V
Quintus’s mind swam in a whirlpool of pain and confusion. He was once again on the deck of the Vesta in the driving thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning etched the form of a demon in the black sky. He could see the deck pitching violently, but felt no sensation of movement. He saw his father, the captain, and the helmsman struggling with the tillerbars. A wave built behind them. He tried to shout a warning, but the words would not come. He attempted to run to them, but his feet would not move. “Beware! All of you! Beware the wave!” His mind thought it but his lips refused to speak the words. The wave struck. He saw the stern post buckling. He heard the rope attached to it singing under the strain of the anchor embedded in the ocean floor. “The rope. Watch the rope!” He felt weak. He could not mouth the words. There was a loud pop. The ship lurched. The broken rope recoiled across the top of the water. All the strain that had held the Vesta in place now converted to reflex energy. The rope flew at superhuman speed as it cleared the stern rail. “Watch the rope!” He was paralyzed. Helpless. He saw the snaking rope, now suddenly gliding slowly, gracefully. The wind became chimes in his ears. He felt he could count each raindrop as they fell with the leisurely grace of snowflakes. He could hear every drop as they splashed at his feet, which seemed melted to the deck. With a repulsive crack the rope struck the three men.
Images froze in his mind like pictures from a ghastly mural: the captain’s head lobbed from his shoulders, the tillerman’s outstretched arms removed from his body, his father’s torso severed at the waist. Still wrapped in the blue cloak, the top half of his father’s body fell to the deck and began to wash overboard. The lifeless head turned to Quintus. The eyes sprang open. The mouth formed a single word.
“Beware.”
“No. No!”
The villa’s slave quarters were normally quiet. But this was the third time the boy had let out a piercing cry from his long, restless sleep. This time his eyelids twitched and his head rocked back and forth, first slowly then more quickly.
“I think he’s coming to,” said an old kitchen servant as she moved to his bedside.
The voice sounded like an echo in Quintus’s ears. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared for a moment at the drab ceiling lit by a single oil lamp hanging in the corner. He could hear the voice and other noises, but nothing was familiar. Each sound brought a stab of pain in his head. He gently turned his neck and looked toward the heart of the small room. The fuzzy images began to clear, but the dimly lit surroundings were foreign to him.
“Where am I?” His voice came in a hoarse whisper.
“Well, it’s good to see you awake after so many days. That was quite a nightmare you’ve been having.” The old woman’s voice was friendly, if a bit curt. She placed her hand on his forehead. “Looks like your fever is gone.”
He sat up slowly. Any quick motion caused dizziness. Her hand brushed his left temple and he winced in pain.
“That knot has gone down quite a bit,” she said as she stood and walked across the room. “You should have seen yourself a few days ago when they brought you in here. You were not a pleasant sight.” Her voice had an unusual accent to Quintus’s ears.
He took in the sparse surroundings. The room was modest but relatively clean. Besides the straw bed in which he lay, there were two other beds, each with a small box at the foot. The old woman rummaged through one of them. A younger man hung tunics on three wooden pegs protruding from the far wall. The drab olive and oatmeal hues of the clothing told Quintus they belonged to the household slaves. Their tattered appearance indicated outdoor labor.
“Where am I?” he asked again.
The woman spoke with the young servant, then went on searching through her small box of possessions. Quintus was not used to being ignored.
“Will you answer me, woman! Where in Hades am I?” His voice rang loud with authority. He threw the bedcover aside and began to stand up. But something caught his eye and, coupled with the sudden spell of dizziness, it drove the thought of rising from his mind. He sat back hard on the straw bed.
“Why am I dressed in a slave’s tunic? Where are my clothes? What’s going on?”
The two slaves stared at Quintus.
“Why don’t you answer?” The words were more a threat than a question.
The old woman looked stern. “You may have received a nasty bump on your head, young man. But that doesn’t give you the right to speak to me in that tone of voice.”
Quintus was dumbfounded. He looked toward the young man holding the tunics and saw another pair of glaring eyes. He began to wonder if he was still in his dream.
“We saw no other clothes. You were brought here wearing what you now have on,” the male slave said. “And why do you show such disrespect to the woman who helped nurse you back to health?”
Quintus thought for a moment. He would not get answers from these two unless he calmed down.
“I’m sorry, madam. I meant no disrespect. But my mind is cloudy. Can you tell me how you found me and where you have brought me?”
The woman’s face began to soften. “You are in the villa of Sextus Livius Viator near Aquae Sulis in Britannia.”
For the first time, Quintus felt a sense of relief. He had made it to his destination. The woman continued to speak.
“Word came to the villa four days ago that two boys had been found along the coast after a shipwreck.”
Quintus interrupted. “Two boys? Is that all? There were no others rescued?”
“No. Just the two. He said he was from the Romanus family and was traveling to the Viator home when the storm hit. Master Viator sent a wagon right away and his servants brought both of you from Glevum. I’ve been minding you ever since.”
Quintus’s relief turned to depression. His mind again flashed through scenes of that horrible night. His mother sliding from the wreckage and drowning. His father’s body floating in the waves. And what of Aulus?
“Was there not an injured man found with us? A large slave called Aulus?”
“There were no others,” the woman said, a look of pity crossing her face.
Quintus lowered his head into his hands, despair weighing on him like an oppressive force.
The old woman sat on the edge of the bed and held him close. His shoulders quivered as he cried. After a few moments, he looked up and wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.
“I need to see my uncle. Please bring me to him.”
The male servant turned and looked curiously at the old woman. She seemed equally puzzled.
“I don’t understand, boy. What uncle?” she asked.
“My uncle ... Sextus Viator. I need to see him.”
The woman looked toward the male slave and shrugged. The slave’s forehead was wrinkled with confusion. Quintus stared at them both, his impatience growing again.
“Do you hear me? I need to see my uncle,” he repeated slowly and deliberately. He was beginning to wonder why his uncle would put him in the slave quarters to recuperate with these dense servants rather than in a villa guest room. He grew weary of the bewildered looks.
“My mother’s brother ... Now!”
The old woman nodded toward the slave. He tossed the rest of the tunics in a pile on the bed and left the room.
The cold mosaic tile under his bare feet reminded Quintus of his walk down the corridor of the Vesta four nights earlier. Now he was being ushered down a much wider passageway, a beefy slave on either arm, partly to steady him and partly to push him quickly along. Elaborate floral displays on narrow tables seemed to blur as they passed by. He was led past door after door along the lengthy east wing of the house. Finally they stopped at a large wooden doorway, ornately carved with scenes of running horses. A loud knock by one of the slaves was answered with a short grunt from inside. The slave pushed open the door and motioned with his head for Quintus to enter. The boy scowled up at him as he passed.
The square room was dim near the entrance, but well lit at the far side by tall bronze lampstands, each holding four hanging oil lamps. A heavyset man sat behind a large desk, writing briskly with a feathered stylus. Quintus stepped to the front of the desk.
“Are you my uncle?”
Sextus Viator stopped writing and looked up.
“Well, I’m somebody’s uncle ... but I doubt yours.” His tone was abrupt.
Quintus could not understand why he was being treated so rudely by everyone in the household, his uncle included.
“But ... we were coming to visit you. And then the storm hit and my parents were both...”
“Yes, yes. We’ve already heard the story,” Sextus interrupted him, annoyance evident in his voice.
Quintus was now totally confused. “But I am Quintus, your nephew!”
Sextus simply stared at the boy, just as the two servants had done in the slave quarters. After a moment, the silence was broken by a new voice.
“I told you to beware of him, Uncle.”
Quintus spun around. Emerging from the shadows near the entrance door was Lucius. He continued speaking, the smirk never leaving his face. “This one is crafty. He’s been a problem in our family for some time now. Why Father never sold him is beyond me.”
Quintus was speechless. The last time he had seen Lucius, the boy was sitting in a state of shock, staring at his dead mother hanging in a flooded cargo hold. Now he walked from the shadows like a demon returning from the grave.
Quintus was finally able to get his lips to move. “How dare you, Lucius! What gutless scheme are you trying to pull now?”
Sextus chuckled and folded his arms as he watched the scene unfold. “Well I have to say you predicted this to the letter, Quintus.”
Quintus’s head snapped back to Sextus. He fought back the dizziness and nausea the quick movement induced.
“Quintus?” He first whispered the name as a question. Then he shouted it. Even through his clouded mind, he saw Lucius’s plan with crystal clarity.
Lucius continued, his voice conveying a sorrow Quintus knew to be false. “Of all the good people who could have survived this nightmare, it had to be this wretch. My parents died, yet he lived. Sometimes the gods have no sense of justice.”
The fire in Quintus’s stomach burned hotter than the oil lamps. “You bastard.” The words came slowly through clenched teeth. “This will never work.”
Quintus turned and leaned across the large desk. Sextus pulled back, obviously shocked at the intensity in his face. “Uncle, do you not see he is the slave, Lucius, and I am Quintus? I am your sister’s son!”
Sextus regained his composure and leaned forward, coming nose to nose with the boy. His words came in a low steady voice. “What I see is a boy dressed in a servant’s tunic, who my staff tells me has done nothing but rant and rave since we nursed him back to health. You have also managed to interrupt a memorial gathering for my sister, which is taking place in my courtyard while I’m sitting here wasting time with you. Now I suggest you go back to your slave quarters and use this night to get your strength back. You will be put to work beginning tomorrow.”
Quintus was incensed that this ludicrous plan was actually working. He noticed that Lucius was wearing one of his short white tunics. “The tunics ... He must have swapped our clothing at some point.”
There was a laugh from Lucius. “Oh, that’s correct, Uncle. In the middle of an awful storm and shipwreck I started swapping tunics with other people on the ship.” He stepped forward with as much conviction as Quintus. “My only concern was to help save my parents and get off that ship.”
Quintus snapped. Hearing Lucius talk of Politta and Caius as his own parents was too much to bear. He vaulted across the study with a yell and landed on Lucius. They tumbled in a heap on the floor. Fists flew and bodies rolled from side to side. The two large slaves who had accompanied Quintus jumped to separate the boys. But before they could reach them, the fighters rolled toward the corner and into one of the bronze lampstands, sending it sprawling across Sextus’s desk. Burning oil spilled from the lamps and in a second the desktop was aflame. Sextus pushed back his chair, but it caught on an imperfect mosaic tile and tipped backward, sending the stocky man flat on his back. The slaves refocused on the new problem. One beat at the flames with his hands while the other helped his master to his feet.
“Get sand, you idiot, before the whole room is in flames!” yelled Sextus. The second slave ran from the study and headed to the kitchen, yelling for help.
The sound of grunts, yells, and fists hitting flesh filled the room. The brawl was more evenly matched this time as it traveled back into the center of the study. Quintus didn’t have the advantage of holding Lucius beneath the fountain water as he had in the garden back in Rome. Plus the struggle was causing his head to feel as though it were splitting open. And Lucius now had more to fight for.
The house was in an uproar with screams of “Fire!” echoing through the hallway. Three more slaves burst into the room. They seemed baffled by the incongruous scene of the desk on fire while two teenagers rolled around the tiled floor in a heated fistfight.
“Are you going to stand there or help us?” yelled Sextus. It was enough to snap the servants into action. They grabbed the boys and, with much effort, finally separated them. A slave raced through the doors with a large wooden bucket. He poured sand across the desk and beat out the remaining stubborn flames eating at the surrounding books and paperwork.
Quintus still struggled to get at Lucius and another slave moved to help restrain him.
“Enough!” Sextus’s voice bellowed through the room and down the hall. It startled his wife, Julia Melita, as she reached the doorway to the study. It finally got Quintus’s attention.
“What’s happening here?” Julia yelled, smelling the smoke and seeing the scorched desk. “We have a courtyard full of guests wanting to know if our villa is burning down.” She looked toward Lucius. “And what happened to you, Quintus?”
“This damn slave boy decided to go crazy,” Lucius yelled. “He needs a good beating, Uncle.”
“He is not Quintus! I am Quintus!”
“Oh, don’t start that again,” Sextus said, now calming down. He readjusted his pallium over his shoulder. “Take him back to the slave quarters and keep him quiet. Tie him up if you have to.”
Lucius watched the two servants drag a screaming Quintus from the room, and Julia began inspecting the charred desktop. “What was that all about?” she asked, lifting a smoking accounting book by its corner.
“Oh, the slave has some mad story about Quintus swapping identities with him,” Sextus said. “Quintus predicted he’d try something like this. Apparently he’s a real troublemaker.”
Sextus looked at Lucius, who was tenderly touching his rapidly swelling and blackening right eye. He moved closer to the boy and put an arm across his shoulder. “It seems everyone on that damn ship has lost something. I’ve lost my sister. You’ve lost your parents. And that poor slave boy has obviously lost his mind.”
Julia put the blackened papers back on the blistered desktop. “Well, Quintus,” she said gently. “Things will be different for you from this day forward.” She touched his bruised cheek. “We cannot replace your parents. Nobody can. But you can start a new life with us here in Britannia. Your uncle will get guardianship papers started immediately. You can be like the son we never had.” Lucius looked toward Sextus, who nodded in approval.
Lucius had been so focused on creating this new life for himself, doing and saying whatever was needed to make it happen, he had never considered the concept of new guardians. Sextus and Julia could easily give him a life equal to, if not better than, Quintus’s life in Rome. They had built the Viator Mercantile business and amassed a sizeable fortune. Profits from their shops in Ravenna and Pompeii, as well as their new shop in Aquae Sulis, had been used to build this sprawling estate in the hills overlooking the river Avon in western Britannia. The funds also helped keep Julia looking remarkably good for her thirty-four years, especially when dressed in the low-cut tunics she designed for herself. Rumors abounded at the villa and throughout Aquae Sulis that Julia was the shrewder partner in the Viator business. That part mattered little to Lucius right now. He simply saw a new life developing that was beyond his wildest dreams. It did not take him long to answer.
“Thank you, Aunt Julia. I would be honored to become a part of the Viator household.”
His right eye was beginning to swell shut. With his good left eye he looked at Sextus. “He will be punished for this, right?”
Sextus sighed. “Let’s look at it this way, Quintus. Both of you boys have been through an awful ordeal. Let’s consider it a consequence of that horrid shipwreck and forget it.”
Lucius was not happy but let it go. He had lost this battle but had won the war.
“Fine. But I don’t want him near me or around the main part of the villa when I’m here.”
“We can arrange that,” said Sextus with a smile. “We can always use another stableboy for the horses.”