The White Horse and the Eagle

By Roger Rimkaudlis

The myth of Daedalus reimagined.

I was told the story of Daedalus and Icarus was a myth.
If we were meant to fly, the gods would have given us wings.
For I am the cursed boy with three names.
The lowest of the low.
Born on that inauspicious day, the reviled son of a slave of Rome.
Betrayed to a fate worse than death, I defied an Emperor and soared with eagles .
All to journey to the hill of the white horse, with nothing but the promise around my neck.
I believed the impossible, for truth became lie and myth became real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishing Network
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224507245

Book preview

THE

WHITE HORSE

AND THE

EAGLE

ROGER RIMKAUDLIS

Copyright © 2022 Roger Rimkaudlis

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, used, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author, except for short quotations as part of a book review.

This is a work of fiction, all characters in this publication are fictitious (other than obvious historical characters) and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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The author can be contacted at [e-mail]

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‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.’

Aristotle

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER  FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

INDEX OF PLACE NAMES

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CHAPTER ONE

I

’ve had this dream for as long as I can remember. I am high up, with the wind in my face, held in the claws of an eagle. A long way from where I was born, yet returning to the place I am from. This dream keeps coming back, it won’t stay away.

But I should start at the beginning. I am the boy with three names. I cannot choose, because I am all of them. Born in a villa north of Pompeii, on the Ides of March. A festival that both begins the year and is the anniversary of Caesar’s murder. The fact I favoured my left hand was confirmation. I was ill omened. A symbol of betrayal.

Our estate has orchards, and goats graze on the southern slopes of Vesuvius. My father, Caecilius, is a merchant. I have his dark curls, but that is all. He has a roman wife Octavia, but no children. We live in the large villa he built as a refuge from work. Covered in red tiles, surrounded by vines and olives, near the foot of the mountain.

My mother, Orlagh, was a Celt, a slave taken from Gaul. She had red hair and her skin burns in the hot sun. But in some strange way, he must have loved her and me in turn. Even though she was a barbarian and beneath him.

I slept in a room with older male slaves, tolerant of my constant questions, which they ignored. I was the youngest, tucked in the corner beneath a table. It wasn’t much, a rough mattress and a blanket. But I felt safe, squeezed in there. Just as well, because small spaces would be my salvation.

That place was my home. I was there until that fateful day, when everything changed. My twelfth birthday. But we will come to that.

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MY MOTHER WORKED IN the kitchen. She’d learned how to prepare food the Roman way, plucking geese and preserving pork. We made our own bread and goat’s cheese. Fish and other goods came up from the port of Oplontis on a cart. Of course, the food she made was mostly for my father, Octavia, and her guests. We ate coarse bread and porridge, but there was always cheese, oil and vegetables from the garden.

I was curious about my mother’s people. They were called the Atrebates, a barbarian tribe from the north. She was born somewhere a white horse was carved into a hill. It was always green, she said, and the summers were cool. She was the daughter of a chief and once wore a twisted torc around her neck. Now her only reminders were a swirling blue tattoo on her left shoulder and a little coin she kept in a thong about her neck.

I didn’t look anything like the Roman coins I’d seen. It was marked on one side with a horse and on the other, an eagle. It was the only thing she managed to keep from before she was enslaved. My father had bought her at the market in Oplontis, a household servant for his wife Octavia. If he thought her red hair would bring luck, he was mistaken.

Now I wonder if that was her real purpose. She said Octavia shunned her. Perhaps she was too young and pretty. But when Octavia was away, he took her to their bedroom. He did not force himself, but she could not say no. A few months later, she could no longer conceal she was with child. It seems my father denied it at first, then he confessed. Octavia took a whip to my mother until he stopped her.

Then I was born, on that inauspicious anniversary, when Caesar was murdered with pointed knives. I’m told the blood ran freely as I screamed and bawled. My mother nearly bled to death, but somehow she survived. Octavia demanded we were both sold, but my father refused. So, he suffered the tyranny of an unhappy wife. Perhaps a cursed son was better than none at all.

I never liked my name, Quintus. It didn’t fit me. It never felt right. My mother called me Caden, and I learned her language. We could speak of secret things that no one else could know. My father had a clever Greek called Simon. He had bought him as a slave, but freed him. He was old, but his mind was still sharp. Simon helped with accounting, reading, and translating contracts. My father liked discussing philosophy with him. He was to be a tutor for the son by Octavia, who never arrived.

When I was seven, I given the job of milking Simon’s goats. He’d stroke and soothe them as I pulled the teats. I was an annoying little fool, pestering him with questions. He’d answer them, but I’d just ask more.

‘You have a yearning to be Greek,’ he told me.

I didn’t know what that meant.

‘The mind is the most powerful thing in the universe,’ said Simon. ‘Shall I show you how to use it to discover the truth?’

I nodded, with no clue about the path I’d embarked on. Apparently, wisdom begins with the knowledge of how little you know.

So, Simon got agreement from my father to tutor me. My father told Octavia he needed an educated slave to help his business. But told my mother that when I was old enough, he would recognise me as his son. The last emperor had passed a law, a slave had to be thirty before they could be freed. So, I am not sure which one he lied to. My father was a weak man, but he was kind.

It was just as well, because my world was about to end.

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SIMON WAS OLD. I’M not sure of his age, he never told me. He had a white beard, a conical cap, and a stick he used for walking. He had his own cottage high up on the estate, away from the main buildings, on the other side of the vines. It sat next to rough pasture that ran down the mountain. But the soil was fertile. He grew lettuce along with herbs, like fennel, rosemary, and basil. He tended his precious goats and had a hive for honey.

Simon told me long ago the mountain spat smoke and fire, but had been quiet for hundreds of years. The Romans believed the circling eagles contained the spirit of the mountain, sacred to Jupiter. On clear days, you could see across to an island called Capri. At a distance it looked like separate islands, but Simon said that was an illusion, because it had two hills. It was often covered in mist in winter, but in summer the white cliffs shone. I asked Simon if he had been there. He told me no one could visit, so to put it out of my mind. It was the Emperor’s island, a forbidden place, his sanctuary from Rome.

When Simon first came, he had been a slave. But my father treated him as an equal and freed him. Not that his life changed, he lived as he had always done. Simon told me he liked his cottage because it was quiet. The goats and the mountain made him think he was in Greece. Even though he had once been a slave, he carried himself with dignity. It seemed Romans admired Greeks, but I was not sure if the feeling was mutual. I suspect Simon thought anyone who wasn’t Greek, was a barbarian.

Simon had trained as a scholar in Alexandria in Egypt. A place he told me was founded by Alexander the Great. Alexandria had a lighthouse and a magnificent library, though much of it was destroyed just before he was born. The closest I had seen Simon to crying, was when he told me about that fire. When he was a younger, he was captured by pirates. But he wasn’t wealthy enough for ransom. So, they sold him to a rich Roman on the island of Rhodes. He spent his life teaching their children about the greatness of Greece. Simon said it was a noble cause. Those who educate children are more honoured than those who produce them. He said it almost justified being a slave, as he would have chosen it, anyway. It was his Telos, or purpose in life. Once he mentioned our Emperor Tiberius had also lived on Rhodes, but would speak no more about him.

I asked him about the work he did for my father. Simon said he calculated how much his boats could carry and checked agreements in Greek and Latin. It was very important to get everything right. Too much cargo could sink a boat. Ships that might float at sea would perish in a river. One word in a contract made all the difference. A piece of papyrus could own you or set you free. If Simon remained living Alexandria, there’s no telling what he would have done. Developed his own school or made new discoveries. I can’t believe he would have spent his life reading dull contracts or tutoring the ignorant children of Romans.

I learned a lot from Simon. He believed it was foolish to resist the Empire. ‘What is the use of all this fighting and death’ he would say. ‘If only we could resolve our arguments by reason. You must accept and make the best of your fate. Being a slave, you suffer many injustices. It is a hard burden to bear, but it will make you a better man.’

There wasn’t much in his house, apart from what he needed to live. He had a bed, a table, and a large chest. This was his most treasured possession, because it was full of scrolls, a puzzle, and two stones. One was a crystal from Egypt for reading small letters, because he said his eyes were weak. You had to be careful. It was fragile and it could draw down the sun and start a fire. The other stone was golden, like honey. It contained tiny insects, and if you rubbed it on a piece of fur, it would attract a feather. Some thought it was because it had a soul, but Simon said no one could explain it. He also had a square puzzle made of wood. Fourteen pieces made of triangles and other strange shapes. Simon liked to watch me sit at the table and work out ways to put it back together. My introduction to something Greeks call geometry.

For the Romans, great men were one’s like Caesar, who had conquered countries. But to Simon, it was those who discovered the truth. Truth, he said was the most important thing. But even conquers need tutors. Alexander had one called Aristotle. Caesar had another one, Sosigenes, design his calendar.

There were so many Greeks whose greatness came from learning. It was hard to remember them all. Posidonius, Pythagoras, Euclid, and the great Archimedes. Plato and Socrates we studied as well. Pythagoras believed the world was a sphere. Aristarchus said our world circled the sun. I learned astronomy, and that constellations moved around the pole star. How the earth turned to make day and night.

Not all these philosophers agreed with each other, and some seemed a bit crazy. Simon said patience was a virtue, and he had learned this from Zeno. But there was another Zeno who bit someone’s ear off just before he died, so it couldn’t have been him. There was Diogenes, who never had a bath, so he must have smelled terrible. Thales was so busy thinking, he fell down a well. Empedocles jumped into a volcano to prove he was a god. Socrates sounded like a troublemaker who liked asking questions. But not everyone wanted to hear them, so they made him drink poison.

Simon said truth could be acquired through reason. Reason was immortal and numbers ruled the universe. I learned Plato’s four virtues; wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. He said a good man must have self-discipline, be modest and endure pain without complaint. Plato believed that perfect things existed in the world beyond ours. But Simon said the only thing that made sense for was geometry. There was a perfect circle and a perfect line. Our eyes couldn’t see them in the world outside, but they existed in our mind.

Of all knowledge, Simon said, geometry was the most important. So, after writing Greek and Latin, I learned geometry, lots of it. I studied Euclid’s principles with my ruler and compass. A point has position, but no dimension. Circles form triangles and triangles form circles. A line is a length that could go endlessly into the universe. An angle in a semicircle is always a right angle. It was a world where you could prove things, beyond the possibility of doubt.

‘No one can change them,’ said Simon. ‘Not Zeus, or Jupiter, or the Emperor of Rome. They are indisputable and forever true.’

I’d spend the whole afternoon with my stylus, carving my waxed tablet. Simon would correct my mistakes, then I would erase it all and start again. It was hard and sometimes I would want to give up.

‘Patience is bitter,’ said Simon, ‘but its fruit is sweet. You cannot learn without pain.’

I still remember the day I learned how Eratosthenes calculated the size of the earth. At the summer solstice, the angle of a shadow in two Egyptian cities, Alexandria and Syene, differed by seven degrees, or one fiftieth of a circle. It meant the circumference of the earth must be fifty times the distance between those two places. So, the world was twenty-five thousand Roman miles around. I rushed back to tell my mother.

‘I’ve discovered the world is so large, the Roman empire is just one small part.’

‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘The whole world cannot be ruled by Rome.’

‘But Empires can fall. Simon said Alexander’s only lasted thirty years.’

My mother laughed. ‘Rome’s Empire is growing larger all the time. A small boy cannot wish it away.’

Simon knew Homer’s stories and could remember many by heart. I loved hearing those tales, but he would only recite them after we finished our important work. Achilles was strong and handsome, but ruthless and cruel. I much preferred the wily Odysseus. He freed beautiful Briseis and tried to negotiate Helen’s return. The wooden horse was his idea and helped them win the war. His journey home was long and arduous, but he found contentment in the end.

Simon warned me that poets were the harbingers of doom. Apparently, too much poetry and not enough geometry was the downfall of the Greeks and could be the end of the Romans too.

‘These things,’ he explained, ‘are in balance. When poets have the greater esteem, it is a sign that civilisation will end.’

I was not sure how reciting poetry could lead to the downfall of Rome, but I was too young to argue. At the end of the day, we would have discussions. Simon would ask me questions about what I thought and why. The questions became harder until I had to admit I didn’t know anything at all. I was ignorant, but happy.

It couldn’t last forever.

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THERE WAS A SHADY PLACE at the back of the slave quarters. A place overhung by trees, where rain collected into a small pond. I used to sit there sometimes, when the weather was warm and Simon was busy helping my father. I’d take a few dried figs to eat and practice writing on my tablet. But there were lots of distractions. Like the dragonflies floating in the air, or little creatures swimming in the water. Beetles and other diving insects, Aristotle, said they were born from warm mud. I could sit and watch them for hours.

One day I spied a small frog, its eyes peering just above the surface. I put my hand under and lifted it out of the water. It wriggled on my fingers, then sat still. Its back was blotched with black spots. It had a pale underbelly and splayed toes. Simon had told me there was a Greek play about noisy frogs. But this one didn’t make any noise at all. It sat happily in my hand as I watched it breathe, staring back at me with trusting eyes.

I was about to lower it back in when I sensed someone behind me. A sweet, exotic scent. I turned my head. Octavia, my father’s wife, was standing there. She bent over.

‘Ah Quintus, is that your little friend? I have someone who would like to meet it. Come with me.’

I closed my fingers gently around the frog. I could feel it squirm a little in my palm as I followed her into the villa. We reached the atrium, a room that was open to the sky. Beneath was a pale marble pool called an impluvium. It collected the rain and the overflow from a cistern that drained the roof. I had seen older slaves clean it from time to time.

‘Put your little friend in there,’ she said.

I put my hand in the water and released it, as I was told. The frog seemed to swim around quite happily, but I sensed something wasn’t right.

‘He needs a playmate’, said Octavia. She turned around and took a basket that was sitting in the corner. Then opened the lid and emptied something into the water. It slid in, dark green with white behind its head. It was her house snake.

I took a deep breath as the frog began a frantic swim. The snake chased the doomed creature around the pool. I hoped it would leap out and escape. In the pond, there were places to hide. But not here. There was no purchase on those smooth white walls. Then the snake caught it by one leg. It stopped struggling and went still. That little frog stared at me, as if I was responsible for its betrayal. Then another gulp and it was gone.

Octavia reached in and put the dripping snake back in the basket. She had a strange smile. I did not know what it meant. Perhaps this was a lesson like Simon’s, to help me understand the natural order. Some animals are predators, others prey. The world of people is no different. You had to know your place.

But I would see that smile again.

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CHAPTER TWO

S

imon loved his goats. They learned my call and would come down every morning for their treat. Some were easy, and happy to be relieved of their milk. But others were more difficult and tried to kick my buckets.

‘You have to speak to them kindly and have soft hands,’ said Simon. ‘They are not so unlike us, you see.’

Simon taught me everything he knew about goats. Mischievous but inquisitive creatures, who could sense if you were happy or sad. They had a strange enquiring bleat. If they could speak, they would be forever asking questions. Fearless climbers on steep mountain ledges to graze. Simon told me to be careful and not to follow them.

‘They will get to places you can’t. If you tried,’ he said, ‘you’d fall. Far better to train them to come to your call.’

Though I was born into a Roman world, Simon told me his purpose was to bestow on me the mind of a Greek.

‘Wisdom,’ he said, ‘comes from asking questions. The right question is often more important than the right answer. The Romans can build and fight, but they just copy just what the Greeks have learned before. The Greeks are the greatest thinkers the world has ever known.’

Part of me wanted to be Greek. I really did. I asked Simon if he could give me a Greek name, just for when he was tutoring me. He thought about it for a little while.

‘Very well, I will call you Cadmus. It means the one who excels’.

I liked that name, much more than Quintus and perhaps even as much as Caden. So, I had the trappings of a Roman, the mind of a Greek, and the soul of a Celt. But can one person be three things at once? Caden, Cadmus, Quintus, the boy with three names. Caden and Cadmus were like playmates, happy in each other’s company. Cadmus, the thinker who liked languages and solving puzzles. Caden, the dreamer, who loved listening to Homer and dreaming the impossible. Quintus, burdened with expectation, who sat in the corner despising himself. A strange Cerberus, the three-headed dog the Greeks say guards the underworld, with two heads desperate to be free of the third.

I asked Simon about my mother’s people, the Celts. There was a book he’d read by Posidonius, who had met their priests, called druids. They were fierce and had once tried to capture a sacred place called the Oracle of Delphi. The druids never wrote anything down, it was all passed on by mouth. They burned people alive, in sacrifice to their gods. I didn’t want to believe that. But if a Greek wrote it, I thought, it must be true.

My father had warehouses in nearby Oplontis, Neapolis, and at Ostia, the port in Rome. His business was oil, which he imported from Hispania and sent garum sauce and red wine called Lympa back the other way. My father didn’t like Rome, ‘a cesspit’, I once heard him say. I promised myself I would never go there. But like most of my promises, I never kept them. All except one.

He had a sealing ring that he pressed in wax. It marked his letters and goods with the winged horse, Pegasus. There was something special about a flying horse. It could carry you over mountains and across the sea. That ring was a symbol of my freedom. The gift he could give me.

On the estate, my father barely acknowledged me. But sometimes he would take me down to the dock at Oplontis. I would ride there on a pony behind his horse. He would ask what Simon was teaching me and question me about what I’d learned. I told him Archimedes invented the