He shrugged. ‘It could be anything: invasion, disease. Perhaps they just wanted to find a new home somewhere else. I spent days here when I first came, but the houses were looted long ago and there’s little left to show how they lived. It is a strange place, though – I love it. If we ever reach this valley with our bridges and new streets, I will be sad to see it go.’
A faded piece of pottery that could once have been a sign jarred his foot and he knelt to look at it, blowing away the dust. It was blank and so thin that he could snap it in his hands.
‘I suppose it looked like Valentia, once. A market and crops to sell, children running around with chickens. Difficult to imagine now.’
Servilia looked around her and tried to conjure up the image of a place full of bustling people. A lizard ran along a wall near her, catching her eye for a second before it vanished under a sagging eave. There was something eerie in walking through such a place, as if at any moment the streets would fill with life and noise again, the interruption to their lives forgotten.
‘Why do you come here?’ she asked.
He looked sideways at her, smiling strangely. ‘I’ll show you,’ he said, turning a corner into a wider road.
The houses here were little more than heaps of rubble and Servilia could see a square beyond them. The sunlight made the air warm and light as they approached it and Julius quickened his step in anticipation as they reached the open ground.
The heavy stones of the square were cracked and lined with creeping grass and wild flowers, but Julius walked across them without looking, his eyes fastened on a broken pedestal and a statue that lay beside it in pieces. The features were almost completely worn away and the white stone was chipped and battered, yet Julius approached it with reverence. He tied their horses to a sapling that had sprung up through the stone of the square and leaned against the statue, tracing the features with his hand. An arm had gone, but she could see the statue had been a powerful figure once. Servilia saw where words had been cut into the heavy plinth and she traced the strange characters with her finger.
‘Who is it?’ she whispered.
‘One of the local scholars told me it says “Alexander the King”.’
Julius’ voice was rough with emotion and she felt again the desire to touch him, to share his thoughts. To her astonishment, she saw tears form in his eyes as he gazed at the stone face.
‘What is it? I don’t understand,’ she said, reaching out to him without a thought. His skin felt hot against her hand and he didn’t move away.
‘Seeing him …’ he said softly, wiping his eyes. For a moment, he pressed her hand against him with his own before letting it fall. After another long look at the stone figure, he shrugged, having found control once more.
‘By the time he was my age, he had conquered the world. They said he was a god. Compared to that, I have wasted my life.’
Servilia sat on the ledge next to him, their thighs touching lightly, though she felt every part of the contact. Julius spoke again after a while, his voice distant with memory.
‘When I was a boy, I used to listen to the stories of his battles and his life. He was … astonishing. He had the world in his hand when he was little more than a child. I used to imagine myself … I used to see his path once.’
Again, Servilia reached up to his face, smoothing the skin. He seemed to feel it for the first time and raised his head to look at her as she spoke.
‘It is here for you, if you want it,’ she said, unsure as she spoke whether she was offering more than just a hope of glory, or something more personal. He seemed to hear both meanings in her words and took her hand again. This time, his eyes searched hers at the touch, asking a silent question.
‘I want it all,’ he whispered and she could not have said which of them moved to kiss the other. It simply happened, and they felt the strength of it as they sat at the feet of Alexander.
In the days that followed, time seemed to pass more slowly when Servilia could not find an excuse to take the horses out again. The Golden Hand was running well and she had brought two men from Rome large enough to quieten the wildest reveller. Instead of taking pleasure from the success, she found her thoughts constantly drifting back to the strange young man who could be vulnerable and frightening in the same moment. She had forced herself not to ask for him again and then waited for his invitation. When it had come, she had laughed aloud, amused at herself, yet unable to resist the excitement it brought.
She stopped to add another stem to the circlet she was weaving as they walked through a field of swaying corn. Julius paused with her, more relaxed than he had felt for a long time. The depression that had crushed him seemed to vanish in her company and it was strange to think that their first ride into the wilderness had been only a few weeks before. She had seen the parts of his life that mattered most to him and he felt as if he had always known Servilia.
With her, the nightmares he tried to drown like pups in heavy wine had lifted, though he felt them circling still. She was the blessing of Alexander over him, a ward against the shadows that pressed him into despair. He could forget who he had become, dropping the mantle of his authority. An hour or two each day in sunshine that warmed more than his skin.
He looked at her as she straightened, wondering at the force of the feelings she engendered. In one moment she could reveal a knowledge of the city and the senators that would leave him breathless, and in another she could be almost childlike as she laughed or chose another bloom to weave with the rest.
Brutus had encouraged the friendship after that first trip to the village of the broken statue. He saw that Servilia was like a balm to his friend’s troubled spirit, beginning to heal wounds that had festered for too long.
‘Pompey was wrong to have the slaves crucified,’ Julius said, remembering the line of crosses and the weeping, tortured figures on them, waiting for death. The images of the great slave rebellion were still painfully fresh in his mind, even after four years. Crows had gorged until they were too fat to fly and cawed in anger at his men as they kicked out at the staggering birds. Julius shuddered slightly.
‘After the beginning, we didn’t offer the slaves anything but death. They knew we’d never let them run. They were badly led and Pompey had them tied and nailed all the way up the Via from the south. It was not greatness in him, then, responding to the terror of the mob.’
‘You would not have done it?’ Servilia asked.
‘Spartacus and his gladiators had to die, but there were brave men in the ranks who had faced legions and beaten them. No, I would have formed a new legion and salted it with the hardest bastard centurions from all the others. Six thousand brave men, Servilia, all wasted for his ambition. It would have been a better example than putting them all on crosses, but Pompey can see no further than his petty rules and traditions. He holds his line while the rest of the world moves past him.’
‘The people cheered them into the city, Julius. Pompey was the one they really wanted as consul. Crassus took the second seat in his shadow.’
‘Better if they had turned the slaves on their own,’ Julius muttered. ‘They would stand tall then, rather than rushing to kiss the feet of Pompey. Better to grow your crops rather than cry out for men like Pompey to give you food. It’s a sickness in us, you know. We always raise unworthy men to rule us.’
He struggled to find words and Servilia stopped, turning to face him. On such a hot day, she had chosen a stola of thin linen and wore her hair bound back with a silver thread, revealing her neck. Every day he spent with her seemed to bring some facet to his attention. He wanted to kiss her throat.
‘He destroyed the pirates, Julius.