Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

Approaching the Domus Rostrata , the grandest house of all, the women were somewhat surprised to find their path blocked by four men. Their rough attire proclaimed their membership of the urban poor. Iunia could think of no good reason why they should have ascended from the slums below and were now standing outside the home of the Gordiani, where once Pompey the Great had lived. Even Perpetua had gone quiet. Iunia sensed her guard move up closer behind.

Three of the men stepped to the side, bowed their heads, and muttered ‘My Lady’ as the women came near. The fourth loitered. He was little more than a boy, younger than them. He was short, with a thin, angular face like some malevolent creature from a story told to frighten children. He openly wore a dagger as long as a short sword at his belt.

At the last moment, he stepped aside. As he bowed, he made no attempt to disguise the way his gaze travelled over Iunia’s body.

‘Health and great joy.’ He spoke in well-accented Greek, as if greeting his social equals.

The women swept past. Neither acknowledged the existence of the plebeian interlopers. They had not gone far when they heard a burst of laughter, at once lascivious and mocking.

‘Imagine if they had overpowered our guards.’ Perpetua’s eyes were shining. ‘They could have dragged us down the hill. Once in their robbers’ lair, who knows what they might not want to do to two young senatorial matrons.’

Iunia laughed. ‘You have read too many of those Greek novels where the heroine is always being abducted and sold into a brothel, from which the hero rescues her at the last moment.’

‘Perhaps in my story the saviour might be delayed a little?’

‘You are incorrigible.’

‘Me?’ Perpetua said. ‘I was not the one making eyes at Ticida as he recited poems about my breasts.’

‘About some girl’s breasts. He has never seen mine.’

‘But he would like to, just like that young knife-boy.’

‘Then his poetry had better improve.’ Iunia flung out her arm portentously and declaimed:

‘Could I but become a crimson rose,

I might then hope you would pluck me

And acquaint me with your snowy breasts.’

Both women laughed, the more immoderately for their slight scare.

‘Ticida is good-looking,’ said Perpetua.

‘He is,’ Iunia agreed.

‘You have not taken a lover since Gordian left for Africa. Even male physicians argue that abstinence is a bad for a woman’s health.’

‘Although your husband is far away governing Cappadocia, it is a relief to know your health is in little danger.’

‘Toxotius is wonderful,’ Perpetua sighed.

‘You should be more discreet,’ Iunia said. ‘You know you should. If Serenianus finds out when he returns …’

‘He will not.’

‘But if he did. You know the penalties for adultery: banishment to an island, the loss of half your dowry, no prospect of a decent remarriage.’

Perpetua laughed. ‘I have often wondered about those exile-islands, full of traitors, adulterers and the incestuous. Think of the parties. Anyway, Nummius did not divorce you, and he knew all about you and Gordian.’

‘Nummius was a very different man from Serenianus.’

‘They say-’ Perpetua leant close, whispered in Iunia’s ear ‘-he liked to watch you and Gordian.’

‘Although they were of different generations, Nummius and Gordian were close friends,’ Iunia continued in a serious tone. ‘They held the same rank in society, both ex-Consuls. After achieving that rank, Nummius devoted himself to pleasure — some would say, to vice.’

‘They also say-’ Perpetua’s breath was hot in Iunia’s ear ‘-your physical demands hastened his death.’

Iunia ignored her. ‘Your husband disapproves of hedonistic excess. Serenianus sees himself as a senior statesman: pillar of the Res Publica , embodiment of old-style virtue. And, pretty though he is, Toxotius is just a youth. He is not even a Senator yet, just one of the Magistrates of the Mint. The humiliation of being cuckolded by a mere boy will infuriate Serenianus.’

Perpetua was quiet. They were walking past the mansion of the Consular Balbinus, another dedicated voluptuary. Usually, Perpetua would mention the time he had propositioned her. Today when she spoke, it was of something else. ‘Perhaps Serenianus will not come back from Cappadocia.’

Iunia squeezed her poor friend’s arm. It was good to be widow. She had no desire to remarry.

Africa Proconsularis

The Oasis of Ad Palmam,

Four Days before the Kalends of April, AD235

A hard ride, and time was against them. Two days after they left the coast of the Middle Sea at Taparura, the country changed. The olive trees pulled back and thinned out. Between their shade the earth was bare and yellowed. The four-square towered villas gave way to isolated mud-brick huts, the comfortable abodes of the elite replaced by the hovels of their more distant dependants. Ahead, south-west over the plain, a line of tan hills showed.

Gordian did not push his men or their mounts too hard, but neither did he spare them. They were in the saddle well before dawn. All morning they rode at a mile-eating canter. A rest in the shade for the heat of the day, then they rode on through the late afternoon and into the darkness. They went in a pall of their own making, the horses’ hooves kicking up a fine yellow dust. It got into their eyes, ears, noses; gritted in their teeth. Gordian knew it was worst for those at the rear. At every halt, he reordered the small column. He thought of Alexander in the Gedrosian desert. The army had been short of water. A soldier stumbled across a tiny puddle. He filled a helmet with the muddy water and brought it to his King. Alexander had thanked him and poured the water into the sand. A noble gesture. Gordian would have done the same. But Alexander had not ridden in the rear. A general had to lead. Each time they mounted up, Gordian took his place at the front, flanked by his father’s legates Valerian and Sabinianus, and the local landowner Mauricius.

On the fourth day, they reached the hills. Close up, the rocks were not tan but pink. At the foot of the slopes was a small stone tower. Following the unmade road west, up into the high country, they passed three more watchtowers. Gordian said the same to the half-dozen or so garrison of each. Should the enemy return this way, make sure you send word to me at Ad Palmam; after that, exercise your initiative. They were reliable men, legionaries on detachment from the 3rd Augustan based at Lambaesis in the neighbouring province of Numidia. There was no discussion of what forms the initiative of those left behind might take after one or two had ridden off to raise the alarm, taking the only horses or mules with them.

Guided by Mauricius, they turned and took a track that snaked over the crests to the south. Near the top of the pass, Gordian left two men at a place with a good view back over the way they had come.

Having descended, they turned right and rode due west. After a day, another pass came down from the hills. Gordian sent four men up it: two to form a picket on the heights, and two to convey the usual instructions to the watchtowers on the other side and to scout beyond.

Six days’ riding since Taparura, four before that. Both men and horses were very worn. Nine horses had gone lame already before the hills. They had been left behind. Their riders had been mounted on baggage horses. The loads had been redistributed. Five men had fallen back out of sight. These stragglers had never caught up. Perhaps they had deserted. It would have been understandable, under the circumstances. Now the going was worse. A horse foundered. It was killed without ceremony. Its rider took the last baggage animal. The burden of the latter was tossed aside and abandoned.