Rome's lost son

CHAPTER XII

‘What would you recommend that I do with him, Ananias?’

Vespasian knelt on the floor with his hands tied behind his back. The iron tang of blood filled his battered mouth; blood dripped onto the marble from a cut above his swollen, closed right eye. His tormentor, a massively muscled, bearded mute, wearing only a loincloth, stood before him, massaging his knuckles, raw from the beating he had just administered.

‘He seems to turn the other cheek.’

If it would not have hurt so much, Vespasian would have smiled at this description of the way he had dealt with the punishment that had been meted out to him. He looked up at the speaker; he was seated on a wooden throne with gold and silver inlays of strangely foreign animalistic design. In his early fifties, with a long grey beard, his hair wrapped in a white cloth headdress wound around his head, and with a black and white patterned mantle over his shoulders, he did not look as if he was the King of Adiabene. Yet he was; and more than that, as Vespasian now knew only too well, he was a Jewish convert. But it was not to the mainstream religion that the King adhered, but rather to the new cult promoted by Paulus’ rivals in Jerusalem.

‘King Izates, our master Yeshua,’ the man named Ananias replied, ‘did indeed preach that to be righteous we should turn the other cheek; but this man is not a Jew and Yeshua’s teachings apply only to Jews, not Gentile dogs like this faithless scum.’ Ananias consulted a scroll, his rheumy eyes squinting and his age-spotted hands shaking as they unfurled the parchment. ‘I have a record of much of what he said here, left by his disciple, Thomas, on his way to preach to the Jews and god-fearers of the East; and it is clear that the Righteous are only those who fear God, whether as full Jews or as god-fearers who adhere to much of the religion. This man, Vespasian, cannot be one of the Righteous.’

‘Very well, if you say so.’ King Izates studied Vespasian for a few moments before turning to a woman sitting on a lesser throne next to his own. ‘Tell me, with the heart of a woman, Symacho, my love: what would you do with this hostage to the honour of Radamistus, King of Armenia? Now that that Iberian liar has foresworn his oath of loyalty to my master, the Great King Vologases, the first of that name, and also now that Ummidius Quadratus, the Governor of Roman Syria, has sent a legion into Armenia, this man’s life should be forfeit.’ He pointed at Vespasian. ‘And yet Babak told him that he would only be cast into the deepest dungeon for the rest of his life should the treaty be broken.’

‘Then do that, my King.’ She looked at Vespasian and smiled. In the two months that he had been held hostage in Arbela, the royal capital of Adiabene, Vespasian had shared many meals with the royal couple and had found the ageing Queen’s company far more entertaining than that of her religion-obsessed husband or any of his twenty-four children from sundry wives. Izates showed all the tunnel-visioned fanaticism of a convert, always pontificating about his new religion and trying to apply it in all aspects of his rule, much to the obvious displeasure, Vespasian had noticed, of a fair number of his courtiers who clung, like Babak, to the old gods of Assyria. Symacho, on the other hand, did not flaunt her new beliefs and consequently was far more relaxed and convivial because of it. Vespasian almost forgave her for encouraging her husband to incarcerate him for the rest of his life; he would have preferred a quick death.

Another blow to the head stunned him momentarily; Izates had evidently ordered the beating to continue while he contemplated the issue from a religious angle.

This was a situation far removed from what he had encountered upon his arrival in Arbela; then he had been not exactly welcomed, but treated with a reasonable amount of courtesy.

‘I’m pleased that the Lord has sent you to me,’ Izates had said to him on the day of Vespasian’s arrival.

They were standing on the immense battlements that crowned the oval hill of four hundred and fifty by three hundred and fifty paces upon which Arbela stood and had been standing for over six thousand years. The hill rose steeply, one hundred feet on all sides, to an almost flat top so that it stood like a huge base waiting for a mighty column to be raised upon it by the gods; a column that would reach the heavens and prop up the sky.

For longer than memory Arbela had dominated the Assyrian plain that stretched out in all directions, irrigated and fertile, a farmland that had given power to the ancient Assyrian Kings before they had been subjugated by first the Medes and then the Persians and then by Alexander. His victory over Darius III at Guagamela, just eighty miles away, had heralded almost three hundred years of Hellenic rule during which time Adiabene had managed to become an autonomous kingdom. Now this city, one of the oldest on earth, was subject to Parthia and it was over Parthia that Vespasian had been gazing, only half-listening to his royal host who seemed to have very little conversation other than theological.

‘He has presented me with a way to solve a problem,’ Izates had carried on.

‘If I can be of service then I’d be only too pleased,’ Vespasian had replied absently. He had been led to think that his status was somewhat more than a hostage by the way that he had been greeted after his month-long journey south with the main force of Babak’s army. He had not been confined nor had he been guarded and the King had invited him on a tour of the battlements. Very soon he had bored Vespasian rigid with his talk of the Jewish god and rambling on about the prophet he had sent to save the Jews and those who feared their god by freeing them from the priests and all vestiges of human control on the most pure of religions — or something like that. Vespasian had not quite got to grips with the detail.

‘You can, Vespasian, by God’s grace you can.’

‘How?’

‘Do you think that Radamistus will keep his word? After all, he swore his oath by Ahura Mazda who obviously does not exist.’

Vespasian had carried on gazing at the vastness of the Parthian Empire. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘There is only one god, so it follows that the rest do not exist.’

‘I’ve seen gods manifest. I’ve seen the goddess Sulis and the god Heylel take over the bodies of the dead and live.’

‘Heylel? He who was cast from God’s grace for his arrogance? He was not a god but an angel.’

Vespasian had been bored by this continual theological discussion to which the King was subjecting him. ‘It’s the same thing: a supernatural being that has more power than a human obviously demands worship. Call Heylel what you like but I call him a god and I should know because I met him.’

Izates had tutted and smiled benevolently as would a patient grammaticus at a talented but sadly misguided pupil.

Vespasian had ignored the patronising gesture, aware that he had probably been a little sharper in his remarks than was good for a hostage; he tempered his voice. ‘The point is that Radamistus has no intention whatsoever of keeping his oath. It’s not about whether he believes in Ahura Mazda or not; it’s because he feels that the King of Armenia isn’t beholden to any agreement reached with a mere satrap of Nineveh.’

‘Ah! So we agree on what Radamistus will do?’

‘Yes, but not why he’ll do it.’ He had bitten his lip, striving to keep control of his growing annoyance.

‘So my lord has given me a way to show the world how righteous I am, a way to show the nobles like Babak who cling to the old gods of Assyria that I can be merciful but strong in my religion. By him giving you to me I can show my nobles that they should stop plotting against me and join me in the worship of the one true god and his prophet Yeshua.’

Vespasian was now all attention; he did not like the direction that the conversation had just taken. ‘How can you do that with me?’ His voice was low and the words slow as he had looked into the King’s eyes, which shone with the happiness of an innocent child.

‘When Radamistus breaks his word your life is forfeit. I can make a public show of my displeasure and devise some very nasty and long way to have you executed and then halfway through I can offer you mercy if you receive baptism into the faith. Which of course you’ll accept because, after all, who wouldn’t? When my nobles hear about that, they will be flocking to the river for submersion in Yeshua’s name. You see? Simple.’

Vespasian gawped at the King, realising that the royal grip on reality was not as firm as it could be. ‘I am a proconsul of Rome; you can’t threaten me with execution and then try and force me to repudiate the religion of my ancestors without causing a serious incident.’

Izates slapped Vespasian on the shoulder genially. ‘Nonsense, Vespasian; when Radamistus reneges on his oath I can do what I like with you.’

‘Babak told me that when that happens I’ll be thrown into a dungeon and kept there until Rome withdraws.’

Izates looked startled. ‘He said that?’

‘Yes.’

‘He didn’t say that you would be executed?’

‘No.’

‘But that’s terrible.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course it is. If he told you that you would live then live you must; God would never approve of me making a point to my nobles based on dishonour. And the nobles in turn would point to me not keeping a promise like a follower of Assur, the old god of Assyria, who claims to continue to fight for kettu, the Truth. They would say that the one true god represents hitu, the False. That’s most aggrieving, terrible; he really did say that you would live?’

By now Vespasian’s mouth gaped open in astonishment. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he did.’

Izates rested his hand on Vespasian’s shoulder and gave him an understanding look. ‘Don’t apologise, it’s not your fault. Nothing you can do about it. How aggravating, most vexing, provoking in the extreme.’ He went off muttering to himself, leaving Vespasian looking after him, dumbstruck by his behaviour. A searing pain struck Vespasian and white light flashed across his inner vision; he felt himself slump down to the floor and hoped he would be allowed to stay there while the clearly bewildered King wrestled internally with what he could do to make Vespasian’s predicament spurious proof of some sort of bond with his god and tempt his courtiers away from Assur. He was disappointed; keeping his eyes shut, he felt himself being hauled up for a rapid series of blows to his stomach and ribs, knocking the wind from him. His knees collapsed again and as he fell he was vaguely aware of the King’s voice shouting. The beating stopped and Vespasian was left to contemplate his growing pain from cracked ribs and a bruised and swollen face.

‘I will gain nothing in the sight of God by giving him the choice between a prison cell and baptism,’ Izates announced. ‘How can I give him his life if I’m not going to take it? What will the nobles who refuse to join me in the one true faith think? They will not see magnanimity on my part nor will they see the power of God’s love but, rather, my own weakness as well as the desperation of a man who would do anything to regain his freedom. Take him away and send a message to the Emperor Claudius that Titus Flavius Vespasianus will stay excluded from the world until the lying usurper Radamistus is removed from the Armenian throne and Ummidius Quadratus, the Governor of Roman Syria, recalls his legions from that land. Until that happens he shall stay locked away and an Adiabene army will defend the Great King of Parthia’s honour against Roman aggression; there will be war in Armenia.’

So Tryphaena finally has her wish, Vespasian thought, as he was dragged away across the smooth marble floor, and she will not press for peace to save him even if she did have the power to do so. He could well imagine that nobody in Rome would care much about his situation: Agrippina would revel in it as a by-product of securing her son on the imperial throne; Pallas would do nothing to jeopardise that succession; and Narcissus would most probably not spot the subtle danger of a Parthian war to his position until it was too late and Nero was emperor and he was executed.

No, Vespasian found himself thinking, calmly, I am going to be here for some time; I can’t expect to be rescued so therefore don’t hope for it and I won’t be disappointed. Hope for nothing because from hopes dashed comes despair.

And, as his gaolers dragged him down into the foundations of the ancient capital of Adiabene, deep into dark places excavated millennia before, deep into a realm where time has a different meaning, Vespasian fell back into his mind so that his thoughts and memories would cocoon him. Deep in the bowels of Arbela, Vespasian was locked into a cell that had seen countless years of suffering; a place where rats and nameless things held sway and time did nothing but gnaw. A realm of despair; and despair was the emotion that Vespasian knew he must protect himself from.

There was little point in keeping his eyes open as there was rarely any light to see by. Every so often Vespasian heard a grating of a key in a lock and then the creak and crash of a heavy door opening and closing that would presage the arrival of the golden glow of a black-smoking torch held aloft by a gaoler to guide him and his mate down slime-slick steps. Vespasian knew this because he had a grille in his door and could see at an oblique angle along the narrow corridor. How often the gaolers visited, he did not know; it might have been twice a day, once a day or once every few days. It made no difference because he had lost the concept of days, nights, hours or months. In the depths of Arbela there was only a moment and that moment was now.

The arrival of the gaolers would bring not only light but also sound. Low moans or cries for forgiveness, groans of pain or just plain mad gibbering always accompanied the gaolers’ progress down the corridor, attesting to what sort of condition the inmate, behind each of the many locked doors punctuating it, was in. Vespasian, however, never made a sound, not even when the grille in his door was unbolted and swung open. He knew the routine after the first couple of visits and thereafter did not need to communicate. He passed his refuse bowl out and its contents were slopped into the open sewer that ran the length of the corridor to drain away who knew where. The bowl was returned, unsluiced and stinking. He then had to pass two of his other three possessions through the grille in turn: the first, a wooden jug, was returned filled with water that, by its taste, Vespasian knew would have been far from clear had he troubled to examine it. Second was his wooden food bowl, which came back containing a gruel of grains with the occasional morsel of gristle or bone floating in it. A stale loaf was then chucked through the grille as it was closed. With his sustenance safely grasped in each hand he would retire to his only other possession: a blanket that contained more life than the matted hair that clung to his groin, chest, face and head. Every so often some damp straw would be shoved through the hole to supplement the rotting heap upon which his fourth possession rested, but that was the only difference in the routine; he had no way of telling but he assumed that the straw arrived once a month as the second delivery was long enough after the first one for him to be surprised, having forgotten about it. He was unclear but he thought that he could remember at least a few more such deliveries; but what did it matter? What was sure was that even in this subterranean pit shielded from the sun by so much ancient stone it had got colder and Vespasian guessed that winter was approaching outside — if outside still existed.

And that was just one of the many things with which he kept his mind busy at the slowest pace possible. It was not thoughts of escape or life after release that preoccupied him, but memories of life enjoyed and abstract questions to which there could be no answer or a multitude of answers. Slowly he dipped small hunks of bread into the gruel, stirring them with infinite care in the chasm-dark as he replayed scenes from his life, chewing his food methodically and at the speed of some drugged bovine; his expression, if it could have been seen, changing in accordance with the mood of each episode. Wincing, he recalled at great length the hideous bullying and beating that Sabinus had subjected him to as a child. A tender smile as he remembered the loving tutelage of his paternal grandmother, Tertulla, the woman who had raised him on her estate in Cosa, while his parents had been in Asia for seven years. Regret while the decline of his friend Caligula from a vibrant youth to crazed despot flickered in degenerating episodes across his inner eye. As his three children flashed through his mind he felt growing pride that culminated with Titus’ face, so much like his own, smiling at him, only to be dashed as Flavia appeared to make another demand. Contentment came in pulses as his passion for Caenis fired within him, although he was aware that he had to ration those thoughts as he sensed that masturbation in these circumstances could become addictive and sap what little strength remained to him.

However, he could review without ardour the lessons he had learnt from Caenis in her privileged position at the heart of imperial politics. As secretary to the Lady Antonia, his benefactress before her disappointment with her grandson Caligula had led her to take her own life, Caenis had acquired the political skill to negotiate her way adroitly through the tangle of self-interest that prevailed within the ruling élite. She understood the importance of attaching oneself to one faction without distancing others. With her it was never personal, only business, and thus she had retained a position of influence after she had been freed in Antonia’s will. She had survived the remainder of Caligula’s reign and the turmoil following his assassination and Claudius’ elevation. During the subsequent years her ability to remain of use to both Pallas and Narcissus had enabled her to ride the infighting between them and, as secretary to first Narcissus and then Pallas, she had made a fortune by selling access to them; no one got to the seat of power other than through her. Vespasian might have smiled in the darkness as he remembered the shock that he felt when Caenis told him how she used her position to enrich herself; he might then have laughed as he recounted the ways that he had put that lesson to use since. Money was all important to him and through Caenis he had learnt how … the light again; how long had it been since the last visit that he remembered?

This time there were more of them; how many he did not bother to count. Screams raged in one of the cells as his grille was opened. He went through the routine of the bowls and jug and was vaguely aware of a loud, wet thump as if a butcher’s cleaver had rent a joint. The wail and then piercing shrieks that followed it did a little more to impinge on his consciousness; the smell of burning flesh that accompanied them he barely noticed as he focused on the straw being thrust through the grille. So more time had passed in the world outside … if it still existed, that was.

He refrained from burying his face in the straw because, although it was damp and old it was the freshest thing he could smell and reminded him of … no, he would not make that mistake again. The last and only time he had, despair had smiled at him, cold and grim, a false friend looming above him in his void of a cell, and he had felt the tears rise that, had they not been checked, would have driven him into the grasping arms of that fraud.

He stirred the gruel to soften the bread; the shrieks had subsided into mournful groans but seemed now to be coming from the other end of the corridor, Vespasian noticed dully. He took a bite and chewed with deliberation. A different inmate in a different cell? A different moment, perhaps? Possibly, for the last delivery of straw seemed distant; but it was certainly not a different place as it was still dark and the gruel still tasted the same. But the air did feel warmer as if there was heat in the world outside … if that still existed.

He nodded slowly to himself as he remembered that when the gruel had arrived he had been contemplating his uncle’s reaction to his wild theory concerning what had been predicted for him. He was aware that this was not the first time since he had been confined to this moment that he had been over that conversation and had mulled through the meaning of every sign, portent or auspicious happening concerned with what once may have been his destiny. That word meant nothing; where was destiny in a single moment? What room could there be for it? He was almost sure that when he had thought about these things during another part of this moment that he inhabited he had put all the clues together, but then he had discarded the conclusion because it had meant reaching forward; and that he would and could not do. But the memory of his uncle being unable to finish his sentences, to say ‘emperor’ or ‘purple’, because he felt the words would automatically make him too conspicuous, even though no one could hear them, pleased him as he stirred his gruel and took bites of bread without haste, immersed in thought.

And thought threaded through his mind as his only sensation until, with a shock, he was tapped on the right shoulder. He opened his eyes and stared ahead, unseeing in the gloom, mystified as to how such contact could have come about. Then there it was again; but this time it was a double tap. He turned his head slowly but saw nothing; instead, he heard a distant sound, a sound that seemed to come from the world outside … if it really was still there. Then it died away, as if it had never been. But it had forced Vespasian to listen, to be aware of the world, to climb out from his inner tranquillity. He tensed in the dark, feeling a strange calmness as in the moments just before a storm breaking. Then he was tapped again but this time he realised that it was him doing the tapping: his right shoulder was knocking against the wall and it was knocking against the wall because the ground was moving. The sound from beyond rose again but this time it did not recede but grew, and it grew commensurately with the shaking of the earth until his senses were filled with only sound and movement. And then things started to clatter down from above, crashing onto the stone floor all around him, but he remained squatting where he was, squatting on his blanket on its pile of rancid straw; squatting where he always squatted as cries came from the cells down the corridor and the whole world shook with the anger of the gods below as they bellowed their wrath.

The stillness was abrupt and for a moment all was quiet, even the wails of despair from the other cells. But the lull did not last for long and the next sound surprised Vespasian: it was a shout of exhilaration, a shout from close by. And then he remembered the story that Sabinus had told him, the one about the earthquake tumbling down the gates of the prison in which Paulus of Tarsus had been incarcerated, and he wondered vaguely if his guardian god, Mars, had come to his aid in the same way that it had been said that Paulus’ god had come to his. With that thought he looked around and saw a sight that he had not seen since he had been placed in the moment in which he lived: he saw a dark grey rectangle in the otherwise Stygian black, he saw the dim outline of an open door. He stared at it incredulously until he was able to form a prayer in his head to Mars for his deliverance.

Vespasian got to his unsteady feet and, with his hands outstretched before him, moved towards what to him seemed like a beacon of light. Through the doorway he went, stepping over the fallen door, and out into the corridor in which a few dim figures scampered towards the steps at the far end. The shouts of those not fortunate enough to have had their confinement ended by the earthquake were ignored by the lucky few fleeing up the steps and on through the broken door at the top and out into the dark beyond.

Vespasian shuffled as fast as he could down a dark, debrisstrewn corridor, not knowing in which direction the outside world lay but aware where he had come from and wary of returning there.

Dust stung his eyes and fallen masonry threatened his ankles but the earth’s convulsions had stilled and he felt a glimmer of hope, a thing that he had denied himself for so long, grow within him and he dared to think beyond the moment. He dared to think of escape.

Suspecting that his fellow escapees had as little knowledge of the subterranean geography of Arbela as he, he decided not to follow them up a narrow spiral staircase and, instead, to use his own instincts. On he went turning left and then right, using his nose as a guide, sniffing for the cleaner air, always taking flights of steps up if they presented themselves and were not blocked.

And then there was other life, other people and Vespasian realised that he must avoid them for he was vaguely aware that his appearance and stench would mark him for what he was. He pressed on with caution, ensuring that he never got too close to anyone, through what was evidently chaos in the aftermath of a massive shock, all the time heading up towards lighter, sweeter-smelling levels.

With gut-wrenching realisation as he strained weakened muscles pulling at a door-ring there was, suddenly, nowhere to go; suddenly he was trapped. The corridor ended in a locked door and he had no key; he began to panic, he had allowed himself to think of escape and now he was trapped. He knew that he must calm himself; it was only one locked door. He must think, yes, think; and it was obvious: he must turn around. And so he began to retrace his steps to find another corridor that did not have a locked door at its end. Now he seemed to be going against the tide of people but he did not care for he knew that he was going away from the locked door and they were going towards it. He took another left turn and shuffled along a passage in which a guttering torch burned; he passed through its glow, shielding his eyes as he did, and then on to the end to meet only with another door: it too was locked. Panic welled ever higher within him and he turned and began to jog back through the torch’s glow, back the way he had come. He tried to think but he could not; every thought he had seemed to end in a locked door. He tried another and then another; all seemed to be locked. He became increasingly frantic as he dashed from door to door up and down corridors that all seemed familiar and then, as the shout of ‘There he is!’ pierced his panic, followed moments later by a fist flying towards him, he realised that they were, indeed, all familiar because they were all one of the same two corridors.

Vespasian opened his eyes unsure of whether he had just been addressed as ‘proconsul’ or whether it had been a dream.

He was lying face down on a marble floor.

‘Proconsul?’

There it was again and it seemed to be real enough. He looked up, squinting against the light.

‘Ah, proconsul, you are back with us.’

Vespasian focused slowly and the architect of his torment, King Izates, materialised, smiling cheerfully despite the fallen columns around him.

‘This is a most fortuitous occurrence,’ the King carried on, beaming happily around the heavily damaged room. ‘I expect that you thought the earthquake was a part of your supposed gods’ plan to free you?’

Vespasian had but he was not about to admit as such to this man; he did not want his first conversation for however long to be a religious discussion. So he did not respond.

‘But you didn’t escape, did you? According to the gaoler he found you running backwards and forwards up and down two corridors. But the one true God does have the power to help those who worship him and follow his laws. Tell him, Ananias, tell him of Paulus, the man you baptised in Damascus.’

A man appeared in the corner of Vespasian’s vision; he groaned as Ananias started to tell the same story that Sabinus had told about the earthquake breaking open Paulus’ gaol, but with much embellishment and exaggeration. Vespasian was in no mood for it.

‘So you see, proconsul,’ Izates said with annoying cheerfulness once the tale was over, ‘just how fortuitous this earthquake has been for you and for me. All you have to do is accept baptism into the Way of Yeshua and I can say to my nobles that God sent this earthquake to spring you from the deepest dungeon in order that you could follow him. Just think of it: my nobles would flock to the baptismal river if they knew that they could have a power like that on their side. And you would be free, free to live here as a permanent witness to the power of the one true God and his son, Yeshua. Free, proconsul, free and saved.’

Vespasian closed his eyes; he wanted none of the bewildered old King’s freedom at the price of rejecting Mars. If Mars indeed had a destiny for him then it would be Mars who eventually would lead him to it, not some jealous god who would brook no other and insisted on men mutilating their penises. He heard the King shouting at him but took no notice as he slipped back into his tranquillity that had been so disturbed by the anger of the gods below. Soon he felt himself being dragged away and he knew with certainty what he would see when he next opened his eyes: it would be the same thing that he always saw in the moment.

And it was so as the hammering on the door to his cell, fixing it back into place, disturbed his peace and forced him to open his eyes. He was back in the moment; his brief surge of hope dashed. He pushed away the offer of consolation from despair, the would-be companion who had been locked out of his cell with the repairing of the door, left in the corridor to whisper through the grille. Back he went to his blanket and his gruel, forbidding all images of his brief foray into the outer world; more and more he played scenes from the past with his inner eye, chewing slowly on his bread and sucking on bones, occasionally nodding in the dark when certain images pleased him.

Straw came, then more straw came and then, perhaps, more straw had come. The last grains of his gruel were lapped up by his tongue as it methodically pursued them around the bottom of his food bowl. Satisfied with his accomplishment of so far ingesting every morsel of nourishment from his meal he began to suck on the bone that he had saved for last. His children again — or was it for the first time? — paraded before his closed eyes. He had planned to do something that may well endanger Titus, he was sure; it had been to do with Tryphaena. Yes, it was Nero; somehow he was helping Nero’s cause, that’s why he was here. Yes, that was it. It was because of Titus’ friendship with Britannicus that he would be in danger if … but he was sure that he had thought of the way to protect him before he had embarked on the road that led to this moment.

The light again.

But he had not quite finished.

He opened his eyes and placed the inedible remnants of the bone onto a heap of similar fragments in the corner, now just visible in the dim but growing light of the approaching torch; he noted with half-felt curiosity that it was quite big. Had the pile always been like that? No, it could not have been; it must have grown and he must have fed it with other bones.

He stared at the pile; so many bones.

A wave of panic hit him.

How many?

He did not want to count.

He felt his chest tighten as he stared at the physical evidence of the length of this one moment. He lashed out at the pile with both hands, smashing it apart, spreading the bones all across the floor of the cell; scattering them amongst the muck so that they could not be counted.

He needed to breathe; he tried to inhale but could not.

And then he heard himself: he was screaming.

It was uncontrolled and from his very core; from deep within a consciousness that had been buried deep within the deepest bowels of the first foundations made by man. It was fuelled by the millennia of misery that shrouded this pit and sucked what life was left in the barely living incarcerated within it.

It was raw.

But it was also fed by shouts from outside his cell; shouts of anger. The gaoler was shouting at him and he was screaming back. He had not had communication with anyone in the whole moment that he had been in this darkness; in the time that it had taken that pile of bones to appear. No one had spoken to him since Izates and even then he had not responded because he had shut the world off to preserve his peace. But now he was being shouted at and now he was screaming back. Now he was having a conversation, he was interacting with another human being, he was screaming and the gaoler was shouting at him for doing so: the gaoler was acknowledging his existence.

So Vespasian screamed some more.

And as he screamed he laughed. He lifted his face to the ceiling and screamed and laughed and he did not want to stop because he knew that when he did there would be only one friend to comfort him.

And that friend was false because his name was despair.

And so he carried on screaming; even as the door opened; even as his arms were pinioned; even as the first blows slammed into his shrunken stomach and rough hands pulled back his hair. He screamed as vomit surged in his gorge and then screamed again once it had sprayed all over his interlocutors — for they were still shouting at him and he was still pleased with the attention. He wanted this conversation to go on, even as his head filled with agony as his slop bucket crunched down on it, the contents drenching him. And then he screamed as he saw the floor rushing towards him as if it were a friend anxious to hold him in its embrace after a long absence. He screamed as he kissed it and felt the friend’s arms about him and then he screamed a scream that he knew could be heard by nobody else; it was a scream that echoed around his head alone. It was a scream that could be part of no conversation because it was a scream that was reserved only for solitary use.

It was the scream of despair.