J. Clements - Spartacus - Swords and Ashes

“It is not your roof until the estate is conferred upon you. An estate which it lies in my power to withhold.”

A curtain of silence rose up between the two men, each struggling to control the urge to truly speak his mind. They breathed, and waited for the passions to pass, while the undertakers fussed around the body of Pelorus like sombre nurses.

“How does one get to become a hospes?” Timarchides said, eventually.

“Only by being deeply, indivisibly, connected to an associate.”

“Can Batiatus bring trouble to our door?”

“His arrival must not be permitted to interfere with our plan.”

“ Your plan, Verres. Your plan.”

“I simply forge pleasant results from unpleasant situation.”

“One created by your hands!” Timarchides said, anger flashing in his eyes.

“Did I drive in the knife?” Verres snapped back. “Did Gaius Verres murder your master? The gods may have smiled upon us, but they failed to do so upon good Pelorus.”

“Very well,” Timarchides said, resignation in his voice. “You shall have it your way.”

“Then we are in agreement. Play the host to this Batiatus until time comes that we can be rid of him. You shall handle the funeral games and an end to the slaves.”

“I have done so. Most of the gladiators can be dispensed through-”

“I care not, Timarchides. Just do it, and I shall applaud from the balcony and give you true acclaim. Do any other surprises await around the corner?”

“I have but one question. Though it is probably of no great import.”

“‘ The Greeks have left a big wooden horse behind. It is probably not of import ,’” Verres laughed.

“Not a line from The Iliad of which I was aware,” Timarchides said.

“My version is the more amusing.”

“I positively shake with mirth,” Timarchides said, without the trace of a smile. “A matter of the schedule.”

“For the games? Were you not charged with the arrangements?”

“ During the games. Pelorus expects to be visited by a quaestor.”

“An investigator? With what intention?”

“Perhaps none of concern.”

“And if this proves worthy of concern?”

“Then let us hope no misfortune befalls him.”

The bearers took their rest at the next hilltop, before the descent into the valley taxed different muscles in their legs. Ilithyia slid daintily from the litter, supporting herself without a word upon the proffered shoulder of one of the bearers.

“Oh, this is… tiresome !” she breathed, flapping her fan. The sweat-drenched slaves who had borne her thus far knew better than to say anything. She stretched provocatively, uncaring that her breasts strained against her sweat-dampened silks in full view of the slaves.

Sighing with the effort of being carried for several hours, Ilithyia walked to the edge of the cliff, to gaze down at the long, undulating land that slid away toward the mist in the distant southeast.

“Can you see the sea?” Lucretia asked, as she too stepped away from the litter.

“I am not sure,” Ilithyia replied. “The distant land fades into cloud, as the clouds fade into the horizon.”

Just for a moment, the sun peeked through, glinting on something in the distance.

“A spark on waters?” Ilithyia said. “The bay of Neapolis lies before us.”

“Yet some hours of walking, I fear,” Lucretia said.

“Then let us tarry a while. We are plainly ahead of your husband’s litter.”

“I see no reason why not,” Lucretia agreed, flapping one of the panels of her gown in an attempt to dispel the muggy heat. “We may as well enjoy the open air before the rain’s inevitable return.”

Ilithyia stretched again.

“I shall come to enjoy this road, I hope,” she mused.

“Are you planning on making this journey often?”

“Perhaps,” Ilithyia replied. “There is talk of a new dawn in the fortunes of Neapolis.”

“I have always found it a ghastly place.”

“And yet you accompany me, fearful your own counsel might be mistaken? Rumour has a hundred eyes and a hundred ears. I must see for myself and decide whether to broach the subject further with my husband.”

“You would really consider a move to Neapolis? Your household and slaves? Your life and impediments?”

“Rome may be the eternal city, but one cannot live there eternally.”

Lucretia bit her lip, and thought of the countless citizens who boasted of their connections to Rome, and yet still yearned to see it.

“Does Capua not offer enough diversions for you?” Lucretia enquired with half her mouth.

“It boasts certain primitive charm, of course. Though one mired in heat and dust. Do you not tire of it?”

“The Batiatus family has dwelt in Capua for three generations.”

“Mobility is a virtue.”

“Says one dragged from eternal City of the Seven Hills, her fingernails clawing at the stones of the Appian Way! Perhaps I shall just make us mutual hospes, and then appear at your doorstep whenever I have the urge for sea air.”

“But if my husband were to be made consul…” Ilithyia said.

“An honor that lies yet before him.”

“A course to which he is eminently capable!”

“Of course, Ilithyia.”

“And he shall have some divine aid set to his purpose.”

“Sacrifices? Games in his honor?”

“My husband struggles to find favor with the senate. The foreign wars go badly, and he is shunted aside on the course of military commands. He seeks possible avenues elsewhere.”

“Politics? The gods?”

“The conditions are as changeable as this autumnal weather. Sunny one moment. Tinkling with rain the next.”

“And no man can predict the weather.”

Ilithyia giggled and took Lucretia’s hand.

“No one man.” she whispered. “But perhaps ten special men.”

Lucretia frowned.

“There are men in Rome, a select group of men to be sure, but a group that falls open to newcomers when death claims a new member. Men who consult the books of prophecies past to divine future course.”

“And your husband has a guide to posterities yet unknown?”

“He may yet gain one, should he be well considered.”

“What books?”

“There are books, in Rome. Kept by the priests of the Capitoline, collating oracles and predictions from all over the known world, all to the greater good of Rome. Catalogues of prophecy.”

“I have heard of them,” Lucretia said.

“Then you must know only few may consult them.”

Lucretia laughed, feeling the weight of her journey lifted by such humor.

“If the priests of the Capitoline Hill truly had books foretelling futures, would we not already know what tomorrow holds?”

“We are citizens of Rome, the greatest Republic that the world has ever seen!”

“But it would still be a blessing to know if the day yet holds rain.”

The hillside was cloaked with cypress trees, old and young, reaching to the sky like tall, green fingers. Below, the streets and houses of Neapolis stretched toward the distant sea. Above, the slopes continued ever higher, as the hill became the dark, ashen mountain that loomed above Neapolis like a permanent shadow.

The scent of pine wafted. As the trees bowed in the wind, they sometimes revealed the bright white of stone memorials, glimpsed for the briefest of moments before the limbs sprung back into place.

Slaves placed cypress branches against the stack of dry wood, while others carefully slipped rolls of cinnamon or cassia wood into the gaps between the logs and straw. They set final, greener branches against the sides, putting the workmanlike bonfire kindling out of sight, creating the impression of a green, growing altar in the middle of the hillside forest. With each gust of wind, the branches shifted slightly, making it seem as if the altar could breathe.