Silence & Lies (A Short Story) Read online

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  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

  Copyright © Harry Sidebottom 2015

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  Harry Sidebottom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  This short story is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007499960

  Version: 2015-05-21

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Silence and Lies

  Afterword

  Read The THRONE OF THE CAESARS Series

  About the Author

  Also by Harry Sidebottom

  About the Publisher

  North of Rome, just past the Milvian Bridge, the road forked. The city behind them, the Via Flaminia now ran through a landscape ordered by the estates of great villas. Off to the right, sheep grazed on rich water meadows. Where the Tiber showed through a fringe of willows, its waters were green and placid. There were duck flighting over the river.

  Julius Burdo looked out at the pastoral scene, but some of his attention remained on his companion in the carriage. He was past fifty, and a frumentarius did not live that long if he abandoned his mind to idle fancies. Not when he was on a mission.

  The knife-boy Castricius sat in silence, looking at nothing, drawn in on himself. His left arm was bandaged, and he clutched a knapsack tight on his lap.

  Burdo shifted his sword belt. It dug into his girth. He had got heavier with age. He was tired. His dreams had not been good. Last night he had dreamt he was young again, back on his father’s farm up in Pannonia, towards the Danube. A brood of quail had picked their way through the mud of the yard. That was bad. Quail signify unpleasant news from overseas. From across the seas because they come from abroad, bad because the birds are belligerent yet faint-hearted. In the case of partnerships, friendships, marriages, and business transactions, they are symbols of discord and contention. And they are bad in regard of foreign journeys. For they indicate traps, snares, and ambushes.

  Castricius moved slightly, fingering the bandage. Burdo tensed, hand sliding towards hilt. Castricius put the knapsack next to him on the seat, leant his head back on the cushions, and shut his eyes. Burdo did not relax instantly.

  With this mission, no wonder his dreams were bad. He had been summoned by the new Praetorian Prefect. In his office on the Palatine Felicio had not been alone. With the Prefect had sat the young Senator Menophilus. The knife-boy had stood in the corner. The Senator had issued the orders. That had been no surprise. Menophilus had arrived to orchestrate the acceptance in Rome of the Emperors proclaimed in Africa. Menophilus was known to be close to the new Augusti, both Gordian the Son and the Father. In the past few days, with his own hands, Menophilus had killed two leading opponents of their fledgling regime. One he had beaten to death with the leg of a chair. He was a man whose commands it would be unwise to disobey.

  Burdo was to escort Castricius to the army in the north, to the camp of the tyrant Maximinus, somewhere beyond the Alps. Castricius carried a confidential message from Menophilus to the old Emperor. It should be enough to gain Castricius an audience. Once the youth had been admitted, Burdo was to see to his own safety. While the tyrant read the despatch, Castricius was to strike him down. Behead the snake, and end the civil war before it had begun.

  Castricius lolled with the motion of the carriage. His breathing was regular. Burdo studied him. He was very young, little more than a child, and thin. His face was angular and pointed, oddly lined for one so young. The few words he had spoken indicated a certain education. Burdo wondered where they had found him, how they had induced him to undertake this suicidal task, why they thought him capable of such a desperate venture.

  Castricius was snoring.

  To dream of mud signified sickness and lewdness. It meant sickness because it was composed neither of pure water nor of pure earth, a mixture of both, without being either. It meant lewdness because it defiles. Moist and soft, it indicated a catamite. Burdo looked back out of the window.

  Down by the Tiber, men were strolling along the bank. They were well dressed, leisured. They went from the bright sunshine into the shade of the trees. Burdo liked to read. The view reminded him of the opening of a Platonic treatise: the philosopher and his companions in some pleasant country place outside Athens, moved to unhurried discussion of the soul or the nature of truth. A world to which Burdo had always aspired.

  *

  ‘Do you know why Italian vegetables are the best in world?’

  Burdo said he did not.

  ‘Long ago, in its wisdom, the Senate banned all mining in Italy. The metals and the minerals have remained in the ground. They enrich the soil, enhance the flavour of everything that grows.’ Castricius grinned. ‘So my tutor told me, but I think it might be the climate.’

  The dining room of the inn was crowded. Burdo and Castricius had official diplomata, and they had a table to themselves in a corner.

  ‘Or maybe the way they are cooked.’

  Now Castricius had started talking, he seemed incapable of stopping. Burdo had seen it before, conveying condemned men across the empire. They seemed to think that if they established some rapport with the soldiers guarding them, they might ameliorate or even escape their fate.

  ‘Are you thinking of running?’ Burdo said.

  ‘Should I take that as an offer?’

  ‘No,’ Burdo said. ‘I like to know where I stand.’

  ‘A pity. I thought you might be open to reason.’

  Burdo said nothing.

  ‘From where I stand, there seems no point.’ Using just his right hand, Castricius wrapped a hard-boiled egg in spring greens, and ate. ‘Where would a man run? Across the Rhine or the Danube? The northern barbarians would hand you in chains to the first centurion they saw. And, anyway, in the gloomy forests would it be a life worth living? I was brought up in the cultured city of Nemausus, and have spent the rest of my days in Rome. I would not thrive in a mud hut, with no baths, no conversation. Think of the barbarians’ huge, pallid women, and a diet of nothing but milk and roast meat.’ Castricius dabbled his right hand in the fingerbowl. He never used his left. His table manners were impeccable.

  ‘The Euphrates?’ Burdo said.

  ‘Too far. You would be caught long before you got there.’

  Burdo dipped an egg in fish sauce, and ate it before he spoke. ‘You know those men who pretended to be Nero miraculously saved or returned from the dead or whatever? Back in the reign of the Emperor Titus, one of them got over the river, and the King of Kings refused to hand him back.’

  Castricius considered this.

  ‘When I was young,’ Burdo continued, ‘I served on Caracalla’s winter campaig
n in the East. There was a Cynic philosopher with the army. When we were dispirited by the cold, he would take his clothes off, and roll naked in the snow. After a time he deserted to the Parthians. They did not give him up, not even when the Emperor demanded.’

  When Castricius smiled his face was yet more lined, but still alive with the freshness of youth. ‘I do not pretend to be either a philosopher or an imperial prince, and I do not care to expose myself in the streets. Philosophers are different. Dio of Prusa was often bothered by people wanting to be his students. When they would not leave him alone, he threw stones at them. If they still did not go, he used to stand naked on the public highways, and so prove that he was no better than any other man.’

  The serving girl brought their next course. She was short, slatternly but pretty. Castricius said something indecent to her. She smiled wearily as she walked away. Working in the inn, she might as well go around with her skirts turned up.

  ‘Not that long ago,’ Castricius said, his eyes still on the girl, ‘an Emperor ordered the execution of a man called Julius Alexander. Somehow this Alexander heard that the frumentarii were coming, and he murdered them.’ The knife-boy looked significantly at Burdo. ‘After that he killed all his enemies in his native city of Emesa. Then he set off for the Euphrates.’

  ‘Emesa is not far from the border,’ Burdo said, his voice very neutral.

  ‘But he never got there.’ Castricius took a drink. ‘Although he was a fine horseman, he had a boy with him. The boy got tired, and Alexander could not bring himself to leave him behind. When they were overtaken, Alexander killed the boy, then himself.’

  Burdo shook his head. ‘You should never travel with a catamite.’

  *

  At Narnia the Via Flaminia divided. They took the easier, westerly road to Fulginae, across the foothills.

  In the carriage Castricius relapsed into silence. It put Burdo in mind of a crow or some other bird which quit its talking or singing when a cloth was put over its cage. Castricius was a problem. He was not a prisoner. Sitting there dressed like an off duty soldier, he was armed, had a knife at his belt, and the concealed blade destined for Maximinus. Yet he was not a colleague. He had to be delivered to the North, watched every step of the way. At least now he was dozing.

  Burdo regarded the countryside. The vineyards and olive groves were giving way to upland meadows and woods. Where the incline was too steep for vegetation, the exposed stone was light grey and crumbling. On hillocks were stands of pines, their trunks straight and tall and bare, foliage fanning out above. Burdo remembered it all well. Thirty years before he had cross quartered these ranges again and again, just one man in a huge army hunting Bulla Felix. Endless forced marches, raids, ambushes, none of it had caught the bandit chief. It was a woman who had brought Bulla down in the end, like so many men. Easier to admire the brigand from a safe distance, but he had courage, that and a ready wit. Before they threw him to the animals, the Praetorian Prefect had asked him, ‘Why did you become a bandit?’ Bulla had replied, ‘Why are you Prefect?’

  The driver plied the whip, and the carriage rattled along the road. As the landscape rolled past, dappled with sunlight, Burdo felt hollow and entirely temporary. The Via Flaminia had been built hundreds of years before. It would be used for centuries more. The hills would stand for thousands of years until the great conflagration that would proceed the next cycle of the cosmos. But already nothing remained to tell of Burdo or the myriad others and their search for Bulla Felix, the bandit king. Burdo had no wife or children. His interests had never run that way. Now he had no family, not since the northern barbarians had crossed the frontier four years ago, and brought fire and sword across Pannonia. It was odd. Although he had accepted his father’s reasoning that the estate was too small to divide and, against all custom, it should pass solely to the elder, Burdo had always envied his brother. While his sibling had led the life of landowner, Burdo had joined the army – legionary, scout, then frumentarius – hard duty, long marches, little pay. But if Burdo had been born first, now he would be dead.

  Burdo had sold the estate. Its buildings burned, its slaves dead or gone, it had not fetched much. Few wanted to invest in what appeared to be becoming debateable land. Burdo had not been tempted to take it on himself. Too late for change, his life had been with the standards. It had not been a bad life. There was a time, when Adventus commanded the frumentarii, and appointed Burdo a centurion, it had promised much. Advancement, wealth, influence, all had seemed possible. But Adventus had been promoted elsewhere, and, like the rest of the world, had forgotten Burdo.

  It had not been a bad life, but most likely it would be over all too soon, and end horribly. Burdo lacked patrons. He was old and expendable. That was why he was assigned this mission. Of course Castricius would fail. How could he succeed? Maximinus was said to be suspicious, surrounded by guards. Burdo remembered seeing him once, before the Thracian became Emperor. Maximinus was huge, strong beyond measure. It was rumoured he could punch the teeth from the jaws of a horse, poke his forefinger through the skull of a man.

  When Maximinus had Castricius in his hands, was shaking the knife-boy like a dog with a rat, the hunt would begin for the centurion who had escorted him. Up and down the alleys of the camp. The gates barred, the palisade patrolled. It would take a miracle for Burdo to escape. Yet it was hard to see what else was to be done.

  The carriage crossed a bridge. A stream, fast with spring melt, tumbled below.

  Castricius was asleep. Burdo envied him. He had slept badly again last night. In his dreams, he had drunk fine wines – honeyed quince wine, hydromel, myrtle wine – from clear glass goblets. Prepared and fortified wines meant good luck for a rich man, because of the luxury. Burdo was not wealthy, and they were inauspicious for the poor. The latter did not seek such drinks unless forced by an illness.

  Cups of glass symbolised those who were greeted with a kiss. If they broke, a friend or relative would die. If the dreamer was alone, it indicated his own death. Others thought that, as they shattered, they promised a release from all oppression and difficulty. Sometimes they portend danger because they are fragile, and signify that secrets will be revealed because they are transparent.

  *

  It was market day in Cales. The Forum and surrounding streets of the small town were busy. Peasants drove sheep and pigs, set out baskets of produce. Pedlars and whores called their wares. A group of priests of Cybele sang and rattled tambourines, their voices high and effeminate.

  Burdo and Castricius sat on the terrace of an inn. The smell of dung and animals and sweat drifted up from the pavement and mingled with the grilled chicken of their dinner.

  ‘So many people in just one out-of-the-way place,’ Burdo said. ‘A man could get lost in the width of the empire, reinvent himself, pretend to be someone else, and start a new life.’

  Castricius was too polite to answer with a mouth full of food.

  Burdo continued. ‘In the civil wars, there was a schoolteacher who pretended to be a senator, and raised an army to fight for Septimius Severus. After the victory, when the imposture was revealed, Severus gave him a huge reward, and he retired in affluence.’

  The mouthful swallowed, and freed from the confines of the carriage, Castricius was his more loquacious self. ‘The schoolteacher probably had little to hide, apart from the usual profound ignorance, molesting the boys, and overcharging their parents.’

  ‘You did not enjoy school?’ Burdo asked.

  ‘Not so as you would notice,’ Castricius replied. ‘More typical than your schoolmaster would be the case of the slave of Agrippa Postumus who looked just like his master. That is a not unheard of thing with home-bred slaves. After all, what is the point in having slaves if you do not use them? Anyway, when Agrippa was killed, the slave grew his hair and beard to increase the resemblance, and adopted his late master’s identity. He would appear in a town after dark. No sooner was he heard of than he was gone to spread the rumour elsewhere. Never rem
ained in one place. Always on the move. Soon every fool with a cocked ear, every malcontent in Italy believed the story. Even senators, equestrians, members of the imperial household were duped. When he went to Rome, it ended in disaster. Soldiers seized him, and put him to death in a quiet part of the Palace.’

  ‘Imitating an imperial prince is hardly trying to disappear,’ Burdo said.

  Castricius flourished a chicken wing. ‘The Emperor Macrinus shaved his head and wore a dark garment and looked just like an ordinary citizen. He had diplomata to use the public post, and should have outrun the news of his own defeat. But he was recognised and arrested in Chalcedon.’

  ‘An Emperor is rather more likely to be recognised than most,’ Burdo said. He took a drink of wine. It was not unpleasant sitting talking and drinking with Castricius. It might prove useful. Another story came into his mind.

  ‘A man living in Syria heard he had been sentenced to death. He drank the blood of a hare …’

  ‘Most unhealthy, produces black bile.’

  Not acknowledging Castricius’ interruption, Burdo ploughed on.

  ‘… threw himself from his horse, and vomited up the blood as if it was his own. He was carried up to his room seemingly on the point of death. From there he disappeared, and the body of a ram was placed in his coffin and cremated. After that, constantly changing his appearance and clothing, he wandered about here and there.’

  ‘But the story got out,’ Castricius said. ‘It is impossible for such matters to remain hidden.’ He looked as if he had made the winning throw for high stakes. ‘A great number of heads purporting to be his were brought to Rome. So no one knows if he made good his escape or was really slain. They all get caught.’

  Burdo took a long pull of wine. At length he said the name Crassus.

  Castricius, eating cheese and nuts, gestured for him to go on.

  ‘With some friend Crassus disguised himself as a slave, and successfully hid in a cave for eight months.’

  ‘An exception that proves the rule.’