Free Of Merchants & Heros by Paul Waters

light-filled entrance hall.
    ‘Greetings, sir,’ said Titus, turning from the balustrade as Caecilius came bustling.
    ‘We are most honoured,’ cried my stepfather. He made a shooing gesture at Telamon. ‘Hurry along now, don’t just stand there, send to the kitchen for refreshments.’ And back to Titus, ‘Wine, perhaps, and some small thing to eat? I have a good Campanian vintage . . . Or perhaps something lighter, from Sicily, ah yes now, I have a shipment from Etna—’
    ‘Nothing, thank you,’ said Titus, cutting him off. ‘Your good steward has already asked me.’ There was a pause. Titus looked beyond Caecilius’s bulk and grinned at me. ‘In fact I have come to show your son a little of Tarentum, now that he has recovered. He has spent long enough cooped up with his honourable wound; I think he could do with some air.’
    I waited for Caecilius to object; but he pressed his hands together and cried, ‘Why yes! An excellent idea! Come along, Marcus, don’t keep the man waiting, when he has so generously put himself to such inconvenience for your sake.’ And to Titus, ‘It will do the boy good to venture out a little more often. Do you notice his limp? Show him, Marcus. Exercise will help it along, though of course I fear it will never be gone entirely.’
    Titus looked with concern. ‘Why I shouldn’t have noticed it at all .
    . . But Marcus, if you had rather not . . .?’
    Before I could answer, Caecilius cried, ‘Nonsense! Nothing would suit him better.’
    ‘Then good. Let us go then. We need not wander far. Tell me, have you seen the library and the gardens?’
    Winter in Tarentum was warm compared with high Praeneste.
    The sky was a deep, cobalt blue, and the sharp sunlight glittered on the bay. As we walked – with me slightly limping – along the colonnade beside the marketplace, I asked how Titus’s uncle Caeso was recovering from his own wound.
    ‘Oh, he is well enough,’ Titus answered with a shrug. ‘He has an excellent Greek doctor from Syracuse; but he would be better still if he would only take the man’s advice and rest a little. But he shouts at him to stop fussing. He says he has lived fifty years without doctors, and does not need them bothering him now . . . Ah, this way.’
    We came out in the precinct in front of the library and climbed the smooth marble steps. Inside were row upon row of scroll-niches, rising up among tiered columns. Here and there men were reading, sitting at tables or standing by the racks. Sunlight shafted in from high windows.
    ‘You smell that?’ said Titus, sniffing the air. ‘It’s cedar. They use it to preserve the books.’ I sniffed. I remembered the smell from my father’s small library at home, which Caecilius had cast away. I looked about. I had never imagined there could be so many books.
    We walked about for a while, and greeted the librarian. Then went into the courtyard garden behind. The street outside had been busy – as, it seemed to me, all streets in Tarentum were – but the garden, high-walled, with a long shaded pathway and urns of lavender, was a haven of peace. We found a sunny alcove and sat down on a bench.
    Titus stretched, drew in his breath, and considered the great building with its sculpted, painted pediment and coloured marble.
    ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said, ‘and all this was made by men. How I long to see Athens, or Pergamon, or Alexandria! We have so much to learn from them.’
    His blue eyes shone. Touched by his enthusiasm, and by the grandeur, and wanting to show him what I felt, I said, ‘My father would have loved this place. I wish you could have met him.’
    ‘But what do you mean?’ he said, looking at me. ‘Surely I met him no more than an hour ago.’
    ‘What, him?’ I cried, jolted out of my shyness and staring. ‘Oh, no! He is not my father; you must not think it.’
    And then I explained.
    He listened in silence, occasionally nodding and frowning. When I had finished he said,