The Horse Changer (14 page)

On a clear day the horses might have refused us, but the summer fog covered the drop-off so that the animals galloped fearlessly along the very edge of the world. Once we had returned to safer ground the forest opened into a large natural clearing, and Nero pulled his horse up to have a look at two different trails.

The dogs were still baying, but to my ear they seemed to have lost sight of their prey. They were back to chasing its scent. Livia came up beside her husband and started to point out the better way just as the boar broke from cover. The beast charged right at them. Their horses shied in separate directions, and by chance the boar turned toward Nero’s horse, goring its belly with long tusks. The violence of the attack took the horse down with a sickening equine scream and sent Nero tumbling.

I kicked Hannibal into a gallop. As I did I brought my spear to my right hand and leaned out as one does when he is preparing to strike the back of a fleeing infantryman. I could not hope for a mortal wound. I simply wanted to turn the boar away from Nero. I had trained Hannibal for such charges all spring and summer, but he had never encountered anything like this. As I rode forward at a gallop, Hannibal’s terrified instincts overpowered his training, and he balked unexpectedly. Having already shifted my weight forward for the attack I was suddenly flying. I struck Hannibal’s neck with one shoulder. My legs arced overhead. It happened so quickly I hadn’t time to freeze up with fear, and so, while my legs passed gently over my head in a somersault, I twisted my entire body so that I might watch the ground on my descent. I landed on both feet, perfectly balanced. Only I was facing the wrong direction. I could see Dolabella’s horse rearing up, still a good twenty paces behind me. He was, for the moment, a useless ally. I saw Livia staring at me in perfect disbelief. Dropping the reins, which I had carried over the top of Hannibal’s head, I pivoted. The boar was tearing at the ground. Its focus was on me. Some fifteen paces separated us. Equine blood had smeared across the boar’s tusks and jowls. I lifted my right arm, and only then discovered my hand was empty. I had lost my spear.

The wild boar came at me fast. I answered the attack with a bellowing shout and raced headlong toward it, pulling my sword as I ran. Closing together we built speed with every stride. A step before we collided, I hurdled over the animal’s head, one leg leading, the other trailing. The animal lunged upward with its tusks as I passed over. I parried this attack by driving my sword down through its neck. I had aimed for the mortal juncture of spine and skull, and I thought I had caught it. In fact, the blade slipped past bone and plunged into the thick fat guarding its neck.

In the next instant the sword ripped from my hand and I went tumbling across the animal’s back. I tasted the beast’s wiry black hair right before slamming painfully into a network of bare tree roots. I felt rather than saw the boar turning back for me. Then I saw Livia charging at us. Artemis refused to come close, but the feint distracted the boar. Even as it pondered attacking Artemis, Dolabella came running in on foot. He drove his spear into the beast’s flank. The boar turned on him, and Nero came now, striking the beast with his spear. I was kneeling behind the boar, knife in hand, and quite pleased the animal had forgotten me. Livia pushed Artemis forward again, and the boar turned, brushed past me with its flanks, and raced for cover.

I found my spear not far from Livia. After I had picked it up, I looked at the girl. Artemis had lost her wits with the repeated feints. She was dancing and rearing up in perfect terror, but Livia stayed with her expertly. A flush of excitement coloured her cheeks, and her eyes were fixed on me in a way that left me hopelessly affected. I glanced across the clearing to see if Nero noticed. He and Dolabella were walking toward Nero’s horse. The animal had given up the struggle to stand, which in a horse amounts to the end.

I was attempting to retrieve Hannibal when I heard the dogs closing on our position. Distracted by Hannibal’s refusal to allow me to approach, I did not at first realise they were chasing their prey again. In fact, they were coming quite close to our position. Then it struck me: they were chasing the boar in our direction. I turned from Hannibal and gave a cry of warning as I ran toward Dolabella and Nero. With my spear poised to throw, both Dolabella and Nero looked at me in confusion. Only when the boar broke into the clearing, did they finally understand.

I could see my sword still buried in its neck. This limited its speed and might ultimately have proved fatal, but at that moment the blade served only to madden the animal. At the sight of Dolabella and Nero, it turned toward them in fury.

From twenty paces I had no choice but to throw my spear. The point pierced the flesh just behind the shoulder and took the animal down; even then the hind legs kept driving forward. Nero danced behind his horse, looking like a whirling bacchant instead of an aging and overweight senator of Rome.

Dolabella, who had been leaning upon his spear, came to life with admirable speed, twirling his weapon toward the downed beast and driving the spear point into one of the kidneys. Nero now stepped forward, drawing his sword as he did. With a ferocious downward slash he opened the boar’s neck.

There was some talk about who should give up his horse for Nero’s sake. By this time several of his clients had arrived and were all volunteering their animals so that Nero might ride back to his estate. Before her husband could decide which offer to accept, Livia dismounted Artemis and handed the reins to him. I’ll ride behind Dellius,’ she said, and turned toward me. She reached up, and I caught her forearm as she took mine in turn. I lifted her as she jumped up behind me, exactly as cavalry are taught to do under battle conditions.

Nero stared at his wife and me, mouth open but speechless. I think he knew better than to protest. He was the butt of enough jokes already. Why throw oil on the flames?

For the next two hours, as we rode down the mountain, Livia pressed her pert breasts into my back and held me so tightly in her arms I could almost imagine she feared losing her balance.

At the estate the hunters retired to Nero’s luxurious bath. As we soaked away the aches of a long ride Dolabella regaled those who had missed the kill with a comic rendition of my ‘arse-to-sky Tuscan dismount’. As for my attempt to hurdle over the boar, Dolabella insisted I had only jumped the beast in the hope of tupping it.

Meanwhile the beast roasted slowly through the late afternoon and evening, carefully tended by Nero’s slaves. When we had finally settled down to feast on our kill late next afternoon, it was a banquet that did not soon end.

After our feast, as per my habit, I came awake before dawn. I thought I might run for an hour before the rest of the household had stirred, but as I washed myself a slave girl knocked at my door. ‘The domina would like to speak with you,’ she told me.

We made our way under the extensive porticos connecting the various buildings on the estate and soon came to Livia’s residence. I heard the chirping of some twenty or thirty songbirds within. These were imprisoned in a gilded cage that stood in the atrium, directly behind a shallow pool. Farther on through the house I could see a splendid garden from which Livia approached. She wore a floor-length sleeping gown. It was tied primly around her neck, showing nothing of her delightful figure. Her long black hair hung down loosely about her shoulders and across her back, not yet combed and curled for the day.

‘Leave us,’ she told the girl. The slave backed away and vanished beyond the gate. ‘Come closer, Dellius,’ she told me. I knew better, but I walked around the pool and stood before the young matron. ‘I want you to tell me what Dolabella desires from my husband.’ This without even a good morning.

‘You must ask Dolabella that.’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t confide in me.’

Livia pulled upon the slender cord at the neckline of her gown. As she did, the garment fell in a rush about her feet. I stared at Livia’s naked flesh with a mix of terror and desire. Her husband might suddenly come upon us; for all I knew he might be asleep somewhere inside the house. At the very least there would be slaves who might see us together and tell Nero what they had observed.

But for all that, I could not bring myself to flee. How could I? I knew only the party favours who had congregated at Dolabella’s orgies and the slaves one can buy in brothels. Too thin, too fat, foul of breath, bruised by beatings, low, crass, loud, all of them eager to have a man quickly so as to be done with the business. I had seen nothing to equal Livia’s sweet nubile athleticism. Her beauty robbed me of breath and left my heart aching. ‘If you lie to me again,’ she whispered, ‘I will scream until my slaves discover us. What do you suppose my husband will do to you if he thinks you are here to rape me?’

I could see in her eyes she had no fear of her husband’s displeasure. What torture he might inflict on me was another matter.

‘Dolabella believes your husband can provide him with a cohort of auxiliary cavalry.’

She thought for a moment. ‘The Spartans?’

I nodded absently, looking around the atrium fearfully. Were we alone? Did she mean to ruin me? Or was this how the girl seduced her lovers? ‘Might you at least cover yourself? In case your husband should find us.’

‘Am I so horrid to look at?’

I looked because she invited it. I looked because I could not stop myself from it. ‘Think of the danger, Lady.’

‘I am. I rather like it, if you want to know the truth. Now tell me. What can Dolabella offer my husband to make it worth his trouble?’

‘I heard Dolabella mention a praetorship.’

‘Dolabella and Antony have made a great many promises this summer. I am wondering if they have promised more than they can deliver.’

‘What my patron promises your husband he will deliver, but please cover yourself. I do not want to be discovered with you like this.’

She stepped closer, touching my tunic with her fingers. She explored and then teased my awaking sex. As she did this, quite expertly I must admit, she said, ‘You are assuming Antony will return to Italy next summer.’

‘What?’

She wrapped the tunic about my shaft. Slowly, for the pure pleasure of watching my fear wash into desire, she brought me to full tumescence. ‘Mark Antony cannot promise my husband a praetorship if he cannot return to Rome in time to control the outcome of the elections, Dellius.’

‘All that stands in his way is an army commanded by a boy.’

‘That would be the same boy who chased him out of Italy this summer.’

‘Antony has already…’

To be honest, I forgot what Antony had already done. I did not trust the girl, nor think us safe from discovery, but neither could I resist her. She was bargaining for something I could not understand. Robbing me of my wits in the process.

‘My husband puts faith in neither Antony nor Dolabella. You, on the other hand, he believes he can trust. Is he right?’

‘When I make a promise, Lady…’

I did not finish the thought, was not sure myself what my promises meant.

She caressed me still, even as she bargained. ‘I’ll see to it Dolabella has the Spartan cavalry he covets,’ she told me. ‘In exchange, you must promise that Dolabella and Antony will see to it that my husband is elected praetor next year. Your promise, Dellius, not Dolabella’s.’

‘You will see to it?’ I stammered.

She let go of me and took my hand, leading me across the atrium in the direction of an open doorway. ‘My husband will proceed exactly as I recommend.’

‘I must speak with my patron before I can say what he will do.’

She brought me into her bedroom. ‘I can also provide you with four legions of veteran Italian infantry.’

I stopped our advance for her bed. I stared at her in disbelief. ‘Four legions?’

‘For that gift I have other conditions,’ she announced primly.

Was she mad? Lost in fantasy? ‘Just where are you going to find twenty thousand veteran infantrymen who will answer your directives?’

‘Aulus Allienus has command of them in Alexandria. Allienus owes his appointment to my husband’s patronage. He will do whatever my husband asks. All you will need is a letter written under my husband’s seal and signed in my husband’s hand.’