The Pillars of Rome Read Free Page A

inspecting each face in the flickering light. Suddenly he frowned, for the one person he had hoped to seewas absent. Young Quintus Cornelius was there, in the uniform of a military tribune, his face like the others covered in a sheen of sweat, but the boy’s father, Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, had not answered the summons, even though he had returned to Italy from Spain. What of the bonds they had sworn as children, sealing them in blood, oaths renewed through years of friendship; that they would always attend upon each other in any hour of need or celebration?
    Nothing counted as much as the birth of a firstborn child, quite possibly a son, especially for a man who had been married without issue for nearly twenty years, but it was more than that. His greatest friend and staunchest political ally, absent from Rome for two years, had not come to aid the patrician cause at a time when he and his class were under threat, when a real possibility existed that a conflict might break out between the rival factions seeking to control the power of the Roman State. To treat Lucius so was a grave breach of obligation, made more so by the help that the perpetrator had received in pursuit of his own ambitions. Aulus would never have been given command in Spain if Lucius Falerius had not used all his prestige, and marshalled all his adherents in the Senate, to secure the appointment. Yet the beneficiary, Rome’s most successful soldier, declined to appear at a moment when his mere presence might tip what was a verydelicate balance. With the nagging thought that his friend was less committed to the cause than he, and had no care for the effect his non-appearance had on wavering senators, the timing of this absence smacked of a deliberate insult.
    The murmuring of his guests, like a low but rising moan, brought Lucius back to the present and he felt a flash of anger, immediately tinged with regret for what might be an over-hasty judgement, as he conjured up a series of images of himself and his childhood companion; playing just out of infancy, growing up together at a time when he could still wrestle Aulus with some chance of winning, even risking damnation in that prank in the Sibylline cave, sharing terror at the prophecy and relief when that fear abated as they grew to manhood, till at least he, Lucius, could make jokes about eagles, unlike his friend, who could not even observe one in flight without calling down Jove to aid him. He had stood with Aulus when his own two sons had been born, his happiness at his friend’s good fortune tinged with regret that he himself was childless.
    They were different he knew, and not just physically: Aulus had none of the cynicism of his more worldly friend. He had a simple soldier’s view of things, unable or unwilling to grasp the subtlety necessary to achieve success in the political arena and he seemed to take good fortune as his due. Didhe appreciate how much Lucius had aided him, helping to keep his armies in the field, assisting him to commands that gave him an arena for his manifest gifts? Sometimes Aulus angered him by his artlessness, his desire to see both sides of an argument, yet always that same trait – his palpable honesty – had brought forgiveness. Would it be so easy to forgive him for this? It was with some difficulty that he put both memories and irritation out of his mind. Lucius leant forward and with a swift motion lifted the child from the basket. He then raised it, arms fully extended, acknowledging to all that this boy was the fruit of his own loins, his son and heir. Great cries of joy erupted from the assembled guests and they pressed forward to praise the father and bless the child. Next door, the midwives, still praying to the Goddess Lucina , struggled in vain to save the life of a mother who, they all thought, at thirty-five, was too old to be bearing her first child.
     
    Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus stood alone by the undecorated turf altar, dressed in a simple