Underbelly (36 page)

Cassius continued,
I admit that my feelings for her could be connected to Octavius’ love for her. Learning of her past just made her seem even more special. She was a quiet woman, and in a time when many women pulled the strings of their menfolk she played no games, staunchly supportive of Octavius without being involved in his campaigns in any form, obsequiously obedient, the sort of behaviour I would want from my lover. I was devoted to her because she was my master’s wife, my feelings not a betrayal of him, but rather honouring him further. There was never any temptation to take things further – there was no interest from her anyway. We built up a friendship of our own slowly. We both felt blessed and most fortunate to be associated with Octavius and this formed the basis of many of our conversations, which ended up fairly candid. I would ask her what she thought of his other lovers who she saw every day, beautiful blondes, shapely Nubians, Rome’s loveliest maidens. When the soldiers caught a glimpse of Octavius’ harem it was guaranteed that masturbation would be rife that night, Siena never producing that reaction in anyone bar myself.

I can completely understand that
, Grey said, recalling his infatuation with Laura, a woman who was not traditionally beautiful, but whom he had desired more than any woman previously.
What we desire and find sexually attractive are uniquely personal things.

There is a standard, society dictating what does, and what does not, look good, and the rest of the harem were traditionally beautiful. I wondered how that made her feel and she harboured no resentment, no festering jealousy, happy for her lover to take his pleasure elsewhere when he wanted to. She enquired a lot about my life too, never asking me about women – she knew I had no time for that.

It sounds like her company helped pass the time and distract you when Octavius was away, which is good.

I still thought about what they were doing, and the place was always secure, but yes, our conversations were special to me. Siena’s body was the same age as mine, and when she turned 50 she still sparkled to me but Octavius, who was unchanged and looked like her son at this stage, gave her poison and told her to kill herself so that he could bring her back again in a fresh body. She took the poison and walked down to the basement with such poise and dignity – Octavius gave her the order suddenly and we never had the chance to say goodbye. I knew I would never see her again
. He spoke clinically but Grey felt his words proved him a liar – he was capable of emotions and he pointed this out to him, telling him he was not as cold as he believed.

Desire and lust are not emotions; they are merely automatic responses from the body,
Cassius said, disputing Grey’s opinion
.

The men who masturbated over the girls from the harem; that was lust. You were attached to the same woman for many years; that’s love.

You are mistaken. It is desire.

In the best relationships desire and love go hand in hand. Octavius is dead. You can admit to me and to yourself that you loved her. It’s no worse than admitting that you desired her, not that there’s anything wrong with that, there’s no guilt in anything that you felt.

My body governed my feelings for her.

Okay, but I still say you are not unemotional. You obviously felt huge respect for Octavius.

Respect is not an emotion; respect is governed by the intellect.

Which comes from the mind.

Psychiatry is more advanced in your time, you should know better. Intellect and emotions are different things.

Look, I’m not saying that I’m definitely right. What I would like to know, and what I think is the crucial question, is why you seem so determined to believe yourself unemotional? I think you need to look back over all of your life and analyse whether there were any times that you felt strongly about something, for or against it. You might find that you’re right, and if you look at events with an open mind you might find otherwise, I don’t know.

I have had time to ponder such questions for 1700 years. Is that enough time to think things over?
He was not cross as Grey questioned him – he never lost his temper.

Too long probably. Well done for hanging onto your sanity. So you obviously stayed with Octavius for a long time?

Until my death. When I knew that my time was coming I asked him to make me an eternal so that I could serve him always. He refused instantly, without explanation, and there was no ill feeling about it on either of our parts. As I have already said, there were advantages and drawbacks to being an optio. I missed out on many adventures, though it was always amusing to hear of them from the returning heroes, something to look forward to.

I did get to meet Lucia, an exotically beautiful young Roman witch, not to my tastes but that would be a minority point of view. She arrived at the mansion during a fierce storm with three old crones in black, all of whom dwarfed Lucia who was a diminutive, sultry slip of a woman, her black hair cut short like a boy with false beauty spots applied symmetrically to her face. I noted every detail before I went to Octavius to ask if I should admit them into the building. He was intrigued and told me to welcome them, Lucia introducing herself and her three grandmothers.

Was one a great-grandmother?

I have no idea. They all looked to be around the same age. Lucia was friendly, insisting that she came in peace, while the silent old women were as hostile as the weather. Octavius allowed me to sit in on his meeting with Lucia, the pair of them laying across two couches as the servants fed them and Lucia fawned to him, telling him that she’d heard so much of him and was honoured to meet him. Octavius had never heard of her and told her this and said that he was glad she’d brought herself to his attention, making her laugh coyly when he told her he sensed that she was a rising star. Lucia’s attire made it obvious that she was offering sex to Octavius, who listened as she talked of an alliance, an alliance which would see them as the unofficial king and queen of Rome, which they could divide between them. Octavius appeared interested in her scheme but I knew there and then that she was dead and I think he put on a performance for so long to entertain me. She wanted to feed off Rome parasitically, needing Octavius to help her evolve further, Lucia revealing that her power as a witch was new to her and that she was ready to become a goddess. I don’t know how to this day that he gave the signal to the servant, Octavius telling me that I would have to work it out for myself and that he’d given me a big clue which he would have expected me to notice – she was poisoned, and she didn’t die in a dignified manner, both myself and Octavius laughing as she writhed about cursing us. The three crones who had arrived with her, who Octavius had sequestered in another room, collapsed and died when Lucia did. We found poisoned blades on each of them. Such treachery from fellow Romans was never going to be tolerated by Octavius.

After twelve years in Octavius’ service we were unlucky enough to experience our first defeat. You might have heard of Dagulen.

Yeah, he was a German mystic who died around 600.
Laura had told him this, aware that Dagulen was an important benevolent figure in occult history who died before she had the chance to meet him.

That’s good to know. Octavius had been trying to kill him for several centuries, launching concerted campaigns against him whenever the mood took him, usually settling for killing whoever was close to Dagulen, the mystic himself proving harder to kill. He could never be goaded into fighting, claiming to be a peaceful man, which Octavius said was another name for a coward – what else would you call a man who let his students be killed and not strive for vengeance. You’ll know that he schooled mystics, other poorly dressed and scruffy bearded savages.

I know that he was an important figure. That’s about all I do know, apart from that he was supposed to be a good man.
Grey sensed from Cassius’ denigration of Dagulen that he was a serious rival to Octavius and he felt if he lived at the time he would have probably aligned himself with Dagulen over Octavius and his detached right hand man, the sort who would have thrived in the SS, capable of performing any atrocity without regret or remorse.

That’s questionable. Octavius was a great man, not necessarily good, and that’s undeniable. Octavius took most of the soldiers to massacre Dagulen’s school in Germany, expecting just to kill the students and for their slippery teacher to slither away again. Dagulen had a score men under his tutelage, men who Octavius acknowledged upon his return were made of stronger mettle then those he’d fought in the past. Dagulen made a stand and fought against Octavius, and while Octavius had taken several scalps, his force was decimated. It wasn’t a problem as we could always get fresh men, but the war that we fought over the next two years followed the same pattern as the battle that started it. I went there on one occasion, just as an observer, ordered by Octavius not to fight, and I saw Dagulen for myself. He offered us the chance to surrender, telling us that they didn’t want to have to kill us, shedding tears as his men killed our comrades
, Cassius said, thinking very poorly of him for displaying weakness, something that Octavius would never do.

How such formidable warriors could follow a man like him I will ever understand. The Visigoth warriors were very capable but Dagulen’s most impressive student was a Japanese man, whose swords moved faster than the eye could follow, and faster than we could defend against, a man who didn’t agree with his master’s philosophy, clearly enjoying the kill. He had a variety of different nationalities fighting for him, including two Moors, but it was largely the scruffy, bearded, uncouth Visigoths that I expected.

Eventually Octavius stopped the war, feeling that we were suffering too many casualties, vowing to me privately that he’d have Dagulen’s head one day. Our war against them weakened their position in their community; we made sure to tell the locals that there’d be more bloodshed if they didn’t drive them away. I would have liked to have lived to see them fall.

After I had served Octavius for twenty years he allowed me to join him on a working holiday. Only ten of us went by boat to some small islands north of Scotland.

The Shetlands?
Grey offered, knowing quite a bit about Scotland after spending a year there.

I don’t know what the islands were called. There were some islands to the northeast of Scotland that we stopped at on our way to the chain of islands, which were northwest from them.

They would be the Shetlands and you would have been heading for the Faroe Islands.

You might be right, I cannot say. It was a long holiday, undoubtedly the best holiday of my life. With only ten of us we had to all pull together, and we didn’t travel on galley ships, just small rowing boats.

I used to talk to some of the fishermen when I lived in Scotland and they said that the waters were very choppy, which is something that wouldn’t change through the centuries,
Grey said.

We went through three boats on our travels, and we rested on land when the waters were too wild. The people on the second chain of islands were pleased to see us and made us welcome, housing and feeding us. Octavius had sensed the presence of another of his rivals, a predator who terrorised them, a creature from the depths. Octavius spoke their language and learnt that this aquatic man sunk their fishing boats for pleasure and would sometimes drown maidens, walking on land and finding unprotected girls and dragging them to a watery death. By this stage Octavius had begun to be very critical of Siena’s looks and he lusted after the chieftain’s daughter, Mirag, the chieftain promising him he could take her if he dealt with the monster who plagued them. The attraction was certainly mutual and he tried out his prize many times before we went out hunting. I believe that I missed Siena more than he did and perhaps that was why we stayed for as long as we did. It was a truly beautiful place and we explored three of the islands and taught the local men how to fight to our standard, in the event of the monster having brethren who attacked after we left.