"Well, that's that! Got the old fellow off to the barracks for burial. Your health!" He swallowed deeply and went on. "No point in leaving him there at home, poor old catamite. According to his servants he doesn't have a relative left in the world, nor any friends to mourn him. You know, Publius, a man can live too long."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. That poor old son of a noble Roman whore outlived all his contemporaries. All his friends. He just died alone. That's no good at all. I hope I die young. "
"Young? You?" I laughed at him. "Plautus, you're an old man already!
Besides, he might never have had any friends. Perhaps everybody hated him."
"No." He shook his head drunkenly. "His servants didn't, and if they didn't hate him he must have been all right. They're knee-deep in their own dung over what's going to happen to them now."
"What d'you mean? What's going to happen to them?"
"Nothing, but they have to move out, tomorrow. They're finished. Can't stay there. 'S not their house, so out!"
"They'll find somewhere else, Plautus. It's not the end of the world."
"It is for them. Who's going to take them in?" He snorted. "They can't even rob the place. The Procurator's people moved right in today."
"Why would they do that?"
"To take inventory. They have to. The old man had no heirs. Everything goes to the State."
"What will the State do with it?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. Sell it, probably."
"To whom? That's a big place. Who could afford it? I can't think of anyone in this town who could."
"I can." He smiled, pleased with himself. "Why don't you buy it?" I stared at him in amazement. "Me? Why in the name of all the gods should I buy it?"
He grinned at me. "Because it would suit you, and you can afford it. You'll get it for half price, too, 'cause you're right. They won't be able to sell it t'anybody else and they don't need it."
I was half interested. "Why do you say it would suit me?" He was still grinning. "Because, my friend, there is one room in that place that will make your eyes fall out. That old man was rich. Very rich. He took one of the small interior courtyards, you know? A courtyard?
Open to the sky? Covered the whole thing with glass! Real glass! The whole thing. Must have cost a fortune. What's there now is a big room, bright, like outside, with a glass roof.., 's daylight, bright daylight in there all the time. 'Cept at night, of course. Whole place is filled with plants. As soon as I saw it, I thought, Here's the place for Publius's treasures. It's perfect. It would be like having them outside, in daylight, except that they'd be inside in daylight, if you see what I mean, all warm and dry." I was staring at him. "I think I do, " I said. "At least, I... hmmm... I'd like to see this room. Can you arrange it?"
The following day, because I fell in love with that one room, I tried to buy the house. Because of legalities, I was not permitted to, but, thanks to the influence of Antonius Cicero, I was permitted to rent it for an outrageous amount. The terms of rental were excellent; for all intents and purposes, in every sense except outright ownership, the house was mine. It was explained to me by the Procurator's people that, should the Emperor ever decide to come to live in this part of the Empire, in this particular town, I would be expected to vacate the premises.
I began to live the way I imagined a wealthy man should live, although I sometimes felt that I rattled around in the huge place like a lonely pea in a dry pod. Having made my bed, however, I was determined to lie in it, and I counterbalanced the pleasure I took in the treasure room against any regrets I had of my impulsive decision to assume the tenancy of the house.
XIII
Old age is a fascinating phenomenon, and a man's perspective on it changes rapidly as he accumulates winters. I am now at that stage of life where my grandchildren prove that people may legitimately think of me as old, but I am still young in my own head, and I anticipate with pleasure a long chain of satisfying, busy years before I grow old enough to die. It was not always so. When I was younger, decades younger, I endured a period of terror, barely admitted even to myself, of growing old before I had time to live. I suppose all men must know that fear at some time, but keep its nightmares deep-hidden. I was not yet forty at the time, and the torsion of the mental fluxes I was going through brought out, from time to time, a rashness in me — an impulsiveness and, infrequently, an intransigence that I had not suspected of myself.
About three months after I moved into my new home, at the height of a magnificent summer, an event occurred that introduced the stench of the Senecas to my nostrils in a way that made me wonder why I had not been able to smell it before. I know it was my fate to behave as I did on that day, and I would do the same again today. I merely reacted to specific stimuli, without thought of long-term consequences.
It had been a long day, the second of what was to have been a week spent on the road, at leisure, with Plautus, who was on furlough. Ostensibly, we were on our way to Verulamium to visit Alaric and deliver yet another silver cross, this time a large one for public display during his services. We had left Equus in charge of the smithy and set out to make our way slowly to the south, prepared to make a three-day journey out of one half that long. We carried leather legionary tents, arrows and bows for hunting and barbed, iron-wire hooks for fishing. The weather was glorious. I was thirty-seven years old and had believed myself twenty in my mind until that morning, when we had met two young women in the fields. Plautus, three years my senior but with black, close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face, had prospered with his choice. I had not. The chit that I had been attracted to looked at my greying hair and grizzled beard, and at my limp, and treated me as though I were her toothless grandfather, laughing at me and bidding me be ashamed of my almost incestuous designs. She made me feel old, and the beauty of the day had withered around me.
Now, in mid afternoon, we were seated in the front yard of a prosperous mansio, separated from the main road by a low wall with wide, open gates. We had enjoyed a meat pie, with fresh vegetables, new-baked bread and sweet, luscious plums, and Plautus had finally stopped crowing over his conquest of the girl that morning. I was still in a foul frame of mind, my memory stinging from the cruel injustice done my years.
The owner of the hostelry, a veteran of the armies, had just brought a fresh jug of wine to our table and was passing the time of day with us when we heard raucous voices in the distance, and all three of us looked idly for the source of the sounds. There were several men in the distance, grouped around two chariots, each of which was harnessed to a trio of horses. I noticed our host's face darken as he saw them.
"Who are they?" I asked him. "Do they live around here?"
"No, sir." His eyes had a worried look as he went on. "At least, they do, but not all the time, thank the gods. They visit nearby from time to time."
"Their presence doesn't fill you with happiness. Who are they?"
"I know only two of them. Nephews of Quinctilius Nesca, the commercial money-lender. He has a large villa to the south of here. The others are their... friends."
Quinctilius Nesca. Where had I heard that name before? It was familiar, and I had heard it only recently. Before I could comment on it, Plautus spoke up.