Fronto woke with a start and almost fell forward off his seat into the audience members in front. Lucilia gave him a disapproving shake of the head and rolled her eyes. ‘You need to see another herbalist. There are some very highly recommended ones in the town.’
Fronto shuddered at the memory of that last imagined scene as below, in the orchestra, the man/woman on the tottering heels was swinging a head made from a tragic mask wrapped in a wig. Tendrils of red and brown rags hung from the fake severed neck in a surprisingly effective imitation of ravaged flesh and blood. He shuddered again as the woman warbled in her cracked masculine voice to her father, waffling on about animals.
‘Why does she have a head?’
Lucilia blinked and frowned at him. ‘How long have you been asleep?’
‘I don’t know. Since November, I think.’
‘The head is her son’s. She and her maenad sisters tore him apart in the tree top.’
‘Ah yes. I remember that. And what’s this about the lion?’
‘She thinks it’s a lion she’s carrying. Not her son.’
‘She needs to study her wildlife a little more, then.’
Lucilia’s glare could have outstripped Medusa’s gaze, and Fronto quailed.
‘Sorry. Look, I’m not enjoying this.’
‘It’s almost over.’
‘Even your father’s gone to sleep, and he was looking forward to it.’
‘My father is past his sixtieth summer, Marcus. You have not the excuse of age.’
‘I have the excuse of exhaustion and boredom. I’ll see you out by the exit in half an hour. I need to find some refreshment.’
‘Try not to have so much ‘refreshment’ that you can’t walk home this time.’
Fronto sighed. ‘I’m not debauching myself, Lucilia. It’s just that the more I douse myself, the better chance there is that I might sleep through until at least past midnight.’
He realised that his voice had become gradually louder as he talked and that other spectators nearby were glaring at him. Shrugging at them apologetically, he patted Lucilia on the shoulder, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and scurried out from the seats, making for the exit.
It wasn’t just the bad dreams since Alesia that were killing his healthy nights. There was business, too. Four months into his new career as an importer of wine he was finding out just how hard it was to make a profit in the mercantile world. Especially in a thriving Greek port where Romans had no special advantage. Balbus had helped subsidise his business from the start, but even the unconventional old man had been slightly disapproving of Fronto, with all his rank and position, lowering himself to the world of commerce. The gods alone knew what his sister and mother would say when they found out. His hope had been to fund it himself, or at least with Balbus’ aid, and not to have to dip into the family’s coffers. That way he could keep his dealings from the family until his business was thriving and he could simply put a factor in charge of it and sit back to reap the profits. That was a good old Roman way. But the longer the winter dragged on, the less it looked like the wine import trade would thrive. In fact, if he didn’t find another source of income soon to help support it, he might have to give up and try something else.
And that didn’t bear thinking about…
His mother, sister, wife and father-in-law had all expected him to either take up some important provincial posting, perhaps when the Gallic war was a memory and the newly-conquered lands had been defined as a province in itself, or at least to take a leading role in Massilia’s own government.
And although he would prefer to sit and debate with the democratic council of the Greek city than to idle in the curia of Rome and listen to senators trying to outdo one another, still it held little interest for him. Perhaps, if the wine trade failed, he could persuade the boule of Massilia to take a step into the world of gladiators or chariot racing. Then he could start up a faction of chariots or build a ludus to train fighters. He’d even considered going back to the army, when the markets had first almost broken him. Balbus had bailed him out, but not before he’d already half-written the letter to Caesar.
It wasn’t even the dreams that were stopping him from going back. It was the knowledge that there was no place for him there. Soon the great army that Caesar had led around Gaul for eight years would disband. Caesar would return to Rome to take up a consulship, those legions that had come with his proconsular position would be assigned to his replacement. The ones granted to him by the senate would be returned and probably disbanded, as would be all those Caesar had levied himself. Without the great spectre of Gallic revolt, there would be no need for the army. So there was no point returning to an army that would be split up and disbanded within the year.
He sighed and reached up instinctively for the thousandth time to fondle the twin figurines at his throat, and once again sighed that they weren’t there – one broken and the other given to the Arvernian noble at Alesia. He was convinced that the absence of Fortuna from his person was at least partially responsible for his business’ failure, if not for his poor sleep. He’d tried replacing them at the markets of Massilia, but to no avail. The Greeks did not recognise Fortuna. Oh, they sort of did. But they called her Tyche, and in the few usable figurines he’d found of Tyche, she was wearing a flouncy Greek-style himation dress and holding up what appeared to be a misshapen club. Not at all like his very sober Fortuna in a stola and palla holding the cornucopia with a wheel of fortune at her knee. Somehow he felt his patron goddess might be a little insulted by the oddness of the shift. But he would have to do something about it. And the Greeks recognised Nemesis the same as the Romans, but even in Rome she was rarely actively worshipped outside of gladiator circles, and so no Nemesis pendant had shown up across the months.
He huffed his despondency into the cold afternoon air and his heart sank slightly again as he spotted Aurelius making for him across the square. The former legionary had a face like Jupiter’s arse after too much Greek food, which boded badly. And he was carrying a ledger, so it was something to do with the business again.
He looked up at the leaden-grey sky and wondered whether the sky looked any better at Samarobriva four or five hundred miles to the north, where the army wintered. As he stared into the clouds, trying to ignore Aurelius’ clamour, the first drop of rain hit him in the eye.
* * * * *
Quintus Atius Varus sat at the small table, an uneaten platter of pork and bread going cold before him as he watched the parade of misery trudge past.
‘That’s the third one this month,’ Brutus noted from the far side of the table.
Varus nodded as he watched the column of slaves shuffling forward, roped at the neck, legionaries hurrying back and forth along the lines, keeping them moving. Behind them, carts were rolling along, loaded with supplies for the arduous, interminable journey – over four hundred miles to Massilia, and then a sea-voyage to Ostia and Rome, where they would further deluge the already flooded slave market. Reports of slave prices plummeting were rife in missives from home, and the nobles of Rome apparently did little but mutter about Caesar devaluing their own stocks and of the potential for yet another slave uprising, given that they now outnumbered the free folk in the city.
‘This one’s not as big. Seems to be the last, too. Look: they’re sickly and weak. These are the ones who were too weak to travel during the snows last month. They’ve been fattened up a bit and now they’ll march to the sea, but I’d wager you twenty denarii that more than a third of them die before they get there.’
Brutus sighed and stole a piece of bread from Varus’ platter, dipping it in the rich brown stock and savouring the taste in this cold, grey world of northern Gaul as the cavalry officer continued.