SPQR I: The Kings Gambit

by John Maddox Roberts

  She received me in a sitting-room, looking cool and serene. She sat with her back to a fretted window, so that the light surrounded her with a nimbus. Her gown was of some flimsy material, clinging to every curve, a brilliant blue. It complimented her eyes perfectly, as did the jewelry she wore: gold set with lapis lazuli and sapphires. She looked every inch the patrician lady, not the wild-haired maenad she had seemed when I had last seen her.

  “Decius, how good to see you,” she said, her voice as low and intimate as ever. It went through me like the vibration of an overstretched lyre string when it is plucked.

  “I am sorry to appear before you in so unkempt a condition,” I said.

  She smiled with one corner of her mouth. “You were a good deal less kempt when we last parted.”

  I could feel my face flushing and was infuriated that this woman could bring out so juvenile a reaction in me. “There was a rough scene in the Forum, involving your brother and his thugs.”

  Her face hardened. “You have not hurt him, have you?”

  “He’ll probably live, which is better than he deserves. His men will probably bring him here soon, although they may take him to a physician first.”

  “What do you want, Decius? I have little time for you. You are no longer a player in the game. You might have been, but you chose to play the fool. You count for nothing now. Make this brief.”

  “A game. Is that what it is to you?”

  Her look was utter contempt. “What else is it? It is the greatest game in the world. It is played on a board made up of kingdoms and republics and seas. The men are just counters. They are placed on the board and struck from it at the whim and according to the skill of the players.” She paused. “And there is the uncertainty of luck, of course.”

  “Fortuna can be a whimsical goddess,” I said.

  “I don’t believe in the gods. If they exist at all, they take no interest in what men do. But I believe in blind chance. It just makes the game more interesting.”

  “And you have a taste for this sort of gaming? Knucklebones and dice and races and the munera grew too tame for you?”

  “Don’t talk like a fool. There is nothing else in the world like this game. The prize is power and wealth beyond dreams. The Pharaohs never saw such wealth. Alexander never wielded such power. This empire we have built with our legions is the most incredible instrument for imposing the leader’s will that has ever existed.”

  "There are no legions of Rome,” I said. “They are the personal followers of twenty or more generals. The four or five most powerful generals are always mortal enemies, more occupied with cutting each other’s throats and stealing each other’s glory than with expanding Rome’s empire.”

  Her smile was dazzling. “But that is what the game is all about. At the end of it, there will be one man who controls all the legions, who controls the Senate, who will be followed by patricians and plebs alike. No more bickering parties and treacherous senatorial votes behind the leader’s back.”

  “You mean a king of Rome,” I said.

  “The title needn’t be used, but the power would be the same. Like the old King of Persia, only much greater.”

  “It has been tried,” I noted. “Marius, Sulla, others. None of them succeeded, no matter how many domestic enemies they killed.”

  “They were inferior players,” she asserted calmly. “They were ruthless, and their soldiers worshipped them, but they were not intelligent enough. Marius tried to keep playing the game when he had grown far too old. Sulla had it all won, then he decided to retire. It was the act of a political moron. We are moving into the final rounds of a great munera sine missione, Decius. When it is over, only one man will be standing.”

  “If you will forgive my saying so, this is not a game in which women compete.”

  She laughed musically. “Oh, Decius, you really are a child! Men and women simply play differing roles in this game. You will not see me in polished armor leading a legion, of course, but depend upon it, when the game is ended, I shall be sitting on a throne by the side of the winner.”

  I wondered if she was mad. It was difficult to say. The Claudians were mad almost by definition, but they were hardly alone in the condition. As I have said, half my generation seemed to be subject to madness. I was not immune to the sickness myself. Perhaps Claudia was just a part of the times.

  “In this game, if you lose, you die.”

  She shrugged. “What is the game if the stakes are not the highest?”

  “And sometimes,” I continued, “it’s hard to keep track of all the counters on the board. Ones you thought were gone turn up again.”

  For the first time, her self-assurance slipped. She had thought she had all the answers, and I had said something that indicated otherwise.

  “What do you mean?” She frowned. “You make no sense.”

  I took out the camel’s head amulet and held it before her, dangling on its ribbon. “It was you, Claudia. I had thought Claudius, even Pompey or Crassus, but it was you who had Paramedes of Antioch murdered, and Sinistrus, and Sergius Paulus. In my district.”

  Her face went white and her mouth began to tremble. Not in fear, which I do not think she was capable of feeling, but in rage. “I told that little …” She shut herself off like a tavernkeeper turning a tap.

  “There are rules to successful conspiracy, Claudia,” I said. “First: Put nothing in writing. Second: Never trust a subordinate to dispose of evidence. They will always keep something back, to blackmail you with later.”

  She got herself under control. “You have nothing. It means nothing.”

  "Oh, but I think it does. I think I could take you and this little amulet into court and convince a jury that you are guilty of murder. As far as I am concerned you are also guilty of treason, but expert counsel assures me that, technically, you are not. Not yet, at any rate. So you may escape being hurled headforemost from the Tarpeian Rock. Considering your birth and the influence of your family and the fact that our current Consuls and one of the Consuls for the next year are also involved, you may be let off with mere banishment. Out of Rome forever, Claudia. Out of the game.”

  “You have nothing,” she reiterated, running out of eloquence.

  “The remarkable thing,” I said, “is that I might never have examined this thing after I took it from the house of the late Paramedes. How could a little bronze amulet be significant? I only became curious after you had it stolen from my room, having me knocked on the head in the process. You shouldn’t have balked at one more murder, Claudia; it ill becomes a would-be player in the great game.”

  I held the amulet before my eyes, watching it rotate on its ribbon. “A token of hospitium. A fine old custom, is it not? I received one myself, just a few days ago, from a very honorable and old-fashioned soldier. I suppose only old-fashioned people are honorable anymore. The times really are disgracefully decadent, as my father never tires of telling me. This one identifies you and Paramedes of Antioch as hospites. Where did you meet him and exchange tokens, Claudia?”

  “On Delos,” she said. “As if it makes any difference. You not only have no proof to use against me, you may not live to leave this house. The slave market on Delos. I was tired of Rome, and my older brother, Appius, was sailing to Asia to join Lucullus. I persuaded him to take me to see the Greek islands. I’d always heard of the great pirate slave market on Delos and I was eager to see it, so when we passed near I asked to be put ashore, to sail home from there.”

  “Sightseeing in a slave market,” I mused. “You really are a woman of unusual tastes, Claudia.”

  She shrugged again. “Each of us finds his pleasures where he will. Anyway, I met Paramedes there. I saw immediately that, with his pirate contacts, he could be of great use to me. We exchanged tokens and a few months later he arrived in Rome, in the role of an importer of wine and oil.”

  “But he needed a city patron to hold property and conduct his business here. Since patricians are forbidden to take part in
commerce, you sent him to Sergius Paulus. What was Paulus’s part in all this? I confess that I haven’t been able to puzzle that one out.”

  “Poor Decius. So something is beyond your logical faculties. I arranged for Paulus to take on Paramedes as patron. He was tremendously rich and had many such clients, so I thought he would take little interest in Paramedes. I gave him some generous presents, told him that he would be doing me a great favor by obliging me in this. Of course, he was to be discreet. He was never, never to hint that there was any connection between the house of Claudius and Paramedes. His activities as a pirate agent were quasi-legitimate, but there are some things that we should not be connected with. Paulus was eager to please. I positively fawned on the man,” she said with distaste. “No matter how rich or powerful they get, men like poor Sergius are always flattered by the attentions of patricians.”

  "Poor Sergius,” I said. “Another counter, removed from the board.”

  “He was nothing,” she said. “Just a freedman.”

  “So it was you who told Crassus about Paramedes when he needed to spoil Spartacus’s arrangement with the pirates?” I asked.

  “Yes, for which I would think you’d be grateful, since you conceive yourself to be such a patriot.”

  “If he’d wanted to, he could have taken Rome,” I said. “That Thracian scoundrel and his followers just wanted to get away. I wouldn’t have complained. There are too many slaves in Italy as it is.”

  “You are far too softhearted, Decius.”

  “I suppose I’ll never be a good player in the game. When did it start to go sour, Claudia? Paramedes was useful to you. Did he try blackmail? Co-conspirators often do.”

  “Yes. He let it be known that Mithridates might make it more than worth his while to keep him supplied with the details of our dealings. Since he fancied that Crassus is even richer than Mithridates, he sought out a better offer.”

  “And as soon as Tigranes was in Rome, Paramedes was redundant.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you dispatched Sinistrus to kill him. I take it that the arson was a diversion?”

  “Partially.” She regarded me with some interest. “Your mind works well, Decius. I wish you had decided to throw in with us. My brother and the others are so headstrong and lacking in foresight. Except for Hortalus. Yes, it was decided that, since Romans are far more upset by a fire than by a murder, all the attention would go to the fire the next day. Paramedes was just one more dead foreigner. Also, Para-medes kept little in his house. The fire would take care of any embarrassing documents he might have at the warehouse.”

  “That brings us to Sinistrus. You acquired him through extralegal means. A minor bit of corruption, but documents on file at the Archives allowed me to tie Hortalus in with your conspiracy.”

  “He was just a cheap killer working for me. Bought on the sly and freed so as to have minimum connection with me. I had used him a few times before, usually lending him out to Publius. He was reliable and too stupid to plan a betrayal.”

  “This time, to make a clean sweep of it, you eliminated him, employing this mysterious Asian boy. I want to meet that enterprising youth, by the way.” She smiled at this. At the time, I thought she was just being arch.

  “Yes, Sinistrus was at the end of his usefulness to us. There are plenty more of him, and they are much easier to buy, now. We wanted no loose ends at such a delicate stage. It was only later that I realized that Sinistrus had stupidly neglected to fetch that token from Paramedes’s house.”

  “Not the brightest of henchmen, Sinistrus,” I commiserated.

  “Decidedly not. Of course, by the time we discovered his mistake it was daylight and a guard had been posted at Paramedes’s house. Then you came snooping around.”

  “And inconveniently made off with the token. I must thank you for not having me killed, Claudia. Must have been a wrench for you to leave someone alive.”

  “It was Hortalus who said you weren’t to be killed,” she said, shrugging. “He’s a dreadful sentimentalist.”

  “So much for my manly charm.” My irony was assumed, but my sadness was real. I had, against all likelihood, cherished the hope that, somehow, Claudia felt something for me. “Why Sergius Paulus? Surely he didn’t try to blackmail you.”

  “Of course not. He was far too rich for that. When I found out you had called on him, I went to see him immediately afterward.”

  I wondered which of my colleagues had told her I was on my way to the house of Paulus. Rutilius? Opimius? Junius the scribe? Any or all of them, I decided. “I know,” I said. “I saw your palanquin leaving his house. Of course, I didn’t know it was yours at the time, but I found it in your little hideaway after our memorable night together.”

  “What a snoop!” she said, indignant. “It was very lowbred of you to go prying like that.”

  “Each of us behaves according to the gifts bestowed upon us by the gods at our birth. To some is given great strength, to others the ability to lead men, or play the lyre or compose verse. To me was given the propensity for snooping into things others would prefer to remain hidden.”

  “Just like a plebeian,” she sniffed. “Well, Paulus was losing his nerve. Freedmen are always insecure, even rich ones. They know it is possible to lose everything. He was agitated, prattling on about your questioning. I tried to reassure him, but I could see that it was no use. He knew too much and he drank too much. We no longer needed him, since Paramedes had been removed from the board. I decided to remove him, too.” She sat back, a puzzled look on her face. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell you all this.”

  “But you have to,” I said. “Otherwise, who will know what a superb player you are? I’ll bet you don’t even tell your fellow conspirators everything.”

  “Don’t patronize me!” she hissed. “You aren’t half as clever as you think, Decius.”

  “I suppose not,” I admitted. I dreaded the next question. “Now, Claudia, tell me one last thing. I know that the point of all this conspiracy and murder is to secure Lucul-lus’s Eastern command for one of the men you plan to manipulate. It hardly matters which one. And that you intend to install young Tigranes on his father’s throne as puppet-king, and probably let him pretend to rule his grandfather’s kingdom of Pontus.”

  She nodded. “Very good. And your question?”

  I took a deep breath. “Was my father in any way involved in your conspiracy?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she said scornfully. “Hortalus says old Cut-Nose is more upright than the Temple of Vesta.”

  Relief washed over me like the cold plunge at the baths. “Well, the old man isn’t above taking a bribe now and then, but never over anything important. Certainly nothing touching on state security.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “He keeps bad company. Hortalus, for instance.” Now for the next unpleasant duty. “Claudia, it is my duty to arrest you and take you before the praetor, to answer charges of murder, arson and conspiracy. However, tradition allows you the honorable option to spare the family name.”

  I reached inside my tunic and took out the sheathed dagger, tossing it grandly at her feet. She looked down at it, then up at me with secret amusement. “Whatever is this for?”

  “I shall retire from the room for a few minutes to allow you to exercise your option.”

  She smiled with open humor. “Don’t bother.”

  It is a great mistake to make grand gestures at crucial moments such as that one. At that very moment something thin went around my neck and a weight landed on my back. And here, I thought, I’ve just gone and thrown away my dagger.

  In my lifetime I have been cut, stabbed, speared, shot with arrows, clubbed and half-drowned in rivers, lakes and the sea. I can say with authority that nothing induces instant panic like having one’s respiration cut off in mid-breath and knowing that there won’t be any more coming from where you got that last one. Even drowning isn’t so bad, because then there is something to drag
into your lungs, if only water.

  My mind immediately took leave of me and went into transports of gibbering terror. My eyes swelled to the size of fists and my vision turned red. I tried to reach behind me, to claw the horrible weight from my back, but human shoulders are not articulated to make such a move easy. Legs coiled around my waist and I tried, with great futility, to get my fingers beneath the cord around my neck, but it was drawn too tight against the scarf I still wore to hide the marks left by my last throttling. This was the way Sinistrus had died. What was it I had wondered long ago? Oh, yes, I had wondered why Sinistrus hadn’t crushed the throttler against a wall. Because he was stupid. So was I.

  With the last of my strength, I rushed at a wall, turning at the last second to smash my would-be murderer against a rather nice fresco depicting Ulysses and the Laestrygonians. I heard a grunt, felt a sudden expulsion of breath against my ear. The cord slipped, loosened slightly. It was not enough to allow a breath through my constricted windpipe, but it gave me the best of news: He was not using the slipknot! If I could just get the murderous little bastard off my back, I might yet live.

  The room was too small to start a proper run. Drastic measures were called for. My vision was darkening and I could hear a great rushing sound in my ears. Crouching low, I bent my knees deeply. With all the strength I had left, I sprang up and forward. As my feet left the ground, I threw my body forward so that I hurtled into a forward somersault. Taking flight, I tried to will myself to weigh more, in order to come down harder.

  I landed with a gratifying crash, shattering a small table in the process. The cord loosened and I dragged in a great, ragged breath of air more delicious than the finest Falernian. The legs had loosened from my waist and I twisted around, my hand going beneath my tunic and emerging with the caes-tus, which I was about to use for the second time that day. I raised my fist to my ear, then hesitated in amazement.