In the Shadow of Heroes Read online

  But then he was edging silently to the doorway anyway, against all of his better judgement, pressing himself as close to the wall as possible and holding his breath. He squinted through the narrow gap in the curtain. The three newcomers had their backs to him, Tullus sitting opposite, the box resting on the table between them.

  One of the guards lifted the lid and the hinges groaned. Tullus’s brow wrinkled, but for a fleeting moment his eyes were as bright and clear as those of a man half his age.

  ‘Silvanus’s slaves found it a week after he died,’ said the Greek man. ‘An abandoned shrine to the southeast of the city. Silvanus had been right all along. It’s a shame he didn’t live to see the fruits of his labour.’

  Tullus stood up and slammed the lid of the box shut. The room seemed to darken.

  ‘Is this a joke?’ he said.

  ‘Not at all. It is the thing itself.’

  ‘But . . . it can’t be.’

  Suddenly, Cadmus felt a shiver between his shoulder blades that told him he was being watched. He whirled around. It was Bufo, standing behind him with his arms folded and a grin like a split wineskin. He beckoned Cadmus into the middle of the atrium. Cadmus lost the thread of the conversation in the study.

  ‘Now,’ whispered Bufo, licking his swollen lips, ‘what do you reckon they’d do to you if I went in there and told them you were spying?’

  ‘I wasn’t spying.’

  ‘Might find yourself out of the master’s good books then, mightn’t you? At long last.’

  ‘Give it up, Bufo, I just wanted to—’

  ‘You just wanted to know everyone else’s business, as per usual!’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen? No, wait: it’s probably a good thing you aren’t giving everything your unique flavouring.’

  The older slave took Cadmus’s hand in his greasy, calloused fingers. ‘I’ll make you a deal, boy. How about: I’ll only tell them what you were doing if you give me a reason to. Understand?’

  He tightened his grip, and Cadmus grimaced. He wanted to cry out.

  Bufo laughed. ‘Hush, hush! You’ll give yourself away. Not a very good spy, are you? Can you see anything with that horrible eye of yours anyway?’

  In Tullus’s study, somebody closed the box. The visitors were getting ready to leave. Cadmus had missed the most important part of their talk.

  By the time the curtain twitched and the group emerged, Cadmus and Bufo had retreated into the shadows. The old slave’s fingers were still pressed around Cadmus’s wrist so hard he could feel his pulse straining against them.

  From the corner of the atrium, he could see the Greek man’s face was slack and grim.

  ‘You will apologize to Caesar, won’t you?’ said Tullus. An air of desperation had crept into his voice.

  No reply. The visitor’s toga whisked over the atrium’s mosaic floor.

  ‘I’m sure there are many more capable men in Rome. I’m thinking of the emperor, first and foremost, not myself. I wouldn’t want to let him down, you see?’

  They reached the front door.

  ‘You have made your answer clear enough. I shall give it to Nero tonight. And you shall receive his answer tomorrow.’

  Tullus’s slender throat bulged like a heron trying to swallow an apple. Without another word, the Greek man and the guards left, taking the chest with them. The door slammed behind them with such force Cadmus felt it in the soles of his sandals.

  He watched his master rest against a pillar for a moment, his eyes closed but fluttering slightly underneath their lids. Then, with a short, hot sigh, he wandered back to the dining room.

  ‘How about that?’ whispered Bufo. ‘Praetorian guards! Must have been important. Imperial business, maybe. And there you were, listening in with your greedy little ears. Maybe I should just go straight and tell the emperor?’

  Cadmus yanked his arm free of Bufo’s grasp. ‘You go for it, Bufo,’ he said. Then he sniffed. ‘But perhaps sober up first, if you want him to take you seriously.’

  The old slave slapped him around the ear. ‘Remember what I said, you little runt. You give me a reason to, I’ll tell the master everything.’

  ‘You give me a reason, and I’ll tell him why his wine cellar is practically empty.’

  Bufo grunted, then swayed on the spot for a moment, either because he was drunk or because he didn’t know how to respond. He spat at Cadmus’s feet.

  ‘No one wants you here,’ he said. ‘Not even the master. He’s only keeping you out of pity. But he’ll see sense. I’ll make him see sense.’

  He slunk back to the kitchen, leaving Cadmus’s head and heart pounding in the silence.

  II

  When Cadmus went to wake his master the next morning, it was obvious that neither of them had slept. The air in Tullus’s bedroom was sour with the smell of garlic and old wine, and Cadmus’s eyes were watering as soon as he set foot through the door. Tullus himself was staring at the ceiling, still fully clothed.

  ‘It’s dawn, Master. The Senate will be sitting soon.’

  Tullus grunted.

  The party had been an unequivocal disaster. Gaius Domitius Tullus was terrible at small talk even at the best of times, but he had obviously been shaken by the unexpected visit, and Silvanus’s absence had cast a long shadow over the dinner table. Antonius Macer was already upset about his court case too. Conversation was quiet; laughter was rare, and felt too loud when it happened. Cadmus had spent the evening watching his master picking morosely at a plate of fried snails, and nursing several cups of very strong Falernian.

  The other guests had wondered aloud about the empty couch, joked about the surprising excess of food on the table without Silvanus there to claim his portion. Tullus had remained silent, face buried in his goblet, shooting occasional furtive glances at Cadmus.

  Needless to say, most of the guests had left early.

  Cadmus withdrew from Tullus’s bedroom and went to fetch his tablets and his satchel. He waited at the front door while Clitus, a Syrian slave who’d said precisely nothing to him in the two years they had shared a house, helped his master into fresh clothes and brought him water and a little fruit. When he finally emerged he didn’t look much better than he had the previous night, and smelt much worse. Cadmus decided not to comment. He drew back the bar from the door, and they stepped out into the morning.

  Tullus’s house was on the Caelian Hill, a once grand villa that was starting to sag and crumble in recent years. He claimed he’d run out of money. He knew their more aristocratic neighbours were embarrassed by him, but he didn’t seem to care. Cadmus was rather fond of its dilapidation.

  Below them, the sprawl of Rome was concealed in a blanket of mist. Clusters of cypress and umbrella pine raised their heads above the haze, along with the roofs of temples and municipal buildings; but the Forum and Subura were sunk in gloom, and the city’s thousand different flavours of pleasure and suffering were hidden from the heavens. From here it looked almost peaceful.

  And suddenly Cadmus was homesick again. Homesick for a place he’d couldn’t even remember. That heaviness, deep in his bones, knowing that he wasn’t where he belonged, and maybe never would be.

  He waited patiently at Tullus’s side while his master surveyed the city.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder what kind of Rome will be left to my grandchildren, Cadmus,’ he said over his shoulder.

  Cadmus wanted to point out that it was generally necessary to have children before one could have grandchildren, and it was necessary to find a wife before one could have children, but he bit his tongue.

  ‘You seem preoccupied, Master,’ he said. ‘May I ask what’s weighing on your mind?’

  ‘You may not.’

  ‘Very well.’ He paused. ‘Only, if it is something to do with last night’s visitors, I may be able to help. A problem shared is a problem halved, and all that.’

  Tullus turned and looked at him with tired, watery eyes, and managed a smile. ‘Shared? I don’t think I need t
o share anything about the meeting with you, do I?’

  ‘Master?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you weren’t listening in on every word, boy. I know you too well.’

  This would be difficult to play, Cadmus realized. Of course, he had been eavesdropping. Just not eavesdropping attentively enough.

  ‘I overheard a few words as I was coming and going,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘And the box?’

  ‘What box?’ The lie didn’t sound at all convincing. He’d been awake all night thinking about what might have been inside.

  ‘For all your learning, Cadmus, you’re a terrible liar.’ Tullus sighed like a winter gale. ‘Come on, we shouldn’t talk about it out here. Besides, I need time to, ah, digest what happened last night. And I don’t mean the fried snails.’

  With that he set off down the hill. Cadmus followed, frustrated, his satchel thumping against his hip.

  Cadmus’s relationship with his master was a strange one, to be sure. For much of the time, Tullus was more like his father than his owner. His master had found him outside Athens when he was a baby, exposed on the roadside like so many unwanted children. He had taken pity on the tiny Cadmus, screaming among the folds of an old blanket, and brought him back to Rome to be raised in his household. When he was of an age, Tullus had instructed him in languages, literature, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics; and since then barely a day had gone by when Tullus hadn’t relied upon him to take notes, or write letters, or seek out some obscure text to help him with his own philosophical and historical works. Cadmus tried to be grateful, especially when he saw how slaves in other households were treated – but as generous and affectionate as Gaius Domitius Tullus was, it didn’t make up for not having any real family.

  He thought he saw them sometimes, in his dreams. His parents, their house, the city of Athens. But that was nonsense – he hadn’t been a year old when they had abandoned him.

  Although the sun hadn’t yet risen, the Caelian was busy. Clients hurried up the hill to greet their wealthy patrons, slaves hurried down on errands for their masters. Some of Tullus’s neighbours were also up, drawn by the call of the Senate House, making their slow way into the city and talking in low and serious voices.

  ‘Is there anything I can do while the Senate is in session, Master?’ asked Cadmus.

  ‘We’re not going to the Senate,’ said Tullus.

  Cadmus frowned. ‘We’re not? But they’re debating taxation in the provinces. You love talking about taxation.’

  That got another laugh out of Tullus, and it made Cadmus glad.

  ‘As tempting as that sounds, I have more pressing business. Regarding last night. Regarding that box you claim to know nothing about.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t care to tell me what that business is?’

  ‘No,’ he said distantly. And then, drifting back to Cadmus: ‘But I need to check something. Something I thought I had laid to rest a very long time ago . . .’

  Cadmus wanted to press the matter, but could see his master’s mood was fragile.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Then where are we going?’

  ‘The same place we always go for answers, my friend. The library.’

  The Palatine Hill rose out of the mist in front of them, smaller, steeper, and groaning under the weight of marble built upon it. The hill itself could hardly be seen for the mass of columns and porticoes and vaulted roofs clinging to its sides. This was where Nero had his residence – just as all previous emperors had – overlooking Rome’s million crawling inhabitants. Cadmus and his master walked around to the west side of the hill, where the Circus Maximus stretched into the distance. In the shadow of Nero’s vast palace they climbed the steps to the Temple of Apollo, and the library connected to it.

  In front of the temple doors, Tullus stopped to catch his breath. Cadmus offered his arm to steady him, but then suddenly withdrew it, and his master nearly tumbled to the floor.

  ‘That’s a cruel joke to play on an old man . . .’

  Cadmus held a finger in the air. ‘Hush.’

  ‘Are you trying to silence your own master? This is brave new level of insolence, Cadmus!’

  ‘No, listen.’ He turned on the spot. They were alone. ‘Can you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Footsteps.’

  Tullus sighed. ‘I can only hear my ancient blood creaking around my body.’

  Cadmus listened again. The footsteps had gone, replaced with the echoes of their breath.

  ‘I am sorry, Master. I think I’m just tired. I must be imagining things.’

  Tullus looked at him suspiciously from the corner of one eye, before the pair of them set off down the high marble portico leading from the temple’s entrance to the library. His master was muttering something, but Cadmus was straining to listen beyond it. He glanced once, twice, over each shoulder. He was sure he could hear three sets of feet.

  They weren’t the first in the library, something which always seemed to annoy Tullus, but the only other reader was asleep at his table, using a scroll as a pillow.

  ‘You have to read it, Afrinus,’ said Tullus, nudging his chair as he passed. ‘You can’t just absorb the information through your forehead.’

  The other man opened his eyes suddenly, yawned, and sniffed. ‘Gods above, Tullus, how much garlic have you eaten?’

  He sneezed, spraying the scroll in phlegm and setting the whole room booming. The librarian appeared from behind the shelves and stared at the three of them, his face a tombstone. Tullus made an apologetic noise and left Afrinus to his nap.

  The Palatine Library was enormous. It contained two floors of texts, Greek on one side, Latin on the other, set into alcoves with statues and portraits of famous authors displayed at intervals between them. It had a cold smell of marble and sandalwood, of silence and thought. Cadmus loved it.

  Tullus gave him a list of scrolls to find from the Greek section, whose titles Cadmus scribbled into his wax tablet. Hesiod, Pindar, Palaephatus, Diodorus Siculus, Apollonius Rhodius. He tried to look for a connection between the authors, to work out what Tullus was investigating. But nothing came to him.

  He looked high and low for the scrolls he needed, but every single one was missing. That wasn’t right. You weren’t supposed to take the texts out of the library. And the authors weren’t obscure, so there was no reason why there wouldn’t be a copy on the open shelves.

  Then the echoing steps again. Slow, heavy, deliberate. Each one rang out like the footfall of a giant – it couldn’t have been Tullus or the librarian, and the man called Afrinus had gone back to sleep at his table.

  Cadmus turned from the alcove and looked back towards the library’s main reading room. A huge figure stalked past the oblivious Afrinus, at least a head taller than the most athletic Romans Cadmus had ever seen. He was in full armour, its colours vibrant and gleaming as fresh paint. It looked as though a statue had been given all the suppleness of a living human.

  Cadmus blinked and shook his head and emerged from among the shelves. He could still hear the mighty steps, but couldn’t see the figure any more. His heart began to surge uncomfortably. Either the vision was real, or he was losing his mind. Neither option was appealing.

  Then there was the sound of a brief scuffle, a smothered groan. He ran across the floor of the library to the shelves on the other side, the gloomy librarian appearing again like a phantom to show his disapproval.

  He couldn’t find Tullus. Still those relentless, thundering footsteps, but the library was such an unforgiving echo chamber that he couldn’t pinpoint where they were coming from, or where they were going. Cadmus ran from one alcove to the next, in and out of the private reading rooms that adjoined the main library. His master was gone. And all the while the sound of the intruder was fading, fading.

  He came back to the middle of the hall in time to see a massive silhouette disappear out of the door.

  ‘Hey! Stop!’ he shouted.

  Afrinus
’s nose twitched, and he rolled his head on to the opposite side.

  Cadmus ran for the exit, his satchel flying behind him, one of his cheap sandals starting to loosen around his ankle. The ghostly librarian materialized for a third time, but Cadmus sprinted past him and out into the open air.

  The portico was deserted. A few Romans were making their way up the hill to the adjoining temple of Apollo, but the statuesque figure was nowhere to be seen. Three times Cadmus ran down the steps of the Palatine and back up, three times he saw nothing of his master. On the fourth time, his left sandal came apart completely, and he went rolling over the hard marble corners and landed in a heap at the bottom of the hill.

  The sun rose. Priests and worshippers stepped over and around him.

  ‘Where’s your master, boy?’ one asked, nudging him with his foot.

  Cadmus sat up and took a moment to check his limbs, amazed that he hadn’t broken anything.

  ‘Well?’ said the priest, his veiled head looming above him and blocking the sunrise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Then you’d better find him before he gives you a whipping!’

  III

  Cadmus hobbled about the Forum in a daze, lost in the ebb and flow of bodies. The sun was up and the square was heaving. The smoke and spice of incense wafted from the temples and mingled with the sweat of the crowds, and every stifled breath stung the nostrils. He couldn’t hear himself think over the din of voices: heralds, merchants, beggars, priests, out-of-work lawyers and two-penny prophets, all competing for the attention of the citizenry, who were themselves shouting to be heard. Cadmus had come here hoping to find someone who would listen to him about what had happened to Tullus. Fat chance of that. No one was listening to anyone.

  He suddenly remembered: the Megalesia was still in full swing. It was the sixth of seven festival days in honour of the Great Mother, and Rome boiled like an unwatched pot. It was the worst time, the worst place to lose someone.