Тролль, лжец, ёбарь-террорист
The Sons of Titans
The rising Octavius Caesar gives an important message to an enemy of his mentor. The sons of titans are always traitorous gods, and in Rome, the life of a brother is less valuable than ambition.
The old slave sighed.
“Master Titus Pomponius Pietas.” He said regally. There was a hint of irritation in his hunched over posture, and he sounded more as though he were trying to wake a lazy adolescent than formally introduce a man. The thin figure who was lounging on the library couch roused momentarily at these words, but only to flick a dried apricot into the air. It flipped twice, then dully landed on the limestone floor. The slave twitched. “Master Pietas. There is a Gaius Octavius Caesar here to see you.”
A second apricot, perched vicariously between two fingers, was held motionless when the name was uttered, and an uncomfortable silence soon flooded the room. Octavius tried not to let his mind wander. He clasped his hands behind his back, and stared forward at the man on the couch until the corners of his vision had clouded with white. He had noticed it already, how everything about the estate was cold and quiet, as though unlived in for years, and there was no movement save for the practiced steps of the slave as he walked away in embarrassment. Cicero had described it differently to him. He’d called this library a place of ease and contentment, but it was only pandemonium to Octavius; darkly lit, books strewn in all placed, untouched food resting in front of the couch. The apricot slipped to the floor.
читать дальшеHe heard it in the back of his mind; the slow rustle of fabric as the man on couch eventually put his feet on the floor and lifted his head from the pillows. Octavius, feeling more and more like an ornament on the wall, took this as his opportunity to start forward. But when he caught the cynical blue eyes that had turned on him, he stopped and cleared his throat lightly. Everything he did was met with a thin, raised eyebrow and cool impassive face. Another apricot had been picked up, and raised to his mouth. He took a bite of it as Octavius began to speak.
“You are Pietas, the son of Titus Pomponius Atticus, correct?” He asked, vaguely aware that he was speaking in a whisper, as though afraid of breaking the atmosphere. The man on the couch leaned back into the soft red cushions, chewing thoughtfully and, just when Octavius began to think he bemused – just when we was started to shift from foot to foot in nervousness – the man tilted his head back and broke into a fit of laughter. It was the sound of clay breaking against marble. Octavius only narrowed his eyes.
“You use the term son lightly. But then, you are the son of Caesar, aren’t you, Octavius?” He said, choking back his last giggle. “You and I are almost brothers in that regard, I should say. Your father was too busy in Gaul to have a real son, and mine too joyous among his books. We’re the closest things to legitimacy they had, though the gods know how many others are out there, hm? Sit, Octavius, sit. Take that glass of wine there. It should still taste fine. I always keep a second around, lest someone come to visit me. Less work for that ridiculous old slave of mine…”
In the short span of time he’d known the man, Cicero had only willed the son of Atticus two distasteful descriptions. The first was simple and sweet. Cicero had been pointing out to him several important political figures at a religious festival, when he suddenly shoved a plump, pale finger in Pietas’ general direction and hissed some characteristically Rome words, which were obscene. At the time, Octavius had noted that Cicero seemed to hate the young man for all he was worth, and that the young man in particular seemed rather popular with just about anyone else. He occupied himself only with people, ignoring the orations and dancing so that he could have a word with everyone; from sleepy children, to the old wives of politicians. Even the actors exchanged a short conversation. Cicero avoided him completely.
The other occasion had taken place when Octavius chanced to visit Cicero shortly after a messenger arrived, carrying a sealed and scented letter with exaggeratedly curved handwriting. Cicero had torn the seal from the delicate paper and scoured its contents before turning the shade of a general’s cloak and tossing the document as far from himself as possibly. It fluttered to the floor only a few feet away, and he began to vehemently recite to no one, as though preparing to speak to a senate of gossipers. “He mocks me – no, he mocks Atticus through me! Infuriating, ungrateful, ambitionless brat! He calls himself Epicurean. He’s about as philosophical as the vestal virgins are chaste.”
Octavius had never quite understood this hatred and was much too intelligent to ask why it was there in the first place. He wondered on it, though, out of irritating curiosity more than anything else. Cicero always seemed fond of advising the new generation of Roman personalities, when they sleepily started to emerge into the sunlight of the forum. Hence why Octavius could so easily move in and out of his watchful eye. He was reluctant to admit the aging orator as something of a distant mentor and challenge to him, and doubtlessly others of his age. Pietas couldn’t have been much older, or much younger than he. He was youthful, yes, but thin and pale from telltale signs of sickness, as well as foreign descent. Octavius found himself comparing the man to his uncle’s Gallic slaves; he had no Roman features, and his hair was a dark shade of red. There was no lineage to his name, but he had money.
“…my mother named me – yes, my mother, those were complicated times – she named me Pietas out of spite for my father. I’ve suffered more from it than he has. Who names a boy loyalty and dedication?” Octavius lifted the cup of wine to his lips as he listened to the incessant stories. Pietas had dipped a finger in his own wine, and was stirring it idly, seemingly more content in playing with his food than eating it. The man was dangerously thin, and his voice was slow. Octavius stared into the deep red, before taking a long sip.
He coughed, and tried to swallow, his face twisted in disgust. Pietas was laughing.
“Is my wine so bad, or are you simply so distressed? You may spit it out, if you like. I won’t be offended.” Octavius spit the wine back into the cup, bringing his tongue back into his mouth with an awful aftertaste.
“I wasn’t talking about the wine.” Pietas said.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t say to spit out the wine. I meant the answer; is my wine so bad, or are you simply so distressed?” Pietas brought his own cup to his lips, and briefly drank while waiting for the response.
“What gives you the idea that I might be distressed?” Octavius said, his words naturally guarded. He had become so used to playing the part of an enigmatic young politician that it was hard for him when he finally met someone, face to face, who could read off of his impassive features. Pietas surprised him, to have guessed such a thing so easily, but then, they said he had talents. Octavius had heard from everyone about the son of Atticus, that he was nothing like his father; he was an angry, cold drunkard, and he could always keep a secret. Nothing like his father.
“Spare me, Caesar.” He met Pietas’ dark blue eyes with his own sky colored ones, but his glare shattered after the other man just shrugged and scoffed, taking another calm drink of his wine. “Why else would you come here? Surely, not for the pleasure of just visiting me. A man of your schedule is far too busy to spend idle time with awful poets. You’ve something to tell me. Something you can tell no one else. Well, spit it out. The sooner it’s said, the better.”
He had to grind his teeth together in order to keep his mouth from hanging open stupidly as he searched for words. Octavius had prepared everything in his mind - how he would walk in, how he would present himself to this fabled, red haired creature whom Cicero seemed so fond of hating. He had the whole speech in his head, every tear wrenching word of it bottle up somewhere in his mind, yet he could only recall the first few words. “I’m going…” He said, and he was forced to hang his head, to entangle his fingers with his hair out of desperate habit, before he could continue. “Cicero. I’m going to kill Cicero.”
That was all. No fine words or flowered statements, just the simple truth. Tentatively, he looked up at his listener, expecting some sort of judgment to be cast upon him. Pietas simply had his head half turned to the side, his eyes wide with wonder at this confession. His finger continued to stir what was left of the wine, the chalky white skin stained with red up to his knuckles. Momentarily, he paused, and all was silent save the chirping of birds outside the window. Then Pietas smiled. The sides of his mouth twitched up and that twinkle of witticism, which only he would understand, flashed behind his expression. He was shaking with quiet laughter.
“You’re an insane poet, Pietas. I fail to see what is so amusing about my predicament.”
“In the end…” Pietas said, dragging a hand under his nose as he sniffed back his laughter. “In the end, you’re giving him what he wants. A valiant death! To go out grandly. Slaughtered by an upstart politician – nay, one of his very own wayward students. Oh, it sounds like an epic already. I can just see it. How he’d brag to the Furies in the underworld that he sacrificed himself to the falling Republic, the very one he claims to have saved so many times before! Yes, kill the man. I think he might enjoy it.”
Pietas went back to his drink, and Octavius concentrated completely on unraveling his anger. For a man who looked as weak as he did, Pietas certainly spoke to a high degree of pompousness. His fists were clenched so tightly his fingers ached, and his cheeks were with flushed with maroon. He could have made Antony fall on his knees from the sheer force of his glare, but whenever he directed it at Pietas, the man just rolled his own eyes and stared back with patience. As if he’d seen it before, so many times before. Finally, he snapped. “Have you anything of importance to say, or have I just wasted my time with you!”
“Don’t you give me that,” Pietas said. “Don’t you dare. You came to me, not I to you. What did you expect? Atticus? Did you think I would pat you on the back, comfort you?” Pietas stood. Though his words were colder than barbaric ice, his movements betrayed no anger. When he stood, his Greek styled garments fell from the couch and he put his cup down on the table between them. The way he gestured held an odd form of grace that Octavius had never seen in the senate house. “Pay attention to my words, Caesar. Cicero would sooner have you killed, were he to hear of what you are plotting.”
“He would -”
“He would! With no consultation to any conscience but his own. Perhaps they raised you too long on a farm, for that is the way it works in Rome. Romulus killed Remus, Brutus killed his sons, Cicero killed Catiline, and you shall kill Cicero. You know what they call him, those who have the foresight to see where Rome is headed? Cicero, they say, Cicero, the last great Titan of the republic! Do you know why?” His tone had risen in the fervor of his monologue, so that the ridiculous voice he’d chosen to represent those final words ended in a high pitched, strangled giggle. His face, dyed red with feverish color, had contorted into an expression that resembled the antagonist’s actor’s mask. But with one graceful movement, one quietly apathetic wave of his hand, he had brushed it all aside. Calmly, serenely, he sat down again.
“Do you know why?”
“Perhaps it has to do with the Philippics, or with Catiline?”
Pietas had rested his head on the raised end of the couch, red hair falling over the dark cushions, and when he spoke it was as though through fabric. A distant, dream-like sound. “Yes, perhaps it has to do with Catiline. Poor Catiline. Poor, stupid Catiline.”
“What do you mean? He tried to destroy the republic.”
“That’s the story Cicero gave you. Catiline was close to destroying the republic, but at the last moment Marcus Tullius Cicero saved us all! You’re only taught the facts these days, after all.” Pietas said, touching his hand to his mouth before continuing. “Yes, Catiline wanted to destroy Rome. He thought about it; we all do. And he did try, certainly putting forward the effort. He built an army, of drunkards and poets like myself. If Catiline were a threat to Rome, wouldn’t Rome have noticed? Don’t you think, if Catiline were hurting Rome, Rome would be the first to complain, to groan in pain, to push him away? Yet Rome didn’t notice, only Cicero did.”
“The senators were corrupt.” Octavius said, gently. His anger had subsided at the sick tone of Pietas’ voice, the green tint that occupied his face. He recognized the first signs of a slight fever, having been a victim to it so often himself. The conversation would soon become too much effort for the man, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the aged slave lingering next to the doorway, his hands held expectantly. The old man nodded occasionally to his master’s words, and still to Octavius’.
“Not enough to have turned a blind eye toward the blatant disadvantages of Catiline taking Rome. You don’t have to be a smart man to be a senator; you know that better than I. Consequently, you don’t have to be smart to survive in this world, either. These men – the republic – were simply taking care of themselves and their money. Catiline could only promise so much to both sides before it all fell apart financially.” He trailed off, closing his eyes. He didn’t open them again. His chest moved rhythmically, albeit slowly, to each further intake of breath. Octavius said nothing. Neither did Pietas. The slave took this as his silent cue to enter into the play, starting forward only to be stopped by the wave a slender, white hand.
Octavius stood.
“Then why?” He asked.
“Because that is the way Rome works, ‘Tavius.” Pietas whispered. “You are going to kill Cicero. You’ve no other choice. Now, do you have your answer? Is there anything else you would bother me about?”
“One more thing, friend.” Octavius said. “Your father was fond of Cicero?”
“More than any other man.”
“Would he have told Cicero, if he had learned that someone was going to kill him?
Those Mediterranean eyes opened, and turned to Octavius in understanding.
“He would have.” Pietas said.
Octavius left. As he pulled his cloak closely over his shoulders, and as the orange sunlight of the descending sun stained the clay road a peculiar shade of crimson red, he heard the poet calling to his slave for writing materials.
And more wine.
princessofwars.deviantart.com/art/The-Sons-of-T...
The rising Octavius Caesar gives an important message to an enemy of his mentor. The sons of titans are always traitorous gods, and in Rome, the life of a brother is less valuable than ambition.
The old slave sighed.
“Master Titus Pomponius Pietas.” He said regally. There was a hint of irritation in his hunched over posture, and he sounded more as though he were trying to wake a lazy adolescent than formally introduce a man. The thin figure who was lounging on the library couch roused momentarily at these words, but only to flick a dried apricot into the air. It flipped twice, then dully landed on the limestone floor. The slave twitched. “Master Pietas. There is a Gaius Octavius Caesar here to see you.”
A second apricot, perched vicariously between two fingers, was held motionless when the name was uttered, and an uncomfortable silence soon flooded the room. Octavius tried not to let his mind wander. He clasped his hands behind his back, and stared forward at the man on the couch until the corners of his vision had clouded with white. He had noticed it already, how everything about the estate was cold and quiet, as though unlived in for years, and there was no movement save for the practiced steps of the slave as he walked away in embarrassment. Cicero had described it differently to him. He’d called this library a place of ease and contentment, but it was only pandemonium to Octavius; darkly lit, books strewn in all placed, untouched food resting in front of the couch. The apricot slipped to the floor.
читать дальшеHe heard it in the back of his mind; the slow rustle of fabric as the man on couch eventually put his feet on the floor and lifted his head from the pillows. Octavius, feeling more and more like an ornament on the wall, took this as his opportunity to start forward. But when he caught the cynical blue eyes that had turned on him, he stopped and cleared his throat lightly. Everything he did was met with a thin, raised eyebrow and cool impassive face. Another apricot had been picked up, and raised to his mouth. He took a bite of it as Octavius began to speak.
“You are Pietas, the son of Titus Pomponius Atticus, correct?” He asked, vaguely aware that he was speaking in a whisper, as though afraid of breaking the atmosphere. The man on the couch leaned back into the soft red cushions, chewing thoughtfully and, just when Octavius began to think he bemused – just when we was started to shift from foot to foot in nervousness – the man tilted his head back and broke into a fit of laughter. It was the sound of clay breaking against marble. Octavius only narrowed his eyes.
“You use the term son lightly. But then, you are the son of Caesar, aren’t you, Octavius?” He said, choking back his last giggle. “You and I are almost brothers in that regard, I should say. Your father was too busy in Gaul to have a real son, and mine too joyous among his books. We’re the closest things to legitimacy they had, though the gods know how many others are out there, hm? Sit, Octavius, sit. Take that glass of wine there. It should still taste fine. I always keep a second around, lest someone come to visit me. Less work for that ridiculous old slave of mine…”
In the short span of time he’d known the man, Cicero had only willed the son of Atticus two distasteful descriptions. The first was simple and sweet. Cicero had been pointing out to him several important political figures at a religious festival, when he suddenly shoved a plump, pale finger in Pietas’ general direction and hissed some characteristically Rome words, which were obscene. At the time, Octavius had noted that Cicero seemed to hate the young man for all he was worth, and that the young man in particular seemed rather popular with just about anyone else. He occupied himself only with people, ignoring the orations and dancing so that he could have a word with everyone; from sleepy children, to the old wives of politicians. Even the actors exchanged a short conversation. Cicero avoided him completely.
The other occasion had taken place when Octavius chanced to visit Cicero shortly after a messenger arrived, carrying a sealed and scented letter with exaggeratedly curved handwriting. Cicero had torn the seal from the delicate paper and scoured its contents before turning the shade of a general’s cloak and tossing the document as far from himself as possibly. It fluttered to the floor only a few feet away, and he began to vehemently recite to no one, as though preparing to speak to a senate of gossipers. “He mocks me – no, he mocks Atticus through me! Infuriating, ungrateful, ambitionless brat! He calls himself Epicurean. He’s about as philosophical as the vestal virgins are chaste.”
Octavius had never quite understood this hatred and was much too intelligent to ask why it was there in the first place. He wondered on it, though, out of irritating curiosity more than anything else. Cicero always seemed fond of advising the new generation of Roman personalities, when they sleepily started to emerge into the sunlight of the forum. Hence why Octavius could so easily move in and out of his watchful eye. He was reluctant to admit the aging orator as something of a distant mentor and challenge to him, and doubtlessly others of his age. Pietas couldn’t have been much older, or much younger than he. He was youthful, yes, but thin and pale from telltale signs of sickness, as well as foreign descent. Octavius found himself comparing the man to his uncle’s Gallic slaves; he had no Roman features, and his hair was a dark shade of red. There was no lineage to his name, but he had money.
“…my mother named me – yes, my mother, those were complicated times – she named me Pietas out of spite for my father. I’ve suffered more from it than he has. Who names a boy loyalty and dedication?” Octavius lifted the cup of wine to his lips as he listened to the incessant stories. Pietas had dipped a finger in his own wine, and was stirring it idly, seemingly more content in playing with his food than eating it. The man was dangerously thin, and his voice was slow. Octavius stared into the deep red, before taking a long sip.
He coughed, and tried to swallow, his face twisted in disgust. Pietas was laughing.
“Is my wine so bad, or are you simply so distressed? You may spit it out, if you like. I won’t be offended.” Octavius spit the wine back into the cup, bringing his tongue back into his mouth with an awful aftertaste.
“I wasn’t talking about the wine.” Pietas said.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t say to spit out the wine. I meant the answer; is my wine so bad, or are you simply so distressed?” Pietas brought his own cup to his lips, and briefly drank while waiting for the response.
“What gives you the idea that I might be distressed?” Octavius said, his words naturally guarded. He had become so used to playing the part of an enigmatic young politician that it was hard for him when he finally met someone, face to face, who could read off of his impassive features. Pietas surprised him, to have guessed such a thing so easily, but then, they said he had talents. Octavius had heard from everyone about the son of Atticus, that he was nothing like his father; he was an angry, cold drunkard, and he could always keep a secret. Nothing like his father.
“Spare me, Caesar.” He met Pietas’ dark blue eyes with his own sky colored ones, but his glare shattered after the other man just shrugged and scoffed, taking another calm drink of his wine. “Why else would you come here? Surely, not for the pleasure of just visiting me. A man of your schedule is far too busy to spend idle time with awful poets. You’ve something to tell me. Something you can tell no one else. Well, spit it out. The sooner it’s said, the better.”
He had to grind his teeth together in order to keep his mouth from hanging open stupidly as he searched for words. Octavius had prepared everything in his mind - how he would walk in, how he would present himself to this fabled, red haired creature whom Cicero seemed so fond of hating. He had the whole speech in his head, every tear wrenching word of it bottle up somewhere in his mind, yet he could only recall the first few words. “I’m going…” He said, and he was forced to hang his head, to entangle his fingers with his hair out of desperate habit, before he could continue. “Cicero. I’m going to kill Cicero.”
That was all. No fine words or flowered statements, just the simple truth. Tentatively, he looked up at his listener, expecting some sort of judgment to be cast upon him. Pietas simply had his head half turned to the side, his eyes wide with wonder at this confession. His finger continued to stir what was left of the wine, the chalky white skin stained with red up to his knuckles. Momentarily, he paused, and all was silent save the chirping of birds outside the window. Then Pietas smiled. The sides of his mouth twitched up and that twinkle of witticism, which only he would understand, flashed behind his expression. He was shaking with quiet laughter.
“You’re an insane poet, Pietas. I fail to see what is so amusing about my predicament.”
“In the end…” Pietas said, dragging a hand under his nose as he sniffed back his laughter. “In the end, you’re giving him what he wants. A valiant death! To go out grandly. Slaughtered by an upstart politician – nay, one of his very own wayward students. Oh, it sounds like an epic already. I can just see it. How he’d brag to the Furies in the underworld that he sacrificed himself to the falling Republic, the very one he claims to have saved so many times before! Yes, kill the man. I think he might enjoy it.”
Pietas went back to his drink, and Octavius concentrated completely on unraveling his anger. For a man who looked as weak as he did, Pietas certainly spoke to a high degree of pompousness. His fists were clenched so tightly his fingers ached, and his cheeks were with flushed with maroon. He could have made Antony fall on his knees from the sheer force of his glare, but whenever he directed it at Pietas, the man just rolled his own eyes and stared back with patience. As if he’d seen it before, so many times before. Finally, he snapped. “Have you anything of importance to say, or have I just wasted my time with you!”
“Don’t you give me that,” Pietas said. “Don’t you dare. You came to me, not I to you. What did you expect? Atticus? Did you think I would pat you on the back, comfort you?” Pietas stood. Though his words were colder than barbaric ice, his movements betrayed no anger. When he stood, his Greek styled garments fell from the couch and he put his cup down on the table between them. The way he gestured held an odd form of grace that Octavius had never seen in the senate house. “Pay attention to my words, Caesar. Cicero would sooner have you killed, were he to hear of what you are plotting.”
“He would -”
“He would! With no consultation to any conscience but his own. Perhaps they raised you too long on a farm, for that is the way it works in Rome. Romulus killed Remus, Brutus killed his sons, Cicero killed Catiline, and you shall kill Cicero. You know what they call him, those who have the foresight to see where Rome is headed? Cicero, they say, Cicero, the last great Titan of the republic! Do you know why?” His tone had risen in the fervor of his monologue, so that the ridiculous voice he’d chosen to represent those final words ended in a high pitched, strangled giggle. His face, dyed red with feverish color, had contorted into an expression that resembled the antagonist’s actor’s mask. But with one graceful movement, one quietly apathetic wave of his hand, he had brushed it all aside. Calmly, serenely, he sat down again.
“Do you know why?”
“Perhaps it has to do with the Philippics, or with Catiline?”
Pietas had rested his head on the raised end of the couch, red hair falling over the dark cushions, and when he spoke it was as though through fabric. A distant, dream-like sound. “Yes, perhaps it has to do with Catiline. Poor Catiline. Poor, stupid Catiline.”
“What do you mean? He tried to destroy the republic.”
“That’s the story Cicero gave you. Catiline was close to destroying the republic, but at the last moment Marcus Tullius Cicero saved us all! You’re only taught the facts these days, after all.” Pietas said, touching his hand to his mouth before continuing. “Yes, Catiline wanted to destroy Rome. He thought about it; we all do. And he did try, certainly putting forward the effort. He built an army, of drunkards and poets like myself. If Catiline were a threat to Rome, wouldn’t Rome have noticed? Don’t you think, if Catiline were hurting Rome, Rome would be the first to complain, to groan in pain, to push him away? Yet Rome didn’t notice, only Cicero did.”
“The senators were corrupt.” Octavius said, gently. His anger had subsided at the sick tone of Pietas’ voice, the green tint that occupied his face. He recognized the first signs of a slight fever, having been a victim to it so often himself. The conversation would soon become too much effort for the man, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the aged slave lingering next to the doorway, his hands held expectantly. The old man nodded occasionally to his master’s words, and still to Octavius’.
“Not enough to have turned a blind eye toward the blatant disadvantages of Catiline taking Rome. You don’t have to be a smart man to be a senator; you know that better than I. Consequently, you don’t have to be smart to survive in this world, either. These men – the republic – were simply taking care of themselves and their money. Catiline could only promise so much to both sides before it all fell apart financially.” He trailed off, closing his eyes. He didn’t open them again. His chest moved rhythmically, albeit slowly, to each further intake of breath. Octavius said nothing. Neither did Pietas. The slave took this as his silent cue to enter into the play, starting forward only to be stopped by the wave a slender, white hand.
Octavius stood.
“Then why?” He asked.
“Because that is the way Rome works, ‘Tavius.” Pietas whispered. “You are going to kill Cicero. You’ve no other choice. Now, do you have your answer? Is there anything else you would bother me about?”
“One more thing, friend.” Octavius said. “Your father was fond of Cicero?”
“More than any other man.”
“Would he have told Cicero, if he had learned that someone was going to kill him?
Those Mediterranean eyes opened, and turned to Octavius in understanding.
“He would have.” Pietas said.
Octavius left. As he pulled his cloak closely over his shoulders, and as the orange sunlight of the descending sun stained the clay road a peculiar shade of crimson red, he heard the poet calling to his slave for writing materials.
And more wine.
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@темы: Древний Рим, Литература