M. Scott - Rome - The Emperor's spy

Seneca had been uncommonly helpful. Math thought now that he had engineered everything so he could see Pantera meet Ajax in Hannah’s presence.

Even this far away, with fifty yards still between them, the air was thick with things unspoken, sharp with care and fiercely fragmented passions, so that riding the last few strides to the dock in the hotly humid noon felt like breaking through ice on the horse trough at midwinter.

Nobody had spoken. Nobody, Math thought, was going to speak. Having least to lose, he opened his mouth, ready to take that burden himself, when the shadows at the dockside shifted, and a man stepped forward, and said, simply, ‘Hello, Math.’

Math gaped, and swallowed and gaped again and stared as if his eyes might break. The man was Ajax’s height, or even taller, but had Pantera’s colouring: a skin that favoured the sun. He had Pantera’s hair, grown long, but Ajax’s mouth and the same slant to his nose. He had straight shoulders, which was entirely unlike either of them, and eyes that were black as the night sky seen in a millpond.

‘You were in my dreams,’ Math said. His voice was strained, needing water. Everyone was looking at him. ‘You blew the horn for me at the roadside in Rome when we raced against the fire. And before that, in Alexandria, you called to me to roll tighter when I fell from the chariot. I thought you were Ajax. Or Pantera.’

‘I was trying to help. I apologize if it was improper.’ The man’s eyes said more than his words. Here, Math thought, was someone who had known grief and pain and unbearable loss and yet still felt himself beloved of his god.

Math was staring again. He tried to look away and couldn’t.

The man made a small, apologetic movement. ‘I’m sorry. With so many months to prepare, I had thought I might do this better than this. You’ve lost a father and I bring you news of your family, and even that I haven’t delivered yet.’ The man gave the formal salute of the Britons. ‘I am-’

‘You’re Valerius!’ Pantera pushed his horse past Math’s. Disbelief transformed his face. ‘Julius Valerius, decurion of the first troop, the First Thracian cavalry, stationed at Camulodunum. You’re a Lion of Mithras! You brought me to the god. You gave me the brand, and then later burned over it, so that the warriors of Britain might not know me as a servant of Rome, but would believe me one of their own. What in the god’s name are you doing here?’

Valerius blinked. Math had not known him more than a dozen heartbeats, but already it was interesting to see him taken aback; it wasn’t something he could imagine happening often.

‘Sebastos Abdes Pantera. I had thought you dead four years since. I’m glad to see it not so.’ When nobody spoke, Valerius rubbed the side of his nose. ‘As to your question, I profoundly hope I’m here for the same reason you are, namely to return Math to his family. He has lost a father, but gained a brother and two sisters. The first of these, he knows. The others are waiting for him on Mona, where the legions have not yet returned.’

‘They’ll return soon enough,’ Pantera said. ‘When Nero is no longer emperor…’

‘Of course. And we’ll go to Hibernia, where Rome will never come. It is all ready. We wait only for Math. And those others who will come with us?’ His black gaze glanced off Seneca and Mergus, but lingered on Pantera, Hannah and, last, and longest, Ajax.

Math was lost in a maze of words and meanings. Something Nero had said in the garden buzzed between his ears. He had thought it was another lie and given it no thought.

We gave our word that you could take the boy to his brother, who had heard of the father’s death and come to look for him.

Math pushed his horse a pace closer. ‘Are you my brother?’ he asked of the tall man who had been a decurion of the cavalry.

Valerius frowned. He stood close enough for Math to see the lines about his eyes, and the thin web of old battle scars on his neck and hands.

‘It would be my very great honour to be Caradoc’s son,’ he said. ‘But no. The burden and joy of that fall to Cunomar.’

Math stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ Ajax said, from somewhere behind. ‘He knew our father as Caradoc. But he knows his brother as Ajax.’

Math’s world melted, slow as ice in the noonday sun, each word a drop that made only lately gathered sense. Numbly, he turned on his horse, all the way round with his back to the mane and his feet pointing towards the tail, to face back to where Ajax was. It was a good horse. It stood and let him do it.

‘You’re not Ajax?’ he asked. He sounded like a small child.

‘I’m who you know me to be.’ Ajax brought his own horse close. He touched the back of Math’s wrist. His amber eyes were uncommonly warm. ‘As Ajax I came to Gaul to look for you, ready to follow wherever you went. But before I was Ajax I was Cunomar, son of Caradoc and Breaca, who was known as the Boudica, and who led the armies of Britain until her death three years ago. You are the son of Caradoc and Cwmfen, a warrior of the Ordovices. And you are my brother.’

In the hot day, Math shivered. ‘My father was a warrior,’ he repeated. He had always known that. Here, now, it mattered to say it aloud.

‘The greatest,’ Ajax said.

‘But you’re a bear-warrior. You’re the greatest.’

‘I’m a small shadow compared to our father or either of our mothers.’ Ajax was smiling at last, which was a relief greater than anything else. ‘Come to me, little brother, who carries the world on his shoulders. Come to me.’ He pushed his horse alongside and, leaning over, swept Math off his own mount.

‘Little brother,’ he said again, with his lips on Math’s hair. ‘I saw you born, and saw our father fight for you, but I never held you or called you what you were. I should have done it sooner than this.’

He pressed a kiss to Math’s crown, and then wrapped him close in a tight embrace. Slowly, it came to Math that he was weeping. Ajax was weeping. Seagulls watched them, keening. Lazy waves slapped against the dock. Ropes creaked with the swaying ships. Math clung to his brother in a blind, swooning joy, and was held.

There was a way the joy could be made greater. Squirming free, Math eased back so that he could see Ajax’s face, in all its complex not-quite-hidden passion. ‘Will Hannah come with us to… the place where we’re going?’ The island’s name was still too foreign to speak. ‘Will Pantera?’

He was half prepared for what might come, but even so the change in Ajax was still a shock; like a door slammed shut in his face, just as he was stepping through.

He found himself set back on his horse. With his face set, Ajax said, ‘I don’t think that will be possible. Some things must-’

A shadow slid between them. ‘You don’t know what’s possible or impossible,’ Pantera said. ‘Not yet. Ajax, we need to speak in private. Will you come with me, please?’

The sound of Math speaking his name jerked Pantera from the shocked stillness that had bound him.

Under the gaze of Valerius, who had first brought him to Mithras — Pantera needed several days to become used to the idea of that — he found the strength to reach Ajax.

Taking the man he had once called his brother by the shoulder, he signalled Mergus, who stepped back to let them pass and did not try to follow.

They didn’t go far; only round the back of the harbourmaster’s house, to the southern, sunny side of the dock, where women were still cleaning the last of the morning’s catch, under a cloud of mewling gulls. Here, they could speak without being heard.

‘Ajax…’ Pantera still had no idea what to say.

‘No.’ Ajax put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him at a distance, keeping him quiet. ‘You are still my brother. There is no need for conflict. When the boat leaves, Hannah will stay with you here in Ostia. Math will come with us to Mona, to join his sisters and to learn his birthright. You will, of course, raise Hannah’s child well and if it chances that she comes to us in adult life, Math will be ready for her. Already he is dreaming with Valerius. These things do not happen often, or lightly.’