose vulnerable state he had identified. Even though he must be cursing the powers that had dumped this disturbed soldier upon him, he leaned on his tall desk, acting friendly and fatherly: ‘Four years in captivity must have been hard.’

‘I’ll get over it.’

‘Word of advice — that’s exactly what you will not do, son. Don’t fool yourself; don’t keep waiting to recover because, soldier, it is never going to happen. Your experience in Dacia is part of you now, and the only way you are going to cope is if you roll with it.’

His new man, surprisingly, accepted the wisdom. ‘I hear what you say, sir.’

‘Good. I don’t want you cracking up on me. We have quite enough head-cases around here… Anything else?’

Vinius spoke meekly: ‘Quick technical query, if I may, Cornicularius. I’m trying to grasp the headquarters scene… Is “putrid” the new word?’

‘It’s my word, soldier. I don’t allow fucking swearing in this office.’

Vinius returned to his work-station. His superior’s slightly surreal sense of humour was just like his father’s. He still did not want to be his father, but this calmed him, at least temporarily. Now he knew for sure he had come home.

He thought he was fine. But he began visiting too many wine bars.

The first time Vinius Clodianus was sent to Alba on duty, he tracked down Nemurus. The teacher of philosophy and literature. Staring at Nemurus during a public lecture, he found out that Lucilla’s putrid husband wore bifurcated socks.

Clodianus took this morosely. She was a woman of taste, now that she could afford the trappings; she had natural elegance. She would see her mistake one day.

Socks! And I bet he can’t screw her properly.

Men like that don’t even realise they are useless.

No, but she will. She’s had the real thing.