Paul Doherty - The Song of the Gladiator

‘Now, my master was very wealthy. He was patron of the oratory school in the town; he liked nothing better than to invite speakers to his villa for the Agape. After the ceremony was over we would have supper out under the stars, the night air sweet with the perfume of hyacinth. The speakers would entertain us debating some topic or other. On other occasions my master would take his entire household down to the school to watch the orators declaim.’ Narcissus put his face in his hands. ‘An idyllic time! Virgil would have sung about it in his poetry.’

‘And?’ Claudia asked.

‘Oh, I met everyone there. The school of oratory at Capua was famous; even Chrysis came, to improve his speaking and public presentation. He considered himself a new Cicero. He loved to quote the Pro Milone or the Contra Catilinam and other speeches of the great orator. I’m not too sure,’ Narcissus screwed his eyes up, ‘I think Chrysis had to leave, some scandal about paying fees, or in his case, not paying them.’

‘And Gaius Tullius?’

Narcissus shook his head. ‘I’ve talked to him. He spent most of his time in Gaul or Britain. He is a pagan through and through and can’t see what all the fuss is about. I never met him until I came here.’

‘And the steward Timothaeus?’

‘He never came, but I understand he had a brother there.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He disappeared during the persecution. Timothaeus doesn’t know whether he fled, was arrested or killed.’ Narcissus shrugged. ‘No one knows! The rest of the speakers were there, Athanasius, Dionysius and the rest. They were young then, learning the art of public speaking, being trained to deliver a speech with a pebble in their mouth or recite without notes. Looking back, they were all puffed up as barnyard cocks. Justin regarded himself as the new Demosthenes.’

‘You’re an educated man, Narcissus, you know all the names.’

‘My master was a great scholar. He educated me, he let me read his library.’

‘Then it all ended?’

‘Yes, it all ended,’ Narcissus declared wearily. ‘I loved that family, mistress. My master promised me my freedom, planned to have me as a business partner. We could have cornered the trade in that town. You should have seen his warehouses. He had the best funeral paraphernalia: masks, fans, caskets, even his own group of musicians. Diocletian ended all that. He issued his edict, Christianity was once again proscribed, its scriptures and symbols banned.’ Narcissus began to cry, sobbing quietly. Claudia noticed his fists clenched in balls, the veins in his arms standing out like tight cords. This man, she reflected, could kill. And what about Timothaeus? He had had a brother in Capua who apparently disappeared. Chrysis? He was a different matter. He was always known for his sticky fingers, reluctant to pay his debts.

As Narcissus sobbed, he reminded Claudia of a child, his tears being those of anger rather than sorrow.

‘My master’s family,’ he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, ‘were denounced. The soldiers came in the dead of night, they found a copy of the Christian scriptures, the Chi and Rho and the icthus sign, the fish, the letters of which, as you know, stand for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour of the World”. I was there shivering in the dark when the soldiers pushed this symbol into my master’s face asking him to renounce it. He refused, as did his family. They were all taken up, bound and tied, pushed out of the door and into a cart. I was ignored; you see, I was a slave, I didn’t exist. I was left like a ghost in that empty house. I stayed there for about four days. People came asking what had happened. I couldn’t believe it! I saw it in their eyes: I was the traitor, I had betrayed my master. So I fled, and hid out in the countryside.’

‘How did you survive?’

‘I knew about the Christian community, names and places. Once I was in hiding, fleeing for my life, I was accepted as one of them, but I faced many dangers. I could be branded as a traitor by the Christians or a runaway slave by the authorities. If I was captured I could expect the cross or end up facing some great bear in the arena. One of the farmers I sheltered with told me how the authorities had now made a tally of my master’s possessions. I was on it but missing. They wanted me.’ Narcissus held his hands up. ‘Mistress, I swear I never betrayed them, but I knew if I was captured I would be tortured. I lurked out in the countryside,’ he blew his cheeks out, ‘oh, two or three years, then I was passed north and given shelter in the catacombs. I looked after the graves of the dead. The years passed quickly. I came to the attention of the presbyter Sylvester and confessed my whole story to him.’

‘I’m sure you did.’ Claudia smiled thinly. ‘And Sylvester arranged for you to come here?’

‘Yes, mistress, because of Constantine’s Edict of Toleration. Our new Emperor made it very clear: runaway slaves had to recognise their status and surrender to the authorities. Sylvester explained he could do nothing for me but soften the blow. He would arrange a good post; sure enough, I was presented to Chrysis and dispatched here.’

‘So you haven’t been here five years?’ Claudia smiled.

‘Of course not.’

Claudia studied him closely. She believed Narcissus was telling the truth, or at least part of it. She could also understand the Augusta’s generosity towards this Syrian embalmer. Helena knew everything and would have learned all about Narcissus’s previous life.

‘You’re a spy, aren’t you?’ Claudia asked. ‘Sylvester made that one of his conditions. Anything you learn you pass on to Timothaeus or someone like me; that’s why you approached me in the garden in the first place. Sylvester does nothing without setting a price, which is always the same: the advancement of the Christian community. It’s good to have a spy at the Villa Pulchra.’

‘Just information,’ Narcissus protested. ‘I know what I saw that night, I mean the beacon fires. I swore an oath of loyalty to Sylvester and I kept it. At that time, sitting out under the stars, I didn’t realise that what I had seen was so important.’

‘Who did betray your master?’

Claudia had deliberately changed the questioning, and for a moment she caught the shift in Narcissus’s eyes, a hard, calculating look. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you must have made enquiries. People talk. Names,’ she snapped, ‘you must have overheard names?’

‘Dionysius, Septimus.’ Narcissus was now solemn.

‘Did you dishonour Dionysius’s corpse?’

‘I spat in its face.’

‘What else did you do, Narcissus? Did you examine that old man, the wanderer in the woods?’

‘I. .’

Claudia raised her hand threateningly. ‘He was murdered, wasn’t he?’

‘I think so.’ Narcissus looked away. ‘Yes, I think so. He was covered in dirt and dust, some bleeding to the side of his head. He had thick shaggy hair. His skull was stoved in, but there again, it could have been an accident.’

‘You practise your art, don’t you?’ Claudia asked. ‘You’re an embalmer skilled in the Osirian rites, drawing out the brains and entrails. You did that to the wanderer in the woods, as you’ve practised before on corpses of slaves.’

‘No one knows,’ Narcissus confessed. ‘I felt I had to do it to help them on their journey, and to keep my art alive. What harm did I do? Who cares about some old slave?’

‘You bury the waste in the woods, don’t you? I’ve seen the places where you hide it. More importantly, you had a chest in the House of Mourning filled with resin oil and other combustibles. That was your little kingdom, which is why you never left it. You locked the door and slept underneath the nearby sycamore tree, where you were when the fire broke out. You thought you’d be blamed, so you fled in the night. You were terrified in case they found out what you kept there and what you did. Now, Narcissus, that’s all in the past. On that particular night, did you see anything suspicious?’