Roma - Saylor Steven - Страница 63

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She ran to him. He stayed where he was, sitting stiffly upright and furrowing his brow. “Pinaria! What are you doing here? All the Vestals left yesterday.”

She knelt beside his chair. “Yes, Pontifex Maximus, and I was to go with them. But I wanted to visit the Temple of Vesta, one last time. I meant to stay only a moment, but somehow—”

“Shhhh! Do you hear?”

Pinaria cocked her head. The sound was distant and vague at first, then grew closer and more distinct. It was the sound of men talking, punctuated by shouts and raucous laughter.

“The Gauls,” whispered the Pontifex Maximus. “They’ve come at last!”

“But Pontifex Maximus, why are you still here? Why have you not fled?”

“Because some among us are still Romans. Flee the city? Never!”

“But when the Gauls find you—”

“I’m not the only one. Walk across the city and you’ll see the others who remain. Mostly old men, like myself; men who have never in their lives fled from an enemy and have no intention of doing so now. Nor will we cower inside our houses. Each of us has drawn a chair before his domicile, to sit and await whatever is to come, with our Roman dignity intact.”

“But the Gauls are monsters! They’re giants, twice as big as normal men. They drink human blood, and sacrifice babies, and burn their victims alive!”

“They may destroy my body, but they shall not rob me of my dignity. But listen, Pinaria—they’re drawing closer! You must flee!”

“Where?”

“Cross the street, quickly! Hide among the branches of that yew tree, and don’t make a sound, no matter what you see. Go!”

Reluctantly, Pinaria left him. She hid herself just before a troop of Gauls came striding up the street, laughing and swinging their swords for the thrill of hearing the blades cut the air. They were indeed large, though not as gigantic as Pinaria had expected. Nor were they as ugly as she had thought; some might even be called handsome, despite their strangely braided hair and untrimmed beards.

The Gauls saw the Pontifex Maximus and fell silent for a moment. They drew closer, peering at him curiously. He sat so still, with his hands on his knees and his eyes staring straight ahead, that perhaps they thought he was a painted statue. They slowly circled him, grunted to one another in their savage language, laughed, and pretended to poke at him with their swords. He did not react in any way; he did not even blink. At last, one of the Gauls—a redheaded giant from whom the others took orders—stooped down and peered at the Pontifex Maximus, eye to eye and nose to nose. He grabbed hold of the long white beard, grinned, and gave it a sharp tug.

The reaction of the Pontifex Maximus was instant: He slapped the Gaul across the face. The crack of the blow echoed up and down the street. Pinaria gasped.

The Gaul sprang back and roared. He drew a long sword and swung it in a circle in the air. The Pontifex Maximus did not move, but his face became as white as salt. With all his strength, the Gaul swung his blade against the neck of the Pontifex Maximus. There was a sickening sound, and then the priest’s head went flying through the air, the white beard trailing behind it like a comet’s tail. It landed in the street, bounced once, then rolled to a stop only a few steps from the place where Pinaria was hidden.

Despite herself, she opened her mouth to scream, but from behind a hand slipped over her mouth, and an arm embraced her so tightly that she had no breath to cry out.

The decapitated body of the Pontifex Maximus became a fountain of blood. The limbs jerked in a spastic fashion and the fingers madly twitched. The Gauls laughed and seemed refreshed by the rain of blood upon them. The sight was so horrible that Pinaria struggled wildly against the arms embracing her, desperate to flee, but the man held her fast. Against her back, she could feel that his heart was beating as rapidly as her own. The body of a Vestal was sacrosanct; Pinaria was not used to being touched. The sensation of being held so tightly was at once terrifying and strangely comforting.

The Gauls knocked the body of the Pontifex Maximus from its chair, kicked it a few times, then began to move on. Their leader barked an order at one of his men, who ran back to fetch the severed head. The man came so close to Pinaria that he might easily have seen her, had he peered into the foliage of the yew tree, but he kept his eyes on the head as he grabbed it by the beard and ran off, swinging it over his head.

The Gauls moved out of sight.

Slowly, the man loosened his grip on Pinaria. She slipped free and spun around to see a youth no older than herself. He was dressed in a tattered tunic. His shoes were mere scraps of leather, so worn as to be hardly worth wearing. Pinaria glanced at the hand that had covered her mouth, then at the one that had touched her breast.

“Where is your ring?” she said.

The youth merely raised an eyebrow. He had bright blue eyes and was very handsome, despite a haircut so ragged that his fair hair poked this way and that like tufts of straw.

“Your citizen’s ring?” demanded Pinaria. “Where is it?” Following a custom of the Greeks, every Roman citizen wore a ring, usually a simple band of iron. Sometimes such rings were carved with identifying initials or symbols; those who had cause to send letters or documents used their rings to impress their insignia on the sealing wax.

“I don’t have a ring,” said the youth. “But I do have this.” He indicated an amulet that hung from a leather strap around his neck. It appeared to be made of lead, very crudely molded in the form of a male member with wings.

Pinaria blanched. “You’re a slave, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“A slave dared to touch me!”

The youth laughed. “Had you rather I’d let you cry out? Those Gauls would have found you, for sure, and then they’d have found me, as well. And since I’m prettier than you, who knows which of us they would have ravished? I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy becoming a plaything for one of those bloodthirsty giants.”

Pinaria stared at him, dumbfounded. No man had ever spoken to her in such a crude fashion. Few slaves had ever spoken to her at all, except in response to her orders. No one had ever looked her in the eye and grinned at her in such a brazen way.

The slave looked her up and down. “You must be a Vestal.”

“I am!”

“What are you still doing here? I should have thought you’d have left yesterday.”

Pinaria was suddenly on the verge of tears. She drew a breath to steady herself. “You’re very impertinent.”

“Is that what you’ll say to Brennus when he has you staked spread-eagled in the middle of the Forum, and the line of Gauls queued up to make your acquaintance runs all the way to the Aventine?”

Pinaria slapped him across the face, then began to weep uncontrollably. The slave made no move to touch her, but stepped back and crossed his arms. “Have I frightened you?”

“Yes.”

“Good! Because more Gauls will be here at any moment, and this is not a very good place to hide.”

Pinaria fought back her tears. “I must get out of the city.”

“Impossible.”

“Then where can I go?”

“Take my hand.”

“What?”

“More Gauls are coming. Can’t you hear them?”

Pinaria listened. From nearby, she heard men braying a marching song in the ugly language of the Gauls. They sounded drunk.

“My name is Pennatus, by the way. Now take my hand, and don’t let go. We’re going to run, very fast.”

“Where?”

“How should I know? We’ll trust the gods to guide us.”

“The gods have left Roma,” said Pinaria, but she took his hand nonetheless.

This way and that they ran, uphill and downhill, heading nowhere, striving only to avoid the Gauls. As more and more Gauls appeared, overrunning the city like rats overrunning a ship, eluding them became harder. Sometimes they were seen, and the Gauls cried out and ran after them, but each time they escaped. Pennatus seemed to know each winding alley and every hole in every wall in the city.

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