“On the day after I turned sixteen, I was set to leave home. My family’s station had risen substantially by the time I donned the toga. My father had seen to it that I was trained in the military arts, and they came to me naturally, but he did not want me to end up in the legions as he had done. So, I was earmarked for a proper education at a Greek institution in Rome. I was to disembark the next day, and had spent most of the day packing and saying goodbye to my friends. But there was one final thing I wished to do, and that final thing quite probably saved my life that night. Throughout my youth, whenever I was in a contemplative mood, I would often retreat to an old Carthaginian shrine up in the hills overlooking the sea. I was there that night, looking out at the moonlit expanse of water that I thought would carry me away the next day to a new life of adventure. My heart was filled with expectation, for I had never been to Rome before. Nevertheless, I was at the shrine, dreaming away the night when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“The slaves revolted. They broke out of their pens and overpowered their overseers. Then they began to ravage the countryside for miles around, starting with my family’s villa. They were like a nightmare realized, hacking, raping, murdering, burning as they went. Somehow, they obtained weapons, and none of the defenseless families living anywhere near the mine stood a chance.
I found my home in ruins the next morning. My sister had been murdered, but not before she had been brutally raped and tortured. We had had a reflective moment together only the day before – two siblings who might not see each other again for a very long while. I embraced her, not knowing it would be our last embrace in this life. My mother’s body was burned beyond recognition, but I’m sure she suffered a similar fate as that of my sister. And my father…I found him in the courtyard. He had been bound, stripped, and lashed until his bones were exposed, and then they had impaled him on a sharpened fencepost and left him to die, his dignity and greatness reduced to a broken and wrecked body. He never regained consciousness and died shortly after.”
Gertrude’s eyes looked pained for him, and she rested a soft palm on his face, as if to console him, but Lucius simply shrugged.
“It took nearly a full week to bring the slaves under control. It was Marcus Valens, at the head of the local militia that took credit for stopping them. The ring leaders were crucified and the others made to taste the lash. Valens then ordered that the spared slaves have their tongues cut out. I thought it absurd at the time, but now I realize it was to keep them silent lest they tell of his involvement.”
“But how do you know he had anything to do with it?” she asked skeptically. “Slave revolts are not uncommon. We have experienced them among our own slaves.”
“How many of your slaves were armed with iron weapons? Ours were – good ones. There were no armories for them to raid. The weapons had to have been delivered to them. But no advocate ever looked into that little fact. The Valenii spent the succeeding weeks leading the investigation down the wrong path, and months dragging my father’s name through the mud. They claimed that my father was at fault, that the conditions in the mines caused the revolt, that my father should have known better than to purchase slaves from the rebellious parts of the world, that he did not ensure there were adequate guards, and so on. When they got through, the locals were ready to strike my family’s name from every inscription on every monument. With half of the mine owners dead and the local economy beginning to suffer, the Valenii swooped in like heroes, assuming ownership of the mine with the justification that Marcus was the original patron to most of the dead families and so should take control of their assets. They even declared themselves the guardians of the surviving family members, vowing that each one would be well cared for. In most cases, that meant shipping them back to Rome or somewhere else where they could cause no trouble. I was no exception. I was a young man full of rage, newly orphaned, newly penniless, and entirely at the mercy of my father’s patron. You see, at the time, I was still completely unaware of the Valenii’s guilt in my father’s murder. With the greatest display of sympathy for my loss, Marcus Valens kindly informed me that the Seventh Legion was recruiting in Nova Carthago, and that he was certain my father would have wanted me to serve as a soldier, as he once did.” Lucius chuckled softly. “What a fool I was. I bought the whole story, like a wet-nosed gelding. I was recruited and trained, and marched off with the Seventh. But before the legion left there, something happened that exposed the Valenii for what they truly are. On the eve of the Seventh’s departure, I felt I owed a debt of gratitude to Valens for the kindness he had shown me, and I wished to thank him in some way. I learned that he had a shipping agent near the docks, so I went there hoping to leave a letter that it might be delivered to Valens personally. When I found the agent, he was supervising the loading of a trade vessel down at the waterfront. I approached him with my letter, asking could he forward it to his master, but the response I got was far from what I had expected. He treated me with contempt and an air of impatience from the start, but when I told him who I was, he became not only discourteous, but agitated, as if my mere presence was causing him great discomfort. He snatched the letter from my hands, and told me curtly that I must leave the docks at once, that I was interfering with his work, and that if I did not, Marcus Valens would hear of it.
“I did as he requested, thinking nothing of it initially, but then had a second thought to go back and make sure he hadn’t tossed my letter into the harbor. As I approached the vessel, I noticed that several of the men who were engaged in loading the cargo onto the ship looked very familiar – one in particular, a bald-headed man. On closer examination, I realized who the man was. It was the bastard from my father’s mine, the one missing half of one ear. I soon identified at least five others among the loaders who had been my father’s slaves. Somehow, they had ended up in the service of Marcus Valens. Of course, I was confused at first, but then the pieces of the puzzle began to come together, and I realized that I had been played for a fool. My initial impulse was to march over there and run each of them through, and force each one of the bastards to say my dead sister’s name before I cut off his head. And I came very close to doing just that. But then I stopped myself, realizing that such an act would get me ejected from the legion and quite possibly executed. If I were to die, Valens would have truly won. I forced myself to walk away, swearing that I would have my revenge someday, someday when I had the advantage. It was clear to me then that Valens had placed me in the legion in hopes that I would die of disease or on some distant battlefield, and he would be rid of the Domitius family once and for all. That was six years ago. It seems like ages.”
“But you are still alive, so this Valens must have grown impatient?” Gertrude asked.
“Perhaps. He is planning to have Caesar assassinated, let the army suffer a defeat, and then take control of it himself. He may have ambitions that go even beyond that. I believe I am merely a nuisance to him, an annoyance from his earlier days, and he just wants me out of the way.”
“Yes, Valens told my father that once he commands the Romans, he will leave our people in peace.”
“Your father’s a fool if he believes that.”
She looked somewhat displeased at the remark, but Lucius chose to press the issue anyway. His only chance of escape was to distract her, to instill doubt about her cause and the alliance her father had made with Valens.