Dark Blue Almost Black: Laudate Deum

By John Olsen

Marcus is a child slave turned soldier in the army of Emperor Constantine, A.D. 312. His heroism in battle earns him an important assignment to Carthage, capitol of Africa, where he is unwittingly embroiled in the tensions growing amongst the Christians of Africa and Numidia following Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan. There he is cast into the Horrors of captivity and torture at the hands of a suicide cult of crazed Berbers and deserters from Rome's many Legions.

Olivia, the young daughter of the wealthy Patrician who once owned Marcus, must flee Italia because of her father's misplaced loyalty to the recently defeated Tyrant of Rome, Emperor Maxentius. In the hills of Etruria she discovers the ancient virtues of Rome's esteemed women of old. In Carthage she is granted a place in the household of Carthage's most wealthy person, the influential and highly controversial widow Lucilla (a real historical character whose role in the events of this book is critical).

While neither knows the other has survived Rome's recent civil war, the bond between Marcus and Olivia matures beyond that of simple childhood playmates. With the help of a mysterious Tuareg 'Blue Man of the Desert' and a Phoenician mariner, the greatest love story of antiquity culminates in an epic struggle in Numidia's formidable mountain top city of Cirta.

Dark Blue Almost Black is a novel of historical fiction, sequel to John Olsen's first novel, Ishmael's Burden. Exhaustively researched and cross-referenced historical events are woven together to form an accurate historical context in which this great love story unfolds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Olsen
• Release date: May 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463817735

Book preview

Part I

Prologue

Milvian Bridge, Rome

October 28, 312 A.D.

A name was given to me later in life, the only name I can now recall. My mother’s love, the warmth of her bosom, these are the only memories I retain from my youth.

Audacity cost me my freedom as a boy of seven years. The tenacity of my childhood companion would eventually deliver me from slavery. We were but two young boys, barbarians, from the distant and rugged Roman province of Thrace. The village from which the Legion took us was quite simply on the wrong side of the great river Danube.

We were brothers in bondage, enslaved on the villa of a rich Patrician family at the foot of the Alps in Northern Italia. We were comrades in arms, having fought in battle for the temperate young Emperor Constantine to whom I owe my life. I am now a Freedman.

This journey would never have been possible without the unfailing devotion of my childhood companion. The defining moment of our youth in the wooded hills of Thrace still burns strong in his memory. To me it is but a tale often retold, a tale I cherish for the bond it provided us.

It was said a wolf had been stalking our village. Mothers feared for their young. Men assembled arrow and bow, spear and sword. Despite the efforts of many the beast was never discovered.

By the full moon of the Ides of Maiis and the folly of my adventurous spirit, my companion and I had secreted away from our beds one night to pursue the creature and prove our worth.

She soon found us stumbling foolishly through a moonlit glade a short distance from our village. It was a she-wolf, teats laden with unconsumed milk and no cubs to provide relief. Thrice she circled us, two weak kneed young boys standing back to back. A deep rumbling growl echoed from her chest. As if guided by some primordial instinct, the she-wolf examined us thoughtfully and departed, never to be seen again.

At this moment however, seven years hence, I am but cold and wet. The river Tiber laps gently at my feet, her waters red with blood and choked from shore to shore with the carcasses of dead Roman soldiers. The vast flood plain at my back, too, is littered with those who fell to liberate Rome, and those who fell serving its tyrant.

My limbs are weary, having toiled for so many hours submerged in the cold waters of the Tiber, fulfilling my charge to introduce the tyrant Emperor of Rome to his death in the muddy depths of the great river. I cannot bear to move from this perch on the river bank where I washed ashore.

My toes sway gently back and forth in the crimson water. I can look no longer upon the churning current of blood and, so, lift my eyes upward to the crumbling remains of Ponte Milvio. The ravaged bridge looms above me, and from its ledge my eyes are confronted by those of an owl, unyielding, knowing.

My heart burns with a sense of conviction that I fail to comprehend. I am conflicted.

My heart also burns with despair at the thought of my childhood companion -Quintus Aurelius- who perished alongside me. He, unlike me, gave his life for that of our enemy’s, that others could now live. I weep for our lost memories, memories -it would seem- I now share with no other living soul.

I cannot reconcile the sorrow of my loss with the pride in my achievement on the battlefield this day. I am conflicted and quite suddenly alone in this world.

I am called Marcus Julius.

Chapter 1

Segusium, Italia

April 312 A.D.

A young lady emerged from the smoke. It rose from the smoldering remains of her family’s home, until moments ago the prominent villa of Segusium, a tranquil town at the foot of the snowcapped Alps. Borne by an easterly breeze descending the mountains, the acrid gray cloud swirled among scattered trees in its feeble pursuit of the columns of soldiers departing the scene of devastation they had just created.

Her long red curls floated restlessly in the smoke as tears filled her blue eyes, desperately searching for someone. She was but an adolescent in the sixteenth year of her young life, a sublimely innocent soul, a willowy child whose heart knew nothing but love and affection.

Daughter, please…answer me, where are you, a woman pleaded, still shrouded behind the curtain of smoke. It was the voice of her mother.

Pausing only momentarily to look over her shoulder, toward the sound of her mother, the young lady continued onward, stepping over the toppled remains of a fenced enclosure, sinking ankle deep into the putrid mud of the pig pen within. Beyond a crude shed, two young boys -near in age to her own- wrestled with the last remaining uncooperative sow, coaxing her up a ramp and into the hold of a sturdy wooden wagon. A brutish man stood beside the loading ramp -a Plebe in the service of her family- frantically beating that last pig with a long stick to hasten her loading.

He cared not that the two young boys shared the pig’s beating in equal measure. They were slaves. His wellbeing depended on salvaging some of his master’s wealth. The Patrician family that dwelt within the once magnificent villa was fleeing in the wake of Emperor Constantine’s army. They sought distance from any witness to their association with the evil Emperor Maxentius in Rome. Their city, Segusium, had just been ravaged for its misplaced loyalty.

The two young slave boys who tended the herd of swine were of little importance at the moment. The Patrician family’s hasty departure mattered above all else. As the wagon’s tailgate was secured, the brutish man swiftly cast the two young slave boys aside and departed.

The young lady screamed for her two friends, but no sound could be heard above the desperate wailing of the pigs. Her pleas went unheard. She fell to her knees in the festering mud, loudly weeping in silence, oblivious to her soiled robes or the nauseating stench.

Marcus…Quintus, please no, you cannot leave me! she screamed into the chaotic noise.

Another brutish Plebe in the employ of her family appeared as the first departed. The new man, immense in stature, hoisted the two young slave boys by the scruff of their necks and hauled them somewhere deep into the swirling cloud of smoke, exhibiting no more care than if he were discarding ordinary refuse. The man reemerged from the mist to complete his second task.

Abruptly, stepping over the crumpled fence and into the pig pen within, he dropped his brutal demeanor and approached the young lady with caution, adopting a miserably disingenuous tone of concern and compassion for his master’s young daughter.

I will take you to your mother now, he said in a deep and gravelly voice.

He reached down into the mud with strong outstretched fingers, skin calloused like the bark of an old oak, joints gnarled like its branches. He lifted the quivering young lady into his arms. She was but a pillow of feathers to him, a strong man hardened by a life of manual labor, a Freedman he was, but still a Plebe.

He looked down upon the quivering young lady with contempt…for but a fleeting moment. Laying eyes upon her he was overcome by the paradox of this privileged young lady casting herself into the mud and excrement, lamenting the loss of two irrelevant slaves. Tears parted the mud on her cheeks, tears for a slave. Never had he witnessed such a display of compassion from any Patrician, certainly not from this haughty family which he loathed. This child was unlike any he had ever known, and he completed his second chore by setting her down gently in soft grass at her mother’s feet, clear of the pig’s stench. The look on the man’s face betrayed remorse. He appeared to regret the heartless efficiency by which he had executed his previous chore.

Daughter, we must leave at once. Come my dear, let us clean you up and find fresh robes.

The woman knelt beside her daughter, unwilling to touch her or endure the stench, revolted by the young lady’s brazen insubordination. Countless times over the years she had been scolded, disciplined even, for debasing herself in befriending those two slave boys. Yet she persisted in her defiance, always in this matter she defied her father’s orders, and her mother’s pleas.

They are gone now, the woman scolded. We cannot bring them back.

The young lady rolled her head down and away from her mother’s glare. Her heart was torn from her chest. She had grown up with those two young boys. They had been her pretend pupils in her pretend school. They had been the only source of genuine friendship she had ever known. She had taught them to speak Latin and Greek, to read, to express themselves. She had playfully bestowed upon them proper Roman names: Marcus Julius and Quintus Aurelius. They, in turn, had given her an identity all her own, a name unique to her, Olivia. She could not bear the thought of losing the only two souls so akin to her own.

Olivia was placed in the back of a wagon, alone. Blankets and cushions provided comfort from the rough cobble stones of Via Aemilia. The caravan carrying her family and its wealth departed for Rome, the eventual destination for all such roads. Within the mighty Aurelian Walls they would find recognition and protection from Emperor Maxentius, to whom they had just demonstrated such absolute loyalty. Constantine, the foolish pretender from Gaul would surely meet his demise at the hand of the Emperor in Rome. The family proceeded anxiously to seek refuge within the Eternal City.

But Olivia could not endure such a life. In the dead of night, as the caravan plodded southbound along the bumpy Roman road, she discretely slipped off the back of the wagon.

The willowy young lady with soft red curls and blue eyes would seek a new path, alone.

Chapter 2

Italia

April, 312 A.D.

Oliva hastily sought distance from Via Aemilia in the dead of night. She wore light household sandals that offered little in the way of protection for her soft young feet. Upon her shoulders a sleeveless stola -girded to her waist by colorful ribbons- reached down to her feet. Three days before the Nones of Aprilis and the harsh winter cold may have come to an end; but except for those hearty peasants who lived among the hills, deep in the forest, the chill of night remained perilous.

While her family’s caravan still plodded a steady course towards Rome, the forested hills of Etruria begrudgingly suffered the young Olivia to enter their realm. Not unwelcome, but a stranger nonetheless, the dreamy young lady brazenly forged a path deep into the dark rolling forest, a world as foreign to her as the moon, which on this dark night would neither reveal its face nor share its dim light.

Uncertain as to the character of the young lady blindly fumbling among its trees, the forest maliciously reached out to her with thorny vines and protruding branches, spitefully tearing at her ill-suited garment and drawing blood from her long slender legs. Stones and roots competed to unbalance the novice trespasser, the young lady who so clearly did not belong in their world. The hills cunningly beckoned her down their slope, enticing her beyond the point of no return. But Olivia stubbornly persevered, blissfully ignorant of the treacherous night that enveloped her, wantonly embracing the wilderness from whose clutch she could no longer escape.

Olivia did not dwell on the discomforts offered by her ungracious host, the hills and forest. Neither did she allow her mind to linger on the forbidding chill of night, nor the unyielding pangs of hunger. While blindly surrendering to the hills that led her inexorably down towards the distant sea, she willed her thoughts upon the two young boys who defined her youth, and her eyes again filled with tears.

Marcus was the taller of the two, broad of shoulder and poised to burst from his young lean bones. He was audacious to a fault, with long brown hair forever blowing in the wind. Over the years, his imagination had conjured many adventures for them to embark upon, for which -without fail- they would be beaten with sticks for neglecting their work, for which she was invariably scolded by her father for befriending slaves.

Quintus was shorter, stronger, thicker. He was quiet and vigilant. Many were the beatings he purposely brought upon himself so as to spare his friends.

Their spirits were untarnished by the debauchery of Roman life. And they were now both surely dead, no longer of any value to the world, discarded by her father before fleeing in the wake of Constantine’s army. She could not seek refuge in the midst of Rome’s decadence. She would seek refuge alone among the hills and trees. A way would be shown to her.

With the approach of dawn the hills and forest finally relented. They granted Olivia reprieve from the grueling test imposed upon her. They laid her down in deep soft grass, cradled beneath the thick overhanging boughs of a thick conifer tree, at the edge of a clear stream trickling over smooth little pebbles. She would -after all- be accepted into this world. The hills and trees saw the pure goodness in Olivia’s heart and adopted her as their own.

Chapter 3

Etruria, Italia

April, 312 A.D.

The rising springtime sun brought warmth to the wayward child lying in the bosom of the forest. She was afraid and desperately hungry, but more than anything she was exhausted. Ignoring her scraped and bloodied legs, Olivia clutched her knees tightly to her chest and closed her eyes, blanketed in a protective quilt of shade from the great tree standing vigil above her. And the stream, dancing melodiously among its smooth little pebbles, brought the young lady confidently into a dream filled slumber.

A much younger Olivia sat cross legged in a secluded clearing. Marcus and Quintus had lured her into yet another adventure of their youthful imagination. Quintus wandered the forest, standing watch for the incursion of Julius Caesar’s imposing 13th Legion.

"They will not cross the Rubicon on this day," Quintus defiantly proclaimed through the trees. He swung a stick in a mighty arc through the leaves, stumbling as he unexpectedly struck the broad trunk of an oak that had silently crept up behind him. Olivia giggled and shook her head, long red curls bouncing on her shoulders.

"And what in the name of Apollo are you creating?" she asked of Marcus. He raised his head above the fallen tree behind which he was absorbed in some mysterious task.

"Huh," Marcus replied wide eyed and oblivious, interrupted in the all-consuming task of gathering large stones and aligning them carefully upon the log before him.

"I said ‘what are you doing’ Marcus."

"Yeah? Oh…yeah! Elephants, these are my war elephants. I’m the great general of Carthage, Spartacus. We’re crossing the Alps right now, gonna sack Rome before dawn."

He bared his teeth at Olivia with fierce determination.

"Oh no you will not, Quintus yelled back from the trees. You won’t cross the Rubicon this time…you evil tyrant!"

Olivia turned her head back and forth to look upon her two friends. Her tightly clenched lips quivered, trending slightly upward, eyes swollen to the size of her heart. A hopelessly suppressed giggle rolled up from the depths of her stomach, and she fell on her side into a patch of dainty dandelions seedlings. She gasped for breath, clutching at her aching sides, overcome by uncontrolled laughter. With no slight effort she eventually righted herself onto her knees and sat back on her heels, the bouncy red curls transformed into a large wispy ball of fuzzy cotton.

"I must teach you those history lessons again," she managed to utter between barely controlled fits of the giggles.

"Hmmph," Quintus replied, then diligently returned to his important duties. Marcus, however, was already in the grasp of their villa’s chief slave, having stepped out of the trees to fetch them. He looked none too pleased to once again be chasing these two young slave boys in the forest.

Olivia stirred in her sleep, touched by a moment of sadness.

Her cheeks were flushed from the biting cold, but she would catch the two young boys fleeing before her. The two legionnaires looked back and taunted her.

"Cleopatra is from Egypt you silly girl, Marcus yelled back at her over his shoulder while taking tall bounding, knee-high strides through the deep snow. Sand is all you have ever known…go find yourself a camel! We shall raid the riches in your pyramids before you can stop us, Oh Queen of Egypt."

"Mark my words you filthy renegade, I’ll get you," Olivia yelled back at him, out of breath. Then, deciding the chase would yield nothing, she knelt down and scooped a handful of snow in her hands. She hastily launched her cold white projectile, hitting Marcus squarely between the shoulder blades.

The tall boy wheeled around to face his attacker and fell straight back in the snow, clutching his chest.

"Arghhh, I’ve been pierced through the heart! he screamed melodramatically. Run Centurion Quintus, run and save yourself…Arghhhh!" And he rolled away to avoid the onslaught of his assailant.

"I got you," Olivia screamed, sliding up beside him on two knees before tumbling over him, scooping an armful of snow onto the outstretched Marcus, burying him completely above the shoulders. She screamed, she laughed. The next victorious and impromptu exclamation from the Queen of Egypt was muffled by Marcus’s arm reaching up from his snowy grave. He delivered a handful of snow squarely onto Olivia’s shiny red nose.

"You rotten scoundrel!" she squealed gleefully, swiping the snow from her face.

She stirred from her sleep, curled up in a bed of tall grass beneath the thick overhanding bough of the robust conifer in the forested hills of Etruria. Lingering between a dream and something else, Olivia was vaguely conscious of swatting something wet and cold away from her nose. She imagined a handful of snow and the happy huffing and puffing of her friend, her snow bound captive. But the snowball would not go away with the swipe of her hand, neither would her friend’s exuberant huffing and puffing.

Something real, and wet and cold, was indeed persistently in her face, accompanied by heavy moist panting. Still hovering somewhere just above a dream, she felt a sense of impatience and frustration. She wanted nothing more than to drift back into her happy memory. But the strangely pleasant panting was unrelenting.

She squinted her eyes, rubbed them, then opened them to the bewildering sight of a big shaggy sheep dog. The creature bounced frantically around her tree, exuberantly kneeling upon his front legs to burrow his big furry head beneath the branches and poke his cold wet nose into the nape of her neck, or swipe a broad wet tongue across her face. Occasionally the bouncy creature would step back and bark over his shoulder, frantically trying to get his master’s attention.

What have you got Dog? What are you so excited about?

The kind voice belonged to a sturdy pair of old bowed legs that approached Olivia’s concealed bed. She now, finally awake, though startled, abruptly sat up to greet an overhanging tree branch squarely with her forehead.

Hmmph, she blurted, grimacing.

A gnarly old knee bent to the ground, and a white bearded face appeared beneath Olivia’s overhanging canopy. She giggled at the sight of him, in spite of her throbbing forehead. With a full head of untamed curly gray hair, he took on the appearance of the bouncy dog so proudly running circles around him.

Look what I found, the dog seemed to tell his master. He was rewarded by a swift pat on the side of his head.

Good evening young lady, he calmly said, as if it were an everyday occurrence to find young maidens stranded so deep in the forest. Who are you? What are you doing here?

I’m really hungry, was all Olivia could think to say, rubbing the growing knot above her left eyebrow.

Well of course you are, the old man replied. Take my hand, let’s get you out of there and feed you.

She took hold of the hand offered her. It was strong; he swung her onto her feet with ease. She found herself looking down into a pair of cheery green eyes perched atop plump rosy cheeks, lost inside a bird’s nest of a white beard and shoulder length gray hair. Somewhere beneath the tangled mess a smile was bursting its way to the surface.

"Who