  WHERE IS THE BIRD
      OF FIRE?
                 Thomas Burnett Swann

                                      I

  I am very old by the counting of my people, the Fauns—ten full years.
Hardly a boyhood, men would say, but we are the race with cloven hooves
and pointed, furry ears, descendants of the great god Faunus who roamed
with Saturn in the Golden Age. Like the goats, our cousins, we count ten
years a lifetime.
   And in my years, I have seen the beginning of Rome, a city on the
Palatine which Romulus says will straddle the orange Tiber and spread
west to the Tyrrhenian Sea, south through the new Greek settlement at
Cumae to the tip of Italy, and north through Etruria to the land of the
Gauls. Romulus, the Wolf, says these things, and I believe him, because
with one exception he has never failed. Now, however, I do not wish to
speak of Romulus, but of his twin brother, Remus, who was also part of
the beginning. Remus, the bird of fire. With a reed pen, I will write his
story on papyrus and trust it to the coffers of time which, cool in the earth,
endure and preserve.
   My people have wandered the hills and forests of Central Italy since the
reign of Saturn: the blue-rocked Apennines where the Tiber springs, and
the forests of beech and oak where Dryads comb green hair in the
sun-dappled branches. When invaders arrived from Africa and from the
tall Alps to the north, Saturn withdrew to a land where the Fauns could
not follow him. Forsaken, they remained in Italy, together with the Dryads
in their leafy houses.
  A Faun's life has always been brief and simple. We wear no clothes to
encumber our movements except, in the winter months which have no
name, a covering of wolf skin. Our only weapon is a simple sling with a
hempen cord. We have no females of our own and must propagate by
enticing maidens from the walled towns. I was born to an Alba Longan
who had come to draw water from the Numicus River, outside her city.
   Because the city was bowed under King Amulius, a tyrant who some
years before had stolen the throne from his kindly brother Numitor and
imprisoned him in the palace, she was willing to stay, for a little, with my
father in the woods. But when she gave birth to me and saw my cloven
hooves and pointed ears, she cried, "I would rather nurse a goat!" and
hurried back to her town and its tyrannical king. I was left to be reared by
a band of Fauns, who had built a small encampment in the woods, with
branches raised on stakes to shelter them from the rains of Jupiter, and a
low palisade to guard against marauding wolves or unfriendly shepherds.
   It was night and we had built a fire, not only to cook our supper but to
comfort ourselves in the loneliness of the black woods. Evil forces had
come with the flight of Saturn, Lemures or ghosts and blood-sucking
Striges. My father, holding nine black beans in his mouth, made the
circuit of our camp and spat them out one by one, mumbling each time,
"With this I ransom me and mine." The Lemures, it was said by the
shepherds who had taught him the custom, followed and ate the beans
and were appeased.
   This done, he bathed his hands in a clay vessel of water, clanged
together two copper cooking pots left by my mother, and said, "Good
Folks, get you gone." At six months old—five years or so in human
terms—I was much impressed with my father's ritual. He had never shown
me the least affection, but neither had anyone else, and a Faun's place, I
judged, was to be brave and clever, not affectionate.
   My father looked very gallant confronting the ghosts and very wise
since, even while facing them bravely, he spoke with discretion. The other
Fauns, eight of them, gnarled, brown, hairy creatures as old, one would
think, as the oaks of the forest, squatted on their hooves and watched with
admiration and also impatience, since they had not yet enjoyed their
supper of roasted hares and myrtle berries.
  But scarcely had my father uttered "Good Folks" than a tree trunk
crashed through the thin palisade and figures ran through the opening
and thrashed among us with wooden staves. Lemures, I thought at first,
but their staves and goatskin loin cloths marked them as shepherds. I
heard the names "Romulus" and "Wolf” applied to the same man and
guessed him to be their leader, the brawniest and the youngest.
   The first thing they did was to stamp out our fire. I scrambled to shelter
in a thicket of witch grass and watched with round-eyed terror and with
ears quivering above my head. By the light of smouldering embers, I saw
my father struck to the ground by Romulus himself. I roused myself and
scurried to his side, but Romulus's brawny arms scooped me into the air.
He raised me above his head, opened his mouth, and gave the high thin
wail of a hunting she-wolf. Then with the camp in shambles and the Fauns
either fallen or staggering, he leaped through the broken fence with me in
his arms, and his shepherds followed him, hugging roasted hares.
  I gave my captor a sharp kick with my hoof, but he squeezed me so hard
that I gasped for breath, and I thought it best to lie still.
   Through the woods we raced; through oak trees older than Saturn, and
feathery cypresses like Etruscan maidens dancing to soundless flutes. At
last the earth became marshy and Romulus's sandals squished in the
sodden grass. I had heard my father speak of this malarial country near
the Tiber, and I held my breath to avoid the poisonous vapours. Finally I
grew faint and gulped in breaths, expecting the air to burn as it entered
my lungs. Throughout the journey, Romulus never seemed short of breath,
never stumbled, never rested.
   We began to climb and soon reached the summit of what I guessed to
be that hill of shepherds, the Palatine. On a broad plateau, hearth fires
flickered through the doorways of circular huts. The jogging motion of my
captor made the fires seem to dance and sway, and I blinked my eyes to
make sure that they were real and not some feverish dream implanted by
the swamp. From their pens of stone, pigs grunted and cattle lowed in
resentment at being awakened.
   One of the huts, the largest, seemed to belong to Romulus. We entered
through a low door—though Romulus stooped, he brushed my ears against
the lintel—and I found myself in a windowless, goat-smelling room with an
earthen floor baked hard by the central fire. Romulus thrust me against a
wall where a goat was nibbling a pile of straw. A hole in the roof allowed
some smoke to escape, but some remained, and I waited for my eyes to
stop watering before I could get a clear look at my captor.
   I saw that the powerful arms which had held me belonged to one little
more than a boy (at the time, of course, he looked overpoweringly adult,
but still the youngest in the hut). Yet he was tall, broad, with muscular
legs and with muscles tight across the bare abdomen above his loin cloth.
A thin adolescent down darkened his chin, but the furrow between his
eyebrows suggested ambitions beyond his years. His crow-black hair,
unevenly cropped about an inch from his scalp, rioted in curls.
   He stood in the firelight and laughed, and I dimly understood even then
why men twice his age could follow and call him Wolf. His handsome face
held a wolf's cruelty, together with its preternatural strength. Had I been
older, I might have seen also a wolf's fierce tenderness toward those it
loves; for this boy, though he loved rarely, could love with great tenacity.
As it was, I thought him cruel and powerful, nothing more, and I cowered
in terror.
  An aged shepherd, his long white hair bound in a fillet behind his head,
rose from the fire when Romulus entered with his five men. The five
immediately began to laugh and boast about their victory over my people.
But when Romulus spoke, the others were silent.
  "The Fauns were driving out spirits, Faustulus," he explained to the old
man. "Their leader said, 'Good Folks, get you gone,' and in we come! See, I
have captured a baby."
  "In a year he will be full grown," said Faustulus, whose face, though
wrinkled like a brick shattered in a kiln, held an ageless dignity. He was no
mere shepherd, I later found, but a man of learning from Carthage.
Shipwrecked near the mouth of the Tiber, he had wandered inland to take
shelter with herdsmen and married a girl named Larentia. When his
rustic bride hesitated to return with him to Carthage, he remained with
her people and learned their trade.
  "What will you do with him then? Your nocturnal games are childish,
Romulus. They bring you no closer to the throne of Alba Longa."
  Romulus frowned. "Everything I do, Faustulus, brings me closer to the
throne. Tonight we wrestle with Fauns. Tomorrow, soldiers. My men need
practice."
   His ominous tone and the thought of what he had done to my father
made me tremble. I burrowed into the hay where the goat seemed unlikely
to eat (a foul-smelling beast, cousin though he was!) and peered out
between wisps of straw.
   Romulus saw my terror. To Faustulus he said, "You ask me what I will
do with our captive. Eat him, before he grows up! Goat flesh cooked on a
spit." When Faustulus seemed ill-disposed to the joke (or serious
intention, I was not sure which), Romulus addressed a young shepherd
with the stupid, flattened eyes of a ram. "Faustulus, it seems, is not
hungry. What about vou, Celer?"
   Winking at Romulus, Celer felt my arms and muttered, "Too thin, too
thin. Fatten him first, eh?" His speech was thick and slow, as if he were
speaking with a mouthful of wine.
   Romulus seemed to debate. "No," he said finally. "He may be thin, but I
am hungry. And I want to make a belt of his ears." With that he hoisted
me from the ground and lowered me toward the fire by the stump of my
tail! I lay very still until I felt the flames singe my ears. Then I began to
bleat, and Romulus and the ram-eyed Celer threw back their heads in
merriment.
  A voice spoke from the doorway, low but forceful. "Put him down,
Romulus."
   Romulus turned and, recognizing the speaker, tossed me back into the
straw. With one tremendous bound he reached the door and embraced his
brother.
  "Remus," he cried, "I thought they had kept you in Veii!"
   Remus returned his brother's embrace with enthusiasm, though his
slight frame was almost engulfed by Romulus's massive hug. Like the
others, he wore a loin cloth, but of wool, not goatskin, and dyed to the
green of the woodpecker which haunts the forests of Latium. Over his
shoulder hung a bow, and at his side, a quiver of arrows, their bronze
nocks enwreathed with feathers to match his loin cloth. When I saw his
hair, bound with a fillet but spilling in silken fire behind his head, I caught
my breath. Picus, the woodpecker god, I thought. Who except gods and
Gauls, in this part of Italy, had yellow hair (and Etruscan ladies, with the
help of their famous cosmetics) ?
   He released himself from Romulus's hug and walked over to my nest of
straw. I squirmed away from him. A god he might be, but after all I had
been kidnapped and almost cooked by his brother. I need not have feared
him, however. He lifted me in his arms as my mother might if she had not
disliked my ears. He cradled me against his smooth bronze
chest—fragrant with clover as if he had slept in a meadow-and stroked the
fur of my ears, smoothing it toward the tips.
   "Little Faun," he said. "Don't be afraid. Tomorrow I will take you back
to your people."
  "Take him back!" protested Romulus. "I caught him myself."
   "Fauns are not animals," said Remus. "At least, not entirely. They have
lived in this forest for centuries, and we have no right to capture their
children." He pointed to Romulus's bloody stave. "Or fight their fathers."
  "They enjoy a fight as much as we do," shrugged Romulus. "We knocked
them about a bit, nothing more. If I don't train my shepherds, how can
they capture a city?" He grinned broadly, his sharp white teeth glittering
in the firelight. "If we don't take the city, what will we do for women?"
Celer and the others— except Faustulus—whooped their approval. I was
later to learn that these young shepherds, driven from Alba Longa and
other towns of Latium for minor crimes, were womanless, and that
Romulus had promised a house in the city and a wife for every man.
Romulus winked at Celer. "My brother knows much of animals, but
nothing of women. We will find him a girl when we take Alba Longa—a
saucy wench with breasts like ripe pomegranates."
  "Brother," said Remus, a slow smile curving his lips. "What do you
know of pomegranates? You must have been gardening beyond the
Palatine!"
  "I know!" cried Celer. "I know about them! The girls I remember—"
  "And the girls I imagine," sighed Remus.
  "Remember, imagine," said Romulus. "One is as bad as the other. But
once we take the city—! Now, brother, tell us about your journey to Veii."
   Romulus and the others seated themselves around the fire, while Remus
remained standing. Clearly there had been an urgent purpose behind his
visit to Veii, the Etruscan city twelve miles to the north. Even at my age, I
sensed that purpose and, crouching at his feet, awaited his words more
eagerly than those of my father when he told me stories of Dryads and
river goddesses. What I failed to understand at the time was later clarified
for me by Remus.
   The brothers, it seemed, claimed to be sons of the war god Mars and a
Vestal princess, Rhea, daughter of that same King Numitor whom
Amulius had deposed and imprisoned in the palace. As Remus spoke, I
learned how these royal twins in exile longed, above everything, to seize
the throne of Alba Longa and restore their grandfather or rule in his place.
Remus had gone to Veii to ask the lucomo or king to back their cause. It
was a brazen thing for a young Latin shepherd, even a deposed prince, to
seek audience with an Etruscan king and ask him to make war against a
Latin city. But Romulus and Remus, after all, were very young.
  I passed into the city (said Remus) with farmers taking shelter for the
night. The palace astonished me. Its walls were of purple stucco, and terra
cotta sphinxes flanked the entrance. I told the guards that I wished to see
their king; that I could speak only with him. Would they tell him that
Remus, exiled prince of Alba Longa, sought an audience.
  "Yellow Hair," one of them said. "Our king is a jolly man. I will take him
word. Your boldness will make him laugh."
  After a long time, the guard returned and said that the king would see
me now—in his banquet hall. In the great hall, the ceiling was painted
with winged monsters and strange enormous cats. The king was lying on a
couch with a young woman at his side. She was almost unrobed. He
motioned me to a couch next to him and laid his arm, heavy with amber
and gold, on my shoulder.
  "Remus," he said, "I have heard your story from shepherds who once
served Amulius but now serve me. They told me how your mother, the
Vestal Rhea, bore you to the god Mars and was buried alive for breaking
her vow of chastity. How her uncle, King Amulius, ordered the shepherd
Faustulus to drown you in the Tiber, but the shepherd set you adrift in a
hollow log. How the log came ashore and a she-wolf suckled you in her
cave and a woodpecker brought you berries, until Faustulus found and
reared you as his own children.
   "The story, it seems, is widely known in the country, though Amulius
himself believes you long dead—for tyrants are rarely told the truth. I greet
you as the prince you are. But we of Veii want peace with Rome, our
closest neighbor. Lead your shepherds against Amulius, if you must, and
pray to Mars that the townspeople rise to help you. When you have
captured the city, come to me again and we shall sign treaties of amity.
Until then, let us be friends but not allies."
   I looked closely into his face, the short pointed beard, black as a vulture,
the arched eyebrows, the almond eyes, and saw that he would not change
his mind. I took my leave and followed the basalt road through the great
arched gate and returned to you.
   Romulus sprang to his feet, narrowly avoiding my ears. "No help from
Veii then. And we are not yet strong enough alone. Thirty shepherds at
most, even if we scour the countryside." He fingered the stubble on his
chin, as if craving the ample beard—and the years —of a man. "We shall
have to wait at least a year before we attack," he continued, with the heavy
weariness of one who was not used to waiting—who, at seventeen, was
something of a leader already and covetous of wider leadership. "Gather
more shepherds around us. Send scouts to the city and feel out the mood
of the crowd." Neither Romulus nor Remus had visited Alba Longa: their
royal blood made it difficult to pass as herdsmen. "Father Mars, let it not
be long!"
  He strode to the corner of the hut where a wreathed bronze spear, green
with age, lay apart like a holy relic. Mars, as everyone knows, manifests
himself in spears and shields. "One day soon, Great Father, let me say to
you: 'Mars, awaken!' "
  "But even if we take the city," asked Remus, "will our grandfather let us
rule? The throne is rightfully his."
  "He is very old," said Romulus. "When he steps aside—and he will, very
soon—we will build a temple to Mars and train an army even the
Etruscans will fear."
  "And offer asylum to slaves, and even to birds and animals."
 "Oh, Remus," chided his brother. "This is a city we will rule, not a
menagerie! For once, forget your animals."
   "But the city can learn from the forest! Remember when I cured your
fever with berries last year? A bear showed them to me, growing beside
the Tiber,"
  Romulus shook his head. "Remus," he smiled, "we shall have our
problems ruling together. I sometimes wish that I had no brother or that I
did not love him above all men. But let us capture the city—then we shall
plan our government. Now it is late. Almost Cockcrow time."
   With a warm goodnight to Romulus and Faustulus, Remus gathered me
in his arms and left the hut. Of course I could walk quite by myself, but
rather than lose my ride I said nothing. Stumbling a bit with his burden,
he descended the bank of the Palatine toward the Tiber, which looped like
an adder in the starlight and swelled in places as if digesting a meal. Near
the foot of the hill we entered the mouth of a cave where a small fire
burned on a raised clay hearth. Remus stirred the fire.
  "I hate the dark," he said. "It is sad with spirits. People who died like
my mother, without proper rites." Sleepily I looked around me and saw
that the earthen floor had been covered with rushes and clover, that a
pallet of clean white wool lay in the corner, and that earthen pots lined the
opposite wall. There was no one in the cave, but a large dog lay asleep
beyond the fire.
  As we entered, the animal awoke and opened its eyes. A dog indeed! An
immense wolf, its yellow-grey fur matted with age, rose on its haunches
and faced us. Whether it snarled or grinned, I could not be sure. When
Remus bent to deposit me on the pallet, I refused at first to let go of his
neck.
  "Lie still, little Faun," he laughed. "This is Luperca, my foster mother. It
was she who found Romulus and me on the bank of the Tiber and brought
us to this very cave. She is very old now. Sometimes she walks in the
woods, but at night she shares my cave and my supper." He knelt beside
her and stroked her black-rimmed ears. In looking back, I can see the
nobility of the scene, this boy with slender hands and hair as yellow as
sunflowers, the aged wolf that had suckled him in this very cave. But at six
months old, I saw only a flea-bitten animal which monopolized my friend's
attention.
  "My name is Sylvan," I said haughtily. They were the first words I had
spoken since my capture.
  "I did not know you could talk," he laughed, rising from my rival and
coming to lie beside me.
  "Nobody asked me," I said, less haughty now that he had answered my
summons. As the firelight dwindled, he talked of Alba Longa and how,
when he ruled the city with Romulus, Fauns would be as welcome as men.
   "You have surely seen the city," he said, and before I could tell him yes,
that my father had carried me once to see the walls and pointed, "That is
where your mother ran off to," he continued. "It is a very small city, really
just a town. But its houses are white and clean, and its temple to Vesta is
as pure as the goddess's flame. It is now an unhappy city. Amulius is a
harsh ruler. He killed my mother, Sylvan. He laughed when she told him
that Mars was my father. 'You have broken your vow,' he said, and buried
her alive in the earth. Faustulus saw her before she died. Just a girl, really.
Bewildered but proud. She looked at Amulius with her large black eyes
and said: 'Mars is my husband and he will look after my sons.'
  "Everyone believed her except Amulius. You see why I hate him. And I
have other reasons. He taxes the vintners a third of their wine and the
shepherds a fourth of their sheep. What do they get in return? The
protection of his soldiers—when they are not stealing wine and sheep! But
Sylvan, forgive me. I am keeping you awake with problems beyond your
months. Sleep little Faun. Tomorrow I will take you home."
  But I already knew that I did not wish to return to my people.



                                      II

   Twelve months had passed. Growing two inches a month, I had reached
a Faun's full height of five feet. Sometimes I looked in the stream that
flowed near our cave and admired my reflection, for Fauns are vain as long
as they resemble young saplings, and until they begin to grow
gnarled—alas, too quickly—like the oaks of Saturn. My skin was the bronze
of Etruscan shields. I wore my ears proudly, waving their silken fur above
my head. I combed my tail with a hazel branch and kept it free from
thistles and burrs. Remus was eighteen now but soon I would overtake
him. Together with Luperca, I still shared his cave and we often hunted
together, I with a sling, he with a bow and arrow. But at his insistence we
hunted only the lower animals, and then from necessity—the hare and the
wild pig. Bears and deer and even wolves had nothing to fear from us.
Sometimes on these hunts I saw my father and called to him in passing.
The first time he stopped to speak with me. I saw the scar which
Romulus's staff had left between his ears. He looked much older than I
remembered and a little stooped.
  "Is it well with you?" he asked, ignoring Remus.
  "Yes, Father," I answered, half expecting him to embrace me. For I had
grown used to Remus's affection. But family ties among Fauns are usually
shallow; we live such a little time. "Good," he said. "I thought they might
have killed you." He galloped into the forest.
   On the Palatine Hill, new huts had risen near that of Romulus and
Faustulus. Sabine shepherds had moved there from a neighbouring hill,
the Quirinal (named for their spear god, Quirinus), and also thieves and
murderers from the forest, whom Romulus welcomed too readily into his
group. When Remus objected, Romulus argued that thieves, much more
than shepherds, could help to capture a town. They could move with
stealth and strike with sudden fury.
   As shepherds, of course, the brothers must care for a large herd of cattle
and sheep, leading them from pasture to pasture both on and below the
Palatine, guarding them from wolves and bears, and making sacrifice to
the deities called the Pales. The herds they tended belonged to an Alba
Longan named Tullius, who often sent an overseer from the city to count
or examine his animals; hence, our source of news about Amulius and his
increasing tyrannies.



  One day the overseer complained that the king had doubled taxes, the
next, that his soldiers had insulted a Vestal or executed a boy for petty
theft. The soldiers numbered a thousand—all the able bodied men in town
were subject to duty at one time or another—and by no means the whole
number approved of Amulius or victimized civilians. But a hard core,
rewarded with land, cattle, or armour (there was no coinage yet in
Latium), served Amulius willingly.
   Inflamed by word from the city, Romulus left his herds in the care of
sheep dogs and drilled his men; he taught them how to climb rocky cliffs
like city walls or move with the swiftness of wolves. On the hill called
Aventine, Remus taught them to whittle bows from hickory limbs and
feather their arrows for deadly accuracy.
   One day, when Remus was resting from both the herds and the training
of archers, we had an adventure which seemed at the time unrelated to
war and conquest, though it later proved vastly important. I found Remus
standing under the fig tree near the mouth of his cave. He called it the
Fig-Tree of Rumina, the goddess who protected suckling infants, because
he felt that she had watched over him and Romulus while they fed from
the she-wolf.
   Finding him preoccupied, I crept up silently, seized his waist, and rolled
him to the grass. My disadvantage in such matches was my tail, which he
liked to take hold of and jerk until I begged for mercy. This morning,
however, I had caught him by surprise, and soon I was sitting on his chest,
triumphant. Already I had grown to outweigh him, with my hooves and
my slim but sinewy body.
   "Enough," he gasped. "Let me up!" I rose and we fell against each other,
laughing and catching our breath.
  "The next time you turn your back," he swore, "I will pull out your tail
by the roots!" Suddenly he became serious. "Sylvan, my bees are dying."
  He had found the bees in a poorly concealed log, stunned them with
smoke, and removed them to a hollow in the fig tree, safe from hungry
bears and shepherds. For awhile they had seemed to thrive and Remus
had been delighted, taking their honey only when they had enough to
spare. But now—
   "Look," he said, drawing me to the tree which lifted its broad rough
leaves to a remarkable forty feet. "The bees are very ill."
   I stood beside him, my hand on his shoulder, and peered up into the
tree. The bees were carrying off their dead in great numbers. Two of them,
overwhelmed by the weight of a third, fell to the ground at my feet.
  "They look beyond our help," I said. "But there are other hives, Remus.
There will be no lack of honey."
   "But I am fond of these," he protested, turning to face me. "They are my
friends, Sylvan. Not once have they stung me, even when I took their
honey." He looked so troubled, so young and vulnerable, that I was
speechless. In the year I had known him he had hardly changed. His face
was still beardless, his hair like woven sunlight. Who could explain this
blond, green-eyed boy, so different from Romulus, had been born to a dark
Latin Mother? Only Mars knew the answer. Yet Rhea, the gentle Vestal,
and not the warlike Mars, seemed more truly his parent.
  "Wait," I said. "Fauns love honey and sometimes keep bees. My father
will know what to do."
  We went to find him in the forest south of the Aventine. Though a Faun
without clothes and with only a slingshot to encumber me, I could barely
keep pace with Remus, who raced through the woods as if he wore wings.
As a matter of fact, he had sewn his loin cloth with those same
woodpecker feathers he used to wreathe his arrows.
  "Remus, take pity," I gasped. "I expect you to rise through the treetops!"
  Remus laughed. "They say a woodpecker fed me when I was small."
  "And gave you his wings."



   In the deepest part of the forest, the trees were tall as hills and older
than Saturn. What they had seen had left them weary—bent, twisted, and
sagging—but still powerful. Oaks were the oldest, but ilex trees, too, and
grey-barked beeches mixed sunlight and shadows in a venerable mist of
limbs. Blue-eyed owls hooted among the leaves and magpies, birds of good
omen, chattered in hidden recesses. A woodpecker burned his small green
flame against the greater fire of the forest, and Remus pointed to him
excitedly. "It was one like that who fed me berries."
  Remus might have wandered for days without finding my father, but
Fauns have an instinct in the woods and I led him straight to our camp.
  Outside the palisade, I bleated like a goat to signify kinship with those
behind the barrier. A section was lifted aside and a Faun, knotty and
mottled like the underside of a rock, filled the entrance. His ears quivered
with suspicion.
  "It is Sylvan," I said. "Will you tell Nemus, my father, I wish to see
him?"
   The Faun vanished without a word. Another took his place. To human
eyes—to Remus, as he later confessed—there was nothing to distinguish
this Faun from the first. But I knew my father by the scar on his head and
by the length of his ears—they were very long, even for a Faun.
  "Sylvan," he said without emotion. "You want me?"
  "Yes, Father. This is Remus, my friend."
  "I have seen you together."
  "We need your help. Remus's bees are dying. We hoped you could help
us save them. The hive is well placed. But a sickness has taken them. They
are carrying off their dead."
  Nemus thought a moment. "Ah," he said. "You must find a Dryad."
  "A Dryad, Father?"
  "Yes. They speak to the bees. They know all cures."
  "But Dryads are rare. I have never seen one."
   "I have," said Nemus proudly. "Her hair was the colour of oak leaves,
and her skin, like milk—" He broke off, as if embarrassed by his own
enthusiasm. "But I will tell you where to look. Two miles to the south of
this camp, there is a circle of oaks. Some say Saturn planted them. At any
rate, one is inhabited by a Dryad. Which one I cannot say. I saw her
dipping water from a spring and followed her to a ruined altar among the
oaks. There she escaped me. You must hide in the bushes and watch the
bees for an hour or more. In the tree where the most of them light will be
your Dryad. Taking her nectar, you know. But tell me, Sylvan, why are
these bees so important? Let them die. There are others."
  Remus answered for me. "They are friends. We like to hear them work
outside our cave. Now they are almost quiet."
  "Friends, you call them? You are one of the Old Ones, aren't you, boy?
Your hair is ripe barley, but your heart might have lived with Saturn. In
the old time, there was love in the forest. So the records of my people say.
A scrawl on a stone, a picture, an image of clay—always they tell of love.
Fauns, men and animals living in harmony." He turned to his son.
  "Look after him, Sylvan. Help him to find his Dryad. Help him always.
He is one who is marked to be hurt."
  I reached out and touched my father on the shoulder, as I often touched
Remus. He seemed surprised, whether pleased or offended I could not say.
When he turned his back, we went to find our Dryad.
   There was the ring of oaks, just as he had said. Not the most ancient
trees, if planted by Saturn, but old nonetheless. In their midst rose a pile
of crumbling stones which had once formed an altar. Fingertips of sun
touched the stones and live plants overrunning them, white narcissi with
red-rimmed coronas, spiny-leafed acanthuses, and jonquils yellow as if the
sunlight had flowered into the petals. We did not explore the altar
however, and risk discovery by the Dryad, but crouched in some bushes
beyond the oaks and watched for bees.
   Soon a faint buzzing tingled my ears. I cocked them toward the sound
and nudged Remus. A swarm of bees was approaching the ring of oaks.
We watched them circle and vanish in the oak tree nearest the altar, a
large tree with a trunk perhaps twenty feet wide at the base, and a welter
of greenery high in the air. Yes, it could easily house a Dryad. I started to
rise, but Remus grasped my tall.
  "No," he whispered. "Your father said to watch where the most bees
go."
  We waited, I fretfully, since a minute to a man seems like ten to a Faun.
Soon I grew sleepy and, using Remus's back for a pillow, slept until he
shook me.
   "Three swarms have entered that tree and left again," he said. "No other
tree has attracted so many. That must be the one."
   We rose and walked to the tree in question. "We forgot to ask your
father how to get inside," Remus said, staring at the great trunk.
Apparently the bees had entered through a hole invisible to us and far
above our heads. The trunk was much too rough and broad to climb, and
there were no branches within reach of our hands. We circled the base,
prodding among the roots for an entrance, but succeeded only in
dislodging a turquoise lizard that ran over Remus's sandal and flickered
toward the altar.
   Thoughtful, Remus stared after him. "Your father lost sight of the
Dryad near the altar." We followed the lizard to the crumbling stones and
began to kick among the rubble, careful, however, not to crush the
jonquils or narcissi. A field mouse, poised for escape, stared at us from the
tallest stone. A honey bee surged from a shaken jonquil.
  "Sylvan," Remus cried at last. "I think we have found it!" Eagerly he
brushed aside bushes and, head first, squirmed into an opening just large
enough for one body at a time. I followed him without enthusiasm. Such
holes concealed poisonous adders as well as harmless lizards and mice.
  The walls were smooth; neither roots nor rocks tore at our bodies. Rut
the journey seemed long and the blackness grew oppressive. I imagined an
adder with every bend of the tunnel.
  Suddenly Remus stood up and pulled me beside him. We had entered
the trunk of a tree, the Dryad's tree, I hoped. Far above our heads, a light
shone roundly through an opening. Climbing toward the light, wooden
rungs had been carved in the side of the trunk.
  "We have found it," he cried, joyfully pulling my tail. "We have found
her house!"
  "I hope she is more accessible than her house," I muttered.
   We started to climb and at once I felt dizzy, since the tree was very tall.
I consoled myself that our Dryad would perhaps be beautiful. I had heard
that they remained young until they died with their trees. Remus and I
saw no women on the Palatine, and imagination was a poor substitute. I
had seen him scratching pictures on the walls of our cave, Rumina and
other goddesses. He invariably drew them young, beautiful, radiant, the
image of Woman in his own young heart. Did such a woman await us
now?
   Through the circular opening, we drew ourselves into a room which
roughly followed the shape of the trunk. Small round windows cut in the
walls admitted sunshine. A couch stood across the room, with feet like a
lion's and a silken coverlet prancing with warriors. The air smelled of
living wood, and white narcissus petals carpeted the floor. Somewhat
hesitantly we advanced into the room. At once I collided with a table and
almost upset a lamp like a twisted dragon. Remus, meanwhile, had settled
in a backless chair.
  "It is cirrus wood from Carthage," he said. "I saw one like it in Veii. But
where is the Dryad?"
  "The ladder continues," I noted, hastily ridding myself of the dragon
lamp. "There must be a second room over our head."
  Remus walked to the ladder. "I will call her. She must not think we are
robbers."
   But he did not have to call, for we heard footsteps descending the
ladder. I lifted the sling from my neck in case the Dryad should be armed.
Aeneas, after all, had found a race of fierce Amazons in Italy. Dryads who
lived alone, Amazons or not, must know how to fight for their trees.
   The Dryad paused at the foot of the ladder and faced us. She was
diminutive even to a five-foot Faun —no taller than four herself. Her hair
fell long and loosely over her shoulders, green hair, a dark leaf-green that
in the shadows looked black, but where the sunlight struck it smouldered
like jade that travellers bring from the East. Her mouth was pink and
small; her skin, the pure fresh white of goat's milk. A brown linen robe,
bordered with tiny acorns, rippled to sandaled feet.
  She waited for us to speak and explain ourselves. When we said
nothing—what could we say? our invasion was evident—she spoke herself,
slowly as if out of practice, but with great precision.
  "You have violated my house. I was sleeping above when your clumsy
sandals woke me. May Janus, the door-god, curse you with evil spirits!"
  "I am sorry we woke you," said Remus. "As for violating your house, we
were not sure it was a house until we found this room. Then we forgot
ourselves in its beauty." He paused. "We have come to ask a favour."
   "A favour?" she cried. "I can guess the favour you mean." She fixed her
glare on me. "You are the worst, you Fauns. Did it never occur to you to
cover your loins, as your friend does?"
  "If you notice my nakedness," I said proudly, "perhaps it is because you
admire it. Dryads need men, and Fauns need women. Why should they not
be friends?"
  "I have banqueted kings," she spat. "Shall I frolic with strangers who
blunder in from the woods—a Faun and a shepherd?"
  "We only want to ask you about our bees," Remus blinked, a small hurt
child scolded for a deed he has not committed. He stepped toward her and
she did not move. "Our bees are dying and we want you to heal them."
   They stared at each other. Then, incredibly, unpredictably even to me,
he took her in his arms. Like the scolded child who does the very thing of
which he has been accused, he kissed her small pink lips. Quick as an
adder her hand rose—for the first time I saw the dagger—and raked down
his side.
  With a cry he withdrew, staring not at his blood-streaked side but at
her, and not with anger but shame at his own affront. I seized the knife
before she could use it again and caught her, struggling in my arms.
Furious because she had hurt my friend, I pressed her wrists cruelly until
she lay still. I felt her breasts against my flesh, and then, before I could
want her too much myself, said,
  "Remus, she is yours. Kiss her again!"
  "Let her go," he said.
  "But Remus, she attacked you. She deserves what she feared."
   "Sylvan, let her go," he said, a small boy, baffled, defeated, but not to be
disobeyed. I released her. She stared at the streak down his side.
  "Please," he said to her. "My bees are dying. Tell me what to do for
them."
  She drew him into the clear light of a window and dabbed the blood
with a corner of her robe. "Burn galbanum under the hive and carry them
clusters of raisins in leaves of thyme. They will heal and grow strong
again." Then she took a long, unhurried look at him, and I might have
been in another oak, for all they noticed me. "You are very young. At first
you were hidden in the shadows. When you kissed me, I was sure you were
like the rest."
   "I am," he said. "I came to ask you about my bees, but I forgot them. I
wanted your body. You made me think of grass and flowers in the hot sun.
I am like the rest."
  "But you told your friend to release me. Why weren't you angry when I
hurt you?"
  "I was. With myself."
   She held his face between her hands. "You are fragrant from the forest.
You have lain in clover, I think. Like Aeneas, the Trojan, I loved him, you
know. He came to me just as you have. All Latium rang with his
triumphs—Turnus defeated, Camilla's Amazons put to rout! He sat on my
couch and said, 'Mellonia, I am tired. Since the sack of Troy I have
wandered and fought. I have lost my wife and my father and forsaken a
queen of Carthage. And I am tired.'
   "I took his head between my hands and kissed him, my prince, my
warrior. In the years that followed, I watched him grow old. He married
the princess Lavinia to found a royal line here in Latium. But he died in
my arms, an old man with hair like a white waterfall. And I cursed this
tree which kept me young. I wanted to die with Aeneas. The years passed
and I did not give myself, even in loneliness. I have waited for another
Aeneas."
  She turned away from him and stared through a window at a swarm of
bees approaching the tree. "They are bringing me honey. My little friends.
Your friends too." She faced him again.
   "Why are you young? Aeneas was grey when he came to me, older than I
in wars and loves, though younger in years. Now I am ancient. But you are
young. You cannot have waited for anything very long. Your eyes are
naked, a child's. You have not learned to hide your thoughts. You want me
and fear me. I could stab you with words more sharply than with this
dagger. Why do you come here young and virginal? I will make you old.
My face is a girl's, but my eyes are tired with waiting."
  Like round-built merchant ships laden with precious oils, the bees
invaded the room and unloaded their nectar in a cup of agate. She held
out her hand and some of them lit in her palm. "To me, Remus, you are
like the bees. Their life is six weeks."
  "Then help me to be like Aeneas!"
  She reached up to him and loosened the fillet which bound his hair. "It
spills like sunflowers. I am cold, so cold. Give me your sunflowers, Remus.
Prince of Alba Longa!"
  "You know me?"
  "Not at first. Only when I had hurt you. I knew you by your yellow hair
and your gentleness. The forest speaks of you, Remus. With love."
  Their voices blended with the whirr of bees, and the scent of nectar
throbbed in my nostrils like a sweet intoxicant. I had lingered too long. I
backed down the ladder and returned to the pile of stones.
  Much later, when Remus stepped from the tunnel, he said, "Sylvan, you
are crying!"
  "I am not crying," I protested. "Fauns don't cry. We take things as they
come and make light of everything. A bramble bush scratched my eyes
and made them water."
  He looked doubtful but did not press me. In fact, he said little even after
we left the circle of oaks and plunged into the forest.
   "The Dryad," I asked. "Was she hospitable?" I pressed him with the
hope that he would speak of her lightly, as a woman possessed and
forgotten. I wanted him to reassure me that I was not replaced in his heart
by a bad tempered Dryad older than Aeneas!
  “Yes."
   "Remus," I chided. "Your spirits seem mildewed. Have you nothing to
tell me about Mellonia?"
  It was almost as if the aged Faustulus were speaking. "What is there to
say about love? It isn't happiness, altogether; it is sadness too. It is simply
possession."
  "I should think you would feel like wrestling," I said. "Or drawing one of
your goddesses. Or swimming the Tiber. You don't look possessed to me,
you look vacant."
   "I am thinking of many things," he said. "Yesterday, I wanted to punish
the man who had killed my mother, and I wanted to be king for the sake of
Fauns and wolves and runaway slaves. Now I want to be king for her sake
also."
  We were nearing the Palatine. At the mouth of our cave, he stopped and
faced me and placed his hands on my shoulders.
  "Sylvan, why were you crying back there?"
  "I told you," I snapped.
  "Did you think she had driven you out of my heart, little Faun?"
  He had not called me "little Faun" since that night a year—ten
years—ago, when Romulus stole me from my camp.
  "Yes," I said, losing control of my tears. "And not to a girl but a witch!
Or squirrel, I should say, the way she lives in a tree. Remus, she will bite
you yet." Being half goat, I always saw people as animals.
   He did not laugh at me and try to make light of my tears, but touched
his fingers, lightly as butterflies, to my ear. "In the circle of oaks," he said,
"there were jonquils and narcissi growing together. There was room for
both. Do you understand what I am saying, Sylvan?"
  Just then the ram-eyed Celer hurried toward us down the hill. If
anything, his eyes had grown flatter and more stupid with the passing
year.
  "Remus," he called in his thick slurred way. "News from the city!
Romulus wants you in his hut."



                                      III

   In the early dusk, the hill lay shadowed and strange, and the hut of
Romulus seemed misted to stone. Solemn and dignified, sheep roamed the
paths and, pausing, were hardly separable from the low rocks which
Vulcan, it was said, had thrust from his caverns in a fiery temper.
Shepherds and those who had recently joined them, Romulus's latest
recruits, loitered in small groups talking about the day's work or
tomorrow's drill. The newcomers held apart from the original shepherds.
Their garb was the same simple loin cloth, but their faces, though mostly
young, were scared and sullen. One, I knew, was a murderer who had fled
from Lavrnium after killing his wife; another, a parricide from the new
Greek colony at Cumae. It was men like these whom Remus wished to bar
from the Palatine, and Romulus welcomed because they knew how to
fight.
  When the wife-killer saw me, he bleated like a goat. Remus wheeled in
anger but I shoved him toward Romulus's hut. He must not fight on my
account.
   "You sound like a frog," I called good-naturedly. "Do it like this." And I
bleated so convincingly that she-goats answered from every direction.
  A figure loomed toward us, a tall ship scudding in a sea of mist. It was
Romulus. To me he nodded, to Remus he smiled.
  "Brother," he said. "Gaius is here from the city. He has brought us
news." We walked into his hut, where a small, bearded man who reminded
me of a water bug, so freely did he skip about the room, was telling a story
he seemed to have told several times and would no doubt tell again. His
eyes sparkled when he saw Remus and me, a new audience.
   "Remus," he said. "And Sylvan, is it not? Listen to what I have seen! I
met Numitor in the market yesterday with two attendants. Lately Amulius
has allowed him considerable freedom. To appease the people, I expect,
and keep them from growling about taxes. Anyway, a half-grown sheep
dog was barking at one of Amulius's soldiers. A friendly dog, wanting to
play. But the soldier did not. He raised his spear and drove it through the
animal's heart. Numitor cried out in anger and raised his staff to strike
the man. The soldier, far from cowed, drew his sword, but a barber and a
vintner intervened while Numitor's attendants hurried him back to the
palace.
   "As the old man disappeared, I heard him shout, 'If my grandsons had
lived, there would be no soldiers!' Everyone who had watched the
scene—myself included —was stirred by Numitor's courage. And everyone
wished that there were truly grandsons to drive the soldiers from the
street."
   With a vigorous skip, he ended his story and smote Remus's shoulder
for emphasis. Remus's emotion was evident. His eyes, wide and troubled,
mirrored the flames from the hearth: mournful lights in a green, sad
forest. As far as I knew, no one had told the overseer the boy's real
identity. But Gaius watched him with unusual interest. Perhaps he had
overheard the shepherds.
  Sparing Gaius the temptation to repeat his story, Romulus led him to
the door. "It is bad news you bring us, Gaius. Thank Jove we are kingless
here! Do you wonder we stay in the country?"
  Gaius smiled ironically. Doubtless he guessed that most of Romulus's
men and Romulus himself avoided the city for reasons that had nothing to
do with a fondness for the countryside.
  "When I think of Amulius," he sighed, "I am tempted to stay here with
you. They call him The Toad, you know, though he calls himself The Bear.
But Tullius, my master, depends on me. His herds have multiplied,
Romulus. I shall take him good news." With a backward wave, he bobbed
down the Palatine.
   In Romulus's hut, Faustulus, Celer, the twins, and I gathered by the fire
to evaluate Gaius's news. On such occasions, Remus always included me,
though the first time both Romulus and Celer had objected to the
presence of a Faun.
   "We have waited with patience," Romulus said with unsuppressed
excitement. "Now the mood of the city seems right. They will flock to our
side the minute they know us! But they have to be told who we are, and
our grandfather is the one to tell them. First we must identify ourselves to
him. I will go to Alba Longa tomorrow and get an audience."
  "But he lives in Amulius's palace," cried the aged Faustulus bent like a
hickory bow but taut, like the rest of us, with the spirit of revolt. "How can
you get an audience?"
   "He is right," said Remus. "You can't simply walk to the palace as I did
in Veii and ask to see Numitor. Amulius's guards are much too suspicious.
Your height and bearing set you apart at once. I should be the one to go."
   "You, Remus? What about your hair? Blond men in Latium are as rare
as virgins in Etruria. They will take you for a spy from the Gauls! Even if
they don't, how will you gain an audience with Numitor?"
  "I have thought what I would do for some time. First I will dye my hair
dark brown. You know the umber that's dug from the banks of the Tiber? I
will rub some in my hair and disguise the colour. Then I will steal one of
Numitor's cows. His shepherds will catch me and take me to Numitor. In
the theft of cows, the owner and not the king has the right to pass
judgment. Amulius will have no hand in this unless Numitor turns me
over to him. I don't believe he will."
   "No," said Romulus, "it is much too dangerous. I won't let you take the
risk."
  Usually I wanted to kick him with both my hooves. Now I wanted to
embrace him.
  "Remus is right," said that idiot, Celer, mouthing his usual
monosyllables. "Old men love him. He's soft and polite. Let him go,
Romulus. I have a stake in this too."
  Yes, I thought, cattle, women, and a house in town. That's all you want.
What do you know about government? Remus, my friend, even if you win
the city, you will not have won your justice.
  "It is settled then," said Remus with a finality that ended argument.
  "And I will help you," I said.
  "No, I will do it alone. Fauns are not popular in Latium. The shepherds
might kill you right off."
   Romulus looked troubled. He stroked his beginning beard and furrowed
his brow. This fierce, ambitious young man, who feared neither wolves nor
warriors, was unashamedly afraid for his brother. At last, like a father
sending his son to fight the Gauls, he placed his hands on Remus's
shoulders and said,
  "Go then, Brother. But while you are gone, I will gather the shepherds.
We will be ready to attack the city when you return with word from
Numitor. If you don't return within three days, we will attack anyway. The
gate is strong, but the walls aren't high to shepherds who live on hills."
   "Or to shepherds led by princes," said Faustulus proudly, drawing the
twins to his side. "For eighteen years I have called you my sons. In fact,
since I found you in the cave at the breast of Luperca. After you had fed,
she let me take you—she, your second mother, knew that the time had
come for a third. And I carried you back to this very hut and to Larentia,
my wife. When Larentia died a year later, I brought you up myself. Now,
like the wolf, I must step aside and return you to your grandfather. You
will not shame him."



   In our cave the next morning, Remus veiled his head in a cloak and
addressed a prayer to the god Bonus Eventus, whose image he had
scratched on the wall. No one knew the god's true appearance, but Remus
had made him young and round-cheeked, with a spray of barley in his
hand. Holding out his arms and quite oblivious to Luperca and me, Remus
prayed:
   "Bonus Eventus, god who brings luck to the farmer with his barley and
his olive trees, bring me luck too; send me safely to my grandfather!"
   After the prayer, he set a cup of milk before the image, for everyone
knows that the gods, whether human as Remus and the Etruscans
supposed, or bodiless powers in the wind, the rock, the tree, demand
offerings of food. (Luperca eyed the milk, and I hoped that the god drank
quickly!) Then he attended to his bees, burning galbanum under the hive
and carrying them raisins in thyme.
   "Look after them, will you?" he asked. "And Luperca too. You may have
to feed her from your hands. She is very feeble." Not too feeble to drink
that milk, I thought.) "And Sylvan. Will you tell Mellonia where I have
gone? I had meant to visit her today."
  I stamped my hoof in protest. "The squirrel lady?"
  "Goddess," he corrected.
  "Goddess? She will live no longer than her tree!"
   "But her tree has lived hundreds of years, and will live hundreds more.
Till Saturn returns. Then he will find her another."
  "Is that what she told you? What about lightning? And floods? And
woodcutters?"
  "Your ears are quivering," he grinned. "They always do when you are
angry." And he began to stroke them with his irresistible fingers. "You will
see Mellonia? Promise me, Sylvan."
  "Don't do that," I cried. "You know how it tickles."
  "But you like to be tickled."
  "That's my point. You can make me promise anything."
  "Would you rather I yanked your tail?"
  "All right, all right. I will see Mellonia. Now go and steal your cow."



   Of course I had meant all along to help him. My problem was how to
remain hidden until he had begun his theft, then run out and implicate
myself and share his capture. I followed his tracks at a safe distance. In
the marshes, I was careful not to let my hooves squish noisily, and among
the Sabine burial mounds, some fresh, some covered with grass, I steeled
myself not to take fright at the presence of spirits and break into a gallop.
I was careful to keep a tree or a hill between us. He moved rapidly, as
always, but his tracks and my keen sense of hearing kept me on his trail.
   Numitor's shepherds lay asleep in the shade, three gnarled men as
ancient as their master, who, it was said, hired only the old to work for
him because the young reminded him of his lost daughter and grandsons.
At the feet of the shepherds lay an aged sheep dog who also seemed to be
sleeping. I hid behind an ilex tree and waited for developments.
  Remus advanced into the herd and singled out a thin, black cow with a
shrunken udder. The dog stared at him sleepily as the three shepherds
continued to drowse.
  "Ho there, cow, off with you!" Remus cried, scuffing through the bushes
with a great racket. Like a child chasing geese, he seemed to enjoy himself.
  The dog made no move until he saw the shepherds open their eyes.
Then he hobbled forward and warily circled the intruder. The men rubbed
their eyes and began to shout, "Thief, thief!" Remus pretended to be
bewildered by their cries and ran in circles around the cow. I sprang from
my ilex tree and joined him.
  "I told you not to come," he whispered, as angry as I had ever seen him.
 "Two of them," croaked a shepherd. "And one a Faun. They might have
made off with the herd!"
  They cautiously approached the spot where we circled tihe cow, who,
unperturbed by our sallies, continued her breakfast of grass, while the
dog, preening himself on his vigilance, barked from a bed of lupine.
   "Brave dog, brave Balbus," the shepherds muttered, stroking the animal
on its flea-bitten head. One of them fetched some leathern thongs from a
lean-to beside the pasture.
  "Now," said the least infirm of the three, who seemed their leader. "Tie
their hands."
  Without resistance, we offered our hands. While a shepherd bound
them, the leader waved his staff threateningly and the dog rushed in and
out barking, then withdrew to catch his breath.
   "They are just boys," said our binder, craning his neck and squinting for
a clear look. "Need we take them to Numitor in town? It's such a long
walk, Julius. A good thrashing may be all they need."
  Remus hurried to speak. "My father thrashed me once. That is why I
ran away. It made me rebellious. No, I am afraid you must take us to
Numitor, unless you want every cow stolen and sold to the Etruscans
across the river." He looked very fierce and tilted his head as if to look
down in scorn on these men who dared call him just a boy. "And my friend
here, the Faun. Would you believe it! Young as he is, he has already
carried off six maidens." He added wickedly, "I have carried off seven. But
then, I am older."
  "Boys they may be," sighed the leader, "but dangerous ones. Numitor
will have to judge. Can the two of you get them to town while Balbus and I
watch the herds?"
  The old men looked at each other and then toward town, as if weighing
the effect of twenty-four miles on their weathered ankles. One of them
prodded Remus with his staff, the other me. We lurched forward
obligingly. "We will try," they sighed.
   "Give them a whack if they talk," advised the leader, and off we went to
find Numitor.



   Alba Longa, the city of Romulus's and Remus's dream, which I myself
had seen only from the woods at the foot of its plateau, was in truth a
modest walled town of five thousand people. Its rock walls, though tall,
were starting to crumble, and its streets grew grass between their
cobblestones. Nevertheless the houses glittered whitely with plaster and
looked to us both like little palaces.
  "And their roofs," Remus whispered. "They are covered with baked clay
shingles." We were used, of course, to the thatched roofs of shepherd huts.
"No danger of fire, no rain soaking through."
   "Ho there, thieves, get on with you," our captors shouted, and prodded
us with their staves. Everywhere the people stared at our advance, to the
obvious pleasure of the shepherds, who cried the more loudly, "Ho there!"
A vestal with a black Etruscan vase almost spilled her water. A vintner
dropped his pig-skin of wine and a thin red stream trickled among the
cobblestones. There were barbers in stalls by lie road, and sellers of
vegetables holding great melons in their hands; children, sheep dogs, and
asses; and, brash and numerous, the soldiers of Amulius. In most Latin
cities, I knew, there was no standing army, no soldiers except in wartime.
But Amulius's men, brandishing spears tipped with bronze, marched
through the city as if to say, "We march on the king's business, and it is
not for civilians to inquire its nature."
  "Ho there," shouted our captors once too often, and a soldier swatted
them both on the head with the shaft of his spear. "Be quiet, old men. You
are near the palace." Chastened, the shepherds fell silent and ceased to
prod us.
   To the left lay the temple of Vesta, raised by Etruscan architects on a
stone platform, with four square pillars across the front. Its pediment
twinkled with orange terra cotta but not with the images beloved by the
Etruscans, for the Latin goddess Vesta lived in the flame of her hearth and
had no physical semblance. Opposite the temple crouched the palace of
Amulius, a low white rectangle distinguished only by size from the houses
we had passed. It was whispered that one day Amulius hoped to build a
true Etruscan palace, multicoloured instead of white, with frescoes and
colonnades, from the cattle he took in taxes; he would trade them to the
Etruscans for architects and stone.
   As a start, at least, he had flanked his gate with bronze Etruscan lions,
slender and lithe-legged, their tails looped over to touch their backs, their
eyes almond-shaped like those of the men who had made them. In front of
the lions stood a pair of human guards, only less lordly than the animals.
   "Have you business in the king's palace?" one of them demanded. His
jerkin was leather, his crested helmet, bronze.
  Our captors had not recovered their composure since the scene with the
soldier. They stammered awkwardly and Remus had to speak for them.
  "They caught us stealing Numitor's cattle. They want to receive his
judgment."
   At mention of Numitor, the guards softened. One of them leaned into
the gate and called, and a withered attendant appeared from the interior.
Guard and attendant whispered together; attendant disappeared and
shortly returned. He led us down a hallway supported by wooden timbers
and into a garden behind the palace, enclosed on three sides by a brick
wall. Roses rioted, in vermilion chaos and crocuses spilled like golden
goblets. It was the first flower garden I had ever seen. I wanted to roll in
the blossoms, thorns and all, and kick my hooves in the air. Then I saw the
king of the garden and forgot to dream. He sat in a backless chair and
stared into a milky pool. His white curving hair was hardly distinguishable
from his robes, which billowed around his feet and hid his sandals.
  He seemed unaware of us. The attendant drew his attention. "Prince,
your shepherds have brought two thieves to receive justice."
  He raised his head and looked at us without expression. His face was as
yellow and cracked as papyrus, laid in a tomb by pharaohs older than
Saturn; god-men ruling the Nile before the Etruscans had passed through
Egypt and brought her lore to Italy. A face like papyrus whose writing had
been erased by time; inscrutable.
  "Bring them forward," he said. We knelt and Remus took his hand.
  "My king," he said, nothing more, but with infinite sincerity.
   Numitor withdrew his hand and motioned the boy to rise. "I am not
your king," he said stiffly. "I never was. You are much too young—the age
of my grandsons, had they lived. And they were born after I had lost my
throne. Tell me, boy, why did you steal my cattle?"
  "Because I wanted to see you."
  "To see me? I don't understand."
  "As a thief, I knew they would bring me to receive your judgment."
  "You were right. Before I deliver judgment, what favour do you ask? I
warn you, I have few to give."
  "Your blessing. Your love."
  "An old man loves his children. I have none. His grandchildren. I have
none. My heart has rid itself of love. A nest without swallows. But what is
your name? Something about you stirs me to remember—"
  "A shepherd named me Remus, and my brother, Romulus. We are
twins."
  The names, of course, were meaningless to him, but he caught at
Remus's last word. "Twins, you say?"
  "Soon after we were born, our mother was buried in a pit and we were
taken to be drowned in the Tiber. But Faustulus saved us and made us his
sons."
  Numitor groaned and surged to his feet, like the geysers of Vulcan,
white with borax, which roar from the earth and shudder in the air.
  "What are you saying?" he thundered. "You lie as well as steal. I saw my
grandsons when Amulius took them from my daughter. One had dark
hair, darker than yours. One had gold, gold like this flower." He crushed a
crocus under his sandal. "A gift from the god, his father. Which are you?"
   "The gold-haired." Remus fell to his knees and ducked his head in the
pool, which began to run rivulets of brown. He rose and shook out his hair.
Though streaked with umber, it glittered yellowly like gold among veins of
iron.
   I watched the papyrus mask. The worn and time-veined surface
trembled and softened, the forgotten language of love spoke in misting
eyes. He ran his hand through Remus's hair and felt the molten umber
between his fingers.
  "Time," he said. "Give me time. I am not used to tears. They burn like
wine." An old man sightless with tears, he took the boy in his arms.
"Rhea," he whispered, "your son has come back to me."
  "You are a senile old fool," a voice croaked from the door. "This boy has
played a trick on you. He should be taught a lesson."
  I recognised Amulius though I had never seen him. I knew him from the
veined toad eyes which never blinked, the hunched and dwarfish shape.
Amulius the Toad.
  "Guards!" he called.
  "Go to Romulus," Remus whispered. "I will hold them off."
   Behind me a prince and a tyrant grappled in roses and thorns. With a
single thrust of my hooves, I clutched the top of the wall and drew myself
up the bricks. "Bonus Eventus," I prayed, "help me to bring him help!"



                                    IV

   I landed in a narrow street behind the palace and my hooves clattered
on the cobblestones. An old woman, carrying melons from market, paused
in surprise, then trudged down the street with a shrug that seemed to say:
"Let Amulius protect his own palace. If Fauns can rob it, good for them."
There was no one else in sight, but an ass, tethered to a stake, watched me
vacantly. His master, it seemed, had business in the shop of a dyer, which
reeked with decaying trumpet shells, much prized for their purple dye.
   Remus had given me seconds. As soon as the guards overpowered him,
they would follow me or send their friends. I must reach the gate quickly; I
must run. But a running Faun, in a city of soldiers, would look suspicious.
They would take me for a thief. Nibbling grass between the stones, the
tethered ass browsed in the sun. I loosed his rope and kicked him with the
full force of my hoof. He galloped down the street.
   "Whoa, whoa," I shouted, galloping after him as if to recover my own
escaping property. Round a bend he sped and into the central street and
straight toward the towers of the gate. When he slowed, I slowed. When he
quickened, I quickened and yelled "Whoa!" A hand reached out to stop
him; I caught my breath; but he burst free and charged for the gate. The
guards laughed and spurred him on with a slap to his flank and a cry of
"Giddyap!" Upsetting a potter's cart, laden with orange clay lamps, I
hurried after him.
   "May thieves crack your skull," cried the potter. I waved without looking
back and raced down the hill toward the forest. To the left of me, Lake
Albanus glittered in the afternoon sun, and skiffs of hollowed alder poised
Mice dragonflies on its molten turquoise. Ahead of me dusky cypresses
signalled the path to the Palatine.
   I found Romulus with Celer and the herd at the foot of the Palatine.
When I told him what had happened, he turned very pale and drove his
staff into the ground,
  "I knew I should have gone."
  "Never mind," I consoled. "Who can say no to Remus?"
  "If they harm him, I will burn the city! Celer, watch the cattle." He
hurried me up the hill, making plans as he went. "We will attack tonight.
In the dark, we may be able to climb the walls before we are seen."
  "But the people won't know us. Remus had no chance to tell Numitor
about our plan."
  "No matter. We can't delay. Once in the city, we will shout his
name—'Long live Numitor!'—and hope to rally support."
   Romulus was right, we could not delay. But what could we do against
walls and soldiers? If we battered down the gate with a tree, soldiers
would surely be waiting. If we climbed the walls, they might see us and
still be waiting. Since Alba Longa stands on a ridge, it is difficult to reach
the walls without detection, even at night. I said nothing; Romulus knew
the dangers. But I could not risk Remus's life with such a puny effort.
  I descended the Palatine and headed for the cave. I wanted to think. On
the way I passed Celer with the herd. He leaned against a rock, staff in
hand and a straw between his teeth. Complacent oaf, I thought. Calm as a
sheep when Remus's life is in danger.
  "So they shut the Woodpecker in a cage," he grinned. "Big games
tonight, eh?" Before I could hoof him, he changed the subject. "Sylvan, I
hear you found a Dryad. Where's her tree?"
  "She is Remus's Dryad," I said indignantly.
  "And yours," he smirked. "And mine, if you show me her tree."
   "North of the Quirinal," I lied. "An ilex tree with a lightning mark on
the trunk." I lowered my ears to muffle his answer and hurried to the cave.
Inside, I threw myself on a pallet of clover, but the fragrance reminded me
of Remus and clouded my thoughts. I paced the floor. Luperca crept from
the rear of the cave and pressed against my leg. I knelt and took her head
in my hands.
   "Luperca," I said. "Remus has gone to the city. They have taken him
captive. What shall I do?" She looked at me with such intelligence that I
felt she understood my words; she began to whine and I wished that I
understood hers.
   Then I heard a swarming of bees outside the cave. I walked out and
looked at the hive in the fig tree. Mellonia's remedy had worked. The bees
were recovering their health. Mellonia! She was the one to help Remus.
She had cured his bees. Might she not have secrets to release him from
prison? After all, she had loved Aeneas, the incomparable warrior. I
galloped for the circle of oaks. Behind me, a conch shell boomed from the
Palatine, and I knew that Romulus was summoning his men.
  I stood at the foot of her oak and called: "Mellonia, I have come from
Remus." No answer.
  Again I called. A voice, muffled by branches, answered. "I am coming
down. Wait for me by the altar."
   In a surprisingly short time, she emerged from the tunnel. She was not
the Mellonia I remembered, hard and queenly, but a pale tree child
blinking in the alien sun. She raised a hand to shelter her eyes.
  "He is hurt?"
  "No. But Amulius has taken him prisoner." I told her about his capture.
  "What does Romulus mean to do?"
  I explained his plan—as much as I knew.
  "Romulus's shepherds," she sighed. "I have seen them drilling in the
woods. They are brave but they have no armour. They have no spears. Only
their staves and bows. What good are bows against walls, or in fighting
hand to hand through the streets? They will cost Remus his life."
  "Mellonia," I cried desperately. "You can save him. I know you can."
  She touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers, like little blades of
grass. "You are a good friend to him, Sylvan. You and I and the forest, we
are his friends. Perhaps we can save him. Go back to Romulus now. Say
that when Arcturus shines directly over the temple of Vesta, I will come to
him in the woods below the city gate. Let him do nothing till I come, but
have his men in readiness."
  I pressed her hand; it was warm and small like a swallow. "Mellonia, I
have not been kind to you."
  "Nor I to you. But Remus has made us friends. You are his brother,
Sylvan. Far more than Romulus, the Wolf. Trust me."
   I turned to go and she called after me. "Sylvan, wait. In truth I am
afraid for him. The forest is restless. The cranes have been flying all day, as
they do before a storm. But there has been no storm. And all last night,
owls cried in my. tree. I have looked for vultures, birds of good omen.
Especially for woodpeckers. There are none to be seen."
  "Good omens?" I cried. "You are Remus's good omen!"



   Tall above Alba Longa, the temple of Vesta burned in the moonlight,
and orange Arcturus, the star of spring, climbed above the stone
pediment. Fifty shepherds crouched in the forest below the gate: Romulus
with his ancient spear consecrated to Mars; several with bows and arrows,
the use of which Remus had taught them; but most armed only with
knives, staves, or slingshots. The bodies of all were bare except for loin
cloths—no greaves on their legs nor metal corselets to hide their chests
and backs from the plunge of an arrow or the bite of a sword.
   Their battering ram was an elm tree cut in the forest; their ladders
looked as frail as saplings untested by storms. How many shepherds, I
wondered, would survive the night? I was glad that the bent Faustulus, at
Romulus's insistence, had remained on the Palatine. A momentary pity
possessed me. Who could blame them, rough though they were, for
wanting houses in town and women to tend then: hearths?
   "We can wait no longer," said Romulus. It fretted him following orders
from a Dryad he had never seen. Nothing but concern for Remus, I think,
and knowledge of his own inadequacy, could have made him listen at all.
  "But Arcturus has just now risen above the temple," I protested.
"Before, it was still climbing. I know she will come!"
   "What can she do if she does? We are fools to try the gate, which seems
to be her intention. We should scale the wall on the far side."
  Then I heard the bees. "Hush," I said. "She is coming."
   My ears quivered. The droning grew louder; curiously the men peered
into the forest. I felt like a traveller approaching a waterfall. At first he
hears just a murmur, faint and distant. Then the trees fall away and the
murmur roars in his ears.
   Now they surrounded us, bees beyond counting. Kindled by the
moonlight, they curved like a Milky Way above our heads and wove a
shield from the darkness. Mellonia led them. She seemed to be made out
of leaves and mist and moonlight. She walked in a cloud of bees, and I had
to look closely to see that her feet touched the ground. The men gaped at
her; Romulus too, and that stupid Celer most of all.
  "Is that your Dryad?" he whispered. "She looks like a goddess!"
  I gaped too, but less at her beauty than at the dark stains on her
face—were they blood?—and at her torn, dishevelled robe.
   "It is nothing," she whispered, passing me. "Part of my plan." She
singled out Romulus. It was not hard for her to recognise him, the
brawniest of all of the young men and the only one with a spear.
  "Romulus," she said. "Brother of Remus, I salute you. When the gate is
open, I will raise my arm. Enter with your men."
  Before he could question her somewhat cryptic directions, she was
gone, climbing the hill toward the gate. The bees swirled high above her;
their droning died, their fires flickered out in the darkness.
  "What does she mean to do?" Romulus gasped. "Sylvan, she is mad."
  "Or a witch," cried Celer, staring after her. The men shuddered and
whispered among themselves. Something moved in the forest. Shapes
inseparable from the trees, not to be seen, scarcely to be heard. Something
breathed.
   "Striges," went the whisper. "Vampires." "Lemures. She sent to make us
follow her!" Now she was midway to the gate. "Guards," she called out, her
voice broken as if with pain, yet strong enough to be heard in the towers
that flanked the gate. "Help me. I am hurt." She fell to her knees. "Help
me." Silence. Then a voice, hesitant, testing. "Who are you?"
  "I have come from Veil, Wolves attacked my escort in the forest."
   Creaking, the gate swung inward on its massive stone pivot. A lamp
flickered in one of the towers, vanished, reappeared on the ground. Its
bearer paused in the gateway. Mellonia rose, staggered, fell again. "Help
me." The guard walked toward her, sword in hand. She raised her arm.
   "They will shut the gate in our face," groaned Romulus. "We can never
climb the hill in time!" But his hesitation was brief. Whatever his faults,
he was not a coward. With a low cry to his men, he raced up the hill
toward the gate. I ran beside him. The hill swelled above us, endless and
black. I felt like a swimmer in the trough of a mountainous wave. Would
we never make its crest?
  Kneeling beside Mellonia, the guard raised his head and saw us. "Shut
the gate!" he shouted. He scurried to safety; the gate swung inward,
monstrous, implacable.
  Then a shadow crossed the moon. I looked up; my ears stood on end.
Mellonia's bees! In a deadly amber stream, they poured from the sky. A
shout, a thrashing in the tower. The gate groaned slowly to silence, half
open.
   I dug my hooves in the turf, kicked aside stones, drove myself furiously
forward. Romulus tripped and I heaved him back in the path. Through the
half open gate, I saw the movement of men, the flash of a spear, the
swirling of bees and bronze. Then we were in the city. The bees withdrew
and left us to fight our battle.
   A soldier charged me, levelling his spear and grinning like the demons
of death in Etruscan tombs. I raised my sling and caught him in the teeth.
He stopped, a round black hole where his teeth had been, and stared at
me. Blood gushed out of the hole. Like a broken bow, he fell at my feet.
  "We have them outnumbered," Romulus shouted. "They are falling
back!" Spears wavered, shields swung aside. The street near the gate lay
empty except for ourselves.
  "Numitor!" "Numitor is king!" Romulus began the cry, and the rest of
us took it up. "Numitor is king!" Dazed with too easy a victory, we surged
toward the heart of town, the temple, the palace, and Remus.
   But the street was barred. A row of spears glittered across our path, like
the oars of a galley raised from the sea in sparkling unison. A wall of
spears to bar our advance, and behind them another, another, and finally
a row of archers, grim as Etruscan bronzes. The soldiers we had routed
were few. Now we must meet an army. Already our limbs were streaked
with blood.
   We had spent our wind in the climb and the fight at the gate. We had
lost some men—six I counted with a hasty glance in the street. We were
tired, outnumbered, and armourless. How could we shake those fixed,
immovable spears?
  "Where are the bees?" I cried. "Mellonia, where are your bees?"
   Then I saw the wolves, thudding through the gate and into the street.
Muffled as raindrops, their feet padded on the stones. My nostrils
quivered with the scent of fur, grassy and wet from the forest. I felt hot
breath and smelled decaying flesh. We crouched against the walls to let
them pass. The wolves ignored us. Straight toward the soldiers they went,
the levelled spears and the tightening bows. Mellonia and Luperca
followed them.
  Mellonia spoke so softly that I could not make out her words, or should I
say incantation. It is said that the Etruscan princes, when they hunt,
bewitch the animals with the piping of flutes and lure them into their
nets. Mellonia's voice, it seemed, had such a power over wolves.
Sometimes, it is true, an animal balked or threatened to turn from the
pack. But Luperca, surprisingly agile, snapped at his heels and hurried
him back into line. The venerable wolf who had suckled my friend in a
cave and the aged, ageless Dryad; both were queens.
   The line trembled, the spears wavered, like oars ingulfed by a wave. The
long taut bows swayed in the archers' arms. And the wolves attacked. High
above the wavering spears, a body spun in the air. Spears shot up to ward
off its deadly fall. The line was broken. The archers never fired. Men and
animals rolled in the street; armour clattered on stones and weighed men
down; animals sprang on their chests and tore at their naked faces. Spears
were useless, arrows worse. A few had time to draw daggers. Most used
their hands.
   Some of the men broke free and began to run. Wolves loped after them.
Wounded, in pain, the soldiers reeled against doorways and beat their
fists for admittance. The doors remained shut.
  The city had wakened. On the rooftops, torches flared, people crouched
behind them and stared at the rout of the tyrants who, a few hours ago,
had tyrannized Alba Longa. Now a weird procession formed: Mellonia and
Luperca with the wolf pack, a cloud of returning bees above their heads:
Romulus with his shepherds, raising their staves in token of victory.
  But an army's march is slow, and Remus was still in the palace.
Ignoring the wolves, I pushed to Mellonia's side.
  "Come ahead with me," I urged.
  She nodded. "Luperca can watch the wolves."
  In a cloud of bees, we raced through the market of silent stalls, where
tomorrow the vintner would hawk his wine and the farmer his gourds and
grapes. A terrified soldier reeled from our path. A sheep dog snapped at
our heels but, hearing the wolves, ducked in an alleyway.
   The palace was almost dark. The temple of Vesta, across the road, lent a
fitful light from its eternal hearth. The Etruscan lions growled in brazen
impotence. They had no soldiers to guard them. The gate was unbarred.
We entered the central corridor and, following a light, turned aside into a
large hall.
   "Amulius's audience room," Mellonia said. She pointed to a curule chair
of gold and ivory raised on a stone platform. A tall candelabrum, hung
with lamps, cast mournful flickerings on the tapestry behind the throne.
Seeing that the room was empty, I turned to continue our search. Mellonia
stopped me.
  "We will lose minutes. Let my bees find him." She raised her arms and
inscribed in the air a series of circles and lines, like the loopings of bees
when they tell the location of flowers. The bees understood and swarmed
from the room.
  We looked at each other. Where was the powerful sorceress who had
opened the gate of a city to admit the forest? Like a swallow after a storm,
beaten and bruised, she sank to the floor. I motioned her to sit in the
chair.
  "No," she said. "Amulius sat there." She stared at the plum-coloured
hangings behind the chair. "Even his dye is false. Not Tyrian purple, the
colour of kings, but the dye of trumpet sheik."
  I sat beside her and rested her in my arms. "It will be all right," I said.
"Soon we will have him back again."
  "Now perhaps. But later? He will always be hurt, always be threatened."
  "We will look after him."
  "We are vulnerable too. Even now I am weary for my tall bark walls. I
cannot leave them for long."
   Abruptly the bees returned, circling in the doorway to catch our
attention. In the dark corridor, we lost sight of them, but their droning
guided us through several turnings and down a stairway redolent of rocks
and moisture. We stepped into a cellar lit by a single torch, smoky and
pungent with resin. The room opened through a barred door into a small
cell. The door swung wide on its pivot and Amulius's body, clutching a
dagger, hunched like a bloated toad across the sill. Remus stood in the cell
beyond the body.
  "He came to get me," he said, dazed. "And you had to kill him?"
   "No. They did." He pointed to the bees which had lit on the pallet in his
cell. I knelt beside the body and saw the red welts, a hundred or more, and
the closed swollen eyes.
   "He unbolted the door and said that my friends were coming; he was
going to make me his hostage. I stepped backward. He drew his dagger,
and they hit him from the back like a hundred hundred slingshots. He
scraped at his eyes, groaned, and fell to the floor. Then you came."
  "The bees love you," Mellom'a said proudly. "Some may have come from
your own hive. They sensed your danger."
   He buried his face in the fall of her hair and she held him with exquisite
tenderness. For the first time, I loved him loving her. Two children they
seemed, warm in each other's arms and forgetful that love, however
strong, is also brief, because it is bound by the frailties of the flesh. I
wanted to enfold them in the magic circle of my own love and blunt, like a
ring of shields, all menacing arrows. But I was a Faun, briefer than men.
  At last she drew apart from him. "How pale you have grown, shut up in
the palace. In a single day, you wilt like a lotus."
   "Come," I said. "We must find Romulus. He is much concerned." We
climbed the stairs.
   The palace thundered with men. Their shadows bristling on tapestried
walls, they stalked through the rooms with torches and gasped at
treasures which, to the eyes of a shepherd (and mine as well), rivalled the
riches of Carthage. A fan made of peacock feathers. Pearls as big as
acorns. A mirror whose handle was the neck of a graceful swan! Guards
and servants were nowhere in evidence. They must have fled with our
arrival, and the palace lay temptingly accessible. The shepherds seemed to
forget that they had come to liberate and not to loot.
   We found Romulus in Amulius's audience room, and I must say for him
that he was not himself looting, but, torch in hand, trying to organize a
search for Remus. He was having trouble; his men were more concerned
with found treasures than with lost brothers. When he saw us, he whooped
like a Gaul on the warpath. Throwing his torch to me, he lifted his twin
from the floor and hugged him with brotherly ardour. Often he seemed the
crudest of warriors, a brash young wolf who, in spite of his tender years,
had somehow missed youthfulness. But with Remus he was youthful as
well as young, and only with Remus could I like him.
  "We have taken the city," he cried, while I steadied his torch and
shielded my eyes from its sputtering resin. "Brother, Alba Longa is ours!"
  "And Numitor's," Remus reminded us. "Has anyone seen the king?"
   In a room at the back of the palace, we found him on a couch, his white
beard overflowing a crimson coverlet. He had slept through the fall of the
city, and he thought himself still asleep when Remus explained what had
happened and said, “This is your grandson, Romulus."
  At last the sleep had cleared from his eyes. He held out his arms to
Romulus, though clearly he was ill at ease with this great muscular
grandson, smelling of wolves and blood, who came to him from the forest.
   Romulus and Remus supported the king between them and, with
Mellonia and me, headed for the gate. Along the way, in corridors and
sleeping chambers, Romulus gathered his men, and a sizable procession
emerged from the palace. Beyond the Etruscan lions, twenty or more
shepherds lounged or sat in the street, placed there by Romulus and
awaiting his signal to enter the palace. They stared at Numitor with mild
curiosity.
   On the roofs of the houses, the townspeople waited too. But Mellonia's
wolves still prowled the streets, and the timorous Alba Longans, though
visibly moved at the presence of Numitor, were not yet ready to risk
descent.
   Romulus stepped forward with Numitor and raised the aged king's arm
into the air. "People of Alba Longa, your king is restored to you!"
  With a slight motion, Numitor released himself from Romulus's support
and stood alone. He straightened his bowed shoulders and lifted his
weathered face. Forgetting their timidity, the people cheered as if they
themselves had restored him to his throne. The shepherds were silent; it
was not Numitor they wanted but Romulus. Had they fought to restore an
old man to a throne he had lost before they were born? I watched
Romulus's face and saw his impatience for Numitor to address the people
and abdicate in favour of his grandsons. The Wolf had done the
honourable thing; he had proclaimed his grandfather king. The next move
was Numitor's.
  Meanwhile, Mellonia had left us. I saw her in the street with Luperca,
gathering her wolves and bees as a shepherd gathers sheep. Remus saw
her too, but she shook her head: he was not to follow.
  "She is tired," I whispered. "She wants her tree."
  "People of Alba Longa," Numitor was saying in a clear, resonant voice.
"Amulius is dead. My grandsons have come back to me. A staff in my old
age, they will help me to live out my years—to rule wisely if only for a little
while. As king of Alba Longa, I hereby declare an amnesty to all who
supported Amulius. I will end my reign with peace, even as I began it. The
years between are forgotten." He paused, I should say posed, and lifted his
arms with the studied flourish of a mime. A king, it seemed, even in exile,
never forgot the gestures of royalty.
  The applause was vehement.
  "Long live Numitor!"
  "King of Alba Longa!"
  The people clambered from the rooftops and thrust their way through
Romulus's men to the feet of their restored king. Remus tightened his
hand on my shoulder. Romulus paled. A mutter, lost in the general
cheering, ran among the shepherds. We had rescued Remus; for me, that
was enough. But the shepherds wanted more, and rightly, while Romulus
and Remus had dreamed of a throne since childhood.
   At last the old man's strength was failing. "Help me to bed, will you, my
grandsons? Tell your men the largess of the palace is theirs. The wines, the
fruits, the venisons. Tomorrow I will rule—with your help. Now I will
sleep."
   When Numitor slept and Romulus's men roamed the palace, a sausage
in one hand, a cluster of grapes in the other, Romulus, Remus, and I
talked in the garden. The jonquils, beaten gold goblets by day, had paled
with the moon into silver and seemed to be spilling moonlight into the
pool.
  For once, Celer was absent from our council. Romulus assured us that
he had not been wounded, but no one had seen him since Numitor
addressed his people.
  "Chasing some wench," I muttered.
  Our conversation turned to Numitor.
  "Did you see his excitement?" Remus asked. "He will reign for years!"
   "Then we will build our own city," Romulus announced. "Even if we
reign with Numitor, we can't have our way in Alba Longa. What changes
can we make while an old man holds the throne? His people will not
accept changes as long as he lives. They have had a tyrant; now they want
a venerable figurehead. Let them have what they want. We will build our
city on the Palatine. Already we have a circle of huts. Next, add a wall,
then a temple to Mars, then a place of government—"
   "And a shrine to our mother," said Remus, kindling to the plan. "A
temple to Rumina and a park for the birds and animals. I think, though,
Romulus, that the Palatine is not the best hill. True, there are huts
already. But some of the owners are thieves and cutthroats, as you well
know. Let them keep their huts, but in our new city there will not be room
for such men. Why not build on the Aventine? It is almost as high, and
closer to the forest, to Mellonia and her friends, who won us our victory."
  "Ask Father Mars who won our victory," Romulus snapped. "Mellonia
helped, it is true. But my shepherds, Remus, took the city. The men you
call thieves and cut-throats."
   "Men like Celer make good warriors," Remus granted. "But not good
citizens. I mean no disrespect to the man. But Romulus, can you see him
worshipping in a temple or sitting in a senate house? Give him a woman
and herds, but leave him on the Palatine. Build our city on the Aventine!"
  "Ask for a sign from heaven," I interrupted. The gods, I thought, should
favour Remus, who worshipped all of them and not the war god only.
"Consult a sheep's liver, as the Etruscan augurs do, or watch for birds of
good omen."
  "Very well," said Romulus reluctantly. "We shall ask for a sign. Early one
morning—the best time for omens —we shall climb our respective bills and
watch the sky for vultures, the luckiest of birds. Whoever sees the most
shall choose his hill for our city. Now, my brother, let us sleep before we
quarrel."
  The palace abounded in couches; I chose one with feet like an eagle's
and fell asleep, dreaming of vultures.



                                     V

   With less reluctance than the brothers anticipated, Numitor received
their declaration that they wished to build a city on the Tiber. Doubtless
realizing that such a city would stand as a safeguard between Alba Longa
and the Etruscans—now friendly, but expanding—Numitor had promised
to send workmen and materials, and he had already purchased the herds
of Tullius and given them to the twins who had long been their shepherds.
   But first a site must be chosen. At sunrise three days after the capture
of Alba Longa, Remus and I stood atop the Aventine, watching for
vultures. The day had been chosen because it was sacred to the Pales,
deities of shepherds who had given their name to the Palatine. Before
sunrise, Remus had fumigated his herds with sulphur to drive out evil
spirits and scattered the stalk with arbute boughs, beloved by the goats,
and wreaths of myrtle and laurel. Later the shepherds on the Palatine
would leap through bonfires and, facing the east, pray to the Pales. A lucky
day, one would think, for omens. But for whom?
  "I wonder why the gods favour vultures," I said, wrinkling my nose as I
pictured the birds at a feast. "Such an ugly creature."
  Remus laughed. "Ugly, yes. But helpful. They rid the forest of carcasses.
And they never kill."
  "Which way will they come?"
  "They may not come at all. They are very rare in this country. Mellonia
says to watch the river, where the animals go to drink and die."
  He had visited her daily since the fall of Alba Longa. Her name had
grown pleasant even to my long ears. Instead of his usual loin cloth, he was
wearing a tunic, almost sleeveless and falling just below the thighs, which
the Dryad had woven from rushes and leaves. Soon it would wilt, but
Mellonia had promised him a leaf-coloured garment of wool to take its
place. "Now you are part of my tree," she had said. "Green leaves, green
tunic. You carry the forest with you."
  "But how will Romulus know if we really see the number we say?"
  "He will take our word," said Remus, surprised.
  "And you will take his?"
  "Of course."
  "It means a lot to him to build on the Palatine."
  "I know. But he would never lie to us."
  "Remus. Have you ever thought of building your own city—without
Romulus. It won't be easy to rule with him. If you win your hill, it will be
even harder. And men like Celer, how will you keep them out? Or make
them behave if they enter?"
  "I will build with Romulus or not at all. He is my brother. Do you
realize, Sylvan, I shared the same womb with him? We have never been
apart."
  "You love him deeply, don't you?"
   "He is one of three. You, Romulus, Mellonia. I love Mellonia as someone
beyond me, a goddess or a queen. Green leaves in the uppermost branches
of a tree. I love her with awe and a little sadness. I love you, Sylvan, as
someone close and warm. A fire on a cold night. Barley loaves baking on
the hearth. You never judge me. With you I am most myself. And
Romulus? The stone pillars of a temple. The bronze of a shield. Hard
things, yes. But strong and needed."
   "You are very different from Romulus. He is not always a shield. He
is"—I chose my words carefully, not wishing to offend him—"rash in some
ways."
   "I know," he said sadly. "And I try to temper his rashness. In return, he
gives me courage."
  "Courage, Remus? You have strength enough of your own. I never saw
you hesitate when you knew what was right."
  "You can't see my heart. It leaps like a grasshopper sometimes!
Romulus, though, is fearless."
   Then you are the braver, I thought. You conquer fear, while Romulus's
courage is thoughtless, instinctive. But I said nothing; he would only make
light of himself.
   And then we saw them: High above the orange turbulence of the Tiber,
six vultures glided to the north. Clumsy birds, ugly—I had not changed my
mind—but oh, how welcome.
  "Remus, you have won!" I cried. "Even if Romulus sees them, we saw
them first. They are flying toward and not away from him."
  We raced down the hill and scrambled up the Palatine, a few hundred
yards to the north.
  "Slow down, Woodpecker," I shouted. "Your tunic has given you wings."
   He laughed and tore me a leaf from his waist. "Catch my feathers and
fly!"
  In a flurry of leaves and dust, we burst through the circle of huts and
found Romulus, waiting with a small band of men, on the highest part of
the hill.
  "Six of them," Remus cried. "Romulus, we saw six at once!"
   Romulus looked surprised, but he spoke blandly. "So did we. Just before
you came." His face at last showed the start of a beard, a small black V
below his chin. The ambitious boy, impatient but waiting, had hardened
into a man who, no less ambitious, had ceased to wait.
  "It must have been the same six. They were flying this way."
  "No matter. They still count."
  "Then we are tied."
  "No," put in Celer. "We have seen twelve." He twisted his mouth to the
caricature of a smile, but his flat eyes were cold.
  "Twelve? There have never been so many near these hills!"
   Romulus started to speak, but Celer continued. "Today there were. The
six that just passed, and before them, six more. Even larger—as big as
eagles. They circled twice to be sure we saw them. Sent by the gods, eh,
Romulus?"
  "Is it true?" Remus asked his brother.
   Romulus glowered. "Of course it is true. Celer has told you. And the city
is mine to build where I choose."
  Remus paled and spoke with an effort. "Build it then." It must have
been clear to him that Celer had lied and that Romulus, though hesitant at
first, had repeated the lie. "Sylvan," Remus said to me, "I am going to the
cave."
   We started down the hill. Behind us Romulus was giving orders. "Find
me a bull and a heifer. We will plough the boundaries of our new city. But
first we will celebrate the feast of the Pales. Celer, break out the wine. And
the rest of you, build us some bonfires."
   The men whooped approval and scuffled about their work. After the
feast, Romulus would yoke the animals to a bronze-tipped plough and
drive them around the base of the hill where he meant to build his walls,
leaving a space for,the gate. The area enclosed by the plough would be
fortunate ground. Whoever crossed the furrow instead of entering by the
designated gate would shatter the luck of the builders and allow the
invasion of hostile spirits.
  Remus was silent until we reached the cave. He threw himself on his
pallet and Luperca, as if she sensed his trouble, crept beside him.
  "You can build your own city," I suggested.
  "No, I will help Romulus. But first I must understand him."
  "I know how you feel. Your hill was the best."
  He looked up at me. "The hill is not important. Romulus lied. That is
important. He is building his city on a lie and the men know."
  "No one objected. They like the Palatine."
  "That is the harm. They knew and said nothing,"
   I left him alone all morning and waited under the fig tree. Once I looked
in the cave. His eyes were open, but he did not appear to see me, nor to
hear the merriment on top of the hill.
  "Rumina," I said, more in conversation than in prayer. "You are the
goddess of the suckling herds. But your tree stands right at our door.
Neglect the lambs for awhile and help my friend."
  In the afternoon, I climbed the fig tree and captured some honey in a
round clay bowl. The bees, sensing perhaps for whom it was meant (or
instructed by Rumina herself), made no objection. In the cave I knelt
beside Remus.
  "Eat it," I said crossly. "You have brooded enough."
   He smiled, sat up, and took the bowl from my hands. He tilted it to his
lips as if it were milk, for he relished the honey from his own bees, and
drained the bowl.
  "Now," he said, "I will help Romulus with his walls. But first I want to
see Mellonia."
  "I will wait for you here."
  "No, come with me."
  "You must have things to say in private. Who wants a Faun's big ears at
such a time?"
  "She has grown to love you. Besides—" His smile faded. "I want you with
me. It is something I feel—a loneliness, a fear—I am not sure what. I want
you with me.
   In the woods beyond the Aventine, we encountered Celer and three of
his friends, leaning on each other for support and thrashing through the
undergrowth with such a racket that turquoise lizards flew in all
directions. When they saw us they stopped, and Celer looked momentarily
sobered. He forced a grin.
  "Big Ears and Woodpecker," he said. "You missed our feast. The gods
will be hurt."
   "They are hurt already," said Remus, without slowing. "But not by
Sylvan and me." The revellers made for the Palatine with surprising
directness.
   Suddenly I remembered that Celer had asked me the location of
Mellonia's tree. I had not told him, but the night of the wolves he had
vanished from Alba Longa. Had he followed her home, I wondered, and
then today, emboldened with wine and friends, returned to invade her
tree?
  "Remus," I said. "Do you think he has found her tree?"
  We began to run.
  The branches of Mellonia's oak tree sprawled like a city which has
grown without planning, its temples and archways mingled in artless
beauty. From a distance, there was nothing to hint an invasion.
  We approached the trunk.
  "That lowermost branch," said Remus tensely. "I think it is starting to
wilt."
  "Too little sun," I said, but without conviction.
  He began to call. "Mellonia!" "Mellonia!"
  I searched the ground for traces of a fire or other means of assault, but
the trunk was untouched. Around the altar, however, there were definite
signs of Celer and his friends—jonquils in crushed profusion, rocks
overturned, and, yes, they had entered the tunnel; it reeked of their wine.
   Mellonia's room lay hushed and broken. We found her beside the couch,
a white small body blackened with bruises and cradled, incongruously, in
a bed of narcissus petals. Remus lifted her on to the couch and smoothed
her tangled green hair, in which petals had caught as if to take root in its
venture. She opened her eyes.
  "Little bird," she said. "Who will look after you?" That was all.
  He covered her body with petals and kissed her on the mouth which
could no longer feel bruises. "I had never meant to outlive you," he said.
  I turned my head but I heard his tears. Or was it the column of bees
that swayed through the open window, the forest grieving for its queen,
and for the king who had loved her? The shepherds say that bees speak
only what is in our hearts—our grief, our joy, not theirs. That their
murmur is always the same, and it is we who darken or lighten it to our
mood. Perhaps, then, I heard my own tears.
  We left her in the tree with the bees. "She would not want to be moved,"
Remus said. "The oak is dying. They will go to earth together."
  We stared at the tree and already, it seemed, the wilt was stealing
upward to the green and sunny towers.
  "Did you hear what she said?" he asked.
  I pressed his hand. "Yes. Yes, little bird."



  When we reached the Palatine, Romulus had driven his team around
the foot of the hill. For one short space, the gate, he had left the earth
unbroken. Stripped completely in the hot April sun, he leaned on the
plough, his massive thighs diamonded with sweat. Drops rolled down his
beard. He looked very tired—and very royal.
  With mattocks and shovels, the shepherds were setting to work inside
the circle. Romulus had captured the numen or magic of the gods. Now
they must build strong walls and enclose the magic securely. They sang as
they dug, Celer and his friends the loudest:



  Romulus, son of the spear god Mars,
  Nursed by the long grey wolf .. .
  Celer looked up from his work and saw us. He dropped his shovel.
   Pausing outside the circle, Remus cried: "Romulus, your walls are
useless, the luck is gone. A murderer stands inside!" He jumped the
furrow. The shepherds stared at him in horror. I myself, midway to the
gate, gasped at his daring. He sprang at Celer. Celer recovered his shovel
but Remus parried, wrestled it from his hands, and felled him with a blow
to his shoulder.
  Romulus snatched a shovel from the shepherd nearest him. "Idiot!" he
shouted to Remus. "It is you who have broken Our luck. Fight me; not
Celer."
  "Keep away from me," Remus warned. But he made no move to defend
himself from Romulus; he was waiting for Celer, dazed but conscious, to
regain his feet.
   Romulus struck him with the back of his shovel. I saw Remus's eyes.
Surprise, that was all. Not fear, not anger. Then he fell. In the forest, once,
I heard a she-wolf cry when a shepherd killed her cubs. All pain, all
yearning. A cry from the vital organs of her body, as if their red swift
pulsing could wrench her cubs from death. So Romulus cried and knelt
beside his brother. In Remus's hair, the stains were of earth, not blood;
the umber soil mingling with the sunflowers. But the stalk was broken.
  I took Remus's shovel. "Stand up," I said to Romulus. "I am going to kill
you."
  He looked up at me through tears. "Sylvan, I wish you would."
   I think it was Remus who held my hand. Born of one womb, he had
said. Romulus, his brother, his pillar and shield of bronze. Instead of
killing him, I knelt at his side.
   Troubled and respectful, the shepherds surrounded us, and Faustulus
laid his hand on Romulus's neck.
  "My son, you meant him no harm. Let me prepare his body for burial."
  Romulus shook his head. "I must make my peace with him first."
  "And you, Sylvan?"
  "I will stay with Remus."
  The men climbed the hill. The sunlight thinned and shadows came to
watch with us. Somewhere a cow lowed with quiet urgency. It is late, I
thought. She is waiting for Remus to milk her.
  "He must have a place for the night," I said. "He never liked the dark."
  Romulus stirred. I think he had forgotten me. "The cave?"
  "No. He would be alone there. We shall take him to Mellonia's tree.
Celer killed her, he and his friends."
  He looked at me with stunned comprehension. "Then that was why
Remus attacked him. They will die for this, Sylvan."
  I kindled a torch in the cave with pieces of flint and returned to
Romulus. Luperca followed me. Romulus stroked her head.
   "Old mother," he said, "you loved him too." He lifted his brother and
held him lightly, with Remus's hair against his cheek. "His hair smells of
clover."
  "I know."
  We walked slowly—Luperca was very weak—and came at last to the tree.
Trembling but quiet, she waited outside the cave.
   We placed him on the couch beside Mellonia. I pressed my cheek to the
shoulder where, as a child, I had clung to be warmed and loved. I crossed
his arms as if I were folding wings.
   "Little bird," I said. "You reproached Mellonia because you had to
outlive her. But I am the one you punished. All of your life was
loving—except for this. Where is your city, my friend?"
  "In me," Romulus answered.
  I turned on him angrily. "In you?" Then I was sorry. Tears ran out of his
eyes. He made no effort to hide them. I thought that he was going to fall
and held out my hand. He grasped it and steadied himself.
   "You think I want walls and armies," he said, "and nothing more? At
first I did. This morning I did, when I lied about the birds. But then I had
Remus; it seemed I would always have him. Whatever I did, he would love
me. He was all I needed of gentleness. Now he is gone—unless I capture
him in my city. A great city, Sylvan. Men will call her Rome after me, and
her legions will conquer the world—Carthage and Sardis, Karnak, Sidon,
and Babylon. But her highways will carry laws as well,as armies, learning
as well as conquest. Sylvan, don't you see? Remus will live in us and the
city we build. Come back with me, Little Faun!"



  Where is the bird of fire? In the tall green flame of the cypress, I see his
shadow, flickering with the swallows. In the city that crowds the Palatine,
where Fauns walk with men and wolves are fed in the temples, I hear the
rush of his wings. But that is his shadow and sound. The bird himself is
gone. Always his wings beat just beyond my hands, and the wind possesses
his cry. Where is the bird of fire? Look up, he burns in the sky, with
Saturn and the Golden Age. I will go to find him.



                ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  I wish to express a particular debt to Alan Lake Chidsey's Romulus:
Builder of Rome and Carlo Maria Franzero's The Life and Times of
Tarquin the Etruscan. T.B.S.