Of Merchants & Heros (19 page)

He missed me.

Then the winter gales set in, and there was nothing more.

It was a time of changes. The war, which had gone on since before I was born, was over; and now, Caecilius announced to me one day, his business in Tarentum was drawing to an end. Soon all could be left to his agents and managers. There were officials he had to see at the praetor’s residence, and, in one of the petty humiliations he inflicted on others to confirm his sense of self, he took me with him as a porter for his piles of documents, as if I were a slave.

The residence was not only Titus’s dwelling, but also a large complex of offices and outhouses where officials worked. I had no reason to suppose, that day, that I should see Titus himself. But as I laboured with the burden of papers, following my stepfather, he emerged from a doorway at the far side of the wide square courtyard, attended by the tribune Verginius and a group of clerks.

‘Why Marcus, you look weighed down like a mule! Let me find someone to carry that . . . what is it all, anyway . . . was there no slave to help you?’

He took some of the tablets and books and scrolls himself, and passed others to the clerks. ‘By God,’ he said laughing, ‘there is enough for two men here. What are you doing, training for the pankration?’ Then he looked up and saw Caecilius, some twenty paces ahead, under the portico by the offices, wagging his finger at one of the officials. ‘Ah,’ he said frowning. ‘Your stepfather.’

Just then Caecilius turned with a cross look, to see where I was.

As soon as he saw Titus his face changed, and he came hurrying across the cobbles, all smiles, his mantle swishing to and fro about his bulk. ‘My dear Praetor, what an honour, why I was just saying to my son here . . .’

He talked on – flattering nonsense – until Titus eventually cut in with, ‘I believe you are leaving us, Aulus Caecilius? Have you decided yet where you will be going?’

‘Back to my estate in Praeneste,’ he answered. ‘At least for the winter . . . As for afterwards, who can say? I have interests in Greece, as, indeed, you may have heard; and elsewhere too. But as I often say, the world is full of opportunity, and—’

‘Quite. Then I wish you success.’ And then, turning to me, ‘I hear a ship put in from Athens last week. Is there word from Menexenos?’

Before I could answer, Caecilius burst in with, ‘Ah Menexenos! An excellent young man, for a Greek.’ He paused and frowned to himself, perhaps remembering that Titus had a reputation for being a friend of Greece.

Titus looked at him. ‘Yes, excellent indeed; and a person I count as a particular friend . . . But you must have a great deal to do, Aulus Caecilius, and I am keeping you from your business . . . Marcus, why don’t you give all this rubbish to the clerk’ – stubbing his thumb at the pile of documents – ‘I want to show you something – if, Caecilius, you can spare him?’

‘Oh yes, yes, of course; yes, certainly,’ blustered my stepfather, giving me what he supposed was a private conspiratorial nod.

‘Good. Come then, Marcus. And good day to you, sir.’ He put his arm through my elbow, and led me off towards the main house.

‘I shall miss you,’ he said as we walked. ‘Verginius says you have been practising sword-work at the barracks. What is it? Will you be enlisting next?’

I laughed. ‘A man ought to know how to defend himself. He must know how to fight.’

‘Indeed. Well, if Verginius is any judge, you already fight better than many men. You move well, he says; and you are fast.’

We passed under the long colonnade beside the gardens. Further off, slaves were busy raking the lawns, or tending the low ornamental hedges. ‘We shall meet again,’ he said, ‘but mind you come for one last dinner before you leave . . . just some close friends, Xanthe, Mimas, perhaps Verginius too . . .’ We came to the table that stood on the terrace, and here he paused. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘to business. That friend of yours you told me about, the one with the horse-farm.

What was his name?’

I said, ‘Eumastas.’

‘Ah yes, Eumastas.’ He picked up a scroll from the table. ‘I wanted to do this long ago. It has all taken far more time than it needed. But I had some unexpected opposition to overcome.’ He frowned at the scroll, then handed it to me, adding, ‘. . . not least from your stepfather, who insisted I went through the formal channels at Rome. Still, it is done at last, and here is the deed to show it. You may tell Eumastas his farm is restored to him.’

I stared at the document, written in the broad clear hand of hieratic Roman officialdom. I swallowed, then remembered to thank him.

He waved my thanks aside. ‘It is justice,’ he said. Then, seeing my hesitation, ‘But what is it?’

‘Just this, Titus: I’d rather not tell him myself. You see, his farm was never my gift to give, and I should not want him to think it was, after so long.’

He nodded. ‘I understand. I’ll send Sextus. He will handle it well.’

‘And my stepfather?’ I said, thinking how he had mentioned none of this to me.

His blue eyes flashed, and with a grin he replied, ‘The clerks will be informing him, even as we speak.’

SEVEN

PRAENESTE IN WINTER. MIST
hung in the valley like a silk veil; but when we mounted the track that led up into the foothills and started to climb, we left the mist beneath us, and the morning air was sharp, and clear as crystal.

My mother was waiting on the step, proud and straight-backed, and at her side stood Mouse, my stepsister. A group of the farmhands had gathered; and, with them, but carefully apart, the new bailiff my stepfather had brought in – a black-haired, staring, uneasy-looking man.

I stepped up, and my mother greeted me and took my hands in hers. ‘Why, you are a man now,’ she said smiling. ‘I see the reflection of my own father in you . . . You see, Caecilia’ – to Mouse – ‘how broad and strong he has become.’

Mouse smiled, and when I embraced her she whispered, ‘Welcome home, Marcus.’

Her hounded look had gone; her modest, attentive face showed a new confidence.

In the days that followed, I wandered about my old familiar haunts – the tracks among the oak trees; the stream and apple orchard and the high grove with its ancient grey-stone shrine where my ancestors lay. I saw straight away that the bailiff had made changes.

He was a fussy, garrulous man, ingratiating with my stepfather and me, but sharp with everyone else. The reason for his nervousness became clear after a morning touring the meadows and terraces with him. He had learned whatever knowledge of farming he possessed in the fertile lowlands of Campania. It could not have taken him long to discover that his methods did not suit high Praeneste, where the conditions were different. But he was not the kind of man to take advice, and when the farmhands tried to set him right, he had rebuffed them with anger.

So he had sown too late; he had planted new vines on north- facing terraces where they would not grow; he had left the water conduits until they had silted up, and, ignoring the farmhands’

warnings, he had neglected the hay harvest so that there was not enough winter fodder for the livestock.

I do not think Caecilius noticed any of this. But one thing he could not fail to notice, and shortly after our return I was passing the door of my father’s old study when I heard his snappish complaining voice coming from within. He had been reviewing the accounts. I could hear his abrupt questions, and the bailiff’s complicated evasive replies, blaming the land, and the farmhands, and the weather.

It seemed unjust, and I was on the point of bursting in to put him right, and, indeed, I had already put my hand onto the great iron latch, when from behind me I heard my mother’s voice say sharply, ‘Marcus!’ and when I turned in surprise, for I had not known she was there, ‘Please come; I should like to speak to you.’

She led me to her sitting room before she spoke again. She asked me to close the door. Then sat down and looked at me. ‘You have taken a look at the farm, I suppose?’

I said, ‘Yes,’ and was about to go on, but she raised her hand, silencing me. ‘Then you have realized,’ she said, ‘that this bailiff’ – his name was Retius – ‘is a fool.’

‘Indeed, Mother!’ I cried, and began detailing the chaos on the farm.

She listened for a short while, but when I paused she said, ‘All this I know, Marcus; or do you think I learnt nothing from my own father, and from yours? But what do you think will happen if you tell Caecilius?’

‘Happen?’ I said staring. ‘Why, I hope he sends him away. What else?’

She nodded. ‘And then,’ she said, ‘he will bring in some other hireling, and I shall have to begin again with him. At least this man Retius perceives in some dim way that he has failed. And that,’ she said, pausing and meeting my eye, ‘is where I want him.’

I began to understand. Caecilius had seen nothing wrong with the farm, other than the accounts, which was the only thing he understood about farming. He had misjudged Retius, and if he were to seek another he might find an even greater fool. My mother, in her way, had found the lever that enabled her to manage him herself.

I could not but smile. My mother, seeing I had understood, nodded once, then turned away.

Soon after I arrived, Mouse said coyly that she had something to show me, and led me through to the back of the house, where her own small room was.

‘Why Mouse!’ I cried laughing, ‘you have built yourself a library!’

There were carefully fashioned shelves against every wall; indeed there was scarcely room for the bed any more.

She looked at me with big eyes. ‘You are not angry then?’

‘Angry? How could you think so? Why, this is wonderful.’

Immediately her nervousness left her. She sat down on the bed and happily explained how she had rescued my father’s old books from the damp outhouse, and had asked Milo the farmhand to help her build the shelves.

I went over and cast my eye over the books. Each volume had been sorted, labelled with new tags written in her careful hand, and stacked. I asked her how many she had managed to read.

‘Why, all of them,’ she answered, her eyes bright. She looked so proud, and so happy, that I crossed the room – no more than a pace or two in that little space – and hugged her.

When I stood back I saw she had blushed. But she did not avert her eyes, as she would have done before; and now, being sure of my reaction, she told me more. She had discovered, she said, that some of the books were old and worn, so she had begun to make her own copies. Shyly she took a scroll from a casket beneath the bed and showed me. She wrote in a fine, clear hand. I nodded and smiled, and told her so, and could see that she was pleased.

She said, ‘But I have a favour to ask.’

‘Then ask it,’ I said smiling.

‘It is said that there are books in Greece beyond counting. When you go, if you happen to see any, will you send me one, or maybe two, if you can manage it?’

‘Why yes, Mouse, of course.’ This was something Caecilius could easily have done for her, if he had been minded. Then I said, ‘But who told you I was going to Greece? No one told me.’

She tipped her head towards the door. ‘
He
did. Patrai, he said . .

. Didn’t he tell you then?’

I set the book aside.

‘I half knew, for he has business there. But he did not tell me, not properly.’

‘He never does.’ She looked at me. ‘Don’t you want to go?’

I shrugged. There was much I could have told her, but I did not want to muddy the clear water of her happiness. So I only said, ‘I should have preferred it if he had asked me, that’s all.’ But to myself I thought: Kritolaus and Patrai. I wonder what that will bring. And then I thought of Menexenos.

Shortly after the winter solstice, a messenger came with a letter from Titus, saying that his friends in Rome had secured him a new position. He would be leaving Tarentum, and, since he was passing close by, he proposed to pay a visit, if it was convenient with my stepfather.

‘Why of course, of course,’ cried Caecilius when I mentioned this, and to my mother and Mouse, ‘it is a great honour for a man like Titus to single me out for a personal visit; I expect you to do everything to accommodate him. It is an opportunity.’

He arrived a month later, when the first blossoms were showing in the apple orchard, accompanied by a mounted escort, which he billeted in the town.

That evening we ate a meal my mother had prepared. I shall not mention all my stepfather had to say. He talked a succession of tedious, irrelevant, superficial pleasantries, mingled with heavy- handed enquiries about how he might benefit from Titus’s affairs. He kept apologizing for the food, which my mother had taken much care with, saying, ‘Of course you are used to far better than this peasant fare,’ or, ‘Leave it, I’m sure you must find it dull.’ He was sharp with the serving-girl, calling her clumsy and mulish, and making her worse. And Mouse, who would have enjoyed Titus’s company, was banished to the kitchen and told to eat with the servants.

Next morning Titus caught my eye and said, ‘Come, Marcus, let us get some air.’

We took the track through the high forest, and while we walked, he told me his news.