The Last Stoic (2 page)

The antique volume waits for a reader, type set outmoded,
stiff pages mottled, dust jacket rumpled.
 
Unopened.  Jettisoned.

One hundred and twenty miles into
upstate New York, rolling south on Interstate 81, lulled by the unrelenting
sameness of the forested edge of the Adirondacks blurring by the windscreen,
Mark replayed his departure that morning.  He recalled his mother’s rigid
smile.  And then the memory of the forgotten hardcover left on the night stand,
the book that his grandfather had made a show of presenting. 

Road signs rushed past. 

Exit to Cicero.  Syracuse 12 miles straight ahead.  Off-ramps to Cato, Conquest, and Brutus to the east.  Utica and Rome to the west.

Unusual names.  Different from
the blandly British names found north of the border, in the countryside that
Mark had spent his childhood: Kingston, Brockville, Harrowsmith, Sydenham,
Westbrook, Picton, Wellington.  Conservative.  Ordinary.  Thoroughly
Anglo-Saxon. 

These names were exotic and
evocative of far-off places.  They promised adventure.  They were freighted
with an unmistakable yet indiscernible significance.  Mark imagined taking one of these exits, to Rome, and arriving at a bright amusement park, centurions
taking his parking money, galley slaves serving him fries and soda, pimpled and
toga-clad teenagers taking his tickets for the chariot rides, and a gaudy
Emperor presiding over enactments of gladiator games every hour between ten and
four.  Six Flags Ancient Rome. 

He navigated the car, a 1979
Pontiac Phoenix that Mark’s younger brother Andy had busted out of the junkyard
and had resuscitated with the help of his friend Budge, through the environs of
Syracuse and wound his way out the other side to rejoin the interstate. 

Pompey, Virgil, Ithaca, and
Cincinnatus ahead. 

Camillus, Marcellus, and Aurelius
to the west…

Aurelius?  Mark looked again. 
The sign read Aurelius.  What are the odds?  The name of the writer of that
book that Vincent, his grandfather, had given him.  Marcus Aurelius.  My
Observations?  The Initiations?

Meditations. 
The Meditations
of Marcus Aurelius
. 

A vivid memory of the awkward
exchange that morning with Vincent flooded back.  Mark flushed slightly as he
remembered his behaviour.  He hadn’t intended to be dismissive; especially not
when presented with a gift that his grandfather prized so greatly. 

It’s for his sake that I’m
leaving, he thought, not mine. 

The Phoenix hummed steadily along
the I-81 towards New York City.  Andy had handed the keys over just that morning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 “Look what else Budge and I got
you,” Andy said as he waved an 8 inch hunting knife, sunlight flickering along
its serrated edge.  “A parting gift for the intrepid traveller.  Budge said you
should bring it with you and keep it nearby for when you sleep in the car. 
Just in case.  Look, we had your name engraved on it.”

His name was etched in the blade
on one side with “Safe Travels” and the date inscribed on the other.  Mark
glanced at his mother to gauge her reaction.

“Sleeping in the car?”

Andy continued, sensing the
awkwardness, “Budge said a gun wouldn’t be a bad idea either.  He said you can
get them from pawnshops.  Or from Walmart.  Budge says it’s real easy…”

He stopped before mentioning the
nine millimetre Glock 17. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andy had the best intentions when
he had stowed the gun under the driver’s seat, wrapped in an old towel, behind
the lever that adjusts the seat.  Fortunately, Mark had not been one of those
selected for a search at U.S. customs and he thought he was telling the truth
when he answered
No
to the question,
Are you bringing any firearms
into the country?
  The gun remained inert and undiscovered, inches from his
right knee. 

Billboards rushed by:  Denny’s,
Subway, Dunkin Donuts
.
 

There was a red light flashing
from the dashboard, just above the odometer, that hadn’t been there an hour
earlier.  Mark tapped the cracked plastic over the temperature indicator with
his forefinger.  A short or something.  Andy had said the car might do that on
occasion, nothing serious.  Mark knocked it with the back of his hand.  The
flashing stopped. 

I wish I’d remembered the damn
book, he thought.

Marcus marveled at the roads.
  Britannia could boast a number
of thoroughfares and some of them were quite fine, including the Iter III, on
which he had first struck out from Verulamium to Londinium and on toward the
southern edge of the province at Portus Dubris.  The genius of Roman
engineering had extended its influence in all directions.

But those Roman-inspired
provincial roads were just the tapered ends of something much greater and
Marcus imagined he was following strand ends to their manifold and robust
source.  He had started at a remote capillary tip, one of millions across the
body politic where the vigorous interchange between cultures transpires, and
had flowed southward through the contiguous vessels, from side-roads and
concessions, to highways and byways, finally to the veins and arteries and
their inevitable starting point. 

Marcus recalled his grandfather
describing how Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, consolidated the empire’s
radiation of roadways into its most efficient war machine.  When not marching
his army along the viae with ruthless speed to crush uprisings in the frontiers
of Spain, Gaul, or along the Danube, he set them to work building, expanding,
and maintaining these same routes.  Vincentius loved to tell the tale of how he
had, as a young man, witnessed the march of several legions on their way to
pacify rebels in Pannonia.  He had to move to the side of the road and stand in
the ditch to let them pass.  For five hours he waited and watched as a dusty,
miles-long procession of soldiers, pack animals, and war machines thundered,
squealed and clattered by, as though on parade just for him.  The noise had
echoed in his ears for many hours after they had passed. 

As Marcus progressed through
valley and over rise, one after another for mile after mile, he marveled at the
power that could so unequivocally impose its stamp upon the countryside with
such single-minded purpose and homogenous effect, never faltering in its
execution, never wavering in its commitment to the central design.  He wondered
at the human sweat that must have been poured into the excavation of those
broad ditches and the expansive re-distribution of rock and rubble into the
composition of the surface.  He admired the meticulousness that produced the
pavimentum tamped and smooth, with unfailing consistency over thousands of
miles.  And the ubiquitous concrete.  Flesh of the empire.  Ribbons of stone
would bind the landscape for yet another thousand years.  And soon he would be
an apprentice to this grand endeavour.

At sunset Marcus noticed that Phoenix was flagging.  The old chestnut mare his brother Annaeus had rescued from the
slaughter-house and nursed back to health was showing unmistakable signs of
distress.  Marcus could see that she no longer twitched under the persistent
attack of the flies around her eyes and nose, her ears were beginning to fold
back flat, and her drooping lips had turned pale, the spittle forming a paste
at the corners of her mouth.  She hardly bothered to stoop for a drink when
they stopped at a stream. 

He recalled the milestone they
had just passed: CXV.  There might be a caupona ahead.

The sun’s leading edge dipped
behind the low hills ahead and shadows distorted the landscape.  Marcus
refastened the broach of his tunic against the cooling air.  The monotony of the
journey had inflamed his imagination and he was aware for the first time of his
remoteness from home.  A misshapen shrub around the bend resembled, for a
moment, a prowling animal.  Rustling in the long grasses betrayed sneaking
highwaymen. 

He crested a slope.  Every three
hundred feet or so, on either side of the road for as far as he could see,
stood crucifixes, one after another, silhouetted black and looming against the
reddening sky, with a slumping figure fastened to each one. 

“Jupiter,” Marcus whispered.

The crucified were in various
states of decay.  The first were long-time residents; their frames had been
picked clean with scraps of clothing hanging from ankles and wrists.  The
tableau was made absurd by the broad, bony grins spread across the skulls of
each of the condemned.  Their incongruous smiles were made comically emphatic
by the shadow of the sun’s deteriorating light, as though they’d all shared a
macabre but hilarious joke just before he had arrived.  Looking into the
skeletal faces he imagined what they had looked like in the flesh, twisting in
agony on their cruel platforms. 

Marcus spied the caupona from the
next rise and was relieved that the rows of crucifixes ended well before it. 
He secured Phoenix to a nearby fence post and entered through the front gate,
across the square courtyard, past the heaps of rubbish, half-empty, half-rotted
sacks, the crumbling statue, the patchy rooster lurching at the clouding gnats,
and he stepped through the open door.

“Hello?”

A sooty oil lamp flickering from
a side table did little to illuminate the room.

“Come over here, and bring that
lamp.”

The man was wedged behind a
chunky, rough-hewn oak table and he completely filled the broad rectangle of
space between it and the wall.  In the mitt of his right hand he gripped an
oily joint of meat.  Held aloft in his left hand was a soiled handkerchief as
big as a tablecloth.  His torso was terraced.  The forward arc of his belly
enveloped the edge of the table and three additional layers of body mass,
contoured as distinct mounds, stacked up to the level of his sagging chest. 
His face was pallid and larval.  It was as if he’d been born in this little
alcove, had been fattened in it, and now was too large to leave. 

“What can I do for you boy?” 

“I’m looking for a place to stay
the night.  I’m on the road.”

“Not possible tonight, I’m
afraid.”

Marcus shuddered, picturing
himself outside again with the moon-lit silhouettes of the crucified.

“Amanda and Priscilla are in
tonight, working.”  The caupo’s laugh sounded like a sneeze.  “We only have the
two rooms and both will be occupied.”

“Do you suppose I could feed and
water my horse?”

“Of course.  Provided you’ve got
the denarii.”

Marcus nodded that he did.

“Excellent.”  The caupo put the
drumstick he’d been holding down on the handkerchief, shifted on his seat and
lifted himself, placing both beefy arms on the table top for support.  “Come
and I’ll show you the stables.  Let’s see your coin first.”

Marcus dug into his purse and
paid him the amount requested.  With greasy hands, the man pocketed the coins
and took the lamp from Marcus. 

“Might I also get some food for
myself?”

“Certainly.  That’s extra.”

Marcus dropped several more coins
into his outstretched hand.

“Follow me.”

“Those crucifixes on the
highway.  What happened?”

The caupo stopped in the middle
of the hallway.  Beads of sweat formed across his forehead. 

“Maleficî!  Stupid peasants!  Got
exactly what they deserved.”

“But what did they do?”

“They were harbouring a
fugitive,” the man shouted over his shoulder, “Sextus Condianus himself if you
can believe it.  Peasants don’t know what’s good for them.” 

“Sextus who?”

Again the caupo stopped. 

“You aren’t from around here are
you?”  He gurgled and shook his head.  “Sextus who.  Buy me a goblet of wine
and I’ll tell you all about him.” 

Without waiting for an answer he
continued down the corridor and together they entered the old villa’s atrium. 
The air was thick with the odour of grilling meat.  Across the dusty courtyard,
under a couple of hanging lanterns, an old woman rotated the carcass of a young
goat over a fire.  Fats from the animal dripped steadily onto the bed of coals,
hissing and billowing acrid smoke up into the cool evening air.  A young man,
pale and gaunt, sat at a table nearer the cooking area, picking at a plate of
food.  He watched as Marcus and the innkeeper entered.

“Here,” the caupo gestured toward
the fire pit, “just tell cŏqua what you want.  Bring your grub back over
here to this bench.”

The cŏqua, a diminished Pict
whose scarified skin was indigo-coloured, doled grilled goat meat, flatbread,
crumbly cheese, pale beans drenched in garlic and oil, and a gritty porridge
onto a platter and handed it to Marcus.

“Come!  We’ll sit over here and
I’ll tell you about Sextus Condianus, provided you have some more coin for the
wine.”

Marcus hesitated.  He weighed the
caupo’s moist enunciations against an image of the crucified on the via.  His
coin purse was thin, but his instinct was not to offend.  He offered the caupo
two more coppers.  

“Excellent,” the caupo beamed as
he led him to a table next to the fire.  “Sit here.  I’ll get the wine.”  

The caupo poured two goblets of
wine from the ewer he’d brought and he pushed one toward Marcus. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Patricius Constantius the Younger
sat at a nearby bench.  He did not look up from his circle of flatbread and
nugget of hard cheese, but he listened hard.  He knew of the reward offered for
the successful capture of the traitor Sextus Condianus.  The man who delivered
up Sextus would not only receive bags full of silver, he’d be a hero.  They’d
make me a quaestor.  And what would the Elder have to say about that?  A thin
smile broke through Patricius’ chewing.  For once, he’d be speechless.   

Patricius had left his father’s
domus early that morning and he had not planned beyond the initial escape. 
He’d thought that opportunities would present themselves along the way.  Now,
at day’s end, having skulked around the sparse caupona for two hours, his
initial exhilaration had worn off.  His funds were slight and he had nowhere to
go; many miles from home, many miles from Rome. 

He tore at the disc of flatbread
from the side of his mouth.  I won’t go home, he thought.  He pictured his
father, Patricius Constantius the Elder, head thrown back, clutching the crest
of his potbelly, loud with laughter as his son shuffled back through the front
gate a day later, with head bowed. 

I’d rather starve.  Or hang.

Patricius studied Marcus as he
listened to the caupo. 

About my age.  Has his own
mount.  Never heard of Sextus Condianus.  Not from here.  Not too bright.  A
well-stocked coin purse, judging from the outlay.  A foreigner.  From
Britannia?  Squalid land of squat, fat-nosed folk in fur jackets who sleep with
their sheep.  Tin piss pots and… more tin piss pots.  Caesar should never have
demeaned the glory of Rome by even pointing his imperial toe toward the clammy
place.  Listen to the caupo, lardy oaf, with his Belgic wife, and his pruney
Pictish servant-woman, carrying on like they’re kin.  All that ancestral
bloodshed, conquering, domesticating.  Now the donkeys hold the reins.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Well, I shouldn’t even be
telling you this,” the caupo said to Marcus, in a quieter tone, “they say the
emperor’s spies still patrol these parts.  Pluto’s ass, maybe you’re a spy.”

Patricius reddened and turned
back to his meal.

“I’ve never even heard of this
man until just now,” Marcus said.

“Naw, you’re a Belgic from
Verulamium no?  A good old boy, it’s ok, I trust you.  Do you remember
Commodus?”

“A little.  My grandfather spoke
of him.”

“Vae, you’re greener than a
grasshopper’s ass!”

The innkeeper paused to drain his
goblet.  He picked up the ewer and raised it over the empty vessel.  Looking
across at Marcus with eyebrows raised, he sucked on the sausage of his index
finger.  Marcus stared back, not understanding at first.  Then, slowly, he
pulled another copper coin from his pouch and laid it on the table.  The caupo
poured and, with a wet grin, continued his tale. 

When Commodus took to the throne,
he explained, his advisors terrified him with talk of assassination and
revolt.  The emperor instructed his henchmen to murder hundreds of the leading
citzens of Rome at the time, including the Quintilii brothers, Condianus and
Maximus, scions of one of the oldest and most respected families in Rome.  Commodus also ordered the killing of Sextus Condianus, Maximus’ son.  Despite his
youth, Sextus was the greatest of all the Quintilii, as smart and as skilled a
horseman as his father and uncle combined.  Sextus was living in Syria when he learned that he was next on the execution list.  One morning he drank a full
cup of rabbit blood and went out for his morning ride.  He rode past the local
garrison and fell from his horse, vomiting up the blood.  His friends rushed
him back to his room where he died.  A funeral was held and a coffin was burned
on a pyre.  The Syrian praefect reported back to Commodus that Sextus Condianus
had an accident, he’d died and been cremated.  No need to round him up for
execution.

What was one of Rome’s best
horsemen doing falling from his horse?  It was rumoured that it was a ram’s
body that was placed in the coffin and not the body of Sextus Condianus. 
People said he was wandering the empire, continually changing his appearance,
whipping up rebellion, terrifying Commodus.