Duty called the vicarius away to Gaul once more, and this time he left his family behind. Helena remained in Rome to help her daughter with the baby and oversee young Gaius’ education, which apparently had reached a critical stage. On the day Aulus departed, I went to see him off.
As he prepared to step onto the mounting block, I embraced him as I would my own father. “Thank you, my lord,” I said. “You have given me a new life, and I owe you more than I can repay.”
“Not at all.” He shook his head, smiling. “If not for you, my son, I would have perished in the German forest. I do but repay in part the debt I owe.” He took my arms in a soldier’s grip. “Take care of your family, Succat,” he said softly. “Whatever happens, look first to their welfare and safety.”
“On my life, lord.”
He turned, stepped up onto the block, and swung into the saddle. “I hope to return in the spring,” he said, taking the reins from the hand of the groom. “If all goes well with the recruiting, we will soon have a real army on the frontier again. And then we can sleep peacefully in Rome.”
We made our farewells, and he rode from the courtyard to take his place at the head of the cohort waiting for him in the street. I followed and saw him raise his hand before he passed out of sight down the hill.
I returned to my directorate duties with renewed zeal. Senator Graccus noticed my resolve and began talking about advancing me another rung to a praetorship. “How old are you?”
I thought for a moment. “Twenty-six,” I calculated.
“A little young, to be sure,” he told me, “but it is not unknown—especially these days. You have shown yourself diligent and conscientious. I would be surprised if anyone in the senate objected.”
“What if they did object?”
“I would hoot them down, my boy. I would send them running for cover with their ears on fire.” He chuckled. “Oh, I would like that. It has been a long time since we had a good brawl in the senate. Leave it with me; I will let you know when the time is right.”
I thanked him and, as I turned to go, asked, “Forgive me for asking, Senator Graccus, but why are you doing all this for me?”
He cocked his head to one side as if he could not understand the question. “For you?” he said, looking away. “My boy, I am doing it for me.”
“I do not believe you, Senator.”
He turned to face me, his jowls arranged in a solemn frown. “Then let us say I am doing it for a soldier who marched off to Germania and never returned. I had hoped one day to help him as I now help you.”
“This soldier was someone close to you.”
“Yes,” Senator Graccus agreed, his voice falling quiet. “He was my son.”
“Then I hope I can live up to his memory.”
A pensive smile passed his lips as he said, “You already have.”
Upon leaving the senator, I proceeded to one of the nearby building sites to meet the curatores publicorum, one of the many officials who was to make an inspection of the work to date. I was meant to be familiarizing myself with the site plan and schedule, but all I could think about was how, in such a short space of time, so many people had come to depend on me. I resolved to acquit myself in a way that was worthy of their trust. No matter what it cost, I vowed, I would repay their confidence a thousand times over.
The curatores was less than impressed with his tour of the site, but he found nothing seriously amiss and promised to attach his seal to the pertinent documents. Later that evening, as I walked home through the still-busy streets, I encountered two funeral processions before reaching my front door. The candlelit cortege of the second, attended by pipers playing a dirge and mourners wailing as the black-veiled widow shuffled woodenly behind the shrouded body cast me into a melancholy mood. It took all of little Concessa’s bright antics to draw me from my gloomy thoughts.
The next day I saw three more funeral processions and wondered if it was more than mere coincidence. I determined next day to seek the cause. By then it was already too late. The invader had breached the walls.
FIFTY-ONE
EARLY THE NEXT morning a knock came on my door. I answered to find a boy with a stick on which was bound a small parchment scroll. “Quaestor Magonus?” he asked, extending the stick. “For you.”
“What is it?” called Oriana from inside.
“I am summoned to the senate at once,” I answered, glancing quickly at the parchment.
“Oh,” she said. “Why?”
“I cannot say.” I turned to ask the boy, but he was already gone, taking the scroll with him.
Snatching a bit of seed cake, I hurried off, arriving at the forum with a great number of city officials—various magisters and curatores who had likewise been summoned. Within moments of our entering, the reason was made dreadfully clear. “Citizens of Rome,” began an elderly senator, “plague is upon us.”
This blunt announcement caused a furor that took a few moments to die down so the senator could be understood. My own heart fell to my feet like a leaden weight. “We have called you here,” continued the senator, “at the emperor’s request to discuss how best to combat the pestilence and keep it from spreading further.”
To this there were cries of “Vacate the city!” and “Get everyone out!”
The elderly senator held up his hands. “Please! Calm yourselves,” he said. “Panic is also a potent enemy here.” He said that he had seen plague before and knew how it bred and moved through a city population. “In the last outbreak,” he warned, “more citizens died from the fires used to contain the pestilence than were killed by the disease itself.”
In the simple, decisive speech of authority, he described how the disaster had begun with a rumor to the effect that burning the clothes and bedding of those known to have the plague would keep it from spreading. Frightened and desperate, people had begun setting fire to the belongings of victims, torching the contaminated goods in the streets. Sparks set the roofs of nearby houses on fire, and the wind did the rest. “The fires spread through the city more quickly than did the disease,” the old senator explained. “The flames raced out of control. Whole sections of the city burned, killing hundreds who might otherwise have been spared. This must not happen again.”
That much was easily agreed; far more difficult, however, was to know what should be done to fight not only the plague but the panic even now mounting throughout the city. The issue was debated well into the day; in the end the assembly adjourned without reaching a final agreement. The simple truth was that no one knew what to do.
“The Vandals were deadly,” muttered a disgruntled curatore as we left the Curia, “and them we knew how to fight.”
The next day riots broke out in three markets when a frightened baker, watching his stocks disappear at an alarming rate, suddenly doubled the price of bread. This caused other merchants to raise their prices, too, and their customers, fearing a shortage, began buying up all they could carry. When the bread ran out, they bought grain, and when the day’s supplies were exhausted, the mob stormed the granaries. There was fighting in the streets by this time, and bystanders were trampled. The Praetorian Guard was called in to quell the riot, and when the dust had cleared, fourteen people were dead and more than thirty injured.
Plague moved through the city like a stealthy and determined marauder. Within days the fever had spread through the lower city and the reeking slums across the Tiber where the poor sheltered in their hovels of sticks and mud. A few days after that, there was not a house in Rome that was safe from the reach of plague.
I spent the next days working with the curatore—a bald, energetic man named Marius—trying to prevent worried citizens from burning the houses of the afflicted—more easily said than done, for the moment we turned our backs, the flames were kindled. We obtained bread from the imperial bakery and took it to the various quarters, exchanging loaves for promises not to set anything on fire. We secured the services of four cohorts of soldiers to patrol the narrow street
s, keeping the way clear and transport moving. We labored from early morning to well past dark to bring a measure of calm to the areas along the river hardest hit by the disease.
The third night, as I walked home, I heard an eerie sound rising from the lowlands along the riverside. At first I thought someone was playing music, soft and sad. I paused a moment to listen and realized that it was not musicians I heard playing—it was an ululation: the voices of the grief-stricken lifted in lament. There must have been hundreds of them wailing, crying, pouring out their sorrow into the night. The sound snaked along the streets, echoing in the empty colonnades and doorways, drifting like a funereal haze over the city.
Sometime during the night someone torched an abandoned wagon bearing a load of corpses covered in straw. The flames spread unchecked, and by morning the smoke was so thick in the streets it looked as though an unseasonal fog had claimed the city. I bade Oriana and Agatha not to go out, not to answer the door, and not to let anyone into the house. Then I went to see if anything could be done.
The streets were full of people rushing here and there, most with rags tied over nose and mouth to keep the bitter smoke and foul air from their lungs. Everywhere could be heard the sound of rushing feet, like the patter of a steady rain on the cobbled streets. Occasionally a scream or shout would overtake the curious rustling sound, but for the most part it remained quiet.
Peering through the haze up ahead, I saw two men bending over the body of a third. He had fallen, I thought, and they were trying to help him to his feet. “Is your friend sick?” I asked as I came up. The two had not heard my approach. They leapt aside. I caught a glimpse of teeth and eyes as they fled. “Here, friend,” I said to the man on the ground, “are you sick?”
When he made no reply, I nudged him with the toe of my shoe. His limbs were stiff and unmoving. I had disturbed a couple of thieves in the act of robbing a corpse. I straightened quickly, looked around, and, not knowing what else to do, moved on.
I saw five more bodies in the street before reaching the Via Sacra, the principal street running through the heart of the city. The road was jammed with people, many of whom pushed handcarts heaped with belongings; others carried bundles on their backs or on their heads. The same could be seen in every quarter: people hurrying along the lanes and pathways, making for the wider streets and roads leading to the outer gates—men bustling their families along, women carrying children, the old leading the young. Those who could were leaving the city while they still had strength and life to do so.
I reached the square where the curatore maintained a small office and waited for Marius to arrive. From the doorstep I watched the streams of people build to a river, then a flood. After a time the curatore arrived, harried and disheveled. We had exchanged but two words, however, when a runner appeared to summon us to the Curia; the senate was meeting again in special session to decide what to advise the people of Rome.
As we joined the session, it was being explained how the senate, despairing of the situation and fearing the worst, sought guidance from the emperor. A message had been sent to Honorius in Ravenna; unfortunately, the reply had not yet come back. So, after announcing various possible strategies, the senators lapsed into protracted disagreement: Some called for immediate evacuation of the city, others wanted teams of men organized into a militia of firefighters, and still others thought that special sacrifices might be offered to the gods, who might yet turn the plague away. Needless to say, after half a day’s argument the council was no nearer to a unified resolution. The curatore saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to save himself—and me—an aching head by leaving the meeting early.
We pushed through the crowd of onlookers at the door and out across the teeming forum. “What do you think we should do now?”
He stopped and turned to me. “Pray to whatever gods will hear you. There is nothing else.”
“There must be something we can do.”
“If you have anywhere to go,” Marius said, “then go. Flee the city as fast as you can.” He hurried on, then flung this last over his shoulder: “Do not look for me tomorrow. I am leaving tonight.”
I returned home to find Oriana sitting alone with her head in her hands.
“Oriana?” I said, kneeling down beside her. “Are you well?”
“It is nothing. Just a headache.”
“Where is Agatha?”
“With the baby.” She turned her face to me; her eyes were red from crying. “Mother is sick.”
“Have you called the physician?”
She nodded. “He has seen her.” She looked at me, and her features dissolved once more in tears. “He was here a little while ago. He said there is no hope.”
“But she was fine yesterday. He must be mistaken,” I said firmly. “I will go see her.” She caught my hand as I turned away.
“No,” Oriana said, “she has forbidden anyone to come near her.”
“You stay here. I won’t be gone long.”
“Succat, no! For the sake of the baby,” she pleaded. “Mother said we are not to come up to the house.”
I hesitated, then decided. “We cannot let her lie in that house alone. She needs help.”
“The servants will take care of her. They will do what they can.”
“Very well, I will go and speak to the servants at least.”
“And you’ll come right back?”
“As soon as I’ve seen that everything’s in order.”
I hurried up the hill and arrived at Domus Columella to find the courtyard dark and the gate standing open. I entered and called for the porter. When he did not appear, I approached the house. I called for the housekeeper, and when no one answered, I moved to the door. It was closed but not locked; I lifted the latch and went in. The house was dark and quiet.
“Helena?” I called, and then I announced myself. There was no answer, so I called again more loudly as I moved through the silent house.
A weak voice came from her bedroom. “Succat, is that you?”
“It is.”
“Go away,” she said angrily. “I do not want anyone here—least of all you or Oriana.”
I went into the room. A single candle burned in a holder on the table. I took up the candle and went to the bed where Lady Columella was lying, soaked in sweat and shivering. “Go away, Succat. Leave me.”
“Where are the servants?”
“I sent them away.”
“And Gaius?”
“With Pylades. They have gone to the country.”
“But—” I stared at her, as at a stranger. Her eyes were hard, bright cinders sunk deep into their sockets, and her flesh was pale yellow and waxy. She had drenched the bedclothes where she lay. “You must have someone to care for you. I will go and—”
“Succat!” she said, struggling up in bed. “Leave me. Think of your wife and child.” Exhausted by this feeble outburst, she slumped back. “There is nothing anyone can do. Go away and let me die in peace.”
“I will bring you some water to ease your thirst,” I said, going to fetch a jar and cup. When I returned, I thought her already dead; she lay without movement, her breath scarcely lifting her chest.
“Helena?” I said, setting the cup on the table beside the bed. Her eyes flickered open. “Drink a little, and then I will go.”
She shook her head, the slightest of movements. “Leave the city,” she whispered. “Take my daughter and grandchild and go to the villa. You will be safe there.”
“Rest now. I will find the physician and bring him to tend you.”
“Go!” she screamed, starting up suddenly. “Promise me you will go to the villa.”
“I will go…. I promise.”
She fell back once more. “God bless you, my son. Take care of Oriana and the little one.”
“On my life.”
“Good…good.” She offered me a weary, pain-twisted smile. “Farewell, Succat.”
I left the house, closing the door behind me. I had no key t
o secure the gate, so I ran to the garrison to commandeer the services of two soldiers to stand guard on the house lest thieves take it into their heads to plunder the vicarius’ palace in the absence of any servants. The physician was not at his home, so I left word for him to look in on Helena as soon as he returned. I then hurried home, where Agatha, having put an extremely distraught Oriana to bed, was preparing my supper.
“That can wait,” I told her. “I want you to pack some things for Concessa and Oriana. We are leaving the city tonight.”
Then I went in to Oriana. She lay in the dark, sobbing softly to herself. “Is she…?”
“Not yet,” I said, “but soon. She made me promise to take you to the villa. I told Agatha to pack some things for you and the baby. We will leave when I come back.”
She nodded.
“The curatore is leaving the city tonight. He told me to do the same. We will be safe on the island.” I stood and stepped to the door. “I must go out again.”
Oriana, worried, rose and followed me out. “No, stay with me.”
“I am going to your father’s stables to prepare a carriage. Bolt the door after me and don’t let anyone in.”
Pausing to light a lamp from the kitchen fire, I went out again. The smoke was thicker now, driven on a low, gusting wind. Hot ash and sparks rained out of the air, singeing my hair and clothing as I ran along. Away to the north and east, the sky held an angry orange glow. I passed a group of looters ransacking a house; they were throwing furniture and utensils out into the street from an upper window. The guard was nowhere to be seen, and I did not care to risk my life over a few pots and chairs and a stick of silver or two, so I ran on.
The soldiers I had left at the gate of the vicarius’ palace were at their posts. I told them why I had come and asked, “Do you have families here?”