Of Merchants & Heros (18 page)

‘Of course,’ explained Caecilius, ‘he has taken his cut, as is only natural. But now, it seems, some of the rabble have complained, saying he has helped himself to what is not his.’ He nodded wisely and added, ‘It goes to show . . .’

I do not know what it went to show, but, of late, Kritolaus had decided he was in need of an armed bodyguard to protect himself from his own citizens; he had come to Caecilius for weapons.

When I happened to mention this business to Menexenos he said, ‘Oh yes, Kritolaus. He is a demagogue. The very worst sort.’

By now, my Greek was very good, but this word was new to me.

‘Is a demagogue not an orator, then?’ I asked.

‘Not quite; though it is true that both men use their voices to persuade others. But an orator is a man who is guided by the common good, and uses his skills to persuade others to it. But a demagogue will say whatever is necessary to gain power, and to enrich himself.’

We had left the city that day, and were walking beside the water along the great curve of the bay. I said, ‘Yet Caecilius said the man is well liked.’

‘Perhaps so. He steals from the few, and gives to the many. It is the way to easy popularity. Yet you say he now needs an armed guard to protect him from his own people. Well I suppose the money has run out. And as for the men whose property he has stolen, he can hardly suppose they will forget it. He must live every day in fear.’

He fell silent. Presently, coming to a great rock, we climbed and sat, and looked out at the sea, and the distant ships. It was a beautiful day. The high-summer humidity had gone, and the air was fresh and clean.

I had intended to go on and mention something that had been weighing on my mind. Caecilius had been hinting that it might suit him to send me to this Kritolaus in Patrai as his agent there. As usual it had all been conveyed in half-completed sentences and indirect comments; and I knew, if I questioned him on it, and let on that I did not want to go, it would only strengthen his resolve to send me. So I had said nothing. And now, with Menexenos too, I decided my fears could wait for another time, when there was something more definite to tell him. So instead of speaking I jumped to my feet, pulled off my clothes, and dived from the rock into the bright cool water, and he jumped in after me.

Later we returned by the inland path. On the far terraces, men were moving with baskets, gathering the harvest. In the distance, beside a spreading farmstead, a sleek herd of horses stood grazing in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon. I knew the place well. How could I not? It was one of the farms my stepfather was contracted to manage. It was the farm of Eumastas’s father.

The man Caecilius had put in charge there was not as bad as most; he was a smallholder from Campania who had a love of horses.

But I seldom went that way, even so. I had tried to speak to Caecilius about the farm, telling him it had been seized unjustly, and that Eumastas was my friend. In answer he had said, ‘Then you had better spend less time with Greeks, as I have told you before.’

I was remembering this, when Menexenos, who had been silent for a while, broke into my thoughts and said, ‘I have had a letter from my father.’

Our eyes met. We both knew what this meant, for we had spoken of it.

‘So soon?’ I said.

He frowned out across the valley. ‘He says, with the future so uncertain, it is time I was home.’

I walked on a few paces before I answered. I had already resolved, many times, that when this moment came I should steel myself to bear it like a man. As Menexenos had once said, there is no disputing with necessity. I said, ‘Is it so bad, then?’

‘He says there will be war. He does not know when, not exactly.

But the motions have begun. Philip is a great vaunting bully, just like the Athenian Demos, but at least he has intelligence with it, which is more than you can say for the Demos. When it comes to matters of war, they are like the glutton at the overladen table, impatient to begin, but with no idea of how they will finish.’

‘When must you go?’ I asked.

He crooked his arm around my neck and drew me to him. Close up I could smell the faint tang of sea-salt on his body.

‘It must be before the shipping lanes close for winter,’ he said.

‘Not long then.’

‘No. Not long.’

I nodded, reflecting that there is pain even in love. Not for the first time I thought of how I was Roman, he Athenian; and in the natural course of things we walked different paths. Thus the Fates had woven our destiny, before we were born. And yet I knew I would not have it different. That summer had been like day after a long night.

As if reading my thoughts he said gently, ‘This we always knew.

For the rest, it is what we decide to make it. There is a power in longing, Marcus. Always remember that.’

We had reached the top of the low ridge. A breeze had picked up, stirring the leaves in the olive groves and ruffling our tunics. Ahead, in the near distance, Tarentum lay before us, red roofs and white houses, and, on the citadel, Poseidon’s temple with its golden trident.

I thought, at first, the noise I heard was the breeze whistling in the valley. But now I realized it was the sound of many men’s voices, rising and falling, carried on the wind. It was not the sound of battle; it was something else. It seemed to be coming from within the city, or from the garrison fort beside it.

Beside me Menexenos’s head went up. He had heard it too. We looked at each other.

‘Something is wrong,’ I said. ‘We had better get back.’

We quickened our pace. I saw, ahead in the distance, outside the city wall in the place where the wagons and carriages wait, a small crowd was gathering. Then I noticed a Roman legionary on mule- back, striking out along the path, urging the creature on with a switch on its rump. He was an old, lean, grizzled centurion. His face under his beard was flushed, and his mouth was moving, as if he were shouting, or singing. But he was too distant for me to make out his words.

We cut across the downward slope to intercept him. When he was near enough for me to hail, I called out in Latin, asking what had happened.

‘Zama!’ he cried back, breaking into a grinning laugh and waving the withy switch in the air so wildly that he nearly fell off the mule.

‘What does he say?’ asked Menexenos.

I shook my head. ‘ “Zama’ . . . But I don’t know what he means . .

. I think he’s drunk.’

We sprinted down the track and caught him up.

‘Zama!’ he cried again when I asked him. And then, after a long belch, ‘Have you not heard? It’s over boy, though I don’t think you were born when it began . . . How old are you? Sixteen?’

‘Seventeen. What is over?’

‘General Scipio has hammered those Carthaginian bastards, right outside their own city. It is finished at last. The war is over!’

Then he slapped the mule’s side and rode off, singing drunkenly to himself.

Everyone has their own tale of how they heard the news. That is mine. Later I heard more.

Scipio had done battle with Hannibal. He had entirely defeated the Carthaginian army and their allies, outside a village by the name of Zama. Hannibal had fled the field, and the elders of Carthage had sued for peace.

When I got home I found Caecilius in his workroom, holding forth to his friends. He was a man who liked to have his say, even on matters he knew nothing about, and now he was telling them, ‘Of course I foresaw this long ago; that is why I have diversified my business. Well there is peace, and there will be consequences, I daresay; but we must press on as best we can. I met Scipio once, you know. An able man, though rather full of himself . . . Ah, Marcus, there you are. Where have you been? I hope you are not thinking of going off to join the foolish merriment.’

Autumn drew on. It seemed to me I was aware of every turning leaf.

The tang of woodsmoke hung in the air, and at the harbour the long- haul merchantmen put out for their final voyages before the winter gales began.

Now, when Menexenos was leaving, I refused to be cast down.

One day Eumastas came to me and said, ‘My father is having a dinner-party, a farewell – just a few friends – will you come?’

I looked at him. This was the first time he had invited me to his house. I understood. He had his father’s honour to think of.

Perhaps he read these thoughts in my face, for then he said, ‘If we have suffered misfortune, it is as much the fault of the Tarentine mob, who supported Hannibal, as it is of Rome. You are my friend.

That is enough.’

I thanked him, and accepted.

Eumastas’s father, Aristippos, was a decent country gentleman.

He behaved as if he did not deign to notice his straitened circumstances; but it was clear he had never managed to adjust to them. He had salvaged, I saw, his old furniture from the farm: great carved antique chests, heavy tables, and dark-wood couches with silver feet. Anyone could see it did not belong in that cramped town house. But, then again, neither did he.

Seeing him constricted in his little prison like a caged bear I felt for him. He reminded me of Priscus, and of my own father; he was a man used to space, to walking out over the fields, tending to his animals, and regulating his life with the seasons. He never mentioned it. But one saw the loss in his eyes.

Later a linkboy lit me home through the dark streets. I was almost at the gate, and was just about to pay off the boy, when I noticed the postern move and a girl slip discreetly out. She flashed her eyes angrily at the dazzling torchlight, pulled up her veil, and hurried away. But I had seen enough to recognize her. She was one of Caecilius’s night-time visitors, one of the most regular, a raddled shrew with a voice like a crow’s. Something must have happened, for her to be leaving before the dawn.

I gave the boy his coin and went inside. The entrance hall was dark, after the light of the torch-flame, and I paused for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Then I heard the boards creak on the upstairs landing; and, from above, Caecilius’s voice called out, ‘Marcus, come here. I wish to speak to you.’

He was waiting in his private sitting room upstairs. On the table a single lamp-flame glimmered dimly under a fretted cover. Beside it stood a wine-flask, and, I noticed, two cups.

He sat down heavily on the couch and took up his drink. In the dim light his jowly face looked blotched and puffy. ‘I want to know,’

he snapped, ‘who this youth called Menexenos is.’

I paused. It was late, and I was tired. I had not been prepared for this.

‘He is my friend, sir,’ I answered.

He lolled his head and guffawed. I realized he was very drunk.

‘
Friend?
’ he drawled. ‘Is that what you call it? I hear he is more than that . . . or less.’

He brought up his cup and drank, like a parched man who has found water. Then, all of a sudden, he thrust his head forward and barked out, ‘Does he make love to you?’ He used the crude Latin barrack-term; deliberately, laying heavy emphasis on it, savouring it, rolling it with his tongue, investing it with as much filth and ugliness as he could.

There was a silence. The word hung in the air between us, like some creature. Just then, a chance breeze from the window caught the lamp-flame, making it flicker and spit, casting wild shapes on the wall, and illuminating the bed through the double-doors beyond.

The sheets were undisturbed still. I thought of the girl in the street. The subdued lighting was intended for an occasion different from this.

My anger surged in me then, coursing through my veins, making my head throb with the beating of my heart.

I took a step forward. Slowly, with a voice of steel, I said, ‘No sir, he does not. But if he asked me, I should do it gladly. Now is there anything else you wish to know? If not, then I shall go to my bed. I am tired; and, from the look of your state, you too need your sleep.’

And then I turned and strode out of the room.

Next day I went with Eumastas to the harbour to see Menexenos off. We stood near the gangboard, talking of this and that, while around us the stevedores finished the loading. Finally, all too soon, the captain called down from the deck that he was ready to put to sea.

‘Well, it is time,’ said Menexenos. He embraced Eumastas. Then he turned to me.

As we held each other close I whispered in his ear, ‘There is power in longing . . . I have not forgotten.’

‘Make sure you believe it,’ he said, his breath warm on my neck.

‘There is no distance between us, however far apart we are, unless you make it so.’

And then he drew me back, and kissed me.

In the days and weeks that followed, I set myself to training hard at the palaistra, either with Eumastas or alone, not caring what others made of it. Once or twice, turning from my exercise, I caught sight of my stepfather’s agent, sly rat-faced Virilis, lurking in the shadows. I had already guessed it was he who had been spying on me. But let him spy. I had nothing of which I was ashamed, either before Caecilius or before the gods themselves, who see everything.

I worked my body hard, using reason to perfect what, on the farm, I had acquired by chance.

In part, this work at the palaistra was for Menexenos; for I missed him even more than I had supposed, and to run where he had run, and strive where he had striven, put me in mind of him.

I asked Eumastas to tell me about Athens. He had been there once, when he was a boy; but mostly, he said, he had stayed out in the country, on the farm of Menexenos’s father Kleinias.

Eumastas was never one to chatter, or to use many words when few would do. He would speak, answering one’s question, and then fall silent. When first I met him, I had taken his heavy-browed expression for brooding, or dislike. But it was not that. I think, in the end, it was just that he did not have much to say, and, being conscious of it, it made him awkward.

The port was quiet, but eventually a late-season cargo ship put in. The captain asked for me, and when I came he handed me a letter from Menexenos. He had arrived safely. Athens was full of war-talk.