Ashes Under Uricon
Chapter 16. Equals (367)
By Mihangel
Si iungar amore,
Hoc tantum tibi me iactare audebo iugalem.
Dulcis amicitia aeterno mihi foedere tecum
Et paribus semper redamandi legibus aequat . . .
Nunquam animo divisus agam: prius ipsa recedet
Corpore vita meo, quam vester pectore vultus.
If I am bonded in love, this is the only reason I dare boast of being your bond-fellow. My compact with you is endless, and the law of reciprocal love eternally balanced. In this, dear friendship does make me your equal . . . Never shall I live separate from you in soul. Sooner will life itself depart from my frame than your face from my heart.
Paulinus of Nola, in Ausonius, Epistles
In a flash of revelation the past was laid bare. Belatedly I understood, or began to understand.
"Bran . . . I haven't loved you before . . . not loved in that sense . . . because I didn't dare . . . because I couldn't impose myself on you . . . because you were a slave, because we weren't equals . . . And I've only just realised that you loved me . . ."
I was fumbling my way into unexplored territory.
"But you did, didn't you? And you couldn't do anything about it because you were a slave and slaves can't ask . . . And you suffered . . . when I went wild . . . when I fell for Lucius . . . when I was taken captive . . . you suffered for me. You've loved me for a long time, haven't you?"
"Yes, Docco, I have. You've attracted me for years. It was only friendship at first, of course. But when I bloomed, it turned into love, proper love. All right, I quenched my lust elsewhere. Who doesn't? But it was you I loved."
"Oh, Bran. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, Docco. Never be sorry. Never, ever, regret that you loved Lucius. It was good, it was right, for both of you. I couldn't complain. Why should you take an interest in me? That sort of interest? How could you take an interest? You were too honourable."
Honourable? Me, honourable?
"There were times," I admitted slowly, "before Lucius, when I lusted for you. There were times when I felt I could love you, if I were allowed to. You see, I admired you when I was young. I looked up to you. I depended on you. And I still do, all of those. In a way I wanted to love you. You say I attracted you, as if I was a magnet. But if I was a magnet, you were silver, and magnets can't attract silver. It just isn't possible . . . I thought of it rather the same way, that we were parallel lines, and parallel lines can't cross. It just isn't possible . . . So I pushed the thought away. It's you who's been honourable, Bran, supporting me when I've been up to things that hurt you so. I couldn't have had a better friend. Not just a dutiful slave, but a friend. And if you hadn't been a slave, none of this would have arisen. We'd have been lovers years ago. Damn slavery!"
"If I hadn't been your slave, Docco, the chances are we'd never even have met."
"But you were my slave," I said. "And you aren't any longer. We're both of us magnets, now. We're two lines that do cross, now. We're free to love, now . . ."
Free!
Yes, I thought, we're free. But are we ready? Both of us carry deep hurts. Can they be healed so soon? Or is it precisely this that will heal them? Heal Bran's hurt, yes. His hurt has been unrequited love. Ever since he bloomed he's been yearning for me. Ever since he bearded Maqqos-Colini he's been hoping for a scene like this. Yes, Bran's ready for healing.
But am I? Am I? My hurt is three years' worth of gaping loneliness which Lucius was going to refill. But instead he's died, and that has gouged a bigger emptiness out of my soul. Now's the chance of filling both voids. I've loved Bran for years. A subconscious love, a suppressed love -- I recognise that now. But . . . can it turn at the snap of a finger into an active love? Not yet, a niggling voice whispered at me. Not yet. It's just not fair on Lucius . . .
Bran, understanding my struggle, was watching in silent sympathy. Cravenly, I prevaricated.
"And I do love you!" I assured him. "But before we . . . I mean, oughtn't we to wait . . .?"
"For a respectfully decent time? Because Lucius is barely cold? But Docco, Lucius wouldn't mind. Yes, I know, I would say that, wouldn't I? But I know he wouldn't mind. He was my friend too. He might have stolen my love, though he never knew it. But he was my friend, and I was his friend. Look, there are plenty of things you haven't heard yet.
"When Lucius married, Pulcher formally freed him from his paternal authority. He was his own man at last, as independent as you are. And as a wedding present Pulcher gave him a lot of money. At that point Lucius made his will. I don't know what it said. But then Sulpicia died. And then the rest of his family died . . . It's the hardest thing I've ever done, breaking that news to him. But he was sole heir to the whole of Pulcher's estate, which is vast. He knew he was near the end, and he insisted we call in a lawyer to draw up a new will. It cost him a big effort even to put his signature to it. And what does it say? It gives guardianship of Maglocunus to you and me, jointly; but if you should really be dead, to me alone. And it gives his whole estate in equal shares to you and me and Maglocunus; but if you should be dead, in equal shares to Maglocunus and me."
Oh, gods!
The possibility of bequeathed wealth had never crossed my mind.
"Well," Bran continued, scratching his armpit; perhaps I had bequeathed him an Irish flea or two. "One point is that we're now rich, all of us, which is going to take a lot of sorting out and getting used to. But the immediate point is that Lucius, once we'd tamed him, saw me as a friend to be trusted, not as a potential bedfellow. He saw me as your very good friend too. He saw us as a pair." Bran looked down at the brooch. "He gave us these at the same time, didn't he? He didn't draw distinctions. He wasn't jealous. And he showed it in his will. He told me why he was treating me equally with you.
"'Bran,' he said, 'Docco and I were made for each other. And I'm sure he'll come back, because you're made for each other too. When I'm gone, he's yours. He'll make it possible. He'll free you. You're the only one now who can make him happy.'"
Oh, Lucius! Oh, Bran!
I hugged him again, incautiously jarring the wound in his arm. He winced.
"Sorry," I said, brought rudely back to earth. "Does it still trouble you?"
"Not much."
"How did it happen?"
"As these things do. I was on the east wall, where the aqueduct comes in. I noticed that the aqueduct was half dry, as if the Irish had blocked it off. And they were putting up a barrage of arrows, as if to make us keep our heads down. So I smelt a rat, and risked leaning over the parapet to look down immediately outside. I used this arm to pull myself up, and it got an arrow in it."
"Gods! You might have got the arrow in your head! Were you wearing a helmet?"
"Helmet!" He snorted. "I doubt there were five helmets in the whole town. But it was a good thing I did look. There were lots of them milling round the culvert that takes the aqueduct under the rampart. So I nipped down the back and waited for them to come through. I . . ." His face went fraught. "Docco, I killed four of them, one after the other, until they cottoned on."
He was almost sobbing. "Docco, I hate killing."
Dear Bran, gentle Bran.
He shivered.
"Come inside, Bran. It's getting chilly. You mustn't let that wound get cold."
I led him in. As we passed the household shrine I paused to thank our gods. Tad was in the sitting room, working on his accounts and clicking his abacus, so we went to my room. To our room. The ghost of Lucius was no longer there.
"Did the doctor cut the arrow out?"
"Not then. There wasn't time. The Irish started to retreat, and I spotted Maqqos-colini. The arrow had to wait."
"So you went to beard him with a bloody great arrow sticking out of your arm?"
He laughed at last. "Not sticking out. The shaft had broken off at the head."
Brave Bran.
In pain, sick at heart from his killings, preoccupied with all the demands of the siege, worrying over Lucius dying a hundred paces away, having risked his life to save the town, he risked his life again to save me. But . . .
A question struck me, and I wrestled with it. When I turned to Bran again, he was looking out of the window, a small smile on his vital face. I followed his eyes. On a teasel in the garden a goldfinch was nibbling at the seeds, its feathers a glory of yellow and white and black and red. There was beauty both in the room and outside it.
"Bran," I said after a moment, remembering my question. "You didn't know I was still alive, did you? You were just guessing, weren't you, like Lucius? Just hoping?"
"No," he said, turning back to me. "No, I knew."
"But how?"
"The god had told me."
"The god?"
"Maponus."
Recollection came back of Bran's strange mood at Fanum Maponi, and I felt the first stirrings of comprehension.
Bran looked at me uncertainly. "Docco, Lucius told me what Maponus said to him. But I don't know if he said the same to you. Don't tell me if you don't want to."
"No harm, now. He said that our love was good and right. That's all."
"Ah! It was the same, then. And I think he said the same to your Tad. But he said more than that to me. And in two instalments. When your Tad and I first dropped in, on our way down to Aquae Sulis, the message was that true love would be rewarded. Well, that buoyed me up no end, even if I didn't understand it. My love was true, or I thought it was. So I thought he meant that Lucius' love for you was not true and would not be rewarded. But of course Maponus hadn't met either of you at that point.
"Then when we were all in the temple together, when he first met you and . . . read you, Maponus gave me another message, clearer-cut, more disturbing. It was the same as he gave to Pulcher, but fuller.
"Docco's and Lucius' love is blessed, he said, but it will be short-lived. Let it take its course and do not interfere, and breathe not a word of this to anyone until it is over. Then your love for Docco will be fulfilled.
"Well, that perplexed me too, but in a different way. It meant that fairly soon Lucius was going to die, or else that you were going to break up. Either way it would cause you grief. I couldn't wish death on Lucius -- he might be my rival, if you like, but he was my friend. And I couldn't wish grief on you. But still I longed for you. And Maponus understood my perplexity. His face, Docco, his face . . . the compassion in it. Do you remember? Compassion for poor wayward mortals . . ."
I nodded. I remembered it very well.
"I talked about it with the priest. He'd heard my message too, of course, and he confirmed what I thought. He was sympathetic, but he wouldn't say what was going to happen, or when. He couldn't say, because he didn't know. He merely repeated that I mustn't interfere. That I must be patient.
"And against the day when my love for you would be free to take its course, he . . . he . . . well, look!"
He lifted his tunic, lowered his drawers, and lay on the bed, on his back with his legs raised.
"Look!" he said again.
Oh, gods!
There, beside his anus, half-hidden under the hair, was a chain tattooed in blue. Our chain. My chain. A chain that matched my own. A visible mark of our bond. A sign of the god's blessing on Bran and Docco's love. It swept all my doubts away.
"He said," Bran continued, sitting up again, "that only my bond-fellow should cross that threshold. And since then nobody has crossed it, because it's yours."
I thought back to what the priest had told us. 'Love is not fore-ordained. You met by chance, and by chance you fell in love. But once the spark of love is kindled, provided it be an exclusive and self-obliterating love, Maponus fosters it. He fans it into the consuming fire that is his own love.'
Yes.
All of that had happened. The spark of Bran's love had been kindled before we ever went to the temple, just as the spark of Lucius' illness had already been kindled. Maponus had seen both. He could do nothing about the tisis, and had seen its inevitable outcome. Bran's love -- and how exclusive and self-obliterating that was! -- could in due course be rewarded. So he had fanned its spark into consuming fire.
"I was on tenterhooks all that summer," Bran went on, "for fear of Lucius dying. I didn't go hunting with you. Not just because of my experience the first time, but I thought that Lucius might be killed by a boar or something, and I couldn't bear to be there if he was. I didn't go swimming with you because I thought he might be drowned . . . And then Maqqos-colini took you. Even as I struggled to stop Lucius from following, I wondered if I should let him go. Was I interfering? Should I let him go to his death? But the chances were that you would be killed, not him. And so I let you go."
Bran heaved a great sigh.
"I'd looked at my chain once before, in your mother's mirror, when we got home from Fanum Maponi. But now I kept looking at it again and again. It seemed my only guarantee that you would come back, though I couldn't tell when. And it took three years, three dreadful years, before it became clear what was going to happen. Lucius fell ill. And when he lost control of his bowels and I was cleaning him up I saw the same chain on him, and presumed there was one on you as well. He was dying, and my chance was coming. So when the Irish attacked us and I spotted Maqqos-colini, it seemed a golden opportunity to try to get you back."
Oh, Bran!
"Bran. I said we were equals now. But we're not. You're head and shoulders above me."
"No, my dear. We are equals. And especially in love. We're bond-fellows, and equal. You have got a chain on your arse, haven't you?"
I showed it to him, as he had shown me his.
"It's yours, Bran."
I sat up again. He was looking into my eyes, smiling gently, waiting for me to follow up the invitation. We both reached out, and with a perceptible tingle our fingers touched. I closed my hand over his and drew him to me. We had never kissed passionately before but, once our lips met, all my emptinesses began to be filled. The strong right arm that matched that strong heroic face gripped my shoulder and pulled me closer. My fingers went up into the back of his fair hair, and we began to writhe. His left hand slid down my back and closed around my buttock. Tight to each other, we ground together, and I felt his erection greeting mine as it had done, in this very bed, all those years ago.
But I was no longer the innocent child I had been then, nor he the inaccessible slave. Our surrender was now total. I tore off my clothes, and he did the same. I lay back once more to offer him my chain-guarded threshold, and he crossed it. Later, I too crossed his. Both times we wept.
Igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo seminibus. The strength in their seed is the strength of fire, and its origin is of heaven.
I was usually woken by the sun, but not the next morning. Nor was Bran. We were woken by a knock on the door and by Tigernac poking his head in. He seemed relieved to find Bran, but surprised to see us so intimately close, and to see the two sets of clothes on the floor. But this time, as he went quietly out, he smiled.
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