Render Unto Caesar (20 page)

Menestor went very red. “Sir,” he said, with a sudden change of that tone from accusatory to pleading, “take me with you tomorrow!”

“To what end?” Hermogenes replied coldly. “There is nothing you could do that would help, and I find your belief that I am certainly going to die if I don't surrender a definite hindrance.”

“Sir,” said Menestor, with ragged dignity, “don't you understand that I'm
afraid
for you? You could be
killed
!”

“Yes, you've made that expectation quite clear,” he replied shortly. “And it is hardly flattering. I will try to make certain that you're free before it happens. Will you fetch Cantabra, and ask Titus if he can spare a moment? I want to discuss the plans for tomorrow.”

Looking hurt and furious in equal measure, Menestor stalked out. Hermogenes sat down at the desk. He swiveled his aching ankle and took several deep breaths, trying to compose himself and arrange his plans for the morning.

*   *   *

The priest had agreed to return to the house before the beginning of the third hour. Hermogenes had left orders that he was to be woken before the beginning of the second, but in fact he was awake before dawn. His face and ankle hurt worse than ever, and dread of the day ahead throbbed like a headache. He made himself rest quietly in bed until it was light, then got up and hobbled out into the dayroom to put on a clean tunic and have a drink of cold water. Menestor woke up, and he sent the boy to see if Tertia was up and able to provide another poultice.

She was, and presently came in with the steaming cloths and basins. Erotion was not with her, and he was secretly relieved: he would have felt compelled to put on a cheerful face for the little girl, and he didn't know that he could. Tertia shook her head over the old cut on his face and said she thought it was infected, and that he ought to spend the day resting quietly in bed.

“I can't,” he told her simply. “Can you clean it for me? And perhaps splint the ankle? It may need more protection than just binding.”

She cleaned the cut, and had him send Menestor to fetch an ointment of myrrh to combat the swelling, together with some laundry beaters to use as splints. He submitted to the anointing with myrhh, then lay down on the bed to have the foot splinted. Tertia knelt beside him, frowning as she arranged the flat splints on each side of the swollen ankle. “Sir,” she said timidly, “is it just the funeral you mean to go to? Or … are you planning to do other things as well?”

“I do have other things to do today, yes,” he admitted, “though I would prefer it if our friends across the road believe that I have simply attended my slave's funeral and come back. You know that I have fallen into a dangerous situation. I am trying to set it right.”

“I am sure you are, sir,” she replied, biting her lip. “Sir, are you taking that barbarian woman with you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She looked more worried than ever.

“You have some reason to suspect Cantabra?” he asked in concern.

“Oh—no—only … it's just that she's a
terrible
woman, sir! and I don't like to think of you going off with her when you can't even walk. She frightens me. She stares at my Erotion, sir, with this look on her face like … like she's
hungry
. I think her sort of barbarian must
eat
children!”

He shook his head, moved by a stab of understanding and pity. “Tertia, she had two children of her own who were murdered by soldiers. What do you think she
feels
when she sees you embracing a lovely little girl?”

“She
had children?” the slave woman asked, as astonished by the thought as he had been.

“Children and a husband,” he replied. “They were killed in the war her people fought against Rome, and she lost her freedom and was sent to the arenas. She never chose to be what she is. I know you are a good and kind woman, Tertia. Please, be kind to Cantabra. She has suffered terribly.”

“Oh!” Tertia was wide-eyed and red cheeked. “Of course. Oh, I didn't know! The poor creature!” She shook her head. “Oh, her poor little babies! I'm glad you told me, sir.”

Cantabra, however, was not glad. A little while later, as he was eating a light breakfast with Titus in the dining room, the bodyguard appeared with a furious scowl on her face, saluted, then stood with her hands on her hips, glaring.

“Yes?” he asked politely.

“Lord,” she said, “you told the slaves about my children!”

“Yes,” he agreed, surprised. “Should I not have done?”

“No! What is my life worth, if I am pitied by
slaves
?”

“You prefer to be feared and hated by them?” he asked, becoming annoyed. “Tertia was afraid you wanted to
eat
her daughter. Should I have let her go on believing that? She is a gentle and decent woman who is readily moved to pity: why should that offend you?
I
pity you for your children: does that offend you, too?”

This seemed to throw her completely. She went red and stared at him speechlessly.

“I have a daughter myself,” he told her. “I know how I would feel if she were killed.”

“
You
have a daughter?” she asked, as though this were as extraordinary a notion to her as her role as a mother had been to him.

Titus, who had watched all this in astonishment, began to laugh.

“At home in Alexandria,” Hermogenes explained with an irritated glance at his friend. “Woman, I know you are both freeborn and inexperienced, so I am making allowances, but this is not the way to speak to an employer. Most men would dismiss you for this outburst.”

Cantabra looked as though she were about to choke. Still red in the face, she bobbed her head and backed stiffly out of the room.

“Did that creature really have children?” Titus asked in surprise and amusement.

“Apparently, yes,” he replied. Hermogenes set down his piece of bread, feeling greatly dissatisfied with both the world and with himself.

“Hard to believe.” Titus gave him a sly look. “She seemed quite astonished to think of
you
having children, too. Perhaps it made her jealous. I think she may be in love with you.”

He shook his head. “I am quite certain that she is not. She made it very plain that it was not included in the hire.”

“Did she? The insolent bitch!”

“Titus, she's a barbarian ex-gladiator! Where would she have learned how to express that sort of thing gracefully? I think just now she was angry because she felt I'd betrayed a confidence. It was a mark of trust that she confronted me about it.” The memory of the furious look in her eyes came back to him—a
hurt
look, Hermogenes realized belatedly. “I should not have acted so superior,” he admitted, suddenly ashamed.

Titus was now watching him with a different sort of look, puzzled and sober. “You really do work at it with
everyone,
don't you?” he asked.

“Work at what?”

“At … at trying to understand people, to reason them out. I remember your father telling me once that that was why you were so good at business—that you put yourself in the place of whoever you were dealing with and tried to work out what he really wanted. I watched you after that, and saw that he was right, that was what you did and you were very good at it. But it isn't just business partners, is it? It's
everyone
. That barbarian, your slaves … and my slaves, too.” He met his guest's eyes. “You said you weren't trying to corrupt and seduce them, but you have. You've been here only a few days, and already they want to please you more than they've ever wanted to please me.”

Caught and exposed. The cut on his cheek throbbed as the blood rushed into it. “That's not true,” he said hurriedly. “They know you're a kind master and they do want to please you. They just don't know how.”

“What do you mean?” The obscure hurt he'd sensed in his host was suddenly sharp and open. “Surely it's
obvious
how—”

“It
isn't,
” Hermogenes insisted. “Look, Titus—when I first arrived here you were angry with them because they hadn't got the rooms ready for me. In fact, they hadn't been sure
which
rooms to get ready, and what you wanted done! You shout at them when they don't do things properly, but you never say anything when they do—so they're never certain whether or not they've done something right, and are frightened of doing anything, in case it's wrong. They do want to please you. You just have to let them know how to do it.”

Titus stared at him with an expression he couldn't interpret. Kyon came to the door and announced that the priest had arrived with the litter for the funeral procession.

“I'm sorry,” Hermogenes said vaguely, picking up his crutch. “Titus, I must go. Please, if anything should happen to me, look after Menestor. I want to give him his freedom; see if you can arrange that.”

Titus paled. “You expect to be
killed
?” he asked shrilly.

“No! No, I don't. I expect to come back and arrange Menestor's freedom myself. I only ask you as a precaution. Good health!” He hobbled quickly out to the door.

The funeral procession was still assembling. Menestor was there, looking sullen. Cantabra stood a little apart, also looking sullen, wearing a good plain cloak over her slave's tunic—borrowed, but suitable for paying respects to the dead, though he found himself wishing that she had draped it properly instead of putting it on like a shawl. Hyakinthos hurried from the back of the house, together with his mother and his little sister. The priest wore the black robes of Isis, rather than the white ones of Mercury, though he had an attendant with him leading a lamb for a Roman-style funeral sacrifice. When Hermogenes came out, the priest came over to help him to the covered litter which stood waiting. Kyon followed with a borrowed black cloak suitable for use at a funeral.

The litter was a small one, with four slaves to carry it instead of the eight normal to more elaborate conveyances. The curtains were plain brown wool, and smelled musty. Hermogenes allowed Kyon to drape him with the cloak, and the priest helped him into the litter. When he was seated, his foot propped up on a cushion, he pulled back the opposite curtain to look across the street.

The four barbarians were there, two sitting on the curb over an interrupted dice game, the other two standing, all watching him intently. They weren't all blond, after all—one of them had brown hair—but they were all obviously foreign, with heavy, bearded faces and long hair. They were big men, dressed in red tunics and plain cloaks, and if they hadn't actually brought spears along, they were openly carrying knives. For a long moment he stared at them and they stared back. He beckoned one of them over.

The man stepped back hurriedly. Hermogenes glanced round and caught the eye of one of the bearers who would carry the litter. “Please, would you go across the road, and tell those gentlemen what we are doing?” he asked. “They will be concerned to know.”

Looking distinctly nervous, the bearer went across the road and spoke to the guardsmen. Hermogenes watched as the four men scowled in embarrassment, looking from the messenger to him. The bearer came back. “I told them,” he announced. He seemed relieved: his errand, and its tacit acceptance, made the guardsmen somehow official and nothing to worry about.

“Thank you,” Hermogenes murmured. He drew the curtains of the litter.

A minute later two of Titus's slaves brought Phormion's body out of the house, and the procession set off.

Rome was encircled by small cemeteries, all—by legal requirement—outside the old and long-defunct city wall. The nearest lay straight out the Via Tusculana, past the Caelimontana Gate. Hermogenes remembered the Rubrius brothers saying that it was the bad part of the thoroughfare, but he saw little of it from behind his curtains. It was not a long walk—the procession turned right into the cemetery less than a mile from the house, and Hermogenes opened the curtains to watch as Phormion's body was carried onto the prepared pyre.

The priest prayed that the earth would be light upon the body of the departed, that Mercury would guide his soul safely to the Underworld, and that Lord Serapis, consort of Isis, would receive him kindly. He poured out a libation of wine and oil and sprinkled the assembled mourners with water from the Nile. The lamb brought for the purpose was led up and slaughtered. A cemetery attendant thrust a torch into the heart of the heap of firewood.

“Farewell, Phormion!” Menestor's voice cried, in Greek, and a ragged chorus of other voices repeated it in Latin, “Farewell!”

Hermogenes sat quietly in the litter until the fire was burning fiercely. Eventually Cantabra came, drew back the curtains on the side facing the pyre, and helped him out. “Two of them followed,” she informed him in a low voice. “But they are both at the entrance to the cemetery, watching from there.”

He nodded. He had been certain that the guardsmen would not actually attend the funeral of a man their comrades had killed. He beckoned Menestor over. The young man came reluctantly, and stood motionless while his master took off the borrowed cloak and draped it round him. The curtains of the litter hid them from the observers at the cemetery gate.

Hermogenes adjusted a fold of the cloak to cover Menestor's head. “Just get into the litter and let them take you back,” he ordered. “Keep the curtains closed. When you get to the house, keep the cloak well over your head, and let them help you to the door. Remember to limp on the
right
ankle.”

Menestor scowled, but said only, “Yes, sir.”

The litter bearers were by this time looking worried and bewildered, and the priest came over frowning with concern. “Is something the matter?” he asked.