The Field Of Swords

CHAPTER 8

Crassus breathed in the steam from the pool as he eased himself in up to his waist. The marble sill was icy against his shoulders as he sat on the inner step, and the contrast was exquisite. He felt the knots of tension in his neck and waved a hand to summon a bath slave to massage them away while he talked.

The other men in the pool were all his clients and loyal beyond the monthly stipend they received.

Crassus closed his eyes as the slave’s hard thumbs began to worry at his muscles and sighed with pleasure before speaking.

“My term as consul has made little mark on the city, gentlemen.” He smiled wryly as the men with him shifted in consternation. Before they could protest, he continued. “I thought I would have done more in my time. There are too few things I can point to and say ‘That was mine, alone.’ It seems renegotiated trade agreements are not what stirs the blood of our citizens.”

His expression became tinged with bitterness as he looked at them and traced a swirl in the surface of the water with a finger.

“Oh, I gave them bread when they said they had none. But when the loaves were gone, nothing had changed. They have had a few race days from my purse and seen a temple restored in the forum. I wonder, though, if they will remember this year, or ever think of me when I was consul.”

“We are for you,” one of the men said, the sentiment quickly echoed by the others.

Crassus nodded, breathing his cynicism into the steam. “I have won no wars for them, you see. Instead, they fawn on Pompey and old Crassus is forgotten.”

The clients did not dare to meet each other’s faces and see the truth of the words reflected there.

Crassus raised his eyes at their embarrassment before going on, his voice firming with purpose.

“I do not want my year to be forgotten, gentlemen. I have bought another day at the racetrack for them, which is a start. I want those who rent from me to be given first choice of tickets, and try to get families.”

He paused to reach behind his head for a cup of cool water, and the slave interrupted his kneading to pass it into the bony fingers. Crassus smiled at the lad before continuing.

“The new sesterces with my head on them are ready. I will need you all to manage the distribution, gentlemen. They are to go only to the poorest of homes and no more than one to each man and woman.

You will have to employ guards and take only small amounts with you at a time.”

“May I mention an idea, Consul?” a man asked.

“Of course, Pareus,” Crassus replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Hire men to clean the streets,” he said, the words spilling out too quickly under the consul’s gaze.

“Much of the city is stinking and the people would thank you for it.”

Crassus laughed. “If I do as you say, will they stop throwing their filth on the roads? No, they will say, let fly, for old Crassus will come after us with buckets to clean it up again. No, my friend, if they want clean streets, they should get water and cloths and clean them up themselves. If the stench grows too bad in summer, they may be forced to, and that will teach them to be clean.” Crassus saw the man’s disappointment and said kindly, “I admire a man who thinks the best of our people, but there are too many who lack the sense not to foul their own steps. There is no sense in courting the goodwill of such as they.”

Crassus chuckled at the thought for a moment, then fell silent.

“On the other hand, if it was popular… no. I will not be known as Crassus the cleaner of shit. No.”

“The street gangs, then?” Pareus went on stubbornly. “They are out of control in some areas. A few hundred men with permission to break the gangs would do more for the city than-”

“You want another gang to control the others? And who would keep them in control? Would you ask for a still larger group to handle the first?” Crassus tutted to himself, amused by the man’s persistence.

“A legion century could…” the man stammered.

Crassus sat up, sending a ripple out over the pool. He held up a hand for silence and his clients shifted nervously.

“Yes, Pareus, a legion could do many things, but I do not have one at my call, as you should perhaps have remembered. Would you have me beg more soldiers from Pompey to patrol the poor areas? He asks for fortunes just to have guards at the races, and I have had my fill of bolstering his reputation with my gold.”

Crassus swung his hand out and knocked the metal cup spinning over the tiles of the bathhouse.

“Enough for now, gentlemen. You have your tasks for the moment and I will have more for you tomorrow. Leave me.”

The men climbed out of the pool without a word, hurrying away from their irascible master.

Julius was pleased to leave the noise of the port behind him as he and Octavian took the road to the city. With Brutus overseeing the unloading of men and equipment, the work would be quickly finished. The centurions had been chosen personally and they could be trusted to keep the men on a tight rein until the first groups were allowed to take their leave.

He glanced at Octavian and noted how well he sat his horse. Training with the extraordinarii had schooled his wildness, and he rode now as if he had been born in the saddle, not as a street urchin who hadn’t seen a horse until he was nine years old.

They walked the mounts on the worn stones of the road into the city, guiding them around the carts and slaves who hurried along it on unknown errands. Grain and wine, precious stones, leather hides, tools of iron and bronze, a thousand other things that were destined for the hungry maw of the city ahead. The drivers flicked their whips with skill over oxen and asses, and Julius knew the caravans would extend all the way from the sea to the heart of the markets.

The gentle clopping of the hooves was lulling, but Julius was gripped by a tension that made his shoulders ache. The family tomb was outside the city and he was looking ahead for it, waiting for the first glimpse.

The sun was rising toward the noon point when he felt he was ready and dug his heels into the gelding’s flanks. Octavian matched his pace instantly and the two men cantered over the stone, followed by appreciative shouts and whistles from the traders that dwindled behind them.

The tomb was a simple one of dark marble, a rectangular block of heavy stone that crouched at the side of the road with the great gates of the city less than a mile farther on. Julius was sweating as he dismounted, leading the horse to the grass between the tombs, made lush by Roman dead.

“This is the one,” Julius whispered, letting the reins fall from his hands. He read the names cut into the dark stone and closed his eyes for a moment as he came to his mother’s. Part of him had expected it, but the reality of knowing her ashes were there brought a pain that surprised him, rimming his eyes in tears.

His father’s name was still sharp after more than a decade, and Julius bowed his head as he touched the characters with the tips of his fingers, tracing the lines.

The third name was still as fresh-cut as the pain he felt to look at it. Cornelia. Hidden from the sun and his embrace. He could not hold her again.

“Do you have the wine, Octavian?” Julius said after a long time. He tried to stand straight, but the hands he laid on the stone seemed to have been fastened there and he could not let them go. He heard Octavian rummage in the bags and felt the cool clay of the amphora that had cost him more than a month’s pay for one of his men. There was no better wine than Falernian, but Julius had wanted the finest to honor those he loved the most.

On the top of the tomb, a shallow bowl had been cut into the marble, leading to a hole no larger than a copper coin. As Julius broke the seal on the wine, he wondered if Clodia ever took his daughter out to feed the dead. He didn’t think the old woman would have forgotten Cornelia, any more than he could.

The dark wine sloshed into the bowl and Julius could hear it dripping down to fall inside.

“This cup for my father, who made me strong,” he whispered. “This for my mother, who gave her love.

This last for my wife.” He paused, hypnotized by the swirling wine as it vanished into the tomb. “Cornelia, whom I loved and honor still.”

When at last he returned the amphora to Octavian, his eyes were red with weeping.

“Bind the neck securely, lad. There is another grave to see before we go home to the estate, and Tubruk will want more than just a cupful.” Julius forced himself to smile and felt some of his grief lighten in him as he remounted, the gelding’s hooves clattering enough to break the stillness of the line of tombs stretching away.

Julius approached his estate with something like fear gnawing at him. It was a place of so many memories and so much pain. The eye of his childhood noted the rough weeds among the straggling crops and saw a subtle air of decay in every overgrown track or poorly repaired wall. The low drone of the hives could be heard and he felt his eyes prickle at the sound.

The white walls around the main buildings caused an ache to start in him. The paint was mottled with bare patches and he felt a stab of guilt. The house had been a part of every wound in memory and not a single letter had come from his hand to his daughter or Clodia. He gripped the reins and slowed his mount, each step bringing more pain.

There was the gatepost where he had watched for his father coming back from the city. Beyond it would be the stables where he had tasted his first kiss and the courtyard where he had almost died at the hand of Renius, years before. Despite its run-down appearance, it was still the same where it counted, an anchor in the changes of his life. Yet he would have given anything for Tubruk to come out to greet him, or for Cornelia to be there.

He paused before the gate and waited in silence, lost in memories that he clutched to him as if they could remain real until the gate opened and everything changed again.

A man he did not know appeared above the wall, and Julius smiled as he thought of the steps hidden from view. He knew them as well as anything else in the world. His steps. His home.

“What is your business here?” the man asked, keeping his voice neutral. Though Julius wore the simplest of armor, there was nonetheless an aura of authority in his silent appraisal of the walls and the man sensed it.

“I have come to see Clodia and my daughter,” Julius replied.

The man’s eyes widened a fraction in surprise, before he disappeared to signal those within.

The gate swung open slowly and Julius rode through into the courtyard with Octavian behind him.

Distantly, he heard someone calling for Clodia, but the moment of memory held for him and he took a deep breath.

His father had died defending that wall. Tubruk had carried him on his shoulders under the gate.

Julius shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the sun. There were too many ghosts in that place. He wondered if he would ever be truly comfortable there, with every corner and turn reminding him of his past.

Clodia came out of the buildings in a rush and froze as she saw him. As he dismounted, she went down into a low bow. Age had not been kind to her, he thought, as he took her by the shoulders and raised her into his embrace. She had always been a large, capable woman, but her face was lined by more than time.

If Tubruk had lived, she would have married him, but that chance for happiness had been stolen away by the same knives that had taken Cornelia.

As she raised her face to him, he saw fresh tears, and the sight seemed to pull his private grief closer to the surface. They had shared a loss together, and he was unprepared for the rawness of his feelings as the years vanished and they were standing again in the yard while the slave rebellion tore through the south.

She had promised to stay and raise his daughter then, the last words they had spoken before he left.

“It’s been so long without hearing from you, Julius. I didn’t know where to send the news about your mother,” she said. Fresh tears spilled over her cheeks as she spoke, and Julius held her tightly.

“I… knew it was coming. Was it hard?”

Clodia shook her head, wiping at her eyes.

“She spoke of you at the end and took comfort from Julia. There was no pain for her, none at all.”

“I’m glad,” Julius said softly. His mother had been a distant figure to him for so long that he was surprised at how much he missed the chance to see her and sit on her bed to tell her all the details of Spain and the battles he had seen. How many times had he come to tell her what he had done with his life? Even when her illness had stolen her reason, she seemed to hear him. Now there was no one. No father to run to, no Tubruk to laugh at his mistakes, no one who loved him without limit left in the world.

He ached for them all.

“Where is Julia now?” he said, stepping back.

Clodia’s face changed slightly as pride and love suffused her features. “Out riding. She takes her pony into the woods whenever she can. She looks like Cornelia, Julius. The same hair. Sometimes, when she laughs, it’s like thirty years have gone and she’s there again with me.” She saw the tension in him and misunderstood. “I never let her ride alone. She has two servants with her, for safety.”

“Will she know me?” Julius asked, suddenly uncomfortable. He glanced at the gates as if speaking of Julia could bring her into sight. He remembered only a little of the daughter he had left in her care. Just a fragile girl he had comforted while her mother was laid out in the darkness. The memory of her tiny hands wrapped around his neck was strangely powerful.

“She will, I’m sure. She’s always asking for stories of you, and I’ve told her all I can.” Clodia’s gaze strayed past him to Octavian as he stood stiffly by the horses.

“Octavian?” she said, wondering at the changes in him.

Before he could resist, Clodia ran to him and administered a smothering hug. Julius chuckled at his discomfort.

“There’s dust in our throats, Clodia. Will you keep us standing out here all day?”

Clodia let Octavian escape her.

“Yes, of course. Give your horses to one of the boys there and I’ll see to the kitchen. There’s only a few of the slaves and me now. Without the papers in your name, the merchants wouldn’t deal with me. Without Tubruk to run the place, it’s been…”

Julius flushed as the woman came close to tears again. He had not done his duty by her, he realized, wondering at his own blindness. She was making little of hard years and, to his shame, he could have eased the burden. He should have replaced Tubruk before he left and signed the control of funds over to her. Clodia seemed suddenly flustered at the thought of Julius seeing the house she had come to think of as her home, and he laid a hand on her arm to ease her.

“I could not have asked for more,” he said.

Some of the tightness in her eased. As the horses were led away to be brushed and fed, Clodia bustled before them into the house and they followed, Julius swallowing dryly as they passed from the courtyard into the rooms of his childhood.

The meal Clodia brought to them was interrupted by a high sweet call outside as a clatter of hooves marked Julia’s return. With his mouth filled with bread and honey, Julius leapt to his feet and strode out into the sun. He had thought he would let her come in to him and greet her formally, but the sound of her voice overrode his patience and he couldn’t wait.

Though she had seen only ten summers, she was the image of her mother, and her dark hair was worn long in a braid down her back. Julius laughed at the sight of the girl as she jumped down from her pony and fussed around him, pulling thorns and snags from his mane with her fingers as a comb.

His daughter started at the sound of the strange voice and looked around to see who dared to chuckle at her in her own home. When her eyes met Julius’s, she frowned in suspicion. Julius watched her closely as she walked over to him, her head tilted to one side in silent inquiry in a way he remembered Cornelia doing.

She walked with confidence, he noted with pleasure. A mistress of an estate come to meet visitors. She was dressed in a threadbare cream tunic and leggings for riding, and with her hair tied back and no sign of breasts under the cloth, she could almost have passed for a boy. He saw a simple silver bangle at her wrist and recognized it as one of his mother’s.

Clodia had come out to witness the meeting and smiled at them both with maternal pride.

“This is your father, Julia,” she said. The little girl froze in the act of rubbing dust from her sleeve. She looked up at Julius with a blank expression.

“I remember you,” she said slowly. “Are you back to stay?”

“For a while,” Julius replied as seriously.

The little girl seemed to digest this and nodded.

“Will you buy me a horse? I’m getting too big for old Gibi and Recidus says I would do well on a mount with a bit of spirit.”

Julius blinked at her and some of the past seemed to melt away in his amusement.

“I will find you a beauty,” he promised, rewarded with a smile that thumped his heart for the woman he had lost.

Alexandria stood back from the heat of the forge, watching as Tabbic removed the cup of molten gold and positioned it over the pouring holes in the clay.

“A steady hand now,” she cautioned unnecessarily, as Tabbic began to rotate the long wooden handle without a tremor. Both of them gave the liquid metal the respect it deserved as it hissed and gurgled into the cast. A single splash would burn flesh to the bone, and every part of the process had to be slow and careful. Alexandria nodded in satisfaction as vapor whistled out of the airholes in the clay and the deep gulping sound began to rise in tone until the structure was full. When the gold had cooled, the clay would be painstakingly removed to reveal a mask as perfect as the face of the woman it represented. At a senator’s bidding, Alexandria had performed the unpleasant task of taking a cast from his dead wife only hours after her death. Three lesser masks had followed in clay as Alexandria altered the lines of the face to smooth away the ravages of disease. With infinite care, she had rebuilt the nose where sickness had eaten the flesh, and at last the man had wept to see the image death had taken from him. In gold, she would be preserved forever young, long after the man who loved her was ashes himself.

Alexandria touched a hand to the clay, feeling the heat constrained within and wondering if a man would ever love her enough to keep her image all his life.

Lost in thought, she did not hear Brutus enter the workshop, and only the stillness as he gazed at her made her turn, sensing something she could not have named.

“Break out the good wine and take your clothes off,” he said. His eyes were on her and he didn’t even notice Tabbic standing there with his mouth open. “I’m back, girl. Julius is back and Rome will be turned on its head when we’re done.”