Gnaeus frowned. “A man must have something to believe in.”
“As you once believed in Roma?”
“Believe in Roma, Titus. Believe in the Temple of Ceres. Forget that Coriolanus ever lived.” Gnaeus turned and walked away. His followers encircled him. The entourage departed from the garden.
Titus’s house was only a short distance away. Claudius offered to go with him, but Titus preferred to walk alone.
The night was warm. The shutters were open. Moonlight flooded the chamber where Claudia was sleeping. Titus gazed upon her face for a long time. He walked to the room where his son slept, and gazed upon his face for an even longer time.
He kept thinking of the image which Cominius had planted in his mind, of Gnaeus confronted by a stampeding bull. Hercules, whose altar had been in the keeping of Titus’s family for generations, had once fought a bull on the faraway island of Crete. Gods demanded sacrifice; heroes deserved loyalty. Was not Coriolanus just such a hero as Hercules had been?
In his study, by moonlight—for he feared that lighting a lamp might wake those who slept—he wrote a message to Appius Claudius: Father-inlaw, I beseech you, look after your daughter and your grandson. I have done what I know to be right.
He entered his son’s room. He lifted the talisman of Fascinus over his neck and slipped it, carefully and quietly, over his son’s neck. Deep in slumber, the boy reached up and touched the talisman, but never woke.
If Titus hurried, he might catch up with Coriolanus and his men before they passed beyond the city gates.
491 B.C.
“It’s a long road that’s brought us here,” said Gnaeus.
“A very long road indeed,” said Titus, smiling ruefully. He knew that his friend did not literally mean the road beneath their feet, which brought them, with each clop of the horses’ hooves, closer to Roma. Gnaeus was speaking of the curious twists and turns their lives had taken since the night they fled the city, two years ago.
A man such as Gnaeus, with his knowledge of warfare and his reputation for bravery, and with a company of fanatically devoted warriors at his side, would have been welcomed in many cities. It was ironic, but perhaps predictable, that he chose to make an overture to the Volsci. True, he had spilled much Volscian blood, but always in honorable combat, and who was more likely than the Volsci to recognize his true worth? It was a curious thing, puzzling at first to Titus, that those whom Gnaeus had fought so ferociously could welcome him into their rank so enthusiastically. This was the way of the warrior: By a simple twist of fate, and in the blink of an eye, an enemy could become an ally.
Of course, Gnaeus, being Gnaeus, had become much more than an ally. He quickly became the Volsci’s leading warrior, and then, just as quickly, commander of the whole army. The campaign to wreak vengeance on Roma had not been his idea, but that of the Volscian elders, who had to argue long and hard to overcome his resistance. Who better to anticipate and foil every Roman strategy than the man who been Roma’s greatest warrior? What greater triumph for the Volsci than to see Coriolanus do to Roma what he had done to Corioli? What sweeter revenge for Gnaeus Marcius than to bring the city that had spurned him to its knees?
In the campaign against Roma, Gnaeus had transcended himself. The man who had proclaimed his desire to become Roma’s greatest warrior had become the greatest warrior in all of Italy, and the boldest general as well. It seemed to Titus, who fought at Gnaeus’s side in battle after battle, that the gods themselves must have taken a hand in delivering so many victories to his friend. The men under Gnaeus developed a superstitious belief in his leadership; the magic of his presence, not their bravery, was the key to victory. It was Titus’s private conviction that the ancient spirit of Hercules now lived again in Coriolanus, the hero of the age. This religious conviction was a great solace to Titus in those moments when homesickness for Roma and his family threatened to overwhelm him.
Now the final battle drew near. Every clop of the horses’ hooves along the road brought Gnaeus and the army of the Volsci closer to the very gate by which he had fled the city. In battle after battle, the armies of Roma had been defeated. Their ranks were depleted, their stores of arms captured and confiscated. The people were weakened as well. Crops had been burned, Roman colonies had been looted, and emergency supplies of grain from Sicily had been intercepted. As Roma grew more enfeebled, all the enemies whom she had humiliated in recent years flocked to join Gnaeus and the Volsci. The force led by Coriolanus was invincible.
While the invaders were still two days south of Roma, envoys had ridden out from the city to meet with Gnaeus. They reminded him of his Roman lineage. They pleaded with him to turn back his army. Gnaeus treated them with scorn, but allowed them to return to Roma with their heads. “The fact that the Romans beg for peace shows they’re certain of defeat,” he said to Titus.
The next day, two more envoys arrived. The dust from their chariot rose high in the still air and could be seen for a long time before they drew near enough to be recognized. Titus drew a sharp breath when he saw the haggard faces of Appius Claudius and Postumius Cominius.
Gnaeus ordered his men to stay back while he rode forward to meet the two senators. Titus accompanied him. While Gnaeus acknowledged the two men’s greeting, Titus stayed to one side, unwilling to look his father-in-law in the eye.
Cominius first assured Gnaeus that his wife and mother were well; despite Gnaeus’s betrayal, no one had taken vengeance on his family, and now no one would dare to do so. “My daughter Claudia and young Titus Potitius are also well,” added Claudius, though Titus still averted his eyes. Speaking for the consuls and the Senate, the two men acknowledged the great wrong that had been done to Gnaeus. They promised the restoration of his citizenship and his place in the Senate, and full immunity from prosecution by the tribunes.
Gnaeus listened respectfully to his two old mentors, then asked, “And what of the tribunes of the plebs, and the aediles? Will they be abolished? Will the Temple of Ceres be pulled to the ground?”
Cominius and Claudius lowered their eyes. Their silence provided the answer.
Gnaeus laughed. “You think to turn back Coriolanus with a few words, yet with all the power of the Senate you cannot even bend the plebs to your will! No empty promises will stop me now. If you truly love Roma, go back and advise your colleagues to surrender the city. I have no wish to spill more blood than is necessary, and my men’s craving for plunder will be easier to control if they take the city without a fight. Whether you resist me or not, by this time tomorrow Roma will belong to me.”
“A bitter homecoming!” said Cominius.
“But a homecoming, nonetheless.”
“And if you take the city—Jupiter forbid!—what will you do then?” asked Claudius.
Gnaeus drew a deep breath. “If they haven’t already killed themselves, certain of my old enemies will receive the retribution they deserve. I think you know who heads the list.”
“The tribune Spurius Icilius,” said Cominius.
“What a pleasure it will be to cast him from the Tarpeian Rock!”
“What of the Senate?” said Claudius.
“Perhaps I will allow it to remain in existence, restored to the role it played under the kings, to give advice and assistance to the royal power. Its less useful members will be purged and replaced by new members of Volscian blood.”
Cominius stifled a cry of despair. Claudius cast a piercing gaze at Titus. “What do you have to say about this, son-in-law?”
Titus stared back, his gaze steady. “When I was a boy, my grandfather taught me the list of kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius the Elder, Servius Tullius. Tarquinius the Proud was to be the last, the very last, cast out and replaced forever by something called a republic. A mockery! A mistake! An experiment that failed! Today is the republic’s final day. Tomorrow, men will shout in the Forum, ‘All hail King Coriolanus!’”
He drew his sword and raised his arm to Gnaeus. His horse rose on its hind legs. “All hail King Coriolanus!” he cried.
The coterie of loyal warriors who had left Roma with Gnaeus, who always rode at the head of the army, heard Titus’s cry and took it up. “All hail King Coriolanus!”
The cry spread through the ranks of the vast army: “All hail King Coriolanus!” Men raised their swords in salute, then beat them upon their shields, creating a frightful din as they shouted, over and over, “All hail King Coriolanus!”
Claudius seemed to wither. Cominius turned the chariot about. A cloud of dust rose behind them as they hurried back to Roma.
At that spot, a few miles south of the city, the army of Coriolanus made camp.
The next morning the army rose at dawn and made ready to march to battle.
As always, Coriolanus rode at the head of the army, with Titus beside him and his mounted Roman warriors immediately behind him. With each step, they drew closer to Roma.
They approached the crest of a low hill. Once they reached it, the hills of Roma would be visible in the distance.
Above the sound of hooves and the rustle created by a vast army on the march, Titus heard another sound, low at first and then louder. It came from beyond the crest of the hill. Something was on the other side, not yet visible, something that made a horrible, wrenching, frightening sound, a sound such as a man might hear on his descent to the realms of Pluto, a sound of utter hopelessness and despair.
Gnaeus heard it, too. He frowned and turned one ear forward. “What is that?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” said Titus, “but it raises hackles on the back of my neck.” A superstitious fear swept over him. What if the gods loved Roma more than they loved Coriolanus? What if, by betraying Roma, Titus and Gnaeus had sinned against the gods? What sort of unearthly creature of doom might the gods have conjured to meet them on the road to Roma? Or had a vast pit opened in the earth, into which they would all be cast down, never to return? That was what the noise sounded like—the shrieking and moaning of a vast chorus of the dead.
Once they reached the crest of the hill, they would know.
Gripping the reins of his horse, Gnaeus’s knuckles turned white. Titus swallowed hard. He glanced behind him. Even the battle-hardened warriors in the front ranks had blanched, hearing that unnerving noise.
They came to the crest.
Before them, like a gigantic black snake upon the straight road, stretching all the way back to the city gate in the far distance, was a procession of women dressed in mourning. It appeared that all the women in Roma had come forth from the city