the money, bitch.’
Hands were hauling her gown up her legs, pawing her breasts, pushing between her thighs.
‘Show us what you have got.’
The neck of her gown was torn open, her breast-band yanked up.
‘Look at those tits.’
She was forced to her knees. No point in fighting now, they would beat her, perhaps mark her for life.
The man who had first accosted her, undoubtedly the leader, unbuckled his belt, pulled up his tunic, and fumbled in his breeches.
‘Get the old beggar. Let him have a go after us.’
The laughter died. The man facing her spun around, his penis still in his fist.
Caenis tugged her gown together, gathered her legs under her, waiting for a chance to run.
‘Put it away, and go.’ The speaker was her neighbour, young Castricius. The old die-cutter stood with him.
The man laughed, with no mirth and little conviction. ‘A boy and an old man.’
One of the others had a knife in his hand.
Castricius shook his head. ‘Leave.’
‘Run along, boy.’
‘Last chance.’ Castricius spoke softly, as if saddened by the stupidity of the world.
‘Fuck off, and take your grandfather with you.’
One hand stuffing his penis back into his breeches, wrestling with the buckle of his belt, with the other the leader tugged a knife from the sheath on his belt.
In a moment, all the men, even the die-cutter, were crouched forward, balanced on the balls of their feet, steel flicking this way and that.
‘The die is cast.’ A strange, unreadable emotion slid across Castricius’ thin, angular face.
A sudden movement, making Caenis start. A scuffle of feet and a grunt of pain. The die-cutter was down, clutching his thigh. His assailant bent over him.
Neatly, Castricius stepped inside the knife of the third man, and stabbed him deep in the stomach.
Before anyone else could react, with the grace of a dancer, Castricius whirled, and again faced the leader.
The man who Castricius had stabbed dropped his weapon, and curled over, blood flooding out between his splayed fingers. ‘He has done for me.’
‘Yes,’ Castricius replied, never taking his eyes off the other two. ‘And now I will deal with your friends.’
The leader backed away. The remaining man joined him. Their eyes flitted between each other, their friend gasping his life out in the dirt, and the long blade in Castricius’ hand.
‘We will get you one day,’ the leader shouted. Then they turned, and ran.
Caenis sprang up to do the same.
‘Give me a hand with him.’ Castricius was kneeling by the old man, cutting the material away from the wound, peering closely at it.
She wanted nothing but to run.
‘We have to get him away, before the Watch arrive.’
Caenis had to live in the same block with them. Tugging her clothes into some decency, she went to help the die-cutter.
Rome
The Senate House,
The Nones of March, AD238
Today I shall meet with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness. Menophilus turned over the words of the Meditations. Was Marcus Aurelius correct that man naturally inclines to virtue, and so all vice was due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil, all some sort of near-blameless mistake? Regarding his fellow Senators, he judged that the divine Emperor’s view could be true only in the very strictest sense of Stoic philosophy.
Menophilus had answered Gallicanus’ question with honesty. He could give no realistic estimate how long it would be before the Gordiani arrived from Africa. The tone of the query had been offensive, somehow implying both that any tardiness was his fault, and that previously he had failed to give proper consideration to the issue. The hirsute Cynic appeared quick to impute blame, like most of his kind.
Since he had despatched the summons, Menophilus repeatedly had deliberated on the capabilities of ship and crew, the vagaries of the weather and potential routes, and the parameters of previous voyages. The Liburnian was said to be a fast galley, well manned, and its captain recommended as a seafarer of experience. Yesterday, after it had pulled out of Ostia, obligingly the wind had picked up and shifted to the north. It was just possible that it would make Carthage today. But if it had been overtaken by the full force of the storm, it might have been forced to run for shelter in Sicily or Malta, or might have been blown wildly off course, perhaps even to the dreadful shoals of the Syrtes. At worst, it could have foundered. When the storm abated, he would send another ship. Perhaps Gallicanus was right; he should have sent two vessels initially. There was all too much to think about in the midst of a revolt, even if he did not have the killing of Vitalianus on his conscience.
Like countless generations of Senators before, Menophilus gazed out of the window set high in the wall opposite the bench where he sat. Low, black clouds, dragging curtains of rain, scudded across. Open the doors! The angry chants were muffled, but audible. Only conspirators debate behind closed doors! Someone behind the scenes was whipping up the plebs, Menophilus had no doubt. Normally the first drops of rain dispersed any mob, no matter how riotous. Continued urban unrest best served whose interest?
Gallicanus had the floor. There had still been no sighting of the Prefects of either the City or the Watch, and, in the continuing absence of Sabinus and Potens, with no soldiers on the streets still loyal to Maximinus, many more Senators had found the courage to venture out of their close guarded homes, despite the mob. The Curia was packed. Gallicanus was speaking. Menophilus dragged his mind back.
‘Outside the storm rages. The people of Rome grow impatient. They need leadership. There is no telling when the Gordiani will come. Conscript Fathers, it is our duty to bring order to the streets of the city.’
Yes, Menophilus thought, your bluff democratic posturing appeals to the plebs.
‘The Gordiani are far away over the seas. Maximinus and his army are close at hand. At any moment the tyrant will cross the Alps.’
An exaggeration, but a real fear. What Maximinus would do to the man who had killed his Praetorian Prefect did not bear thinking. Still, the human condition was that of a soldier assaulting a town; at every moment you should expect the barbed arrow.
‘The
