I’m glad you got out for the end of it.’
‘So am I. I fought with Renius!’ Gaius said, his eyes brimming with tears, though he smiled.
‘I always fight with Renius,’ muttered the old man. ‘It isn’t that much to sing about.’
The dawn light was cold and grey; the skies clear over the estate lands. Horns sounded low and mournful, drowning the cheerful birdsong that seemed so inappropriate for a day marking the passing of a life. The house was stripped of ornament save for a cypress branch over the main gate to warn priests of Jupiter not to enter while the body was still inside.
Three times the horns moaned and finally the people chanted, ‘Conclamatum est’ – the sadness has been sounded. The grounds inside the gates were filled with mourners from the city, dressed in rough wool togas, unwashed and unshaven to show their grief.
Gaius stood by the gates with Tubruk and Marcus and watched as his father’s body was brought out feet first and laid gently in the open carriage that would take him to the funeral pyre. The crowd waited, heads bowed in prayer or thought as Gaius walked stiffly to the body.
He looked down into the face he had known and loved all his life and tried to remember it when the eyes could open and the strong hand reach out to grip his shoulder or ruffle his hair. Those same hands lay still at his sides, the skin clean and shining with oil. The wounds from the defence of the walls were covered by the folds of his toga, but there was nothing of life there. No rise and fall of breath; the skin looked wrong, too pale. He wondered if it would be cold to the touch, but could not reach out.
‘Goodbye, my father,’ he whispered and almost faltered as grief swelled in him. The crowd watched and he steadied himself. No shame in front of the old man. Some of them would be friends, unknown to him, but some would be carrion birds, come to judge his weakness for themselves. He felt a spike of anger at this and was able to smother the sadness. He reached out and took his father’s hand, bowing his head. The skin felt like cloth, rough and cool under his grip.
‘Conclamatum est,’ he said aloud and the crowd murmured the words again.
He stood back and watched in silence as his mother approached the man who had been her husband. He could see her shaking under her dirty wool cloak. Her hair had not been tended by slaves and stood out in wild disarray. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hand trembled as she touched his father for the last time. Gaius tensed, and begged inside that she would complete the ritual without disgrace. Standing so close, he alone could hear the words she said as she bent low over the face of his father.
‘Why have you left me alone, my love? Who will now make me laugh when I am sad and hold me in the darkness? This is not what we dreamed. You promised me you would always be there when I am tired and angry with the world.’
She began to sob in heaves and Tubruk signalled to the nurse he’d hired for her. As with the doctors, she had brought no physical improvement, but Aurelia seemed to draw comfort from the Roman matron, perhaps simply from female companionship. It was enough for Tubruk to keep her on, and he nodded as she took Aurelia’s arm gently and led her away into the darkened house.
Gaius breathed out slowly, suddenly aware of the crowd again. Tears came into his eyes and were ignored as they brimmed and held against his lashes.
Tubruk approached and spoke quietly to him. ‘She will be all right,’ he said, but they both knew it wasn’t true.
One by one, the other mourners came to pay their respects to the body and more than a few spoke to Gaius afterwards, praising his father and pressing him to contact them in the city.
‘He was always straight with me, even when profit lay the other way,’ said one grey-haired man in a rough toga. ‘He owned a fifth part of my shops in the city and lent me the money to buy them. He was one of the rare ones you could trust with anything and he was always fair.’
Gaius gripped his hand strongly. ‘Thank you. Tubruk will make arrangements to discuss the future with you.’
The man nodded. ‘If he is watching me, I want him to see me being straight with his son. I owe him that and more.’
Others followed and Gaius was proud to see the genuine sadness his father had left behind. There was a world in Rome that the son had never seen, but his father had been a decent man and that mattered to him, that the city was a little poorer because his father would no longer walk the streets.
One man was dressed in a clean toga of good white wool, standing out in the crowd of mourners. He did not pause at the carriage, but came straight to Gaius.
‘I am here for Marius the consul. He is away from the city, but wanted to send me to let you know your father will not be forgotten by him.’
Gaius thanked him politely, his mind working furiously. ‘Send the message that I will call on Consul Marius when he is next in the city.’
The man nodded. ‘Your uncle will receive you warmly, I am sure. He will be at his town house three weeks from today. I will let him know.’ The messenger made his way back through the crowd and out of the gates and Gaius watched him go.
Marcus moved to his shoulder, his voice low. ‘Already you are not so alone as you were,’ he said.
Gaius thought of his mother’s words. ‘No. He has set my standard and I will meet it. I will not be a lesser man when I lie there and my son greets those who knew me. I swear it.’
Into the dawn silence came the low voices of the praeficae women, singing softly the same phrases of loss over and over. It was a mournful sound and the world was filled with it as the horses pulled the carriage with his father out of the gates in slow time, with the people falling in behind, heads bowed.
In only a few minutes the courtyard was empty again and Gaius waited for Tubruk, who had gone inside to check on Aurelia.
‘Are you coming?’ Gaius asked him as he returned.
Tubruk shook his head. ‘I will stay to serve your mother. I don’t want her alone at this time.’
Tears came again into Gaius’ eyes and he reached out for the older man’s arm.
‘Close the gates behind me, Tubruk. I don’t think I can do it.’
‘You must. Your father is gone to the tomb and you must follow, but first the gates must be shut by the new master. It is not my place to take yours. Close up the estate for mourning and go and light the funeral pyre. These are your last tasks before I will call you master. Go now.’
Words would not come from his throat and Gaius turned away, pulling the heavy gates shut behind him. The funeral procession had not gone far with their measured step and he walked after them slowly, his back straight and his heart aching.
The crematorium was outside the city, near the family tomb. For decades, burials within the walls of Rome had been forbidden as the city filled every scrap of available space with buildings. Gaius watched in silence as his father’s body was laid on a high pyre that hid him from view in the centre
