The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Thirty-two

Silvanus sat at his rickety table in the dark hovel on the outskirts of the city that was his refuge and his prison. His grinding jaws masticated the bread and cheese to a paste, which he washed down with a long draft of wine. He was in the process of getting drunk. How else to pass the long nights? It was nearly a month since the night he had escaped from the treasury with his chests of silver. A month in which he had not put his head out of doors, relying on the hired woman to bring him his food and news of the city. He was beginning to loathe the sight of her. But he would stick it out for as long as he must, until this governor left and was replaced by a new man, until memories grew short and attention flagged, and then he would board a ship and sail away to Arabia, he thought, or any place where Rome’s long arm couldn’t reach him, and live like a prince.

A rap at the door. What was the damned woman doing here again? She never came at this time of night. With a curse, Silvanus lurched to his feet, crossed the narrow room, and opened the door a crack. He blinked his lashless eyelids. It was a woman, but not his woman. It was Fabia, half-hidden in the folds of a hooded traveling cloak. And behind her, her idiot son, and behind him that monster, Lurco.

“You! What are you doing here?” He could hardly get the words out.

She pushed the door open, driving him back—she was stronger than he was—and the three of them crowded in.

“You actually live in this hole?” She wrinkled her nose. “You told me where it was, you didn’t tell me it was a cesspit.”

“I said what are you doing here.” His voice rose through half an octave.

“Hiding just like you. The governor thinks I murdered my husband. I have no protector, no friends, no money.”

“No money? Haven’t I given you enough?”

It had started nearly ten years ago in Egypt when Balbus was on the Prefect’s staff, handling large sums of money for paying the shippers of grain to Rome and Silvanus was his clerk. Silvanus had begun stealing and, when Fabia became aware of it through a careless remark, he had paid her for her silence. She was a grasping, suspicious woman who wanted money of her own in case her husband should ever decide to leave her. Their arrangement had lasted ever since.

“You can’t stay here. You’ll bring the soldiers down of all of us! This is a neighborhood of snoops. How many doors did you knock on before you found me?”

She ignored the question. “We’re here and you must help us, Silvanus.”

“Never! You murdered Balbus, I congratulate you, I suppose the monster there did it for you?”

Lurco, who never spoke, simply glared at him and flexed his huge shoulders.

“You don’t scare me. You’ll have to fend for yourselves. Get out.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Fabia said.

“Oh? Then why are you running away? Because no one will believe you? I don’t blame them.”

Like a punctured bladder, the air seemed to go out of her. She sank down on Silvanus’ one chair and buried her face in her hands. “I’m afraid—not for me, for the boy.”

“A little late for that, murderess,” Silvanus sneered. With his small black eyes, beaky face, and thin lips he resembled a tortoise that had bitten into something nasty.

“She didn’t kill my father! A—a Persian killed him, I saw a letter—” Aulus shook himself from his torpor with a wrenching effort like the snapping of invisible cords that bound him. For hours he had been going in and out of small seizures, hardly knowing where he was.

“The idiot speaks? Stay in the corner there, you filthy thing, don’t come near me.” Silvanus spat.

“It’s all to do with Mithras,” Aulus whispered.

“What’s he raving about?”

“Hush, Aulus, that’s enough,” Fabia warned.

“It’s true. We must go back and tell the governor. He understands, he explained—“

“Be quiet! Silvanus, please. We won’t stay here if you help us to get away. If you don’t they’ll catch us all!”

“Murderess!” Silvanus balled his hands into fists as if he would strike her. Lurco stirred but it was Aulus who stepped between them. “Don’t you dare!” he said.

“Or you’ll what?”

“I am the man of this family.” His legs trembled, his head began to jerk. No! He wouldn’t faint, he would hold on. He had always needed his mother—now she needed him.

Silvanus snorted. “Fabia, if it were possible to pity you I would, just for having such a son.” He paced the little room. “All right. Listen to me. There’s a fishing village not far from here. Fishermen won’t be happy about putting out at this time of year but enough silver might change their minds.”

“You’ll guide us there?”

“Certainly not. I’ll give you directions.”

“The money.”

He dragged one chest from under his cot, being careful to place himself between it and Fabia so that she could not see how full it was. He scooped up a handful of coins and, with a sour look, tossed them on the table. “If I were you, I’d make for the coast of Thrace. You’re from there, aren’t you? Live among the savages. How fitting.”

***

They were tacking northwest along the coast, nearly out of sight of land, when the wind began to blow strong and the boat to pitch and roll in a confusion of waves. Rain drove in their faces, the deck was awash; the four sailors and their three passengers hung grimly to handholds wherever they could. Aulus’ stomach heaved. He felt his bowels loosen. His mouth filled with saliva. Jagged flashes of light exploded behind his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He had fought it down for hours but it would have its way at last. The sailors looked at him with horror, at the whites of his turned-up eyes, his jerking limbs.

“Look, he has a demon in him!”

“Fling him overboard or we’ll all drown!”