The Pillars of Rome (10 page)

He should not have been there, wherever there happened to be, and as Clodius forced his eyes open, he tried at the same time to focus so that he could locate himself. Normally he woke in the shack, warm when the wind was not too fierce, with the familiar smell of the sod-brick walls, his pig snuffling, chickens clacking and the odour of peat smouldering on the fire. Now he was cold and what little sun penetrated the canopy of trees above his head hurt his eyes. He turned on his side, but the tangled tree roots looked so menacing close up that he threw himself onto his back, stifling a groan as the stabbing pain filled his entire skull. Slowly it subsided to a dull ache, along with the first flicker of memory: an all-night drinking session with his friends. It had not started that way, just a quick snort to be friendly, but one cup of the rough red wine, unwatered, had followed another, until the prospect of Fulmina’s anger at his prolonged
absence faded. By the time they had started on the grain spirits that was distant indeed, and it continued to recede with each cup, till any concern about what his wife would say finally evaporated completely.

Now such thoughts came back with a vengeance! He lay, eyes still tightly shut, going over in his throbbing head the words he knew would greet him; he had heard them from Fulmina often enough before. Clodius opened his eyes a fraction and struggled slowly to his feet, knowing her wrath would just have to be faced, and the sooner the better. His mouth was as dry as a bone, with his tongue like a piece of leather in the middle and his nose had that painful sensation at the top that feels like the start of a cold. He must have been snoring fit to wake the dead. Gently he rocked back and forth, aware that he was still suffering from the effects of drink, putting his hand out to steady himself against the nearest tree.

‘Never again,’ he croaked, rubbing his throat, this a vow he often made in the morning when his head hurt, one he struggled to keep when the sun went down. He looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings and his voice croaked again as he berated himself. ‘You’ve done it again, Clodius Terentius.’

Most people, when they got drunk could at least find their way home, even crawling. Not Clodius:
drink made him seek the open air where he could look at the stars and sing melodies to the gods in the heavens. Sweet songs to him, but Fulmina was fond of telling him otherwise; that if he had heard himself singing in his cups, then he would know why the gods never granted him any of his requests. Rubbing his fingers into his temples provided some temporary relief from the ache in his head, but it did nothing for his mouth, or his throat. He tried to swallow to alleviate his suffering, but no fluid came, so he pushed himself off from his supporting tree, letting his weight carry him down the hill to where he was sure he would find water.

‘Fulmina.’

His voice felt as though it was full of sand as he croaked his wife’s name. Why was it everybody saw her as a good and kind person? He stumbled through the trees, fending himself off as he lost his balance, cursing her and all her friends as he did so, people who were always telling him how lucky he was to have such a wife. Even his men friends did so, forever remarking that she had kept her figure, but they did not have to live with her, and perhaps if she had not been so kind and generous and had avoided feeding anyone who cared to call at their door, they would not have reached the stage, quite so quickly, where everything, including the small farm they had once owned, had had to be sold.

The stream was gurgling, the trees forming a
dark canopy over the clear brook. Clodius walked straight in up to his knees, gasping at the freezing temperature as the water of a melted glacier filled his sandals. He bent down to drink, telling himself that, knowing this river, he would be home before the sand had time to run through the glass. Clodius had forgotten that he had been drinking Dabo’s rough spirit the previous night, the stuff his old army chum distilled from grain, a brew much more potent than wine. Worse still, a copious drink in the morning tended to leave you just as drunk as you were the night before. His cupped hands moved rapidly as he gulped down quantities of icy water, throwing yet more over his head. The dryness in his throat eased immediately, but as he stood up, he swayed alarmingly and a warm glow filled his body as the pain in his head evaporated. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed out loud, his long straggly hair still wet, dripping water down the back of his grubby tunic.

‘What an old woman I am!’ he shouted, waving his arm as though addressing an audience. ‘To be afraid of a slip of a thing like Fulmina.’ His round, purple face took on a deep and threatening frown, as he loudly addressed his imaginary audience,
Nemestrinus
‚ the God of the Woods and the nymphs that inhabited these forest glades. ‘Am I not her husband? Is she not bound to obey me?’

Clodius was shaking his fist at the imagined face
of his spouse, but it stopped abruptly as the child’s cries rent the air. He staggered slightly, losing his balance as he sought the source, so that the freezing water, coming up to his chest as he fell to his knees, made him wince. Struggling to his feet again, Clodius splashed through the stream towards the sound, till he saw the small white bundle in the tiny patch of sunlight. He also saw the little pink face, screwed up in displeasure, and the wide-open mouth. Bending for a closer look, his bulk cut out the sunlight from the child’s tightly closed eyes, which added to its distress. Clodius noticed the disturbed state of the ground around the tiny glade, evidence that it had been visited by men on horseback and as he turned he saw, through the tops of the trees, the distant mountain, an extinct volcano, with a hollowed out top shaped like a votive cup.

Clodius was not much of a father, never had been, yet he had picked up his own sprogs often enough, drunk and sober, to lift this mite. The piercing blue eyes were open, fixed on him in an unblinking stare. He chucked the bawling infant under the chin, and put his hand inside the swaddling clothes, running it up the baby’s legs, to feel the small scrotum and penis.

‘Well, little fellow,’ he said, his voice now clear and soft. ‘How did you come to be in a spot like this?’

Clodius bent down and wet his finger, pushing it into the child’s mouth. The infant, suddenly silent, suckled greedily, his gums taking a strong hold on the knuckle. When he pulled his hand away the crying started at once. The child’s other hand had taken a grip on Clodius’s index finger, pulling hard to indicate the need for food.

‘Tough little mite, ain’t we.’ He pulled at his index finger but his charge would not let go. ‘And a strong ‘un too.’

He ignored the yells of the child as he spoke soothingly, throwing a quick glance at the sun, which, in its limited winter strength, had probably saved the baby’s life, and which also told him which direction to go. ‘Who’d want to leave a fine little lad like you out here to die, eh? I think I’d better take you home to my Fulmina so she can have a look at you.’

Fulmina would be mad at him for getting drunk and being out all night but he knew her well and had seen, often enough, the way she looked at new-born infants to suspect that this little fellow, with the red-gold hair and the strong grip, would deflect any abuse his wife might throw his way. She would start yelling as soon as she saw him, but once Fulmina had this bundle in her arms and gazed into those bright blue eyes, he would be forgotten.

It was not all plain sailing. She shouted at him all right, first because of his absence, that followed by an instruction to fetch the girl, Prana, from across the field at the back of their hut. She had had a baby the week before, so within seconds of her arrival the child was silent, hungrily feeding from Prana’s breast. Clodius felt very weary; the consuming tiredness of man suffering from the effects of drink and he started to ease himself onto a stool.

‘Don’t sit down!’ Fulmina snapped. ‘Get some water on the fire.’

‘It’s nearly out,’ Clodius replied, leaning over it and giving it a prod with the broken sword he had brought back from war service.

‘Then bank it up. This poor mite needs to be bathed.’

‘Take him down to the river.’

Fulmina’s face took on the expression she reserved for addressing idiots, one Clodius saw all too frequently. ‘Oh yes. You find a child that has been out in the cold all night…’

Clodius replied before he realised that to do so was a grave mistake. ‘Didn’t do me any harm.’

His wife positively spat at him. ‘More’s the pity. You could freeze to death anytime and not be missed. Besides, he still has blood on him. Poor thing wasn’t even washed after the delivery.’

‘Why wash something you don’t want to keep?’

The look in Fulmina’s eye told him that she would never want to wash him. Not for the first time Clodius wondered what had happened to that sweet slip of a girl with whom he had set up home all those years ago. By the time he had banked up the fire around the blacked clay pot, now full of water, the child was fed and Prana had gone back to her own brood. Fulmina held him over her shoulder, singing softly and patting him on the back while Clodius sat by the fire, occasionally dipping his finger into the pot; if the water got too hot, the terracotta would crack.

The infant gave a loud burp, which brought a big smile to Fulmina’s face and she sat down on the other side of the peat fire cradling him in her lap. ‘Where did you find him?’

‘Upstream, near the edge of the Barbinus ranch.’

That made Fulmina glower, for they had been forced to sell their farm to the wealthy Cassius Barbinus and any use of the name always upset her. ‘I won’t ask what you were doing up there yourself,’ she hissed angrily. ‘I dare say you were singing to the gods again, you drunken oaf.’

Clodius wanted to explain that it had been an accident, with one harmless drink leading to another. He had the Feast of
Lupercalia
as an excuse, but experience told him to remain silent on that score. ‘It’s a good two leagues away from any road. He wasn’t meant to be found.’

‘What makes you think the people that abandoned him came from the road?’

‘Hoof prints. Two horses, at least, I’d say. He must be a sturdy fellow, though he’s well wrapped up. If they’d bothered to undo those swaddling clothes, he wouldn’t have survived through the night.’

‘Poor little mite,’ said Fulmina, beginning to unwrap him so he could be washed. ‘Is that water warmed through yet?’

Clodius poked his finger into the top of the pot. ‘Nearly. It wasn’t just the cloth though. There’s shade all along that riverbank. They put him in one of the few spots that gets any sun once it has topped the mountains. I think that’s really what kept him going till I turned up. The question is, what are we going to do with him?’

Fulmina had the cloths open, exposing the top half of the child’s pink body with the stump of the umbilicus red and angry. As she removed the rest she cooed, ‘There, there.’

Clodius squatted down and poked gently at the fire, his back to his wife. ‘Somebody went to a lot of trouble to hide him. Not much point in raising a bairn that no one wants. Whoever sired him wouldn’t thank us for rearing him to manhood and then givin’ him back, always supposing we can find out who dumped him in the first place.’

‘Somebody wants him back,’ said Fulmina. ‘And badly at that.’

‘Naw!’ scoffed Clodius. ‘There are any number of places to expose around here if you want the child to live. You certainly don’t go hiding him in the middle of nowhere…’

Fulmina spoke without anger, almost gently again, except for the note of urgency. ‘Shut up, Clodius Terentius, and look at this.’

Clodius turned slowly, straight away catching the glint of the chain, plus the flash of the eagle in Fulmina’s fingers, and stood up quickly to take a closer look. It was beautiful, even to an eye unused to examining precious objects. On top of the gold, all the bird’s features were picked out in fine engraving.

‘Someone wants this child raised, Clodius. This is a mark to identify him, as well as a sign to tell whoever finds the boy that the person who brings him up is in for a reward when he’s taken back.’

‘That’s gold,’ said Clodius, as he took it off her, fingering the feathers on the wing. He felt the small indentation in the back and turned the object over to examine it. Fulmina was looking at him strangely, trying to see if he was playing the fool, for she had only ever seen one piece of gold in her life, a charm on the wrist of the local praetor’s wife. It had flashed in the sun the day the magistrate crucified the slaves of a rich fellow who had been murdered. Quite an event that; all the women, young and old, had noticed that golden charm, and
conversation was made up, for months afterwards, of endless wishful thinking about a life that could include such luxuries.

Clodius, though, had been a soldier, and that was all old sweats talked about. Booty, generally in the form of gold and silver and usually slipping through their fingers by the merest whisker of fate. Fulmina took the eagle back, emulating Clodius in the way that she ran the charm through her fingers. She gave a small gasp, as if she had hurt herself, but quickly recovered as Clodius leant forward to touch it again, his eyes wide with greed and wonder.