Roma - Saylor Steven - Страница 72
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She recognized the voice of the Virgo Maxima, and of Foslia. They called her name aloud: “Pinaria! Pinaria! Are you here?”
The Vestals had returned.
“Tell me again, where and when you found this infant?” said Dorso, frowning.
“Yesterday, abandoned in the bushes outside the ruins of my old master’s house,” said Pennatus. “Clearly, the mother had just given birth.”
“And who might the mother have been?”
“Not a Gaul, surely. The child is too handsome to be a Gaul, don’t you think?”
Dorso scrutinized the baby. “He is a good-looking fellow. And too tiny to be a Gaul! The child of a returning Roman, then?”
“My intuition tells me so. No doubt the mother experienced great hardship during the occupation, and when she returned to the city to find that all she knew was burned or in ruins, the prospect of caring for the newborn was simply too much for her. Another harsh legacy of the Gauls, that the women of Roma should be so beset by fear and uncertainty that they abandon their children! And such a beautiful child as this little fellow!”
“You appear to be very fond of this infant, Pennatus.”
“There is something very special about him. Can you not sense it? I think it was a sign, that I should have found this child on the very day the Gauls departed and the Romans returned—a pledge from the gods that the city is to be reborn, that its best years lie ahead.”
“Words of piety and optimism from you, Pennatus?”
“I am a changed man since my months on the Capitoline.”
“And you will be a free man, as well, if I have any say in the matter. You accompanied me when I made the sacrifice on the Quirinal. You fought beside us when the Gauls gained the summit and frightened the geese. You’ve more than earned your freedom, and your master is dead and no longer needs you. I intend to approach his heirs, pay them a reasonable sum, and see that they set you free. What do you say to that, Pennatus?”
“The gods are surely smiling upon me, that I should rescue this child, and receive such a pledge from you, in the space of two days! But…”
“What is it, Pennatus? Speak!”
“If you truly wish to reward a humble slave for his service on the Capitoline, I have a different request to make. Not so much for myself—for what am I except a broken thread in the great tapestry woven by of the Fates?—but for the sake of this helpless, innocent child.”
Dorso pursed his lips. “Go on.”
“What use is freedom to me? On my own, in such a devastated city, a dull fellow like me would probably starve. I would much prefer that you purchase me outright and keep me as your slave. I promise that I shall strive every day to prove my worthiness to be your trusted servant. I shall be honored to be the slave of the bravest descendent of the bravest of all Roman houses, the Fabii. And if someday, after my years of service, you should see fit to manumit me, I will proudly bear a freedman’s name that honors my former master: Gaius Fabius Dorso Pennatus.”
Dorso was not immune to flattery, even from a slave. “I see your point. I will be glad to honor this request. You shall be the most senior of the slaves in my household, and my trusted friend.”
“And also—though I know this is an extraordinary request, still I feel compelled to make it—I ask that you adopt this foundling, and raise him as your own son.” Seeing the look of surprise on Dorso’s face, Pennatus pressed on. “Is there not an ancient precedent for such an act? Romulus and Remus were foundlings, the flotsam left behind by a great flood; so, too, this child was left behind when the Gauls at last receded. Faustulus adopted the Twins and never had cause to regret it, for the gods meant him to do so, and surely you shall not regret it if you adopt this foundling.”
Dorso raised an eyebrow. Why was Pennatus so interested in the child? He claimed to see the newborn as an omen, but seeing omens and bowing to the will of the gods was not in character for Pennatus, unless his captivity on the Capitoline had truly transformed him. Was it not more likely that Pennatus’s concern for the newborn sprang from a more personal reason? In his head, Dorso had already done some simple arithmetic. The occupation and siege had lasted seven months; a normal pregnancy lasted about nine months. It was not hard to imagine that Pennatus had enjoyed a dalliance shortly before the arrival of the Gauls, and then, during the occupation, had became separated from his lover—probably a slave girl, but possibly a free woman, perhaps even high-born, for such things did happen. Now Pennatus had descended from the Capitoline to discover that he was the father of a newborn. Whether slave or free, the mother felt obliged to relinquish the child rather than keep it—and now the wily slave sought, by this gambit, to make his own bastard the son of a Fabius!
Dorso felt an impulse to call Pennatus’s bluff and demand the truth from him. And yet…the gods worked their will in mysterious ways, using doubters and disbelievers and even slaves as their unwitting vessels. Pennatus might think he was getting the better of his new master; but in fact, it might be that the gods were guiding both men to do exactly what the gods desired.
Dorso recalled the long walk from the Capitoline to the Quirinal, with Pennatus following behind him. In retrospect, the mad boldness of the act took his breath away, yet it had proved to be the best thing he had ever done, or probably ever would do. That action had made him a famous man; his name would be spoken and revered long after he died. On that day, Dorso had become immortal—and Pennatus had been there with him, every step of the way, helping him keep up his courage simply by showing no fear. Pennatus had done no less than Dorso, yet he would be forgotten by posterity. Did Dorso not owe a debt to Pennatus—a debt so great that it demanded a repayment as bold as the walk to the Quirinal itself?
Dorso nodded gravely. “Very well, Pennatus. I will adopt your…I will adopt the child. He shall be my son.” He took the baby in his arms and smiled at the tiny infant, then laughed aloud at the look of wonderment on Pennatus’s face. “Did you not expect that I would say yes?”
“I hoped…I dreamed…I prayed…” Pennatus dropped to his knees, clutched Dorso’s hand, and kissed it. “May the gods bless you, master!” Reflexively, he reached to clutch the talisman of Fascinus at his breast, but his fingers touched only his own bare flesh.
The scattered exiles returned to Roma. Little by little, order was reestablished in the devastated city. The Senate reassembled. The magistrates resumed their offices.
Almost at once, the Veii Question was raised again. Camillus was determined to settle the matter, once and for all.
A few of the most radical of the tribunes of the plebs argued that the city was so ruined, and its sacred places so polluted by the Gauls, that Roma should be abandoned altogether. They proposed that the entire population should move at once to Veii, where many of the exiles had taken shelter during the occupation and had begun to feel at home. Ignoring all other possibilities, Camillus seized on this argument and decided to frame the debate as an all-or-nothing proposition: Would the citizens completely abandon Roma and move to Veii, or would they pull down every building in Veii for materials to rebuild Roma?
With the Senate united behind him, Camillus came before the people assembled in the Forum. He mounted the speaker’s platform to address them.
“Fellow citizens, so painful to me are these controversies stirred up by the tribunes of the plebs, that in all the time I lived in bitter exile my one consolation was that I was far removed from this unending squabbling! To contend with this nonsense, I would never have returned even if you recalled me by a thousand senatorial decrees. But now I have returned, because my city needed me—and now needs me again, to fight an even more desperate battle, for her very existence! Why did we suffer and shed our blood to deliver her from our enemies, if now we mean to desert her? While the Gauls held the city, a small band of brave men held out atop the Capitoline, refusing to abandon Roma. Now the tribunes would do what the Gaul could not—they would force those brave Romans, as well as the rest of us, to leave the city. Is this a victory, to lose the thing dearest to us?
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