Scipio's End

by Martin Tessmer

  “I know,” Prima says. “It’s only June, and the consular candidates are already making speeches in the Forum.”

  Amelia shakes her head. “It seems like the elections start earlier every year. Our finest minds spend all their time campaigning, listening to campaigns, or planning campaigns. Meanwhile, the roads lie unbuilt, and the citizens lie idle.”

  Prima chuckles. “Maybe we would be better off with a benevolent king, like Servius from the old days. At least we wouldn’t have to put up with all this politicking!”

  Amelia sighs. “Perhaps, perhaps. But that was then, and this is now. We have the curse of duty upon us. If the Latins regain power, we can abandon those plans for Rome’s first library.”

  “So where do we start?” Prima asks.

  “We start with money,” Amelia replies. “We figure out how much we have, and how we’re going to spend it. I have to see what’s left in the warehouse.”

  Prima pushes herself upright. “You’re going out to the Aventine tonight? Not without me you’re not!”

  “You have a newborn,” Amelia says. “Besides, I can handle myself.”

  “But can you handle four men at once? The gods themselves cannot change my mind—I’m going with you!”

  Amelia raises her chalice. “Then drink up, and go fetch your shabbiest clothes. We have to do some night-riding.”

  Three hours later, two cloaked figures ride out from the rear door of the Scipio manse, bouncing along on two swayback geldings. An assortment of wicker baskets dangle from the sides of their horses, the traveling merchandise of Rome’s basket weavers.

  “We’ll take the Street of Merchants,” Amelia tells Prima. “That’s the route all the craftsmen take.”

  The riders clop down the main avenue toward the Aventine. They pull their horses aside when a noble’s caravan streams past them, his slave-borne litter surrounded by attendants and guards. Seeking safety in numbers, the two women follow the city’s torch lighters as they work toward the Aventine, maintaining enough distance to keep their faces in the shadows.

  Amelia and Prima do not notice the ebony-skinned Nubian who slinks along behind them, sliding into darkened doorways whenever one of them turns around. The slim man sidles along the mud-brick walls of the insulae, his eyes never leaving their backs.

  A half hour later, the pair turns into a side street. They tie their horses to a log postern in front of the Scipio storehouse.

  “Watch the horses,” Amelia says. She takes out a circlet of iron keys and unlocks the granary’s battered oak door, then opens its inside door and closes it behind her. Fumbling for her kindling tools, she strikes iron to flint and kindles a wall torch. Amelia holds it above her head and surveys the storeroom.

  The large room is empty, except for a mound of bagged Roman coins and a pile of gold neck torques. Dozens of emeralds and rubies are sprinkled about the chamber, signs that the piles from which they came were hastily removed.

  Amelia bends over and scurries across the floor, grabbing the dusty jewels and stuffing them into her belt pouch. Fumbling in a dimly lit corner, her fingertips encounter two pebble-sized stones. She blows off the dirt and holds them up to the torchlight, rolling them in her fingers.

  Two clear, multifaceted gems wink back at her, shimmering with the blazes of their inner fires. She rolls the stones between her thumb and forefinger, marveling at their crystal clarity. These must be what they call diamonds, those stones from India! Gods, they are worth a fortune!

  Amelia hurries to the exit and peers out from the doorway. “Prima! Bring the wagon!” she hisses. Prima pulls the horses into a nearby stable. Unlocking a side gate, she pulls the two mounts next to a slat-sided wagon heaped with foul-smelling rags and castoff papyrus, the daily collection of a city rag-picker. After divesting the horses of their baskets, she draws the wagon next to the storehouse.

  Amelia totters from the doorway, lugging a sack of coins. She shoves the rags aside and flops the sack onto the bottom of the wagon, gasping with the effort. Prima stumbles out from the room and pitches in another sack. Soon, the two women are shoving the last of the neck torques under the rags.

  Amelia takes a last look at the storehouse that held Scipio’s plunder from Africa, Iberia, and Gaul. “That’s the last of it,” she tells Prima. “The ransoms of a dozen kings, all spent to elect the best men for Rome.”

  Prima sniffs. “Men such as Nobilior? You could have retired in luxury to Liternum, far from this city madness. That would have been a better use of the money.”

  “Ah, but that would have made it stealing,” Amelia mutters. Her eyes flare. “I will not see the last of this wasted—we will get that stump Nobilior elected.” She fingers her pouch and smiles. “But I’m keeping two of those two stones for myself, I don’t care what happens to him!”

  They clamber onto the splintery pine slab that serves as the driver’s seat. Prima whips the reins forward. The two swayback mares clop down the Avenue of Merchants, heading toward the Scipio domus.

  As they rumble around the corner, the African steps out from the darkened doorway. He trots across the darkened street and halts before the storehouse. The African whips out a finger-sized piece of chalk and etches an “X” above the doorknob. He dashes down the street, already planning how he will spend his pay from the short and severe man who hired him—and the storklike man who paid him for another task.

  The Nubian draws near the Avenue of Merchants. He turns into a side street and knocks on a narrow, weather-beaten door. The door cracks open. A pair of onyx eyes glare at him from beneath a dark brown cloak.

  “Is it time?” the cloaked figure asks.

  The Nubian nods. “They are coming this way,” he says. The door slams shut in his face.

  The wagon clops down the side street, the torches from the Street of Merchants flickering in the distance. Four men step into the street and grab the horses, their faces shadowed by their hoods.

  “You got anything besides them rags?” A gruff voice asks.

  “You really don’t want to find out,” Prima says, her voice heavy with threat.

  The man’s grin splits his face. He turns to his accomplices. “Oh ho! We have a woman here! No Vestal Virgin, I’d wager, but good enough for a poke in the ass, eh?”

  “Please, just let us go on,” Amelia says. She flips a small purse onto the street slabs. “Take this and be on your way.”

  “Another woman,” a squat man declares happily. “And a fine lady, from the sound of her. Now what would two fine women be doing out at night, and dressed so poorly?”

  Prima heaves a sigh. “I told you, you really don’t want to know. Now be off with you!”

  The leader grins. “Not without whatever you have in there. And a piece of you!” He yanks out a two-foot dagger. “Get off the wagon.”

  “Whatever you say,” replies Prima. In one quick motion, she casts off her cloak and springs onto the street, whipping out her short sword.

  The leader sees the flash of her steely blade. He jabs with his dagger, intent on skewering her sword arm. Prima’s blade rings against the dagger hilt, deflecting his stab. She strikes back, aiming for his chest. The man catches her sword arm with his left hand, halting her thrust. He pulls her arm back, grinning malevolently.

  “I’m going to cut your guts out,” he spits, aiming his dagger for her stomach.

  Prima twists sideways and kicks upward, planting her sandal squarely in his testicles. The leader doubles over, grunting with pain. Prima jerks up her knee and catches him on the jaw, knocking the stunned thug onto his back. She bends over him.

  “Crassus!” his alarmed accomplice yells. He darts forward, pulling a knotted club from his cloak. “Fucking bitch!” he yells, cocking his arm to bash in her skull.

  A knife squishes into his right eye socket. His left eye stares sideways at the steel hilt sticking next to it, his mouth working soundlessly. The man falls to the earth, whining piteously. The other two men stalk forward, daggers in hand. Amelia
cocks her knife arm. They cower.

  Prima shoves her sword into the center of the fallen leader’s chest. His head jerks upward, eyes clenched in agony. Prima stares into his face, her teeth clenched. “You are going to cut what out of me?”

  She plunges the blade deeper, twisting it. The man falls flat, his legs twitching spasmodically. Prima rises from her dying assailant, wiping her sword on his grimy thighs. Amelia steps next to her, a knife in each hand. They face the two remaining men.

  Prima raises her bloody blade. “Fight or run,” she tells them.

  The men dash away, their sandals clapping furiously on the stones. Prima walks to the back of the wagon. She pulls out a rag and wipes her face and arms. “Well, these old things came in handy after all.”

  “Let’s get home before some other fool tries to take advantage of us,” Amelia says. She pulls her knife from the man’s eye socket, wipes it on his tunic, and clambers onto the wagon seat.

  With a snap of the reins, the friends guide their wagon into the torchlit Street of Merchants. They rumble past the dozens of morning fisherman strolling toward the Tiber River, their cane poles perched on their shoulders.

  The next morning finds Cato standing in front of the Scipio storehouse, his gray eyes bright with excitement. A drowsy Flaccus stands next to him, accompanied by Marcus Tullius, one of Rome’s two censors.

  “This is Scipio’s hiding place, Censor. We have only to break into it.”

  Tullius scowls. “Shouldn’t we get him to open it?”

  “Pah! You know he’s in Greece, with his brother. And he wouldn’t trust his keys to a woman. Here, I will take care of it.”

  Cato takes out a chisel and places it on the door lock, beneath the chalked “X” mark. Hammering furiously, he knocks the iron lock off the door and kicks it open. He does the same with the lock on the second door.

  “Give me a torch,” he says. Flaccus hands him a burning brand. Cato steps inside.

  Cato stares into an empty room. He holds the torch over his head and waves it from left to right, searching for plunder. All he sees are sandal prints upon the dusty floor, accompanied by long, snakelike tracks.

  Tullius steps into the room, blinking in bewilderment.

  Flaccus steps in behind him. “Jupiter’s balls, it’s empty!”

  Cato bends over and points at the tracks.

  “See here? This is where they dragged the sacks! They took them away before we came!”

  Tullius shrugs. “Those tracks could be from grain sacks, or sacks of feathers. Why does it have to be sacks of coins? Or gold?”

  “Check the city register!” Cato sputters. “We will find Scipio’s name as the renter!”

  “You think he’d use his real name if he did this?” Flaccus says. He chuckles bitterly. “You’d be the only person honest—and stupid—enough to use their real name.”

  “You look the fool,” the censor says. “Best you abandon this goose chase before you do further damage to your reputation. And before I bring charges against you for calumny!”

  That night, Cato sits on the patio of his austere country villa, his head cupped in his hands. A beeswax candle flickers next him, his only light in this moonless night.

  Cato recalls the nights he spent as Scipio’s army accountant in Africa, his back aching as he bent over a candle and tabulated the spoils and expenses of Scipio’s many victories. He remembers his arguments with Scipio about his wasteful spending, culminating in Cato’s angry return to Rome. I should have kept my accounting scrolls. They’d show the discrepancies between what he gathered and what he shipped home. Fool, you let anger take your sensibilities!

  He buries his face in his hands. Moments later, he jerks his head up, his eyes bright. Felix! Felix succeeded me in Africa.

  Cato’s heart thunders in his ears. Scipio brought home shiploads of Carthaginian spoils. He must have stolen some for himself. If Felix recorded any discrepancies, it would be a matter of public record!

  Dawn breaks over the Sabine Hills. Cato gallops down the roadway toward Rome, seeking the residence of Felix Juvenius, retired army quaestor. After inquiring several of Scipio’s former tribunes, Cato locates Felix’s modest stone townhouse.

  Cato pounds upon the varnished pine door. “Quaestor Juvenius! Are you in there?” A birdlike man opens the door, his cheeks puffed with food. He holds a rolled-up pancake in his hand, its inside dripping with honey.

  “Senator Cato! What can I do for you?” He glances at the pancake and smiles sheepishly. “I was just finishing breakfast. Please come inside and join me!”

  “I have not the time,” Cato sputters. “I just need you to answer one question. You were the accountant for Scipio’s Africa campaign. Did you keep a record of all the profits and expenditures? Of all the plunder, and what was sent to Rome?”

  Felix shifts uncomfortably. “Of course. That was my duty.”

  Cato takes a deep breath. “Did you note any discrepancies?”

  Felix’s mouth tightens into a line. He rolls the pancake in his fingers. avoiding Cato’s gaze. “Yes.”

  “Were they significant?”

  The quaestor’s mouth puckers. “Yes, large amounts of spoils were missing when we landed in Rome. Maybe three thousand talents’ worth.”

  Cato locks the man’s wrist in an iron grip. “Three thousand talents! Why didn’t you report this?”

  “Scipio had just defeated Hannibal. He saved Rome, and brought back a kingdom of wealth. It seemed petty—and dangerous.”

  Cato steps back from Felix, his face cold. “I see. Are the records still safe?”

  “Of course. They are in the Hall of Records, on the left side of—“

  Before he can finish, Cato is galloping toward the Forum. An hour later he is bent over a low stone table in the government Tabularium,[clxxii] carefully watched by of the Keeper of Records. Cato unrolls one scroll after another, pouring over Felix’s accounts for the African campaign.

  Dusk settles onto the city. Cato rises from the table and stretches his stiff shoulders. With a grateful nod to the Keeper, he returns the scrolls and marches from the hall, energetically swinging his arms. His eyes twinkle. It is all there, my slippery friend. Your ending, writ large in ink. When you return I will spring my trap. I will do it when you are at your highest, so you can fall the farthest.

  As Cato rejoices in his discovery, Flaccus stretches out upon a wicker chaise lounge at his country villa, fuming over the news that his plot was foiled. Those idiots messed up everything. They could have thrown spears into them, but no, they had to engage in a swordfight. After all that I paid them!

  He laces his fingers together and presses them to his lips. Just have to bide my time. The way those women run around, they may give me another chance.

  CREMONA GARRISON, NORTH ITALIA, 190 BCE. Laelius leans over the garrison’s stone block parapet, staring moodily south toward Rome. His scarlet cloak billows out behind him, wafted by the early autumn breeze.

  Wonder what Prima’s doing now? Probably playing with the baby. Glad she gave up the gladiatorial matches. At least I don’t have to worry any more about her getting a sword through her chest.

  For the hundredth time, Laelius paces around the city’s two-mile walkway, watching the horizon for oncoming enemies. As always, he sees no billowing smoke from burning villages, no dust clouds from thundering hooves, no jagged black lines of approaching infantry. Nothing but peasants scattered among the serried rows of distant wheat fields, stuffing weeds into their wicker shoulder baskets.

  Auuugh, I’m going crazy! I’m the consul of a cemetery—nothing’s happening here! Not even a skirmish to break the monotony. Where’s a horde of Gauls when you need them? Laelius turns to the open grounds beneath the camp gates.

  The townspeople’s children scramble about below him. They roll hoops and pitch balls, their voices bright birds of joy and excitement. He leans back against the parapet. At least they are enjoying themselves. They don’t need a fight to get excited. Maybe
all this peace isn’t so bad. He turns back to the ramparts, looking toward Greece.

  Where are you, Scipio? What are you doing? The last messenger said you were in Thessaly. He slams his fist against the travertine block. We could have conquered Asia, you stupid bastard. Where’s my glory here?

  Laelius pushes himself from the parapet and treads down the walkway. He weaves between the scurrying children, patting them on their heads. Laelius pauses to play several games of tic-tac-toe with an older child, using his dagger to make marks in the dirt.

  “That’s all I have time for,” he tells the boy. “I have to go face my fate.”

  Laelius straightens his shoulders and marches to the bronze-covered doors of the city blockhouse. Come on, get it over with. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs the door handle, jerks it open, and strides inside. Fourteen townspeople sit around the wood slab banquet table, their faces severe.

  Laelius forces a smile onto his face. “Good morrow, councilmen. What is today’s business?” What bullshit are you going to whine about today?

  An old man stands up, his bony frame doubled with age. He points a roll of soft vellum at Laelius as if it were a weapon. “We have a list of complaints here, Consul. The fullers say that someone is stealing the urine they collect—we suspect the thieves are selling it across the river in Placentia. Our fullers don’t have enough to clean our togas!” Several councilmen bark out their assent.

  “I will put several of my speculatores on it, they will track down these pissy thieves.” Laelius rubs his eyes. “What else?”

  The reedy little man takes on a look of outrage. “Several of your centurions have been luring our young men into dice games, and using crooked dice.”

  “How do you know the dice are crooked?” Laelius asks.

  “The boys told us. They lost all their money!” The man replies.

  You think dice are nothing but luck? I could play the lot of you and leave you naked. “I will look into it,” he replies.

  The elder nods solemnly. “Then there is the matter of toilet sponges. We need twenty denarii to buy extra sponges. Your men have been frequenting the town latrines, and the latrine attendants tell us they are wearing them out!” He glowers at Laelius. “Too much grain in their diet, you know.”