Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

The sobbing that woke me came from the room next door.

I thought of Diana. The image of her finding the beheaded corpse of Nemo sprang into my mind, and I was awake all at once, conscious but still disoriented. My heart raced, but my limbs lagged behind. I stood up, banged my elbow against the wall, and cursed King Numa.

But it was not Diana who sobbed — the noise was not high-pitched or childlike enough. Nor was it exactly sobbing, but a kind of rhythmic, choking cry that came through clenched teeth and tighdy pressed hps, the sort of frightened whimper made by someone in a nightmare.

I walked into the hallway. The sound ceased for a moment, then I heard it again through the thin curtain draped across the doorway to the room shared by Meto and Diana. A lamp set into the wall still burned with a low flame — placed there by thoughtful Eco, I was sure; he knew his father would have to rise in the night and pass water and might trip or bump his knee. I took the lamp, pulled aside the curtain, and stepped into the tiny room.

Diana was sitting up in her little sleeping couch, her back against the wall, blinking the sleep from her eyes as if she had just woken up. She pulled the thick coveriet up to her neck and looked at Meto with grave concern. 'Papa, what's wrong with him?'

I looked down at Meto, who rocked back and forth on his bed. His coverlet was all twisted and tangled; his hands had become trapped in the cloth. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and his jaw was tightly clenched. Behind his shut lids his eyes seemed to twitch and dart about. He began to whimper again.

Once before I had seen him this way, not long after I had taken him into my household and before I had manumitted him and made him my son.

'Papa?' said Diana again, her voice very small. 'Is Meto—'

'He's all right,' I said softly. 'He's only dreaming. It must be a very bad dream, but that's all it is. You mustn't worry. Here, I'll take care of him. Why don't you go sleep with your mother tonight?'

The suggestion pleased her immensely. She gathered up her coverlet, draping it around her like a grown woman's stola, and hopped out of her bed. She stopped so that I could give her a kiss and then hurried to the door.

‘You're sure he's all right, Papa?'

'Yes,' I said, and Diana, her expression still grave but not frightened, hurried off to join her mother.

I stood over Meto, watching his tormented face by the lamplight, uncertain whether I should wake him. Suddenly he gave a start and opened his eyes.

He sucked in a ragged breath. He reached to cover his face, but his hands were caught in the twisted cloth. For a moment he panicked, whimpering as if he still dreamed and jerking wildly at the coverlet so that he only became more entangled. I put down the lamp and gripped his arms to stop his thrashing. After a moment he relaxed, and together we extricated his hands.

He reached up to his face, then pulled his hands away, blinking in confusion at the sweat that glittered on his fingertips.

'You were having a nightmare,' I said softly.

'I was in Sicily,' he said in a hoarse whisper.

'I thought so. You had a dream like that once before, long ago.'

'Did I? But I never think about Sicily. I hardly even remember the time I spent there. Why should I dream about it, especially now?' He sat up and blinked at the sweat that trickled into this eyes.

'I don't know. Here, use the coverlet to dry your forehead.'

'Look, the whole pillow is wet! I'm so thirsty…'

I looked about and glimpsed the dull gleam of a copper ewer and a cup on a small table by the door. I poured a cup of water and put it in Meto's hand. He drank it down in a single draft.

'Oh, Papa, it was horrible. Each of my hands was bound up in rags, just as the farmer used to do when he made me stand in the orchard to scare away the crows. He bundled my hands so I couldn't pick the fruit. The day was hot as an oven. The earth was so parched and broken that it was like a field of bricks — I kept stumbling and felling and skinning my knees. My lips were blistered from the sun. Sweat ran into my eyes, and I couldn't wipe it away. I was so thirsty, but I couldn't leave the field to get water or the farmer would beat me. I ran to the well anyway, but I couldn't pull up the bucket. I kept dropping it because my hands were all bound up and clumsy. And then the crows came — thousands of them. They swept over the orchard like horrible, shrill locusts until every tree was stripped bare. I knew the master would beat me. He would beat me until I died.'

Meto shuddered. He stared raptly at the dancing flame of the lamp. 'And then I was no longer in the field. I was back in Baiae. Not in the villa but in the arena that Crassus built especially to put his slaves to death. It was like being in a well, hemmed in by high walls all around with the sun beating on us. The sand was dick with blood. The mob leaned over the rail and jeered down at us. Their races were hideous, all twisted with hate — and then the crows again! Thousands of crows, so many that the sky was black with them. They swarmed over everything. They beat their wings in my face and pecked at my eyes, and I tried to scare them away but I couldn't even lift my hands — oh, Papa!'

I poured more water. Meto put the cup to his lips and drank greedily.

'It was only a dream, Meto’ 'But so real—'

'You're in Rome, not Sicily, not Baiae. You're in our house, surrounded by your family—'

'Oh, Papa, do I really have a family?' 'Of course you do!'

'No. This is the dream This is what can't be real. I was born a slave, and that never changes.'

'That's a lie, Meto. You are my son, just as surely as if you had my blood in your veins. You're free, just as free as if you had been born a Roman. Tomorrow you become a man, and after tomorrow you must never look back. Do you understand me?'

'But in my dream, Crassus, and the farmer in Sicily—'

'Those men owned you once, but that was long ago. They have no power over you now, and never will again.'

Meto stared blankly at the wall and bit his lip. A tear spilled down his cheek. A good, stem Roman father would have slapped the tear away, shaken him until his teeth rattled, and then made him go stand in the courtyard and keep watch all night, to face up to his fears and beat them down, and the more miserable the lesson the better. But I have never claimed to be a good father by Roman standards. I embraced him for a long moment, pressing him hard against me until I felt him shudder and relax. I squeezed him tightly, knowing it was the last time I could ever hug him like a boy.

I offered to leave him the lamp, but he said he did not need it. I stepped into the hallway and let the curtain drop, then walked restlessly about the courtyard. It was not long until I heard the quiet sound of his snoring — the dream as much as the long day had worn him out.

Diana was with Bethesda, and the bed was not large enough for all three of us, so I returned to the garden and reclined on one of the dining couches. I watched the constellations swirl slowly, slowly across the sky, until my lids grew too heavy to stay open and Morpheus caught me in his gentle snare.

XVI

The day of Meto's majority dawned bright and clear. In the garden I was up at daybreak, with the first blush of sunlight on my face and all around me the sounds of the early-rising slaves going about their chores.

It had been more than ten years since we had celebrated Eco's toga day. That had been the year before the trials of the Vestals and the outbreak of Spartacus's slave revolt. My purse had been leaner then, and the provisions had been quite humble. Eco's toga day had been a respectable affair, but not the sort of thing to make the neighbours gossip with envy. Perhaps it was for this reason that Eco seemed determined to make sure that his younger brother enjoyed a sixteenth birthday that he would not soon forget.