My silver aroused amazement in the captain and the sailors and they swore laughingly that they would not have hesitated to kill me and toss me overboard had they known of my treasure. But the bookkeeper paid my wages in copper without a murmur and I put the coins carefully in my pouch. A frugal man was respected in Rome.
With the sack of silver on my back, my clothes ragged, my face bearded and my shoulder rubbed raw by the hawser, I once again walked the narrow streets of Rome and breathed the marsh-polluted air. Near the temple of Mercury I saw the same half-blind augur with his worn staff and soiled beard waiting for some credulous stranger to whom he might show the sights of Rome and for whom he might predict a bright future. Rome was already familiar to me; the worn stones in the streets responded familiarly to my feet; the cattle bellowed familiarly in the market place. Longing burned my body as I hastened to Tertius Valerius’ house.
The gate was open, but when I tried to enter, the gatekeeper slave began to shout and to wave his stick at me. Only when I called him by name did he recognize me. Tertius Valerius was at a Senate meeting, he said, but the mistress was home.
Misme, round-cheeked and curly-haired, ran across the yard to me and hugged my knees. I lifted her into my lap and kissed her, but Mikon’s eyes looked back at me from her face. She wrinkled her nose, sniffed my clothes and said accusingly, “You smell bad.” She struggled out of my lap.
That brought me to my senses. Carefully I went inside with the hope of seeing the housekeeper so that I might bathe and change my clothes before meeting Arsinoe. But at that very moment Arsinoe rushed in, paused to stare at me with her white forehead wrinkling in anger, and cried out, “You, Turms! And how you look. I might have guessed.”
My joy died and flinging the sack from my shoulder I emptied it so that the bars of silver rang on the floor. Arsinoe stooped to pick one up, weighed it in her hand and stared at me in disbelief. I held out the new-fashioned earrings that I had bought in Veil and a brooch which the most skilled goldsmith in Tarquinia had made.
Arsinoe squeezed my hand with the jewelry and despite my dirty clothes she hugged me to her and kissed my bearded face time and again. “Oh, Turms, if you knew how I have longed for you and through what agonizing times we have lived under the threat of the Volscians! And you have wandered without a care through spring and summer until the dark of autumn. How could you?”
I reminded her coolly that I had sent word of myself to her whenever it was possible, just as I had heard that she was well. But I felt the warmth of her arm and the smoothness of her shoulder and had to relent. After all, she was Arsinoe, and no matter what she did or desired my glow was not diminished. I wondered that I had been able to live so long without her.
She read her triumph in my eyes, drew a deep breath and whispered weakly, “No, no, Turms. First you must bathe and eat and don clean clothes.”
But I was no longer a Greek and clothes meant nothing. My mantle fell to the floor of the court, my shirt was dropped at the entrance to Arsinoe’s room and my worn shoes were kicked off beside her bed. She was Arsinoe, her nakedness responded to mine, her embrace to mine, her breath to my own hot breath. The goddess smiled from her capricious face and her darkening eyes, enticing, persuasive, unforgettable. That is how I want to remember Arsinoe.
6.
During the winter I moved among the people of Rome, even among the disreputable elements of Suburra, that I might learn human nature. My journey had taught me not to be too careful of my company or to choose my friends because of the possible benefit that might result. I sought only people to whom I could feel close, and they could be found just as easily among the poor as among the nobles.
In a Suburran brothel I found myself playing dice with the bookkeeper of an iron ore ship from Populonia. The Roman smiths needed much iron that winter and when the bookkeeper had lost his money he tore his braid and thoughtlessly offered me a free voyage to Populonia for just one more throw. I won that also, and he swore to fulfill his promise since he well knew that he would not be welcome in Suburra if he failed to pay his gaming debts.
“I have brought difficulties upon myself,” he said, “but I have probably deserved them because of my frivolity. At least you must wear Etruscan clothes and try to act like an Etruscan if you possibly can. I shall take you to Populonia as I promised but the rest is in your own hands. At the present time the custodians of iron ore do not welcome strangers.”
I consoled him and indicated that I could speak Etruscan effortlessly although I had previously pretended to know little, and returned the money that I had won from him so that he might seek solace in wine and in the company of the girls of the house. When I greeted him at his ship the following morning I was clothed in my beautiful Etruscan attire with the peaked cap. He was happy to see that I was not an unsig-nificant person, declared that I could pass for an Etruscan as well as anyone else and assured me that he would keep his promise. But storms were raging at sea, and his commander wanted a return cargo from Rome. The Senate had promised to exchange the iron for ox hides but was laggard about it, as was its custom, and haggled about the price.
It was therefore spring before we could leave, and we sailed from the mouth of the Roman river just two days before the arrival of the Volscians. Pillars of smoke along the shore told of their coming, but having sailed down the river in time we caught a favorable wind and managed to elude them.
When we had sailed by Vetulonia and seen the Etruscans’ famous ore island to the left of us, we reached the seamarks of Populonia and were escorted to the harbor by a guardship to make certain that the cargo or passengers were not discharged earlier. We passed many barges loaded to the gunwales which sought with sail and oars to reach the port of discharge. Along the shore behind sturdy unloading bridges were dark red hills of ore and beyond them puffs of smoke rose from the smelting pits.
When the stern of our ship had been fastened and the steps lowered, iron-clad guards surrounded us. Never before had I seen such a dismal sight, for their smooth armor bore not a single decoration or emblem. Even their shields were smooth, and their round helmets extended to the shoulders of their breastplates. Square openings had been cut into the helmet for the eyes and mouth so that the guards no longer resembled people or soldiers but were inhuman as beasts or hard-shelled animals. Their spears and swords likewise were without a single ornament.
Just as simply clothed were the gray-robed inspectors who climbed unarmed onto the vessel and to whom the commander showed his sailing tablet with the seals from the various ports to indicate his route. The bookkeeper presented the cargo list and thereafter every man was called before the inspectors to give an account of himself.
Each had to extend his hands and the inspectors looked at them to see whether they actually were the calloused hands of one who had spent a lifetime at the oars or hawsers. Only then they looked into the man’s eyes and cared little for his nationality so long as he was an ordinary sailor who asked for no more in a port than a measure of wine and a cheap woman as his bed companion.
As a passenger I was last. The sight of the strict inspection made me glad that I had not attempted to reach Populonia as a sailor but was dressed in my Tarquinian attire with my braided hair on my shoulders.
To my amazement the inspector looked at my face and then glanced at his companions. The three gruff men stared at me, then the youngest of them raised his hand to his mouth. But his superior looked at him sharply and frowned, then took a simple wax tablet, impressed on it the head of Gorgon with his seal and extended it to me.