Maximinus II Quarter Nummus: Imperial History and Stories

The goat could see them, which made leaving harder. It stood on a shelf of pale rock below the track and cried whenever Bion moved away.

“We can reach it from here,” he said.

Sabas looked down. Bion was his older brother, but he had been saying the same thing since noon. The shadow below the shelf was deepening. Beyond it the hillside fell toward the road to Tarsus, where the last cart they had seen was already gone.

Sabas had gone back to borrow a rope. The neighbor had wanted money left against its return, and Sabas had put down the two small bronze coins he carried. One was thin enough that the head scarcely rose above its surface. He had been saving them for a knife. Now he wanted only to return with an undamaged rope, an undamaged brother and the goat.

Bion tugged the line through his hands. “You are lighter.”

“You climbed down this morning.”

“The stone moved.”

“Then why send me?”

“Because we have a rope now.”

Sabas went to the edge. The goat had slipped onto the shelf while reaching for a tuft beyond the track. At least that was what Bion said. Sabas had not been there. He could not see the route by which a goat could have done it, but the animal was below them all the same.

“Perhaps it will come up,” he said.

“It has been there all day.”

They had tried calling, shaking leaves and laying branches down the broken slope. The goat had approached the branches, set one foot on them and stepped back. Bion had called it stupid. Sabas thought it had examined the arrangement more carefully than either of them.

“We could go below,” he said.

“Look.”

Bion pointed. The face beneath the shelf was nearly bare. Going down the hillside would put them below the animal without giving them a way to reach it.

Their father would ask why they had left it there. He would not be satisfied by hearing that it had refused their branches. It was a good goat, young and strong, and nobody had asked the family whether they could afford to lose it.

Sabas handed his staff to Bion and moved over the edge.

He could feel the rock through his sandals. The first places for his feet were broad; after that he had to turn his knee outward and search. The rope tightened. Bion was watching from above, his mouth moving. Sabas could not hear him over the goat.

Then he found a narrow place for his right foot and lowered himself. He was close enough to see the white hair inside the animal’s ears. It stopped calling. Its eyes followed his hands.

A little farther, he thought. Bion had been right about his being lighter. Perhaps the stone would hold him where it had not held his brother.

His right foot shifted. He pressed harder to stop it, and a strip of rock came away beneath the sandal. It struck the shelf, broke, and vanished below. The goat leaped sideways. Sabas’s knee scraped against the face; the rope caught his weight before he found another hold.

He stayed still. He could hear Bion now.

“Can you reach it?”

Sabas looked at the goat. It had moved to the far end of the shelf. He had made the remaining distance greater.

“No.”

“Move left.”

“No.”

He had meant to answer the first question again. The second refusal came out louder.

“Get me up.”

For a moment nothing happened. He imagined Bion looking for a way to explain this to their father without explaining the stone. Then the rope moved, and Sabas began climbing back. He did not look down until he was on the track.

His knee was bleeding. Bion inspected the broken edge.

“There is another place beside it.”

“Go yourself.”

“I told you why I can't.”

“Then neither can I.”

Bion sat down. Sabas sat away from him and lifted the cloth off his knee. Dust had stuck to the wet scrape. He poured a little water over it. They would have less to drink on the walk home, but he did not ask permission.

After a while Bion said, “He'll say we didn't try.”

Sabas pointed at his knee. “He can see that.”

“He'll say I didn't.”

Sabas had wanted to hear his brother apologize. Instead he heard what Bion had been carrying since morning. It did not make Sabas want to climb again.

“You can tell him about the stone,” he said.

“You saw it.”

“Yes.”

“Will you say so?”

“Yes.”

They coiled the rope. Sabas ran his fingers over the part that had dragged against the rock; the fibers were scuffed. He did not know whether the neighbor would keep one coin, both coins, or tell him to bring a new rope. Bion watched him examining it.

“I'll come with you when you return it.”

Sabas nodded. It was something his brother could still do.

They left branches within the goat’s reach, without trying to make another path. The animal ate while they worked, its lips moving rapidly over a leaf. Bion stroked the air above it, too far away to touch.

On the track home they could hear it calling. Bion stopped once, then walked on. Sabas carried the rope and let his brother carry both staffs.

Their father was waiting beside the enclosure. He counted the animals, saw the rope, and asked where the missing one was.

Bion began to answer. Sabas stood beside him, holding the scraped line in his hands. When his brother reached the part about the stone, Sabas looked up and said, “I saw it go.”

Nestor was leaving Caesarea with the four bones in his pouch. Maron had not understood this until he saw the pouch tied to the bundle on the cart.

“Those are ours,” he said.

“They were in my house.”

“Because we played there yesterday.”

Nestor pulled the knot loose. Behind him, his father was arguing with the driver about the position of a jar. Maron wished they would discover something broken. A broken jar might keep the cart here until tomorrow.

The bones were small and yellow, polished where fingers and stones had rubbed them. One had a black mark Maron had made with soot. They had been throwing them since neither boy could remember whose idea the game had been. Nestor claimed to remember. He claimed most beginnings.

“You can get others,” he said.

“So can you.”

“These will fit anywhere.”

Maron looked at the bundle. Two tunics, sandals, a length of cord: Nestor’s mother had packed it tightly. She had found room for the bones because he had asked. He would take them along the coast to Tyre and play with someone who did not know that the marked one was meant to be unlucky.

“Leave them,” Maron said.

Nestor glanced toward his father. “He’ll call me soon.”

“Then we have time.”

They went to the flat stone beside the wall. In the afternoon the wall cast a shadow there, but this morning both boys crouched in the sun. Maron wiped grit off the stone with his sleeve.

“One game for them,” he said.

“What do you put down?”

Maron had a bronze coin. He had brought it to buy something they could eat together. He held it against his leg a moment, then put it on the stone. A head looked back at him, small beneath the letters.

“That's yours?” Nestor asked.

“Yes.”

“Your mother gave it to you.”

“To spend.”

“Not on this.”

“She didn't tell me what to buy.”

Nestor was quiet. Maron wanted the question to end before he had to explain the food, or the fact that he had expected an afternoon. He pushed the coin closer to the pouch.

“Our old rule,” he said. “Four different faces wins. Otherwise we throw again.”

“That could take all morning.”

“Are you afraid?”

Nestor emptied the bones into his hand.

They used to throw carelessly, laughing when one bounced off the stone and had to be found. Now Nestor dropped them close to the surface. Maron studied the shapes before taking his turn, as if he could remember a way they liked to fall. Twice they had three different faces; twice Maron wished he could turn the fourth with a finger.

The driver called for Nestor. His father told the man to wait: he was still repacking the jar. Maron had never loved that jar before.

“Last throw each,” Nestor said.

“We didn't agree that.”

“I have to go.”

“You could lose and go.”

Nestor looked up. “You could stop saying that.”

Maron threw. Two bones rested alike. He drew his hands back before he touched anything.

Nestor threw, and the marked bone turned twice before settling. Four different faces lay on the stone.

Neither boy moved. The driver had begun speaking loudly enough for the street to hear. Nestor’s father answered him in the same voice.

Maron picked up the bones and put them in the pouch. He added the coin. There was nothing left on the stone except the clean place where he had brushed it.

Nestor held the pouch without tying it.

“You can keep the coin,” he said.

“I lost.”

“It was for food.”

Maron looked at him. “How do you know?”

“You always bring something when you have money.”

“So buy something.”

“Now?”

“Before you go.”

Nestor turned toward the cart. His father had climbed onto it and was pulling the jar into place between his feet. There would be no broken jar. There would not even be another argument about it.

The father called his son. Nestor ran to him. Maron stayed beside the wall, ready to be left without a proper goodbye because they had spent the whole time fighting over bones.

Nestor spoke quickly and pointed down the street. His father shook his head. Nestor pointed again. The driver watched with an expression that promised nothing good.

Then Nestor came back, carrying the pouch.

“He says quickly.”

They ran to the fruit seller. She listened to their order, took the coin and selected the figs herself. Nestor wanted to choose; she told him he could wait for her to finish with another customer if he wished. He accepted the ones in her hand.

They ate as they ran back. Maron bit too quickly and hurt a tooth. Nestor laughed at him, then stumbled where a stone projected into the street. Neither had time to enjoy the other's mistake properly.

At the cart Nestor’s mother made him wipe his hands. She had said goodbye to Maron already and said it again now, holding his shoulder. Nestor climbed beside the bundle.

“Send word,” Maron said.

“When someone comes this way.”

“Then find someone.”

“I'll ask.”

The cart moved. Maron walked beside it until the driver told him to leave room. He could have gone farther, but there was nothing more to say in front of Nestor’s parents, and he could not think of a way to say it privately.

He stopped. Nestor lifted a hand. The pouch hung from his wrist; Maron could see the dark mark through the loosened opening.

When the cart turned, Maron went back to the stone. Another boy was sitting on it, fastening a sandal. Maron waited for him to finish, then sat in the place Nestor had left, where the sun had made the stone warm.