XXXIX: The Road Trip

The Servii road winds through pastureland, two worn lines carved by years of plaustrum wheels hauling goods to the Ceresio. At the lake’s north point, the path turns to crushed granite. Most of the year, this route serves only farm-to-market traffic. But between harvest and first snow, esseda replace plaustra as patricians journey south for winter.

Unlike their wealthy parents, the Servii siblings decide to winter at their villa, celebrating the solstice and Saturnalia with their villagers. This new tradition, however, must wait until the family business attains new leadership, and Caesar’s tribune takes command of Comum’s garrison. This year, the 700th since Rome’s founding, Skipio and Vita travel to Menaxium with their family friend, Planus Julius. For the journey, they abandon their shabby essedum for a luxurious carpentum. Its windowless build keeps out the cold, and pillowy seats make the old net-suspended undercarriage more comfortable.

The two horses make swift time, and Skipio sleeps as the Ceresio disappears behind them. Sparse trees mark a slight bend that leads into a thick beech forest. As the carpentum presses on into the night, they come alongside the Sanat Creek. Habit makes the beasts slow at the rest stop. At this hour, the curtained shack is without a keeper, its water barrels tightly boarded, but the two toilets remain open.

Voices rouse him, yet Skipio keeps his eyes shut.

Vita, unusually chatty on road trips, says, “I thought for certain there’d be snow.”

Planus, always chatty no matter the occasion, retorts, “This early in the season? Wait until we’re closer to Saturnalia.”

“Last year it snowed on the autumnal,” she tells him.

Planus softens. “I heard—last year, too. You did good for the village.”

“They’re family,” Vita says. “Anyone would’ve done the same.”

“You’ve never been to Rome,” sighs Planus. “Too much coin makes most rather despicable.”

Vita scowls. “So does a lack of it. Grain merchants in the triangle took advantage of my situation. And I’ll remember every one of them for that.”

Skipio unfolds his arms and turns to her. “Which merchants?”

“Look who’s here, Planus!”

“How nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Skipio stretches his legs, settling his booted feet on the empty space beside Planus. Vita taps his leg with a disapproving gaze, prompting him to remove his boots and quietly return his socked feet to the cushion.

“Long night,” Skipio yawns.

Planus scolds, “We’d have left sooner if you’d just bathed with me this morning.”

Vita crinkles her nose. “Bathing isn’t what kept him.”

Skipio dozed off after rutting with the druid. At thirty years of age, he’s quickly exhausted by such exertion. Last night’s bath with the druid had left him spent.

“I can smell him on you,” Vita mumbles.

Yes, and that’s why Skipio avoided bathing again. His druid has developed a fondness for citrus oil, washing his hair with it and slathering the suds behind those large jug-handle ears. A pleasant ache lingers in Skipio’s jaw, and thoughts of his last fight with the druid bring comfort.

Tar-colored eyes enticed with giddy menace. He chased that head of bouncing curls over the fields and into the trees, where the forest masked their deliciously violent game. His druid stops fighting when struck by a blow that numbs his senses. It is a carefully delivered punch that Skipio has learned through trial and error. The oil vial slipped from his tunic and into his hand as he fell upon the druid, whose small buttocks rose to meet him. It took only a moment for them to become one, and several to finish their rut.

Skipio finds pleasure in turning the druid over and taking hold of the bastard’s thick cock. He worked the flesh while plowing into him, watching that bony frame twist as if caught between desire and agony. Spent, he fell into the druid’s embrace, slipping one arm beneath black curls, the other around an aerial oak root.

Sleep took Skipio swiftly, the druid’s fingers scratching lightly at his neck. He woke with a start when a leaf landed upon his backside.

“I’ve never been to Rome,” Vita says. “I’d like to visit one day.”

“I’m in no hurry to return,” Planus says.

Skipio looks at him. “I would hope not.”

Planus straightens his back.

“Explain those words,” he orders.

Skipio levels his gaze, letting his accusatory silence hang.

“You’re not blaming me for what they’re doing in Rome?” Planus says, frustrated. When Skipio turns away, Planus kicks his boot, seeking validation. “Does everyone think that gang nonsense is my fault?”

Skipio leans up and slides open the carpentum’s door. A four-horse-drawn bus moves past, close enough to touch. Fur-clad shoulders peek out from its leather awning, Alpine-born soldiers heading home one last time before the first snow traps them at the lake garrisons.

“How ridiculous.” Planus folds his arms, masking discomfort with sarcasm. “Guess I’ll be playing Helen of Troy this Saturnalia.”

Skipio’s voice is calm but pointed. “So, you admit your influence.”

“Pulcher’s follies do not concern me,” Planus defends. “They never did.”

“What of Milo’s?” says Skipio.

Before his Gallic campaign, Caesar appointed Publius Claudius Pulcher, a habitual line-stepper, as tribune in Rome. Pulcher, porn of wealth, took the name Clodius to align himself with the working class.

During this time, Planus stayed with Caesar, preparing to escort him back to Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar granted Planus his sexual freedom, aware that war lay ahead for the young man. At a feast, Planus met Pulcher and admired his relinquishing his privilege for the workers. Pulcher’s alliance with the Populares, however, revealed a darker nature. Planus quickly surmised that Pulcer’s appointment to the senate was to create trouble for Caesar’s rivals.

Pulcher’s confrontational grandstanding troubled Planus, who ended their brief affair. Seeking a new lover, Planus met Titus Annius Milo, a latent Pompey supporter, at the baths. Milo, notorious for romantic pursuits regardless of gender, failed to hold Planus’s interest. Their short liaison ended, but not before Pulcher noticed them together in the Palatine forum.

As Planus left Rome with two failed love affairs, his former paramours waged war, using gangs to fight in the streets. Rome seethed with unrest. Most saw this political violence as appalling, while man-lovers gossiped that such antics would not have occurred had Planus Julius remained north of the Po.

Inside the carpentum, Vita notices the horses have slowed.

“Not again,” Vita groans. “Are we stopping every mile?”

Planus stares daggers at Skipio, replying, “Traffic gets busier the closer we come to the Lario.”

Vita sighs, scratching her fingers into her palla. “Why are we taking the ferry? The Via Regina rolls straight to Comum.”

Sliding the door back into place, Skipio grumbles, “First, the toll on that stretch is highway robbery this time of year. Second, the horse and cart traffic between Menaxium and Comum is bad enough to make you open a vein.”

Planus nods. “Do you recall that summer festival in six eighty-eight?”

“We got stuck on a yield day,” Skipio groans.

It took their essedum three hours to make the short journey from Comum to Menaxium.

“Yield day?” Vita asks.

“Harvest and planting—bad times,” Planus mutters. “Odd days, north traffic gives. Even days, south traffic yields.”

“Then we need to widen the road,” she says.

Skipio and Planus share a laugh before Skipio says, “Perhaps I’ll send Consul Domitius a request and await the coin that will surely follow.”

The patricians hire their own workers for the market roads, while wealthy landowners out in the hinterland pay to keep up the mountain roads. Rome alone tends the Via Regina, but since Caesar left for Gaul, not a single roadworks engineer has shown his face.

“That shiny new extension around Lario?” Planus snorts. “Just wait for the day it drops into the lake—the Regina bulkheads are sagging so badly now, the road’s slanted. Carts go two-wheeled for half a mile.”

The carpentum suddenly hops, jolting them. Skipio’s hand clutches the seat, a sharp breath escaping his lips; Vita’s eyes widen in surprise, and Planus bites back a curse, his jaw clenched.

Skipio shifts in his seat and mutters, “Finally, something solid under us.”

A faint call from the toll officer signals their arrival at the crossing. The world outside the carriage is changing, and the horses slow further. Their driver, a young arete serving Planus at Belacius, hands over a pouch with seventy denarii—twenty per passenger, ten for the carpentum, and ten per horse—a criminally high rate for the short ride to the ferry launch.

Skipio slides the door open a crack, revealing a rock wall tall enough to stop most four-legged creatures. The wall shifts as they move. Every few feet, a niche holds a blown-glass jar of burning oil. Its yellow glow reveals a leaf-choked gutter lining the cobblestone road.

“Close that,” Planus gripes, cradling his legs. “You’ll give my knees a chill.”

Skipio studies his friend’s light saffron pants before raising his eyes to the man’s ebony tunic. “Is that a plain six-weave?”

“It is not.” Planus gives a start. “It’s an eight-shaft twill.”

Vita giggles. “I’m loading up on some twill while in Comum.”

“Where’d you get the coin for such a long rib?” Skipio jokes.

“I’ve no wife or children,” Planus replies, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Neither do I,” Skipio says. “But I’m not walking around in such finery.”

“You do,” Planus points out. “You spent a fortune bringing him from Britannia.”

“How much did it cost to bring Aedan?” Vita asks.

“Don’t say his name, Vita,” Skipio snaps.

She raises her voice. “He’s a human being, Skipio.”

“He’s the monster who murdered our noble father!”

Vita’s jaw tightens, and her cheeks flush pink.

Pity clouds Planus’s eyes before he blinks away the emotion, swallowing it hard. He clears his throat, voice trembling as he forces composure. “It’s been four years since you’ve been in Comum,” he manages to say to Skipio. “The forum is much bigger since they finished Jupiter’s shrine.”

“It’s finished?” Skipio asks, heart pounding. “I remember the big foundation.”

“Not large enough,” Vita says.

“I saw it myself, it’s rather grand,” Planus says to her.

“Until festival days, when all the farmers and their families come into town.” Vita’s voice takes on a light tone again. “There are so many farms in the hinterlands now. You can’t get into the baths or find a toilet when there’s an event in Comum.”

As their conversation wanes, the carpentum slows and soon stops. Outside, cheerful young ferry workers speak kindly to the horses while uncoupling them from the traces.

“Did you secure boarding for them?” asks Skipio.

“Of course,” Vita says.

Skipio leans on her. “I’m sorry I was hot with you over the druid.”

“We’ll speak no more of it,” she says, pulling tight her rabbit fur stole and rising.

The carpentum door slides open, revealing their ferryman, whose round cap barely contains his dry, shabby curls. His breath smells of roasted chestnuts and herbs, bits of which are in the wax coating his beard braids to keep the lake gnats away.

“We’ve got some water and oats for your beasts, Mistress Servii,” he says, lending his thick hands out for hers.

“Thank you, Maximo,” she smiles, grabbing hold of them and stepping out.

Maximo Bantius is another local whose Roman ancestors, like those of the Servii, intermarried with the Cispadani, a group of wealthy Gauls who founded the first Comum, located just north of the new colony. Planus follows Vita, nodding to Maximo, who straightens as Skipio steps out.

“Servius Tribune,” the old man announces.

“Don’t call me that,” Skipio says, smiling.

“As your wish, Lucius,” the man chuckles, calling him by his nickname. “My son awaits your party on the east launch.”

Skipio pats the ferryman’s deerskin sleeve and steps closer.

“How many patricians remain in town?” he asks.

“Most of them cleared out after Marcellus did that whipping.” Maximo lowers his voice. “Our prayers are with your cousin.”

“Thank you,” says Skipio. “We’re all adrift since Marcellus removed Caesar’s governorship.”

“Caesar will return, things will go back to rights,” Maximo nods, then grasps Skipio’s shoulders. “I am sorry about your father.”

Skipio swallows his grief. “Have the patricians gone to Mediolanum?”

“Too many newcomers taking up land around the Po,” Maximo grins, head swinging. “That’s why most of ‘um went to Rome this year, but they came back right quick.”

Skipio eyes Planus, chatting with Vita.

“Pulcher?” he mumbles to the old man.

“And that shit heel, Milo.” Maximo nods with a grunt. “Their gangs faced off in a very pricey part of town. So much blood, it got in the drinking water.”

“So, they’re all back in Comum,” Skipio muses, watching as the crew turns his carpentum around and pushes it onto their flat-bottom barge. Two fresh horses await them at Comum, where moving through flat city terrain is barely a burden.

Planus and Vita cross the ramp and move starboard. Rowers settle into their pews and take up their oars. As life stirs aboard, the structure of the barge becomes clear: six paddle men per side, a rudder brute in the rear, and two breakers, holding long poles, manning the tow ropes at the front.

Skipio steps onto the barge and finds Planus comforting Vita with a gentle hug. Planus murmurs quiet words of encouragement. Vita nods, leaves his embrace, and walks to the carpentum, shutting herself inside.

“You know, don’t you?” Skipio grabs Planus’s arm. “What happened between Vita and my father?”

“That’s not for me to say,” Planus replies.

“Vita won’t tell me what she did to make him so angry.”

“Perhaps she remains silent because you see her as the wrongdoer.” Planus storms to the portside ramp. “I’m returning to Belacius. If you need me, send a garrison courier.”

“Planus,” Skipio calls. “You were coming with us to Comum.”

Planus ignores him. Skipio follows. “No one but Vita should share her pain.”

Skipio presses, “You accuse my honorable father of wrongdoing?”

Planus yells, “Honorable?” He quickly lowers his voice. “All men have times of extreme dishonor, Skipio. You, of all people, should understand that.”

“Did my father behave poorly?” he presses.

Planus turns from him.

Anger flushes Skipio’s face as he confronts Planus, frustrated. “I don’t understand why no one will tell me. Did my father interfere in some marriage plan?” He lowers his voice. “Did Vita get pregnant?”

“Vita would never…” Planus snaps. “I’ll see you in a few days,”

Skipio senses the eyes of the nearby crew as he turns around.

The carpentum door remains shut, and Vita doesn’t emerge.

Maximo stands at the rear, unfurling the barge’s sail and steadying the keel as lake winds fill the canvas. The barge drifts away from the rocks and jetty. Meanwhile, Skipio approaches the carpentum’s door, leaning his head against it, which now aches from his own unresolved hurt.

“Vita?” He says through the door. “I will not mention our father in your presence, ever again.”

A moment passes before her voice finds him. “Thank you.”

“Please…” Skipio begs.

“Keep your promise,” Vita warns.

“Don’t you know I love you?” Skipio’s voice breaks. “It hurts that you won’t trust me enough to share your pain.”

“You said you’d protect me.” Vita opens the door—eyes wet. “But you disappeared.”

Skipio leans through the carpentum’s open doorway.

“If someone hurt you, and father did nothing—”

“You’re doing it again,” Vita says, pushing him aside and closing the door.

He lifts his fist in frustration, ready to hit the wooden door, but pauses and deliberately calms himself.

“Skipio,” Vita says softly. “I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Skipio says, holding back tears. “If I’d known leaving would break the bond between us, Vita, I’d have stayed.”

Skipio returns to the portside rowers, watching the water churn from their machinations. Suddenly, Vita’s arms surround him from behind, her head pressing into his back. He turns and holds her, his tears falling in her hair as she sobs into his chest.