Valley of Decision (20 page)

“Please”—he reached for her hand, his eyes pleading—“if your father sends me home, my fate will mirror that of my brothers.”

“What happened to them?”

“They pursued the purple and now they are dead.”

“What does that even mean?”

“To see who was worthy of the throne, my grandfather sent my oldest brother, Valerianus, to deal with the troubled Illyrian provinces and my middle brother, Saloninus, was sent to help my father deal with the Gauls. After both brothers were killed, my grandfather expected me to take their place, to prepare for the day I would succeed my father. When I confessed my love of sculpture
and my distaste for his bloody wars, he called me the son of a Bithynian Greek witch and had this little reminder of my forfeited place in this world branded upon my wrist. That's when I decided to take my leave.”

Maggie remembered how upset Barek had become when he saw Eggie's tattoo. “How do I know you're not really some criminal or an escaped slave or something?”

“Because like me, my beautiful little goddess, you see what no one else can see . . . the beauty of truth.”

T
HE PORT OF OSTIA
stank like fish, brackish water, and moldy wheat. Maximus lifted a piece of linen to his nose and continued his inspection of the towering ship. “I'm to be ferried to my new position aboard a grain freighter?”

“Your orders said ‘first available ship.' ” Kaeso hoisted a trunk to his bare shoulder. “At least it is not an exotic animal transport vessel.”

Stevedores rolled large, empty wooden casks up the gangplank. Maximus had not slept a wink since Hortensia's carriage dumped him and Kaeso at the port three days earlier. “I have died and gone to Hades.” He let out a long, dramatic sigh, certain nothing would wash this salty bitterness from his mouth, and trudged the briny two-board bridge with the zeal of a man going to his execution.

Before he was settled in his hammock belowdeck, favorable winds snapped a billow into the sails and hauled them from the port. They'd not been in deep water more than a day when the weather turned foul. The boat pitched and tossed Maximus as if he were a worm in a cocoon.

He pried the hemp with his fingers and shouted at Kaeso, “What in the name of the gods is happening?!”

“Shall I go see?”

“No. Another minute in this rank hole and I shall lose my mind.” He flipped to the floor. The hard landing upon his belly emptied the last of the sustenance he'd managed to choke down. Maximus pushed himself to his hands and knees, then clawed his way to the ladder. He climbed to the deck and poked his head through the opening. The horizon toward which they plowed was black with storm and menace. He suggested to the captain that they turn around, but his pleas could not be heard over the crew's prayers begging the gods to allow the rain to follow them to Carthage.

“One season of moisture,” the captain had explained, “is all it would take to break Africa's drought and transform the breadbasket of Rome from brown to green. And if the good proconsul prayed hard enough, the rain might wash away the sickness marching toward Rome faster than the angry Persians.”

The massive ship rose, then dipped sharply. Masts creaked and swayed in the pounding rain. Maximus did not care what became of those pompous dignitaries who'd bowed to his mother-in-law. He slunk back to his sling and cursed the woman who'd arranged his exile to Africa.

It would serve Hortensia right if he threw himself overboard and impaled her dreams of his rise to power upon the trident of Neptune. Instead, he sipped a camphorous mixture of crushed horse heal root and warm wine, but Kaeso's sure cure for seasickness failed to hold his nausea at bay. Hand clasped over his mouth, Maximus was once again forced to make a hasty dash for the ladder. He staggered to the ship's railing and hurled a sour offering into the saltwater sanding his face.

It was time he faced the horrible truth: he was neither a politician nor a man equipped to tame savages raised from a primordial sea. And since he'd not convinced his mother-in-law otherwise, he was not even a very good actor. Maximus swiped
at the bile trailing his lip. Oh, that the gods would put him out of his misery.

“Master!” Kaeso pulled him back from the edge and shouted into the howling winds, “Come below! Land has been sighted. You cannot arrive at your new post looking like a drowned tiger cub.”

“I prefer to wear my traveling clothes. Men who wear snowy white togas end up with daggers in their backs or their legs sawed off in their sleep.”

“Come, master.”

Huddled between their hammocks, Maximus clung to a low beam as Kaeso peeled away his wet tunic. It no longer mattered that the sailors snickered and pointed at his pale frame. “The gods have left me to die without ever having applause echo in my ears, Kaeso.”

His servant dipped a sponge in a basin of fresh water and squeezed it over Maximus's head. “Have you considered using your time in Carthage to learn the theater techniques of Terence?”

“Terence?” Maximus felt his briny face crack with a faint smile, his first since Hortensia had rearranged his fate. “His name is known on every Roman stage.” Water trickled over the contours of Maximus's body and puddled at his feet. “I adore his work.
Hecyra
is my favorite comedy of all time. Sostra, the pushy mother-in-law, is written so true to form.” Maximus extended his arm and Kaeso ran the sponge to his fingertips. “Is it too much to hope that a backwater hole has a theater and a company that practices the philosophies of the greatest actor the world has ever seen?”

“Terence hails from Carthage and I've heard a marvelous structure, with perfect acoustics and overlooking the harbor, has been resurrected in his name.” Kaeso held out a fresh garment.

“But would they want me?”

“Think of the prestige the theater would gain if a man of your political stature joined their company.”

Maximus lifted his arms and the silky tunic slid easily over the intriguing possibilities whirling in his head. “They
would
be lucky to have me, wouldn't they?”

“Do your duty to Rome”—Kaeso draped the heavy woolen toga over Maximus's shoulder—“and when you go home, Valerian will be obligated to grant you anything you desire . . . perhaps your own stage, or better yet, your mother-in-law's head upon a spike.”

By the time their ship had moored, the rain had stopped and Maximus's spirits had lifted. Gulls swooped overhead and steam rose from the miles of wet concrete that circled the harbor.

“Galerius Maximus?” On the dock, a monkey-faced man with a bowl haircut and apelike arms summoned him from a golden two-wheeled cart. “Proconsul, your chariot awaits.”

Maximus wrinkled his nose and whispered under his breath, “Kaeso, are you sure this dump has a theater?”

His servant shrugged. “You will do well to remember that you are already onstage.”

Maximus gathered the hem of his toga, plastered on the aloof expression his mother-in-law always used on him, and followed Kaeso's glistening back down the gangplank.

The gangly man leaped from the chariot and rushed forward. “I am Titus Cicero.” His fine robes and polished red shoes were those of a patrician. “I'm sorry to burden your arrival with such troubling news, but there is sickness in Carthage.” He offered two white cloths. “You and your man might want to cover your noses.”

Maximus couldn't deny the wind carried an unpleasant odor. “I thought the stench merely the scent of barbarism.” The hint of disdain he'd injected into his response, so reminiscent of Hortensia's voice, had done its trick, for Titus immediately took an appropriate step back. Maximus tied the cloth around his growing smile. “I suspect this sickness has been greatly exaggerated.”

“I wish that were so, my lord.”

My lord.
No one had addressed him with such respect in quite some time. Perhaps Kaeso was right. No one here need know about the black eye his father had given his family. This was his chance to make a new name for himself. A respected name. A powerful name. This was his chance to finally have what
he
wanted.

Maximus straightened his shoulders and asked boldly, “Have you a theater in this rat's hole?”

Titus's face looked puzzled. “Yes.”

“How does it compare to the one in Rome?” Maximus could tell his driver thought his questions odd but he didn't care. He was lord here.

“I've been to both. This one is far superior, my lord.”

“Take me.”

“But wouldn't you rather see—”

“The theater. Now!”

“Very well.”

The closer they came to the city, the more fetid the smell. Crusty brown treetops crackled in the hot breeze sweeping in from the desert. Carthage burned hotter than his worst imaginings. Maximus dabbed at his neck with his personal linen. Perhaps he'd been a bit shortsighted not to beg the rain gods to wash the air clean and cool. He'd maintained his breathing exercises as best he could on that horrible sea crossing, but even he could not hold his breath for a year.

Titus drove far too slow, dropping useless tidbits of information like bread crumbs Maximus could follow back to his ship should he desire to get out of this pigsty while he still could. “From our spectacular man-made harbor, the city is accessed via one of its twelve guarded gates.” Titus motioned to the stone lintel marked
Qrt Hdcht
 . . . Carthage New City.

“Move along, man,” Maximus ordered.

Titus flicked the reins and the white horses trotted past refuse clogging the gutters and bodies covered in powdery ash.

Maximus pressed his mask to his nose. “So this is why there is no one to welcome me?”

“I told you, there is sickness. We are battling
two
plagues. The death toll continues to rise. The lime kilns of Egypt are burning night and day, but they cannot keep up with the demand of our burial needs. I suggest you reopen the cemeteries as quickly as possible.”

“Why are the burial grounds closed?”

“Aspasius thought it . . . best.”

“That is absolute folly. The emperor has directed me to clean up this mess. Open the cemeteries immediately.”

A very pleased smile drew Titus's lips apart and exposed large gums and small teeth. “Good to hear that our great emperor believes Carthage a worthy investment.”

“Rome fought three wars to own this port. I wouldn't be here if they were going to let it rot.”

Titus smiled. “Then Rome will want you to do what's best for the province, I'm sure.” He clicked the reins. “You'll have a full court, a military and civil staff, a privy council, a full consortium of well-connected dignitaries, and several subaltern clerks at your disposal.”

“And which one are you?”

“I, sir, am one of your more tenured senators.”

“I won't be relying on senatorial rule.” Maximus nearly laughed out loud at the shock on Titus's face.

“In the past, the emperor endeavored to keep the senators in good humor,” Titus pouted.

Maximus could do an intoxicating monologue using the senator's dramatic facial expressions alone. “And why would he do that?”

“The details of the city's government come under our supervision, and so far it is the senators of Carthage who have managed to maintain law and order. We should be rewarded for our efforts.”

Maximus flicked a fly from his toga. “Rome is fighting wars on nearly every border. Whether the details of this little frontier outpost are handled with good humor is of little concern to the emperor.”

“The emperor knows the only extra stores of grain and oil lay in the silos of the African provinces.” Titus lifted his snub nose. “I know because I own the majority of the surplus.”

Apparently there was a learning curve to ruling without question. The first rule was: find out who believed themselves to be in power. The second: let them continue in their error.

Maximus fanned his face with the linen Titus had given him. “And what would make you happy, my most esteemed senator?”

“Aspasius left many pressing matters . . . unattended.” A hint of a threat lowered the senator's enunciation of
pressing matters
.

“Such as?”

“Persecution of the Christians. Some say it is a necessity. Others claim it barbaric.” Titus's gaze slid toward his. “What say you?”

“Unlike the last proconsul, I do not view Christians as unprofitable members of society or a miserable bunch of weaklings. They are simply ill-informed and misguided plebeians.” Maximus pondered Titus's huge sigh. Expressing relief for the welfare of plebs must be a southern thing. “Once these Christians understand how their refusal to acknowledge the gods of Rome has brought about plague on this province, their thinking should be easily corrected, don't you agree?”

“An undertaking that would consume a considerable amount of your time; therefore I'm offering my services.”

“What do you know of these Christians?”

Titus shrugged. “Only that they are peaceful people.”

“Peaceful people who spread sickness and death.”

Titus pulled hard on the reins. “Quite the opposite, my lord. They are doing everything within their powers to help curb the tragedy that has befallen Carthage.”

“So you are a sympathizer with these Christians?”

“I'm simply saying that I'm actually quite versed in the law. If you were to appoint me as judge, you would be relieved of the nasty duty of sorting these types of matters.”

“Are you asking for special favor?”

“Simply offering my services.”

Maximus tugged at the neck of his tunic, once again mindful of the danger of wearing the white toga. “Tell me the details of this role of judge.”

Titus eyed him as if he had two heads and no common sense. “Court is held in the Forum. A prosecutor presents the evidence and a defender presents his defense. And the judge, a man of means and high standing in the city, decides the fate of the accused.”