Читать книгу Sacred Bones - Michael Spring - Страница 11

EIGHT

I was heading home, sadder but wiser, when I ran into my classmate Luniso and a pack of boys from the scrinarium.

“Crabs for sale,” Luniso shouted, taunting a cripple with stumps for legs and hands.

We laughed as we wove our way through the tenements, up to the foot of the Palatine, across from the Field of Mars.

Free from the tyranny of priests, we pushed each other into piles of steaming excrement, and splashed in streams of piss running down the wagon ruts. Armed with sticks, we became Roman legionnaires driving the Carthaginians from Sicily, or Israelites laying siege to Jericho.

We pulled ourselves up the broken steps of an abandoned apartment building and played in the debris. Luniso threw a stone at a fair-haired boy named Theodulf, a Frank, and drew blood. We laughed. Theodulf was too stupid to read the penitentials or martyrologies, and wore his hair long, like a girl. “Happy the nose that cannot smell a barbarian,” said Luniso, showing us his bright white teeth.

Wrestling came next. This was my sport; I loved the touching. There was something blind and disembodied about it. It wasn’t Deusdona against Sergius, we were both part of a single hard warm ball of flesh and muscle, rearranging itself. I didn’t have to tell my body what to do, it acted on its own.

I lost, I won.

Then we climbed past the towering cypress trees, lining the Royal Way like flaming green torches, and slipped into the shadow of the Arch of Titus. Half the emperor’s head was gone. His horse’s leg was missing. When we stepped back into the sinking sun, the ancient city spread out before us, brushed with gold. A shepherd led his sheep through the rough grasses, as in Evander’s time. I stumbled on a child’s skull. It may have been unbaptized, or dragged from its grave by a devil, but I didn’t wait around long enough to find out.

As we ran to the Arch of Septimius Severus, I jumped on a broken pedestal, brandished my stick, and shouted, “It’s me, Augustus!” No one noticed. No one cared.

Luniso and another classmate jumped on opposite ends of a fallen pillar and approached each other like gladiators. I joined the boys cheering them on. Luniso won, of course. He was invincible. He was a brute, but we loved him. He was entirely himself. Nothing stood between him and the day.

As our shadows lengthened, we jumped on them, squealing with fear. Luniso was in no hurry to leave, so we lingered. He was in the mood for hide-and-seek, so we scattered across the Palatine. I ran and hid behind a shattered pillar, held my breath, and asked God to turn me into stone or sky. I waited what seemed a lifetime. No one came.

When I peered out, I was alone, away from the boasting boys. Everyone had gone. A lizard darted through the shadows, flicking its tongue. I was alone on the hill among the ruins of a dead world. A church bell rang. It was the voice of God, calling me home. I hurried back for Vespers.