Dracus shaded his eyes at the lapping waves.
Spindrifts buffeted the beach and ebbed. A garrulous drove of seagulls hooted, jabbing their beaks under the cerulean sky threaded with clouds.
He tossed a glance over his shoulder.
Lucius Bucero was crouching against the trunk of a eucalyptus, his brows locking, his neck craning forward. Shafts of sunlight stabbed through gaps in the leaves overhead, tiger-stripping his nape. His eyes were fixed upon a papyrus scroll flattened on a rock.
"Time's up." Dracus shook his head.
The other man scowled, agitated, his forehead studded with large beads of sweat. He tried to wipe them. They rolled off his wrist, staining the papyrus. "But I'm going through the text the fastest I can!" he groaned, drying his hands on the hem of his tunic.
"You're still going through the text?" Dracus gaped in disbelief. Never had he felt so helpless helping others. He puffed his cheek, inhaling as much air as his lungs could take, his eyes closed. Should have ditched the spastic when I had the chance.
He needed to go back to Pethens and file the report in person for his missing amulet. The thought of what the little wench and her brigands would do with it made him fidget. Eager to learn if there had been a burglary involving a first-class citizen, he went to every marketplace when he had the chance to listen for such news. Nothing as such happened. All he heard had been about the great General Julius Pompeius Gaius that rolled his eyes.
But why would she go to such lengths to purloin his amulet? If she hadn't used it, she hadn't used it yet. To sell it to a higher bidder with more heinous intents, or to keep it safe for nefarious acts yet to strike, one way or another, the thoughts ruffled Dracus and kept him up at night.
Opening his eyes to stare blankly at a spiraling floss of clouds foreshortened in the cerulean sky, he conceded. He had overestimated himself when he thought of offering to tutor Bucero for the law exam as his leverage. The last two weeks brought home a lesson that learning was one thing and teaching quite another.
What if I took the denarii and bailed? He pursed his lips in thought. The figs were his, but I sold them! Haven't I earned my share?
Yet as he glimpsed the fidgeting Bucero, an ineffable pity rose from the pit of his stomach. He scratched his head and sighed. Far down the beach, an ivory swath of cliff rolled out to the east before veering south into a jagged promontory of flint fortitude.
A Uranus does not concede easily, he reminded himself. One more try, and if it fails, I bail. He plopped on the gravel across from Bucero in a last-ditch effort. "Forget everything you've read. Let's start from the top. I want to see how you read."
"What's the point of this?" Bucero caviled; his brows arched with incredulity.
"If you can't read fast, find a faster way to read."
"And starting from the top is your way of doing it?"
"I need to see how you did to know what you did wrong."
Blue veins throbbed on Bucero's temples, twining down his neck. He didn't oblige without a grunt. "Although Neptune Evandrus wrote his Second Treatise of Imperial Government as a self-professed attempt to justify revolts and discontent in the late first century Renania, his work is …"
"Stop!" Dracus slammed a hand on the papyrus.
"Gods blight!" Bucero jolted. "What now?"
"Does any of it have any importance?"
"Yeah, eh, could be, I mean …" Bucero stammered. "Second treatise? Evandrus? Revolts are justified?"
"Wrong! None of them matter! They're all part of the concession! What matters comes after the comma. Keep reading."
"… his work is now without doubt part of the Renanian canon of direct democracy."
"All that can be shortened to Evandrus' work is part of the Renaian canon of direct democracy. Next time you see although, despite, even though, notwithstanding, et cetera, skip! Skip all of them! Get the gist and move on!"
"But what if the questions ask for details?"
"If so," Dracus hissed with another sigh, "you can always go back for them. And if you get the gist, you should know where to look without wasting more time. But in most cases, such details are irrelevant to the questions. So who cares?"
"Then, why would they be included? They must have been included for a reason, eh? And how can you say they're not important? I find the message you ask me to skip much more important than the one to keep! To me, they all set some sort of premises!"
The wind rose and unfolded the floss of cloud to a sheet spreading over the sun. The sky darkened. Dracus rubbed his brow.
What's worse than stupid is stubborn, and the two usually come in tandem!
Kicking his legs, he lay supine and batted his eyes at the gaps in the foliage. Has there ever been a man who would consider himself stupid, though? He wondered. When disagreement occurs, we all jump to calling others stupid. And maybe that's what this man is calling me in his head right now! He glimpsed Bucero.
"Alright, let's say you're right." He sat up, hands about his knees. "Let's say the details that interest you so much all set some sort of premises and are important in their own right. But a test is never about you, my good man. It's about how well you can take orders, about knowing what you've been asked for and giving exactly that in exchange for a pass. Give and take, know what I'm saying?"
"But how can anything evolve if we just passively give what's been asked of us?"
"What?"
"If I skipped as you asked, I'd miss a lot." Bucero darted a glance at him, then returned his gaze to the papyrus scroll. "See, I think the text is about our country gravitating to privatization. But if I skipped the details, all I got would be a list of Evandrus' achievements. And why should we remember his achievements if it isn't for their implications, eh?"
Who knows, Dracus thought, maybe I really am the stupid one here. He shrugged, putting up both hands. "Because you don't get to decide what's important, my good man. Let's try to put it in your language. You don't think you get to be with the barmaid because you don't have this and that, which sets the premise for you to deserve her. Correct? Likewise, you need the stepping stone as the premise to reach your audience. Get your hands on the bargain chips to enter the bargain. Become a lawyer first, then, and only then, you might actually have a say in where we should gravitate."
Bucero sagged with his back against the eucalyptus, his eyes straying to the clapping waves. "So, skip all the concessions, eh?"
"Not just concessions." Dracus lay flat on the sand again, relieved to see his word being somewhat effective. "Supplementaries between commas or hyphens, and what comes before but or however, you can omit all of them. That said, do pay attention to what comes after verbs and signal words like whose intention or purpose. Give it a try. You might be surprised how you can condense a page to a few lines."
"But to identify this and that, then decide what to take in or out, this seems more time-consuming."
"That's why you need drills," replied Dracus languidly, his arms crooking under his head. "To train your eyes for signals and turn your response to reflex."
"Is that what you well-heeled kids do for your education? Learning about all the tricks?" Hardly concealing his mockery, the other man asked in reply.
"Wrong and wrong." Dracus snapped his eyes at him. "First off, this isn't some tacky rehash but my trick for you! Don't insult me. Two, I don't need tricks to read fast. I'm a fast reader."
Bucero guffawed, shaking his head.
"And stop laughing! Finish it so we can go eat. I'm starved."
"Or we can go now. I'm lightheaded and need a break."
Dracus rolled his eyes. "You've had way too many."
They crested a hill behind the port, then followed a series of rough stairs on a steep gradient all the way down to the base where stone houses stacked up against the heel of a craggy cliff. Following a sinuous alley lane, they arrived at a squalid thermopolium with a large hole in the stones as the window that looked over the fluttering sea. Along the pebble beach beneath, a turquoise belt of water darkened to a deep blue, like an expansive carpet rolling into the sky.
Propping on his palms against the stone edge, Dracus beheld the view. There was something about the world of nature, whispers in the wind that whipped out landscapes, something he couldn't pin down but humbled him nonetheless. All the great men venerated for having left their prints here and there on the lands, he respected none but the nature they thought to have overcome. And the respect also struck him with a gust of sickening doubt whether his resolve to grow salt-tolerant wheat would only add to the scrapheap of arrogance committed by yet another man. He gulped and lost his appetite.
Turning his back to the hole in the wall, he surveyed the family-run thermopolium. Four jars of different stews were embedded in a counter plastered in red. At the end of the counter against a sooty wall, a bronze boiler gurgled atop a masonry oven, pumping its lid as the broth came to boil. While the husband sailed out to fish, the wife stayed in and cooked. She was a sturdy woman with a missing front tooth and the most accepting chortle. Manning over twenty amphorae she kept behind the counter, she poured beer at a marvelous speed and beamed at her gobbling patrons. They called her Domina, and her absorbing chortle bounced off the dilapidated stone walls whenever she was called.
Bucero looked from behind the shoulders of men stacked before him and tried to glimpse the food in the store.
"Lucius!" illa domina greeted him.
"Just the usual, illa domina," said Bucero, groping for the pouch girded on his belt. " I'll pay forthwith."
"You're a good man, Lucius, and I trust you! Eat first, eh? Sit!"
Bucero blushed, scratching his egg-shaped head. He helped himself with cheese and bread and ladled fish stew into a deep plate to share. Plunking down on a wonky bench, he dunked the bread in the stew.
"You aren't gonna eat?" He glanced up at Dracus across the table. "Thought you said you were hungry."
"I got full watching you."
"Suit yourself." He shrugged, scarfing down the bread.
Dracus rolled his eyes. Folding his arms on the grease-stained teak table, he looked over his shoulder. A boy about ten or younger was squatting in a mucky corner next to a puddle of a spill. In rags and barefoot, he swung his head, gaping at the men gorging themselves. His knees were braced against his chest, his hands clamped to his ankles. His amber eyes glittered with longing.
"Psst!" Dracus broke the bread and waggled a half at him.
The boy rose to his feet in suspicion and edged toward their table.
"You hungry, boy?"
The boy took the bread, his eyes on the cheese.
Dracus chuckled. "Here," he said. "Take the cheese, too. Do you have younger brothers or sisters at home?"
The boy nodded.
"Then, I'd advise you to finish it before you go home."
"But Mother sent me to look for food," the boy protested meekly.
Dracus put a leg up on the bench. The thought of hatchlings flitted across his mind. When they tussle next to each other for their mother's beak, isn't it natural for their little hearts to yearn for the erasement of their brothers and sisters? "You know what's the difference between a man and a boy?" he asked, unsure whether he meant it for the boy or himself.
The boy glanced up incredulously and dropped his head. "Height?" he ventured a guess.
"A boy tells right from wrong while a man gets things done. And to get things done, a man bears his secrets. You have a secret now, little man. Take it to your stomach and keep it well." Dracus winked, patting him on the shoulder.
The boy drew in his chin, his sparkling brown eyes glancing up at Dracus. Smiling as though in agreement, he snatched the rest of their cheese and took to his heels.
Across the table, Bucero washed down more bread with the stew. "Never thought you have a place in your heart for paupers." He paused to swallow, his eyes blank on the table. "Disappointed?"
"Why would I be disappointed?" Dracus laughed. "The kid learns fast."
"I don't know," Bucero mumbled with his mouth full. "That your kindness isn't appreciated?"
Skewing around on his hip to face the other man, Dracus put down the leg. "Sounds like you've been disappointed before."
The other man didn't reply.
"It won't be kindness but a deal if you expect it to be appreciated," said Dracus halfheartedly. Looking over his shoulder at the puddle, he could almost see in it the boy's reflection, and the reflection turned into himself, murmuring his own secret. He let out a gasp.
Before Uranus, he was a baseborn son of Consul Glaber. His birth father chased them out of the palace not long after his fourth nativity. He didn't remember much around the time except the pony made of polished oak he got as a present. Not wanting to leave the oak pony behind, he sniveled and cried till Mother finally lost her patience and smacked him across the head.
"Stop crying!" Mother browbeat. "From this day on, the moment we step out this door, you can't say a word about it here! You don't have a father until I give you one, do you hear me?"
He nodded, daring not to whimper.
"Then answer me!" She shook his shoulders with force, the glint of her sapphire eyes demanding.
"Yes, Mother."
As years stretched on, and with every other inch he grew, his secret wove a bigger shadow for him to bear alone.
A thud on the table compelled his attention to the present.
Wiping his mouth with the back of a wrist, Bucero had emptied the plate. As he fumbled along his waist for the pouch, he froze, his face a deathlike pallor.
Dracus cocked an eye in apprehension. "Please tell me that between A. You've lost the pouch and B. You've just shit yourself, it's the latter."
"C. Neither."
"Good!" Dracus hissed with a nervous cackle.
"But I've just counted the coins, and we don't have enough," Bucero lowered his voice, his lips barely moving.
"Say what?" Dracus glared, grinning so hard he might have cried. "Where're the coins?"
"I've spent it all on registering for the bar, our fares to Pethens, and grain! Just like you asked!"
"I asked you to buy as much as you can! Not spend your last denarius!" he sputtered, his hand covering his mouth.
"What's the difference between that and buying as much as I can?"
Dracus clenched his fists and fought not to throw one in the other man's face. "Run," he muttered at length. "Beat it. Let's run!"
"I can't do that!"
Dracus shot daggers at the man across the table.
"Ask your sister to sell some grain and pay her back later. What's the big deal?"
"We don't have the permit to sell grain!"
"Got more figs?"
"We're out!"
Wringing his hands under his chin, Dracus drew a deep breath. "Become a lawyer first, remember? Then you can pay her back!"
"You don't get it! Illa domina is like an aunt to me!" Bucero snapped; his sepia eyes widened like gaping tourmalines, veins throbbing down his neck. "All these years she's been looking out for me and my family! When we couldn't afford to eat, she let me go fishing with her husband in exchange for free meals until we were back on our feet. It's a relationship built on trust, and I will not break it over a meal!"
Dracus banged his head on the table. "Listen carefully to what I have to say, my good man. You need to keep your priorities straight! You don't wish to be who you've always been, right? You want to be the man who has all the premises to be with Aida! This is your last chance to become that man! Don't throw it away over a meal!" He looked Bucero in the eye and saw his gaze cave in at the sound of that name. Convulsing as if in the throes of rebirth, Bucero gnashed his teeth and sprung to his feet. Like the pauper boy, he, too, ran for the hills.
Dracus followed, pelting for the door.
"Wait up, man!" he yelled as they were back to the port.
Bucero halted and swiveled. Scuttling at Dracus, he shoved him. "Shut up! Shut the fuck up, will you?" he growled, his eyes flaring. "Nothing has been right since I met you!"
Having lost a footing, Dracus paled; his arms groped for balance while he fell on his behind. "Oh really?" he retorted, laughing. "How's being right worked out for you?"
"I don't need you to tell me how to live!" Bucero bent forward, jabbing a forefinger at his chest. "Keep my priorities straight and get what I want, eh? Tell you what, by the time I get what I want, I won't be able to look my reflection in the eye! You're corrupting me! And I can't believe I let some sixteen-year-old corrupt me!"
"That's an awful charge. But what's wrong with corruption?" Puffing his cheeks, Dracus pushed himself up from the cold wet slabs. He dusted off his hands. Sauntering to Bucero, he continued, "There won't be life if everything is pure and clean. Plants grow in mud, not drinking water, and the difference between a tomb and a house is that a house has cracks in walls so air and light can get in."
"So all of us resolve to do better than those before us and end up just the same if not worse because this is just how life is?" Bucero shouted back, his head shaking. "Then what's the meaning of any of it?"
Dracus looked over the port. Again at the sight of the lapping waves, he revised his previous thoughts. "Maybe none of it is meant to have meanings, and maybe, the beauty of being alive resides in our arrogance to defy our being meaningless. Knowing all those who came before us have failed, and all that we have will come to dust, we can still believe that somehow, we'd make a difference. That arrogance to believe despite facts is perhaps the will of life, and who knows, perhaps the will of life has always been, em, suicidal." He paused for a smile, neither happy nor sad and yet both in the same breath. "Oh shit," he sighed.
"What now?"
"Now I'm really hungry."