Last seen in Massilia rsr-8

by Steven Saylor

  I shook my head. "What does any of this matter to me? My son is dead."

  Publicius and Minucius exchanged a significant glance. Publicius cleared his throat. "But you see, Gordianus, that's where you're wrong. Your son is not dead."

  I looked at him dumbly. From the corner of my eye, a flicker of light created the illusion that the silver eagle stirred. "What did you say?"

  "Meto is not dead. Oh, yes, everyone thinks he is; everyone but us. We alone know better. Because we've seen him."

  "Seen him? Alive? Where? When?"

  Minucius shrugged. "More than once, since he supposedly drowned. He appears when we least expect it. Part of his mission is to prepare the way for Caesar, and for that, of course, the silver eagle must be ready-"

  "To Hades with the silver eagle!" I shouted. Davus gripped my arm to restrain me. "To Hades with Caesar, where he can join Catilina for all I care! Where is Meto? When can I see him?"

  They recoiled as if struck, gazed up at the eagle, and then averted their eyes, as if ashamed to have brought a blasphemer into its presence. "You've suffered much, Gordianus," said Publicius through gritted teeth. "We acknowledge your sacrifice. Still, there can be no excuse for such impiety."

  "Impiety? You bring me into this… into such a"-I could not think of a word to describe the house of Gaius Verres-"and you accuse me of impiety! I want to see my son. Where is he?"

  "We don't know," said Minucius meekly. "He comes to us at the time and place of his own choosing. Just as Catilina does-"

  "What?"

  "Oh, yes, we see Catilina quite often here in the streets of Massilia." Minucius shook his head. "You say he's in Hades, but you're wrong. His lemur has never rested, never left the earth

  since the battle of Pistoria. As he planned to come here in life, so his lemur journeyed here in death. He sometimes affects the guise of a soothsayer, hiding himself in a cloak and cowl so that no one can see his face or the scar of the wound that separated his head from his shoulders…"

  I remembered the soothsayer who appeared out of nowhere at the temple of the xoanon Artemis and rode with us as far as the ruined forest outside Massilia, the one whom the Roman soldiers jokingly called Rabidus. The cowled figure had said to me: Nothing in this place is what it appears to be. Nothing! And later, to the soldiers: I know why the Roman has come here. He's come to look for his son. Tell the Roman to go home. He has no business here. There's nothing he can do to help his son…

  The vault was suddenly as cold as a tomb. I shuddered and clenched my teeth to stop them from chattering.

  "Meto comes to you, then-" There was a thickness in my throat that made it hard to speak. "Meto comes to you as a lemur. Like Catilina?"

  Publicius shrugged. His voice was quiet now, no longer angry. "Who can say? What does it matter? Meto played his role in the story of the eagle standard, as did Catilina before him; as yet may you, Gordianus. Why else did the gods send you here to Massilia?"

  "Why, indeed?" I muttered. I felt hollow, as I had felt in my lowest hours at the scapegoat's house, drained of anger, of hope, even of the disdain I felt for these simpering disciples and their strange cult. I looked past them to Verres, who gazed back at me with a sardonic expression, barely able to contain his amusement. I could not even muster the energy to feel disgust for him. I felt nothing.

  "Take me away from here, Davus," I whispered. "I need air." We stepped out of the room, but Verres held the lamp, and without it the passage was pitch-black. I was reminded of the flooded tunnel and felt dizzy. We waited while Verres locked the bronze door, then pressed ourselves against the wall while he awkwardly squeezed ahead of us to lead the way out. The forced contact with his corpulent body repulsed me. The smell of his perfume, mixed with his sweat and the smoke from the lamp, was nauseating.

  We ascended the stairs, emerged into the house, and proceeded to the garden, then to the foyer, without a word. At the door, the Catilinarians hesitated. If they had more to say, I was in no mood to hear it.

  "You needn't escort me back to Hieronymus's house," I said. "Davus and I can find the way."

  "Then we shall leave you now," said Minucius.

  They each clasped one of my hands and looked into my eyes. "Have strength, Gordianus," said Publicius. "The moment of our deliverance is coming very soon. All questions will be answered." Then the two of them departed.

  I swayed, feeling a bit dizzy. Davus held my arm.

  Behind me, Verres laughed. "They're both completely mad, of course," he said. "And they're not the only two. There are quite a few of those fanatics here in Massilia, clinging to Catilina and his so-called dream. Can you believe it? Completely mad, every one of them."

  I turned to face him. "And you, Gaius Verres? What word would you use to describe yourself?"

  He shrugged. "Acquisitive, I suppose. And shrewd-I hope. Ten years ago, when one of my contacts in Italy offered to sell me that eagle standard, I thought it might be a good investment-a unique acquisition, certainly-but I had no idea it might someday purchase my return to Rome."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Mad our two friends may be, but they're right about one thing: Caesar does want the eagle standard. Oh, not for some mystical purpose. And not for political reasons, either; all the old Marian supporters have already rallied to his side. No, he wants it for sentimental reasons. Marius was his mentor, after all, and a kinsman; and Catilina was his friend. I've always suspected that Caesar would have openly supported Catilina, if the moment had been right."

  "Those two think that Caesar headed straight for Massilia to claim the thing."

  Verres laughed. "Anyone who can read a map knows why Caesar made a detour to this spot: Massilia happens to be on the way to Spain, where Caesar must first dispose of Pompey's troops before he can make any further moves. Nonetheless, he wants the eagle standard-and I happen to own it. Surely such a prize will be worth the redemption of a single harmless exile such as myself."

  "You expect Caesar to restore your citizenship in return for the eagle?"

  "A fair bargain, I should think."

  "You're merely using the Catilinarians, then?"

  "As they hope to use me. They disgust me. I suppose I disgust them. But we have one thing in common: We're all homesick. We want to go back to Rome. We want to go home."

  "So do I, Gaius Verres," I whispered. "So do I"

  Davus and I headed back toward the scapegoat's house. My mind was in a tumult. The Catilinarians, casually claiming to have seen Meto since his fall into the sea, had cruelly raised my hopes, then dashed them. They were mad, as Verres had said. And yet… a part of me clutched at even this tattered shred of hope that Meto might somehow be alive. Was it because I hadn't seen his dead body with my own eyes that I couldn't accept the hard fact of his death? Uncertainty allowed for doubt, and doubt allowed for hope; but false hope was surely crueler than the grief of certain knowledge.

  What was I to make of the two acolytes' reference to visitations from a hooded figure they claimed to be the restless lemur of Catilina, whose appearance sounded strangely similar to the hooded soothsayer the Roman guards had called Rabidus? Could it truly have been the spirit of Catilina I met in the wilderness outside Massilia? Had Catilina himself tried to warn me away from the city, knowing that my son was already dead?

  Over and over I imagined the sight of Meto plummeting from the high wall into the sea. The image became confused with my memory of the woman we had watched as she scrambled up the rock face and then vanished, either because she was pushed, or jumped, or fell…

  I walked through the streets of Massilia in a daze, hardly aware of my surroundings, letting Davus lead the way. When he touched my arm and whispered in my ear, I gave a start.

  "I'm not sure, father-in-law, but I think we're being followed."

  I blinked and looked around, for the first time taking notice of others in the street. There were more people about than I had realized. Life in Massilia went on despite the siege. "Followed?
Why do say that?"

  "There are two fellows who seem always to be about a hundred paces behind us. We've just completed a circuit of the block around Verres's house, and they're still there."

  I turned and saw that we stood once again before the door to Verres's house. My wits were so dulled, I hadn't even noticed that Davus had just led me in a circle.

  "Are they closing on us?"

  "No, they seem to be keeping their distance. And I think…"

  "Yes?"

  "I think they may have followed us earlier, when we left the scapegoat's house. I wasn't sure, then. But it must be the same two."

  "Probably agents of the Timouchoi, keeping an eye on the scapegoat's Roman guests," I said. "If the authorities are having us watched, there's not much we can do about it. Do you recognize these two? Might you have seen them before, perhaps among Apollonides's soldiers?"

  Davus shook his head. "They stay too far back for me to get a good look at their faces." He frowned. "What if they're not from the Timouchoi? What if someone else is having us followed?"

  "That seems unlikely." Or did it? If I had learned anything since my arrival in Massilia, it was to expect the unexpected.

  I glanced behind us, attempting to do so casually. "Which ones are they?"

  Davus shook his head. "You can't see them now. They've stepped out of sight. But father-in-law… haven't we seen him before?"

  I turned my head and followed Davus's gaze down a narrow side street, where a group of twenty or so women, all clutching empty baskets, had gathered before a closed storefront, whispering and wearing furtive expressions, drawn, it was painfully obvious, by some black marketeer's promise of contraband rations on offer in a certain place at a certain hour. What would the Timouchoi think of that?

  "I see a lot of women, Davus, but no men."

  "There, a little beyond the women, wearing a hood. It's the soothsayer we met outside Massilia!"

  I drew a sharp breath. The figure could be seen only in glimpses, yet somehow, like Davus, I perceived it at once to be the soothsayer. But that was impossible; how could he have gotten inside the city walls? Our minds were playing tricks on us; the Catilinarians had mentioned a hooded visitor, and that had brought the soothsayer to the forefront of our thoughts. The figure was probably not a man at all, but simply another of the women standing a little beyond the crowd. And yet…

  I stepped into the side street and walked toward the crowd of women. Davus followed. Did I only imagine that the hooded figure beyond the crowd gave a sudden start?

  Davus gripped my arm. I tried to shake him off, but he tightened his grip. "Father-in-law, there they are again-the two who've been following us. Beyond the soothsayer, at the far end of the street. They must have circled around."

  I saw the two men Davus was talking about. They were too distant for me to see their faces, dressed in plain brown chitons with nothing to set them apart. The hooded figure, turning his head, seemed to see them as well, and gave another start. I tried to move toward him, through the crowd of women. The look on my face must have alarmed them; I heard exclamations in Greek too fast for me to follow, and then they began to scatter like startled birds. They thought that Davus and I were agents of the Timouchoi come to break up their black market.

  For a moment all was confusion, then the narrow little side street was suddenly empty. The women had vanished. So had the two men at the far end of the street. So had the hooded figure-if indeed he had ever been there.

  XIV

  I dreamed that night of Meto's toga day, when he turned sixteen and for the first time put on his manly toga for a promenade through the Forum in Rome. The night before he had panicked and been paralyzed with doubt; how could a boy born a slave ever truly become a Roman? But I had comforted him, and on the appointed morning my heart soared with pride to see him stride through the Forum, a citizen among citizens.

  In my dream, all was exactly as it had been on that day, except that I never saw Meto's face; in a strange way I didn't see him at all, for where he should have been there was a kind of gap in my vision, a nothingness, an empty blur. Yet the dream-Forum through which our little retinue progressed was somehow even more vivid than life, super-real, teeming with color and noise. We passed by the great temples and across the public spaces. We mounted the long flight of steps that led to the summit of the Capitoline Hill, and on the way up, who should pass us coming down but a group of senators, including none other than Caesar. Ever the politician, always eager to ingratiate himself with potential supporters, Caesar congratulated Meto on his toga day, even though he scarcely looked at him. Was that the first time Meto and Caesar met face to face? It must have been. Who could have imagined then how closely their destinies would intertwine?

  In my dream, Caesar was especially vivid. His face was almost a caricature of itself, the high cheekbones and lofty forehead slightly exaggerated, the bright eyes sparkling feverishly, the thin lips drawn into a characteristic smile, as if at some secret joke shared only by Caesar and the gods.

  The senators moved on. Our retinue proceeded upward. Atop the Capitoline my old friend Rufus observed the auspices, searching the sky for birds in order to read the will of the gods. We waited a long time for any bird at all to appear. Finally a great winged shape darted like lightning across the sky and landed at our feet. The eagle stared at us and we stared back. I had never seen one so close. I could have reached out and touched it, had I dared. Suddenly, with a great beating of wings, it departed. What did it mean? The eagle was Jupiter's favorite, the most divine of birds. According to Rufus, to have seen one on Meto's toga day, especially so close, was the best of all possible omens. But even then I felt vaguely apprehensive; and later, when Meto first saw the eagle standard of Catilina, it had seemed to him a further sign of the gods' will, a marker for his destiny, and I think it must have been in that very instant that he truly became a man, which is to say that he moved irrevocably beyond my control and into dangers from which I could no longer protect him.

  I was suddenly transported, as happens in dreams, to a place completely different. I was in the treasure chamber beneath the house of Gaius Verres, amid the clutter of shimmering coins and jewel-encrusted artifacts. It seemed to me that Meto was in the room as well, but invisible. The eagle standard loomed over us, uncannily lifelike-and then, suddenly, the eagle was alive! It let out a shriek and flapped its wings, trying to take flight in the confined space, thrashing madly, rending the air with its beak and its dagger-sharp talons. I covered my eyes. The dream became a nightmare of screams, blood, confusion.

  And then I awoke.

  Davus was gently shaking me. "Father-in-law, wake up! Something important is happening."

  "What?" I shook my head, confused and uncertain where I was.

  "A ship arrived during the night-"

  "A ship?"

  "It slipped past the Roman blockade. An advance messenger. Reinforcements are coming-ships full of soldiers-sent by Pompey!"

  The nightmare clung to me like cobwebs. I sat up, reached blindly for the ewer beside the bed, and splashed water onto my face. The room was shadowy but not completely dark, illuminated by the faint glow that precedes the dawn. For a fleeting instant it seemed to me, beyond any doubt, that Meto was in the room. I looked about and, not seeing him, felt certain nonetheless that he must be there, present but somehow invisible. Davus saw me staring into space and wrinkled his brow. "Father-in-law, are you ill?"

  I took a long time to answer. "No, Davus. Not ill. Just sick at heart…"

  This seemed to reassure him. "Then you'd better get up. The whole town is awake, even though it's not yet daylight. People are out in the streets, on rooftops, hanging out windows, calling back and forth to each other. I can't follow the Greek, but Hieronymus says-"

  "Hieronymus says, let their timbers rot and Poseidon take them!" Our host stood in the doorway, a dour look on his face. I cleared my throat. "Is it true, what Davus says? A ship arrived in the night?"

  "A f
ast-sailing messenger ship. Apparently it slipped past the blockade and into the harbor without being seen by the Romans. Amazing how quickly the news spread across the city, like wildfire jumping from rooftop to rooftop."

  "And more ships are on the way?"

  "So goes the rumor. One of Pompey's admirals has reached a Massilian garrison called Taurois just a few miles up the coast. They say he has eighteen galleys-an even match for Caesar's fleet." He sighed glumly. "Come, Gordianus. Get dressed and take breakfast with me."

  I rubbed my eyes and wondered which was more precarious, the dream world I had just left or the one I had awakened to. Would there ever again come a time when I could wake in the morning and know, with blessed, boring predictability, exactly what each hour of the day would bring?

  We breakfasted on the rooftop terrace. The privileged venue, with its lofty seclusion looking out on distant views, gave a sense of removal, but the palpable excitement in the city penetrated even there. From the street below came snatches of conversation as passersby speculated on the size and quality of the expected reinforcements, predicted the annihilation of the blockading navy, gloated over the terrible revenge to be exacted against Caesar's forces. A trumpeter blew his horn in the street; a crier announced that all slaves were confined to their households and that all able-bodied citizens were to report at once to the dockyards, by order of the Timouchoi. From nearby temples came chants of praise to the strange xoanon Artemis of the Massilians and her brother Ares. Out at the wall along the sea, a steady stream of women, children, and old men funneled into the bastion towers, wound their way up the stairwells, and poured out along the battlements.

  "Was this how it was on the day the Massilian navy sailed out to take on Caesar's ships?" I asked Hieronymus.

  He followed my gaze to the wall. "Exactly. All the noncombatants gathered on the wall to watch. Standing like statues and peering at the sea, or huddled in little groups, or pacing nervously about. All torn between hope and the terrible fear that everything might go wrong-as it did, last time." A faint, sardonic smile bent his lips. "Do you see how some have brought blankets and parasols and even small folding chairs? They've come prepared to stay all day. Last time those same spectators brought baskets of food as well. Watching men kill each other is hungry work. But I don't see anyone carrying a basket today. Not enough rations, I suppose. Would you care for another piece of bread, Gordianus? Perhaps a stuffed date?"