sixthiterationlogs | † mihi aqua et igni interdirectur

WHO: Gaius Gracchus
WHERE: Main east-west path in 6I
WHEN: March 15
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: none

Gaius still misses Rome every day. Not just the city itself, though of course he misses that, but the life of the city, the excitement of the courts, the thrill of the people's assembly, the sounds and sights of the forum, going about the morning's business under the gaze of the Capitoline temples and the Palatine houses, the feeling of being in the heart of the most important city in the world. Rome hadn't just been his life, it had been his reason for being, its service his purpose in life from his earliest days. He'd been away from Rome before, of course, on trips to his family's estate, but even much of the time he'd spent away from the city had been in its service: visiting his clients or supporters, serving in the provinces with the army or on the governor's staff, traveling to oversee road building or the foundation of a colony.

It's a stark contrast to this place, where there are dozens of people, not hundreds of thousands, where there is no government and much resistance to establishing one, where his name and his family mean nothing. There is a reason it is one of the Roman state's greatest punishments to banish a man from the city, and though Gaius has had to accept being here instead of home, acceptance is all that it is. The fine toga Kate Kelly had made for him is no cover for that reality.

He tries not to miss the crowd of people that used to surround him when he left his home on business, and he's come to accept the solitude that he can usually find on a walk here as a daily occurence instead of an exception. The walk along the village's main road is pleasant enough, and the river at least is clearer and cleaner than the Tiber.

Gaius has crossed back over the river and is on his way back to the Inn, until he's not.

In front of him rises a colonnaded building, eight grand columns reaching up towards a carved frieze: the temple of the goddess Diana, oldest and grandest of the temples on the Aventine hill. He stares, dumbstruck in a way he very rarely is, at the magnificent edifice and takes a step forward. Behind him, someone screams, and voices shout, and he turns to look behind him, but he's stopped by a hand on his arm and a voice.

"We must go!"

"Licinius?"

But his friend and relation isn't there when he looks back, nor is the temple.

Nor are the screams.

Gaius turns on the spot, around and again, grasping for the vanished man, the temple, the moment. He'd been there, in Rome, and the sounds he'd heard and the urgency in his kinsman's voice had spoken of that last terrible day.

He's left standing there in the middle of the path, wide-eyed, his breath suddenly racing to match his heartbeat as Licinius' fear grips him and only slowly subsides.

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After the rush of lunch there's a lull. People need to go back to work, mostly, which means they won't be trampling back and forth from the Inn. It's a time that, today at least, Kate is devoting this moment, here and now, to sweeping dried mud off the porch.

Which means she hears Mr Gracchus' yelp.

It's not a sound, it's a name.

And now, now Mr Gracchus is turning and turning, all wild-eyed and frantic, like he'd seen some ghastly apparition or run a marathon, whichever. Or, maybe, both.

"Mr Gracchus?"

Leaning her broom against a pillar, Kate steps lightly off the porch and hurries towards the strangely stricken man. As she moves, she scans the surrounds in case whatever, whoever, it was is still here. But there's nothing.

"Mr Graccus, you all right?"

He's not usually one to let unease show. That doesn't go well in politics; the people follow confidence, certainty, not this. Not madness, or whatever made him see the temple, hear his friend and the sounds of chaos on the Aventine.

There is nothing left to see now, no sign of Licinius or the temple, just the path through the village that has become so familiar now. He stops at the sound of another voice, one more immediate to him: Kate Kelly's. She calls out his name, asking if he's all right.

"Did you see that?"

He takes a couple of steps forward, his face tense, eyes bright.

"The temple, the city?"

They do not tend to discuss matters of deep import, nor would Kate say that they are close. But she has a measure of the man who is Gaius Gracchus, and this frantic, upset tenseness is nothing she's seen since he's been settled in. On him, anyway. On others.... on others, when something badly has gone wrong.

Shouting at nothing, spinning around like a child's toy, that all counts as 'wrong' in her books.

Her first reaction is to ask, 'what city? what temple?' but she's grown up around people with short-tempers and frayed nerves, so she bites the urge back. Instead, she shakes her head firmly.

"No. I didn't see anythin' but you. What city, Mr Gracchus?"

He knows it, really, that it was some sort of inexplicable vision rather than real. He knows Kate didn't see what he saw, no matter how much he misses Rome and wishes he could be back there. He'd known that was a dream, a dream that could not be. But in that moment it's so real that he has to ask her.

"It was Rome," he says, "the temple of Diana, near to the last place I remember being before I arrived here." There's still steady certainty in his voice, the conviction of knowing what he'd seen, but it's drawn more from years of advocating his ideas and policies to a crowded forum than his belief in his own senses.

It had seemed so real, the temple just as he'd known it, and it must have a connection to that last, terrible day. Why else the Aventine instead of the forum or his home? It is a place irrevocably tied to the rights and fortunes of the plebeian class and their defenders. That was why he'd chosen to rally his supporters there.

What he'd seen, though, had been like the end of a tragedy, not a noble victory of the people.

"You didn't leave here," she says. She's not sure if it'll be an assurance or not. "Not that I saw. A, a vision? Or."

Kate hesitates.

He's uncertain and covering it well; so well, that if she'd just come across him, she'd believe him just concerned. But she hasn't, so she can see the cracks. "This place can make you see things," is how she finishes.

Almost finishes. She doesn't want to pry and press any wounds, but-

"You called out a name. Licinius. Like you were searchin' for him."

The Romans are a religious, spiritual people. The mysterious, the mystical, the unknown is everywhere, and that means here in their exile as well, as far from everything he's ever known as it seems. He'd had visions before, had written of the dream in which Tiberius appeared to him and foretold the life and death politics would lead him to. It hadn't been like this, one moment in one place and another in the longed-for streets of his city.

"A vision while waking," he says, his words slower than usual as he tests them, tasting the suggestion along with each syllable. "Maybe."

He looks back, staring at the spot where Diana's shrine had been. There is nothing, of course, but the dirt path of the village and the park in the distance.

He's been trying not to show how uneasy the vision has made him, but of the two of them, Tiberius always had the better ability to modulate his emotions. It's no surprise that Kate Kelly can see it, that her words suggest concern. He hasn't spoken much about where he'd been before he came here, or what had happened -- or been going to happen -- on that day.

"He is from my wife's family. A friend. He was with me before I arrived here, and I thought I heard him, warning me."

Mr Gracchus has not spoken much of his home, and Kate hasn't pried. Some may want to reminisce, but she doesn't and generally, she extends this to the others in the village. It is simpler, this way. It keeps people from asking her questions in return, and it also seems less cruel. So while she'd known that Mr Gracchus was married, she hasn't asked him much about his wife, or her family. Or the rest of his family. Or his friends. Anything much, really, apart from what skills he had and where he'd received them.

This, then, is something of a piece of him. Something that seems more private than it'd otherwise have been, if she'd asked him more. It adds to the vulnerability of the man.

"Maybe he was," she says, simply. "Why don't you come inside now, Mr Gracchus? If nothin' else, it'll be a bit more comfortable and secure with some walls around ya than standin' out here in the open."

He has little to hide about his life before he came here. He'd been in the public eye his entire life, the son of a censor and dual consul, brother in law of the hero who'd destroyed Carthage, grandson of the savior of Rome from Hannibal. There had been few secrets in his life, and he didn't intentionally keep them here, but he's far from Rome, or so he'd thought, far from his wife and family, and disgraced in a way that would bring shame to them, a shame that he'd already seen play out for his brother's widow and son. From a pragmatic perspective, Licinia was better without him than with him now, if their enemies were going to treat her as Claudia had been treated.

He's aware that Kate Kelly is trying for something reassuring, but Gaius finds himself unwilling, for a moment, to leave the spot where he'd seen the great city. What could the vision mean? Was it truly a warning, and if it was, was it a warning against Rome, or against here?

But there is a clear reason in Kate Kelly's suggestion that being within the Inn's walls would be an easier place than here, somewhere not in the open where he could speak to her. Once, that would have been scandalous, although less so now that he's aware that she is, essentially, married.

"It seems a wise suggestion," he agrees, and starts towards the Inn. He falters after a few steps, and glances back, but there's no sign of the Aventine, and nothing to show that the vision had taken place. It had clearly been in his mind, and only there.

He's not certain if that is a reassurance or not, knowing as he does how unusual some of the things that happen in this place are.

† mihi aqua et igni interdirectur

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