Historical fiction series/ Ancient Rome

Hands Locked Together — Part Five of Seven

Where Servius finds himself in a hell he now realizes he has been living in for decades — and the only way out seems to be the old parchments he discovered in the back room of Quintus’s shop.

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Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, known not only as a scholar and philosopher but also as a brilliant military strategist, spent years on the battlefield, successfully repelling countless Germanic and Arab incursions. During his reign, the only battles that remained uncertain were those fought deep within the heart of the Empire.

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[embed]List: Hands Locked Together - Mini Historical Fiction Series | Curated by Nevena Pascaleva | Medium Hands Locked Together - Mini Historical Fiction Series · 4 stories on Mediummedium.com

He

June 5, 178 AD

He digs his fingers into the chains and prays. The prayer is always the same, ritualized. This is how he was taught, how he has prayed all his life. And yet he ought to be able to pray differently, because doesn’t one pray to Quintus’s god with the heart, not the mind? Words that come from the heart do not stand in a frame. You can mix up their order, replace one with another, even contradict yourself. The words do not matter, because this god knows what you need before you ask it. Does he really? Does he know? Then one word should suffice: Please, or he should simply stop clenching his teeth and let the tears spill down his face…

Please, tell me what to tell them.

…And how hot the room is! And how loud… Behind the curtains come screams and pleas. There are no separate cells here — they are all in one vast chamber, an entire cursed underground forum, filled not with temples to gods, but with instruments of torture. Since joining the speculatores, Servius had never been inside this place, he limited himself to the cells upstairs. Appius laughed at him: “The Parthians damaged not only your ankle but your heart as well — you’ve grown soft like a woman!” How could the wretch know that Servius had hated these things even before he was wounded? It was one thing to fight an armed opponent, often stronger than yourself, to risk your life in battle, and quite another to harm people who could not defend themselves.

He had not set foot in the Colosseum since childhood when death sentences were carried out. The image still lingered in his mind: the man screaming in despair as he climbed the barrier, trying to escape the jaws of the enraged lion; then the drawn bows of the archers around the arena and the three arrows that whistled into his body, bringing him down onto the sand, where moments later he became scattered chunks of red flesh. Nine-year-old Servius had sworn to himself that he would never again witness anything like that.

Please, tell me what to tell them!

Heavy, dizzying smells around him. Sweat, blood, and heated iron. Which one of the people screaming is Quintus? There is no way to recognize his voice — these are inhuman, animal cries. And that idiot hanging over me, won’t he stop repeating the same thing? Stubborn fool! He has no idea that I don’t care at all about his nonsense, and if it weren’t for Cornelia I would let him rot in it, but now I do care, now I simply have to figure out what to tell them…

A horrific, agonized scream splits the air thick with suffering. Servius groans through clenched teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. He feels the tear sliding down his cheek, mixing with the sweat.

Oh god… what am I supposed to tell them?

The Praetorian

June 8, 178 AD

Something sharp hissed past his ears. Servius lifted his head, dazed. He felt sick, and his temples throbbed — from the wine he had drunk and from skimming dozens of pages in haste under the weak candlelight. At first he had caught fragments here and there; in the end he began reading straight through. He passed through the four Gospels and started on the Acts of the Apostles. Interesting. Who was this Saul? He hadn’t appeared earlier, yet he seemed destined for an important role in the story. Otherwise why would…

The rustling sound came again. Servius dropped the papyrus to the floor, but before he could rise, Quintus stepped up to the nearby writing desk.

Servius froze. For a moment the bookseller’s low, stocky figure loomed over him; then Quintus slowly lowered himself to the ground beside him. He smoothed his rumpled tunic and wiped the sweat from his brow with a cloth.

“How long have you been here?” he asked quietly.

“I…” Servius ran his hands over his face and drew a breath. “I don’t know. It must be an hour. Maybe two.”

“You left the back door open. Pure luck no one slipped inside.”

Servius glanced into the darkness beyond the rows of desks. He ran his tongue over his parched lips. He was dying of thirst.

“Did you close it?”

“Yes.” Quintus nodded toward the manuscripts. “What were you reading?”

“About some man named Saul. He persecuted the Christians and heard a voice in the air. Before that I read the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and the other two, what were their names…”

“Luke and John. And what do you think?”

“I need water. I’ve taken too much of that wretched wine and can barely see straight.”

Quintus handed him a small leather flask. Servius drained it to the last drop.

“Thank you.” He wiped his mouth. The fog in his head began to lift. “You know… my name isn’t Julius.”

“I know. What is it?”

“Servius. Servius Aemilius Asprenas. I’m a member of the speculatores. Before that, I was a legionary.”

“I see.”

“You see?” Servius blinked at the calm, gentle expression of the man sitting beside him. “What exactly do you see? You suspected me?”

“Yes. From the third or fourth day.”

“Gods! And you let me wander around here anyway?”

“I saw the anger in your eyes, Jul…Servius. Not anger toward me, but toward the world around you. I am bound to try to save every soul sent to me. Even if it costs me my life. That is why we are here, isn’t it?”

He spoke with such quiet kindness that Servius shook his head, as if to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He rubbed his heavy eyelids.

“Tell me something… do you peddle your Christian tales to Cornelia as well? I see you exchanging books with slips of paper tucked inside — she returns an old one, you give her a new one…”

“I showed her only a single passage. After that, she began seeking them out on her own. You should know this: what you two share is not your love for Rome. It is, in fact, your hatred of it.”

“A Christian Vestal! I’ll grant you this, Quintus — you’re not throwing stones at the fence. You’re tearing up the foundations.”

“What do you think of what you read?”

“Well… I don’t know. It’s well written, but the idealism is too much for me. Like the druids’ idea of a spirit of love in nature and a world peace we can reach if only we understand it. Unrealizable.”

“The druids’ idea isn’t bad,” Quintus noted, “but it’s far too scattered. If the spirit of love you speak of has no personality, no consciousness like yours, it cannot reach you. A universal love that does not speak to you cannot cross beyond theory.”

“My long experience shows that gods never speak to you,” Servius said. “You talk to them; they remain silent.”

“And your augurs? What do they do? Do they not read the language and messages of the gods — their address to us?”

“Nonsense. I’ve never believed in them. Which bird flew where, what sounds it made…”

Quintus leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

“Do you want me to tell you a story, Servius?”

“Go on.”

“A few months after they executed my father, I entered this shop. Back then it was very small — my father sold topical satires and comedies, just enough to survive. He didn’t copy manuscripts; I founded the scriptorium years later. So I came in… It was dark and abandoned. Dust covered the shelves and counter, cobwebs hung in the corners, rats ran across the floor. I began searching for the ropes my father kept in the back storeroom. At night he used them to bar the door against thieves; he couldn’t afford a metal grate. I found a rope, hung it on the ceiling hook, and made a noose. I was eight years old, but I came fully resolved to hang myself. My father had not desecrated any temple — he didn’t even enter temples. I made that up because I couldn’t bear the Sunday gatherings he dragged me to. I couldn’t bear being pointed at in school, the chanting behind my back: ‘little fishy Christian,’ and the rest. I was so convincing in court that the judge did not hesitate for a moment to pass a death sentence. And my father… he didn’t defend himself. He didn’t seek an advocate. He just stood there and looked at me with those sad eyes of his… he always had sad eyes, but then…”

The bookseller clenched his fist and pressed it to his mouth. He remained seated, eyes still closed.

“Quintus… you were a monster.”

“My mother cried day and night; she withered from grief. I lost not only my father, but her as well. And that evening… I climbed onto the chair, slipped the noose around my neck, and…” Quintus drew a breath. “ …and then I saw it, Servius.”

“Saw what?”

“The light. It was past midnight, and the whole room was filled with light. And it wasn’t just light. It was alive. I felt its thoughts. Its feelings. In truth, there was only one thought in it: I love you. I have never felt such love in my life. Not from my parents, not from friends, not from a woman, not from anyone in this world. I will never forget it. I had killed my father, and the light loved me. How it loved me… Then it vanished, but the feeling remained in me. I collapsed on the floor and wept. I must have cried for hours. And that was it, Servius.” Quintus opened his eyes. “I fell in love. I fell madly in love. I don’t know what kind of god this is, but from that moment on I do everything for him. I breathe for him, work for him, live for him. And I will die for him.”

Servius was silent. Quintus’s story, told in the half-darkness of the scriptorium, amid the shadows cast in the corners by the pale candlelight, was as enchanting as it was terrifying. A sudden chill ran down his spine. He wondered whether he had entangled himself in something from which there was no escape anymore, even if he wished it. He felt like a fish being hauled upward in a net — still in the water, still thinking that by thrashing its fins it can return to freedom, while the net pulls it inexorably toward the surface, toward the inevitability of its fate.

“You may think I’m mad,” Quintus murmured, “but you needed to know. Now you understand why I take such risks with these copies, and why I spread them across the entire Empire. Don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly what I do. They reach the provinces as well. And my death won’t stop it. There are others who will replace me. There are now; there will be in the future. I am not afraid.”

Servius stared at his hands resting against his drawn-up knees. The candle flame flowed down toward them like a yellow river, branching into ten winding streams between his fingers.

“My centurion gave me ten days to turn you in,” Servius muttered. “They’ve passed. Today is the last.”

“Turn me in,” Quintus said. “Go now. Call them. I won’t run, and I won’t resist.”

“I was going to suggest the opposite. That you run. I’ll say I lost you. I’ll be demoted — maybe I won’t even get my pension — but that will be the end of it. Start your life again somewhere else.”

“You know very well that it won’t end that way,” Quintus said with a smile. “They’ll accuse you of complicity.”

Servius shrugged.

“So be it. I came here a soldier, Quintus, and became exactly what I pretended to be: a bookseller and a philosopher. I feel like retreating to some mountain hut and never showing my face among civilization again. Whether it’s isolation or death makes no difference.”

“If you’re alone, yes — it makes no difference. But if you’re not…”

Silence. The hurried dance of the dying candle. Servius clenched his hands.

“What do you mean?”

“Cornelia wants to go to the mountains as well.” The bookseller reached into the small pouch at his belt and pulled out a folded scrap of papyrus. “Take it. It’s from her.”

His heart pounding, Servius took the papyrus from Quintus’s hands and began to read. The meaning of the words reached his mind only superficially. His thoughts were shouting over everything else:

She’s writing to you! She’s felt what you feel! She can’t bear her life and wants to change it! This isn’t a whim, a passing infatuation, or a reckless rebellious impulse — it’s real!

‘What you share is not love for Rome. It is hatred…’

After a quarter of an hour, Servius stood up. He held the papyrus over the candle flame until it curled and turned to ash. He brushed the ashes onto the floor and wiped his sooty hands on his tunic.

“She has lost her mind.”

“She’s in love with you.”

“Vestals fall in love with the first man they see. That’s what happens when you keep a woman locked between four walls for decades without letting her see a man.”

“She isn’t in love with me,” Quintus said.

“How do you know?”

“By the gods, Servius! I know you have feelings for her too. Do what she says and leave the city. Go far away, start a family, and be happy. A man must live with love for others and for himself — not with hatred. I’ve shown you the path of love, but I cannot walk it in your place!”

“By tomorrow at noon, we’ll both be arrested — you and me.”

“If you go now and turn me in, it will be only me.”

“You’re willing to sacrifice yourself for two people you barely know?”

“I feel you as spiritual children. A man sacrifices himself for his children.”

“Oh, enough of your idiocy! You’ll drive me completely mad! Pack your things and get out, I told you! I can hide somewhere until tomorrow. If Cornelia is serious, then I’ll try to…”

A pounding.

Hard sandal soles striking the ground. Dozens of them. The two men bolted for the back exit, but one glance through the planks was enough for Servius to know it was too late to run.

They exchanged a look and stepped back.

“I’ll get you out,” Quintus said. “You’ll be together.”

“Leave it.”

“I’ll get you out.”

To be continued…

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