Cast Not the Day (20 page)

‘Still,’ he said, tossing the napkin aside, ‘what’s done is done; a man must make the best of it. As it happens, I am looking for young men of promise to join my staff. I warn you though, the life is not all banquets and parades and entertaining the town trollops, as it is under some generals I could name. I expect discipline, and the life is hard. But if you think you can submit to it, there is a vacancy for you in the corps of Protectors.’

I drew my breath to speak, but he raised his hand.

‘No, I do not want your answer now. Go away and consider, for it will mean many changes. For a start you will have to leave your uncle’s house, and when you think about it you may decide you cannot do without such comforts. You will receive no special favours, let me warn you; and I make no promises about your future. So go away and think, and when you are ready come back and give Fadius your answer.’

And so I left him. On my way out I passed on the stairway an erect bearded white-haired man. I daresay I should not have noticed him at all, so full was my mind with my own thoughts. But the chamberlain was fussing over him, and as I passed I heard him say with crisp impatience, ‘No, leave it; I can manage.’ The chamberlain had a well-developed sense of his place among men. Those he considered below him he treated with disdain. This old gentleman, then, I thought to myself with a smile, was someone of consequence. He was elegantly dressed; but sparely, in clothes that made no concession to fashion. He had a natural dignity, and, under his beard, a stern mouth.

Just then he glanced at me and caught me smiling; and I was sure he returned my look of amusement.

Outside, back in the courtyard, I paused at the frozen fountain and considered my change in fortune. I had known immediately I should take Count Gratian’s offer; I would return next day and tell the chamberlain. Hooves sounded on the cobbles and I glanced up. A stable-lad was leading a grey mare from the yard. As he walked he patted her side and whispered in her ear, and she, as if she understood his words of endearment, tossed her head, nodding contentedly, her breath pluming in the cold air. A group of uniformed young men passed by, talking and laughing. Soon, I thought with a smile, I should be one of them.

I found, to my surprise, that I was thinking of my father. I wished I could tell him, and see him proud and pleased. I pushed the thought away. He was gone, along with all my past life. What’s done is done, as Gratian said. Easy words; I wondered if he had ever confronted the hard truth that lay behind them. Yet in his brusque way he was right: there is no return, for all man’s longing, and a man must make the best of it.

I resolved to offer something to Diana the Huntress, whose deserted temple I had found during my wanderings about the city. Within, there was a faded wall-painting of the goddess set against the new moon, clutching her spear, young and proud and dark-eyed. Since my return from the country, I had taken to going there, and pausing alone in the silence.

But first, I thought, stirring myself to leave, I would see Balbus, and tell him my news.

I was just turning, when from across the stable-yard I heard a voice that made me stop and look.

He had his back to me. He was talking to the groom, with one broad hand resting on the neck of the grey mare. His hair, deprived of summer sun, had returned to its natural colour of old bronze. In his simple plain cloak he might almost have been another of the stable-boys. But even in beggar’s rags I should have known him.

‘Marcellus!’ I cried.

He looked round startled, and seeing me he began to smile. But then he frowned.

‘Hello, Drusus,’ he said coolly.

I thought, ‘He is angry with me, and who can blame him? I expect he waited half a day for me.’ I stood staring like a fool. I wanted to tell him all that had happened; but the groom was watching, and I felt ashamed. So instead, as if it mattered to me, I nodded at the horse and said, ‘A fine creature.’

‘Yes, a beauty. She belongs to Gratian.’

I stroked its sleek neck, and spoke a few words to the groom. Marcellus asked what brought me here to the palace, and I told him I had had business with Gratian, and was on my way out.

‘I am waiting for my grandfather,’ he said. ‘He is inside.’

I searched for something right to say; but no words came. An awkward silence fell between us. From the stable-house someone called for the groom. We both watched as he led the mare away. Marcellus shifted on his feet and glanced towards the portico. He was looking for a reason to be gone, and I think he would have left then, except that he was waiting for his grandfather.

‘Marcellus, listen. I am sorry I didn’t meet you; I—’

‘No matter. I expect something came up and you had things to do.’

‘No, no, I didn’t; it wasn’t that, not at all.’

And then, hesitantly, I began to explain – a hard thing to do at that age in life, when one does not like to admit one is not one’s own master.

But he had that open quality which makes one want to talk, and in the end, I even showed him the scar under my ear where Lucretia’s ring had caught me, adding vehemently that I longed to be away, and that today, at last, I had my chance.

He eased my head round with his hands to look at the scratch. His palms smelled of horse and leather, and felt warm on my cheek.

‘What chance is that?’ he asked, inspecting the tiny wound. And when I told him he said, ‘Will you accept?’

‘But yes, Marcellus, of course.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Then I am happy for you. But for myself I wish you weren’t going away.’

I almost cried out, ‘Do you really?’ But instead I frowned at the cobbles and kicked at them with my boot. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be going far,’ I said, looking up. ‘I think Gratian will keep me in London, with the others; at least for now.’

‘Your friends will be glad of that.’

I thought of the drunks and gamblers and retired whores I wasted my empty hours with. ‘It won’t concern them overmuch,’ I said with a shrug.

‘No?’ He pushed his hand through his hair, then turned and met my eye. ‘That day, when you did not come, I almost went to your uncle’s villa to find you. I guessed something or other was wrong. You didn’t seem the sort who would change his mind on a whim. I’m glad it wasn’t that.’

‘Oh no, Marcellus!’ I blurted out, ‘not at all! If only you knew! I have thought of nothing else—’ I broke off, reddening.

But the fine contours of his face moved in a smile. ‘Is that so? You know, it’s only by chance that I came here today, and now I find you waiting. I think some god had a hand in it.’

‘Yes,’ I said, looking at him seriously, ‘I think so too.’

The low winter sun had shifted, leaving the courtyard in shadow. He took a deep breath and pulled up his cloak. His breath showed in the cold air. ‘You must be proud. To be chosen as a Protector is quite an honour . . . Not,’ he added with a grin, ‘that they’ll have much to teach you about fighting.’

I laughed. My spirits were lifting. There are times when the heart knows straightaway what it has been seeking. Mine knew it now. I said, ‘You haven’t seen my horse-riding, though. I think I have forgotten how.’

‘You don’t have a horse of your own then? But no, of course, I should have realized. When did you last ride?’

‘Not since I was a boy, at my father’s house.’

‘It’s not something you forget. We’ll go riding one day if you like. At home we have a whole stable, and you can take your pick.’ He glanced at me, adding, ‘But maybe I am presuming too much? . . .’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’d like that.’

He smiled. ‘Then good.’ His head went up. ‘But here’s Grandfather at last.’

I looked round. Across the square the bearded white-haired man I had seen on the stairs had appeared under the portico. The chamberlain had waylaid him there. The old man’s face wore an expression of bored courtesy while the chamberlain talked on. His eyes were fixed absently on the row of Corinthian capitals under the roof.

‘I’d better go and rescue him,’ said Marcellus. ‘He loathes the chamberlain.’ He paused and looked at me. ‘When shall I see you?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow – for sure. I’ll be at the basilica in the forum, at the hour when the Council meets. I’ll wait for you on the steps.’

‘I will be there,’ I said.

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Balbus, glancing up from a shipping-account laid out in front of him on the desk. ‘It is good news.’

‘Yes, sir. I believe it is.’

‘And it is what you want?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘Then you must go. Of course you must. Though I wonder how I shall manage without you.’

That year, he had ejected the neighbouring tenant in the Street of the Carpenters and expanded his offices. Even in winter he was busy. He had taken on new clerks; and just then everyone was working on a large consignment of supplies to the forts along the northern border, for which a small fleet of ships had been hired. The province was prospering, and so was he.

‘Now where is that manifest?’ he said, looking away. ‘I had it a moment ago.’ He began pushing at the clutter on his desk.

‘Here,’ I said. I lifted a folded wooden tablet and handed it to him. He gave the document a cursory glance and set it down, then looked at me sadly.

‘You see? I shall miss you, my boy. Why not leave generalship and government to others? There is nothing to be gained from it, if I am any judge of such things—Yes? What is it?’ One of the new brash young clerks had entered to say the shipping agent was waiting. Balbus waved him away. ‘Still, Drusus, business will not wait, and I must press on and deal with Vibianus. I am expected at the docks.’

Lucretia sat basilisk-faced when I told her, as if even my leaving were a slight on her.

‘There is no money, if that is what you want.’

‘No,’ I said.

There followed an unpleasant pause. Her fingers tapped on the damask cushion of her couch. Then she said, ‘You always looked down on me. You think you are better. But you are nothing at all.’

‘I looked at her pinched, mean face and said, ‘No, madam.’ Beyond her, from behind the gaudy hangings, where a new myrrhine vase stood on a fluted ornamental table, I saw the image of the simple, sad youth gazing out at me.

Like a squirrel preparing for winter, burying his acorns for the day he would have need of them, I had stored up over the months and years many ugly words I wanted to say in return for her slights and petty cruelty. But now I realized, as I looked at her hard face and modish clothes, that I had left her far behind. She no longer mattered. She had allowed envy and bitterness to mould her; she had succeeded in bending her son to her will, and had crushed the life out of him. Her husband, as she surely knew, absented himself from her whenever he could. Only the slaves remained, and, though they could not leave, they were a torment to her as much as she to them. She was her own punishment, and I perceived that any words of mine would diminish me, not her. I was free. It was enough.

And then, for no reason that was clear to me, I found I was thinking of Marcellus.

Next day I washed and dressed and hurried out, not having thought to ask what time the Council met.

I arrived too early. The low winter sun was only now rising over the surrounding roofs, casting long shadows across the great porticoed expanse of the forum square.

The food merchants – always the first to market – were setting up their awnings and laying out their baskets and urns. I stopped at a baker’s in the colonnade, bought a warm honeycake, and watched the activity around me – fish sellers with racks of oysters and casks of swimming fish; grain merchants unloading sacks of wheat and barley and pulses; greengrocers; herb sellers; spice importers and men with stacked amphoras of oil and wine and piquant sauces. As Balbus liked to say, the market was better than any soothsayer’s scattered stones for telling the health of the province, and it was filling from one side of the colonnade to the other. Trade had been good since Gratian had driven out the Saxons.

I swallowed the last of my cake and made my way along the colonnade, past the offices of the lawyers and city officials, to the great basilica which fills the forum’s northern edge. Groups of clerks and rich men’s clients were already loitering among the tall granite columns, wrapped against the morning chill, clutching writing tablets or scrolls. I wandered among them. Marcellus was not there.

Litters began to arrive, carrying members of the Council. Decurions and magistrates stepped out and mounted the basilica steps; the waiting clerks and clients stepped forward. Then, turning away, I saw him, striding purposefully across the open area of the piazza, looking fine and handsome, dressed in a woollen cloak of dark green. His grandfather Aquinus was with him and they were deep in conversation, the old man making some point and gesturing as he spoke, and Marcellus nodding.

For a moment I wondered if he had forgotten me. But I need not have worried. As they approached he glanced up, scanning the steps. Seeing me his face brightened, like the break of dawn light. His grandfather turned to meet me.

‘So this,’ he said, ‘is what all the fuss was about. I am glad to meet you at last, Drusus, though I perceive now that we have met before, even if we did not speak.’

Behind me someone said, ‘Good day, Quintus Aquinus.’ Aquinus inclined his head in acknowledgement. Around me I could see others ready to step forward, waiting to speak to him.