Marcus’s mind was swirling with thoughts. He felt nauseous,
sickened, and shaken. He had just witnessed and taken part in a terrible crime.
He knew it, the gods knew it and Publius Severus knew it.
As he sat slumped against a wall on the cobblestone in the
small alleyway by the Velia, Marcus felt his isolation. There was no one passing
by to pay him any heed. Likely, they were all locked up in their houses out of
fear. But Marcus knew that his mind was heavier than the minds of any of those
people. He cradled his head in his hands as he bemoaned his foolishness for indebting
himself to an unsavory character such as Publius Severus. But how could he have
possibly known that it would come to this? Only a few hours ago, Marcus Junius Brutus and
Gaius Cassius Longinus had stabbed Julius Caesar, imperator, to death. And
Marcus had been part of the brutality.
As Marcus sat miserably, he heard the heavy pound of several
men’s footsteps on the Via Sacra. As
they got closer, he could hear a voice – it was that vile Brutus, shouting
something. Marcus jumped up, seized with a sudden desire to see the face of a
traitor. But as he started towards the Via
Sacra, Marcus stopped. He knew that running out there would be just as
foolish as owing a debt to Publius Severus. Instead, Marcus crept closer to
where the alleyway met the Sacra Via
so that he could hear what Brutus was saying.
“People of Rome, we are once again free!” Brutus’s proclamation
was met with silence and Marcus scoffed. Everyone
knows, you fool. You will not be loved. You are feared. No one wants to see the
face of a murderer.
As Brutus’s group continued to march down the road, Marcus became
so indignantly angry that he nearly ran out to seize the traitor by the throat.
Free? FREE? We are doomed, the gods shall
forsake us for the treachery which we have committed! Marcus’s thoughts
once again fell into despair. When all of
Rome knows what I did, the part that I played in this theater of spectacles,
will they stand for it? What shall become of my family? As he continued to
ruminate on the dark turn that his life’s path had suddenly taken, Marcus could
not help but weep.
