“I insist,” said Sulla, catching him up.
“Have it your own way,” shrugged Hercules Atlas.
“Well, it’s less public if I pay you inside than out in the middle of the Forum,” said Sulla patiently.
“Oh, right!” Hercules Atlas clapped a hand to his well-muscled head. “I forgot you haven’t paid me yet. Come on, then.”
He lived in four rooms on the third floor of an insula off the Clivus Orbius, on the fringes of the Subura, but in a better neighborhood by far. Ushered in, Sulla saw at a glance that his slaves had seized their opportunity and taken the night off, no doubt expecting that when their master came in, he would be in no state to take a head count. There did not seem to be a woman of the house, but Sulla checked anyway.
“Wife not here?” he asked.
Hercules Atlas spat. “Women! I hate ‘em,” he said.
A jug of wine and some cups stood on the table at which the two men seated themselves. Sulla pulled a fat purse from where he had secreted it inside a linen band around his waist. While Hercules Atlas poured two cups full of wine, Sulla loosened the strings holding the mouth of the purse shut, and deftly palmed a plump screw of paper he fished out of its interior. Then he tipped the purse up and sent a stream of bright silver coins tumbling across the tabletop. Too quickly; three or four rolled all the way to the far edge and fell to the floor, tinkling tinnily.
“Oh, hey!” cried Hercules Atlas, getting down on all fours to retrieve his pay.
While he was occupied in crawling about the floor, Sulla, taking his time, untwisted the paper he had palmed and tipped the white powder it contained into the further of the two cups; for want of any other instrument, he stirred the wine with his fingers until Hercules Atlas finally lumbered up from all fours to hind legs, and sat down.
“Good health,” said Sulla, picking up the nearer cup and tipping it at the strong man in the friendliest manner.
“Good health and thanks for a terrific night,” said Hercules Atlas, tilting his head back and his cup up, and draining it without pausing for breath. After which he refilled the cup and tossed a second drink back, it seemed on the same lungful of air.
Sulla got up, pushed his own cup under the strong man’s hand, and took the other cup away, tucking it inside his tunic. “A little souvenir,” he said. “Good night.” And slipped out the door quietly.
The insula was asleep, its open concrete walkway around the central courtyard heavily screened to prevent refuse being tipped down the light well, and deserted. Very quickly and without making a sound, Sulla stole down three flights of stairs, and stepped into the narrow street unnoticed. The cup he had purloined went between the bars of a gutter drain; Sulla listened until he heard it splash far below, then thrust the screw of paper after it. At the Well of Juturna beneath the Vestal Steps he paused, dipped his hands and arms to the elbows in its still waters, and washed, and washed, and washed. There! That ought to rinse off whatever white powder might have adhered to his skin while he handled the paper and stirred the wine Hercules Atlas had devoured so satisfactorily.
But he didn’t go back to the party. He bypassed the Palatine completely, heading up the Via Nova toward the Capena Gate. Outside the city he entered one of the many stables in the vicinity that hired out horses or vehicles to those resident inside Rome; few Roman houses kept mules, horses, transport. It was cheaper and easier to hire.
The stable he chose was good and reputable, but its idea of security was lax; the only groom in attendance was sound asleep in a mound of straw. Sulla assisted him into a far deeper sleep with a rabbit punch behind one ear, then took his time cruising up and down until he found a very strong-looking, amiable mule. Never having saddled a mount in his life, it took him some time to work out precisely what to do, but he had heard of an animal’s holding its breath while the girth was being strapped tight, so he waited patiently until he was sure the mule’s ribs were normal, then swung himself up into the saddle and kicked the beast gently in the flanks.
Though he was a novice rider, he wasn’t afraid of horses or mules, and trusted to his luck in managing his mount. The four horns—one on each corner of the saddle—kept a man fairly securely upon the beast’s back provided it wasn’t prone to buck, and mules were more docile than horses in this respect. The only bridle he had managed to persuade the mule to take had a plain snaffle bit, but his steed seemed comfortable and placid chewing on it, so he headed down the moonlit Via Appia with every confidence in his ability to get quite a long way before morning. It was about midnight.
He found the ride exhausting, not being used to the activity. Ambling along beside Clitumna’s litter was one thing, this hurried progress quite another. After a few miles his legs ached intolerably from hanging down unsupported, and his buttocks squirmed with the effort of keeping him straight in the saddle, and his balls felt every little jolt. However, the mule was a willing goer, and he got as far as Tripontium well before dawn.
From here he left the Via Appia and cut across country toward the coast, for there were a few rough roads traversing the bogs of the outer Pomptine Marshes, and it was much shorter—as well as much less public—than following the Via Appia down to Tarracina and then backtracking north to Circei. In a stand of trees some ten miles into the wilderness he stopped, for the ground felt dry and hard, and there didn’t seem to be any mosquitoes. Tethering the mule on a long halter he had thought to purloin, he put the saddle down as a pillow under the shade of a pine, and slept dreamlessly.
Ten short daylight hours later, after giving himself and the mule a long drink in a nearby stream, Sulla resumed his ride. Covered from the gaze of any who might chance to see him by a hooded cloak he’d taken from the stable, he pattered along with considerably more grace than earlier, despite the ghastly ache in his spine and the deep soreness in rump and balls. So far he had eaten nothing, but felt no hunger; the mule had grazed on good grass, so was content enough, and remarkably fresh. And at dusk he came to the promontory on which sat Clitumna’s villa, dismounting then with real relief. Once more he divested the mule of saddle and bridle; once more he tethered it so it could graze. But this time he left it by itself to rest.
His luck had held. The night was perfect, still and starry, not a cloud to be seen anywhere in the cold indigo vault. And then as the second hour of night began to drip away, the full moon rose over the hills far in the east and slowly drenched the landscape with its strange luminosity, a light which gave the eyes power to see, yet was of itself utterly invisible.
And the sense of his own inviolability swelled within Sulla, banished fatigue and pain, quickened the flow of his chilly blood and set his mind, curiously peacefully engaged, into a phase of sheer enjoyment. He was felix; he was lucky. Everything was going beautifully, and would continue to go beautifully. And that meant he could idle his way through in a haze of well-being; he could really enjoy himself. When the chance to rid himself of Nicopolis had presented itself so suddenly, so unexpectedly, there hadn’t been time to enjoy it, only to make a lightning decision and wait out the hours. His investigations during his holiday with Metrobius had revealed The Destroyer to him, but Nicopolis it had been who chose the fashion of her own demise; he was involved only as catalyst. Luck had put her there. His luck. But tonight brain had put him where he was; luck would carry him through. As for fear—what was there to be afraid of?
Clitumna was there, waiting in the shadows of the salt pines, not yet impatient, but readying herself to turn impatient if her surprise was late. However, Sulla did not announce himself immediately; first he inspected the entire area to make sure she hadn’t brought anyone with her. And yes, she was quite alone. Even the untenanted stables and rooms below the loggia were devoid of people, interested or uninterested.
As he approached her, he made enough noise to reassure her. Thus when she saw him emerge from the darkness she was prepared for it to be him, and held out her arms.
“Oh, it’s just as you said!” she whispered, giggl
ing into his neck. “My surprise! Where’s my surprise?”
“A kiss first?” he asked, white teeth showing whiter than his skin for once, so strange was the moonlight, so magical the spell which bound him.
Starved for him, Clitumna offered her lips greedily. And was standing, her mouth glued to his, her feet up on their toes, when he broke her neck. It was so easy. Snap. Probably she never even knew, for he could see no hint of knowledge in her staring eyes when his hand pushed her head back to meet his other hand keeping her back straight, a movement as fast as a blow. Easy. Snap. The sound traveled, it was so sharp, so clear-cut on its edges. And as he released her, expecting her to sink to the ground, she rose up even higher on her toes and began to dance for him, arms akimbo, head lolling obscenely, jerks and hops and staccato heaves which culminated in her twirling round and round before she fell in a tangle of elbows and knees, ugly, utterly ungainly. The warm acrid smell of voided urine curled up to meet his distended nostrils then, and after it, the heavier stench of voided bowels.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t leap away. He enjoyed it all immensely, and while she danced for him, he watched in fascination, and when she fell, he watched in revulsion.
“Well, Clitumna,” he said, “you died no lady.”
It was necessary that he lift her, even though that meant he would be soiled, stained, smeared. There must be no marks in the tender moon-dewed grass, no sign of a body’s being dragged—the main reason why he had stipulated that it be a fine night. So he lifted her, excrement and all, and carried her in his arms the short distance to the top of the cliff, her draperies gathered close to keep in the excrement, for he didn’t want a trail of faeces across the grass either.
He had already found the right spot, and went to it without faltering because he had marked it with a pale stone days before, when he first brought her down. His muscles bunched, spasmed; in one beautiful drapery tracery he rejected her forever, threw her out and away in a flapping ghost-bird plummet all the way down to the rocks. There she spread herself, a shapeless drift of something the sea might have washed up beyond the reach of all but the wildest storms. For it was vital that she be found; he wanted no estate in limbo.
As at dawn, he had tethered the mule near running water, but before he went to bring it to drink, he waded into the stream fully clad in his woman’s tunic, and washed away the last traces of his stepmother, Clitumna. After which there was one more thing to do, which he did the moment he left the water. On his belt was a small dagger in a sheath; using its pointed tip, he cut a very small gash in the skin of his left forehead about an inch below the hairline. It began to bleed immediately, as scalp cuts do, but that was only the start. Nothing about it could look neat or even. So he got the middle and ring fingers of each hand on either side of the nick and pulled until the flesh parted raggedly, considerably enlarging the wound. His bleeding increased dramatically, spattering his filthy, running-wet party garb in huge drops and runs that spread through the soaked fabric in a wonderfully gory way. There! Good! Out of his belt pouch he took a prepared pad of white linen and jammed it down hard on the tear in his brow, then bound it tightly with a ribbon of linen. Blood had run down into his left eye; he wiped it away with one hand, blinking, and then went to find the mule.
All through the night he rode, kicking the mule ruthlessly onward whenever it faltered, for it was very tired. However, it knew it was heading home to its stall, and, like all its kind, had a better heart and stouter sinews than a horse. It liked Sulla; that was the secret of its gallant response. It liked the comfort of the snaffle bit in a mouth more used to the pain of curbs; it liked his silence and economy; it liked his peacefulness. So for his sake it trotted, cantered, fell to a walk, picked up its stride again as soon as it was able, the steam rising from its shaggy coat in little trails that drifted behind them. For it knew nothing of the woman lying, neck broken ahead of her fall, on the cruel rocks below the great white villa. It took Sulla as it found him, and it found him interestingly kind.
*
A mile from the stables Sulla dismounted and removed the tack from the mule, throwing it aside into some bushes; then he smacked the animal on its rump and shooed it in the direction of its stables, sure it would find its way home. But when he began to plod toward the Capena Gate the mule followed him, and he was forced in the end to shy stones at it before it took the hint, swished its meager tail, and made off.
Muffled in his hooded cloak, Sulla entered Rome just as the eastern sky was pearling; in nine hours of seventy-four minutes each he had ridden from Circei to Rome, no mean feat for a tired mule and a man who had only really learned to ride on the journey.
The Steps of Cacus led from the Circus Maximus up onto the Germalus of the Palatine, and were surrounded by the most hallowed ground—the spirit of Romulus’s original city lived thereabouts, and a small uninspiring cavelet and spring in the rock was the place where the she-wolf had suckled the twins Romulus and Remus after they had been abandoned. To Sulla, this seemed a fitting place to abandon his trappings, so the cloak and the bandage were carefully tucked into a hollow tree behind the monument to the Genius Loci. His wound immediately began to bleed again, but sluggishly; and thus those in Clitumna’s street who were out and about early were stunned to see the missing man come staggering along in a bloodied woman’s tunic, filthy and mauled.
Clitumna’s household was astir, not having been to bed all at once since Hercules Atlas had blazed his way out of the place some thirty-two hours before. When the door servant admitted Sulla, looking ghastly, people flew from all directions to succor him. He was put to bed, bathed and sponged, none other than Athenodorus of Sicily was summoned to inspect his wounded head, and Gaius Julius Caesar came from next door to ask him what had happened, for the whole of the Palatine had been searching for him.
“Tell me what you can,” said Caesar, sitting by his bed.
Sulla looked totally convincing. There was a blue shade of pain and weariness about his lips, his colorless skin was even paler than usual, and his eyes, glazed with exhaustion, were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“Silly,” he said, slurring his words. “I shouldn’t have tried to interfere with Hercules Atlas. But I’m strong, and I can look after myself. I just never counted on any man’s being as strong as he turned out to be—I thought he’d got a good act together, was all. He was roaring drunk, and he—he just—carried me away with him! I couldn’t do a thing to stop him. Somewhere or other he put me down. I tried to get away, and he must have clouted me, I really don’t know. But I came to in some alley in the Subura. I must have lain there, out to it, for at least a whole day. But you know what the Subura’s like—everyone left me to it. When I could move, I came home. That’s all, Gaius Julius.”
“You’re a very lucky young man,” said Caesar, lips tight. “Had Hercules Atlas carried you back to his flat, you might have shared his fate.”
“His fate?”
“Your steward came to see me yesterday when you didn’t come home, and asked me what he should do. After I learned the story, I took some hired gladiators to the strong man’s lodgings, and found an absolute shambles. For whatever reason, Hercules Atlas had wrecked the place—splintered every piece of furniture, broken great holes in the walls with his fists, terrified the other residents of his insula so much that none of them had gone near. He was lying in the middle of the living room, dead. My personal belief is that he ruptured a blood vessel in his brain, and went mad with the agony of it. Either that, or some enemy poisoned him.” An expression of distaste hovered on Caesar’s face, and was resolutely ironed away. “He’d made a disgusting mess in dying. I think his servants found him first, but they’d gone long before I arrived. As we found no money whatsoever in the place, I presume they took whatever they could carry with them, and have run away. Did he, for instance, have a fee from your party? If so, it wasn’t in the flat.”
Sulla closed his eyes, not needing to feign tiredness. “I had paid him in advance, Gai
us Julius, so I can’t tell you if he had money there.”
Caesar got to his feet. “Well, I have done all that I can.” He looked down on the immobile figure in the bed sternly, knowing his look was wasted, for Sulla’s eyes remained closed. “I do pity you deeply, Lucius Cornelius,” he said, “but this conduct cannot go on, you know. My daughter nearly starved herself to death because of an immature emotional attachment to you, and has not even now recovered from that attachment. Which makes you a considerable nuisance to me as a neighbor, though I have to acquit you of encouraging my daughter, and must be fair enough to admit that she has made a considerable nuisance of herself to you. All of which suggests to me that you would do better if you lived elsewhere. I have sent to your stepmother in Circei and informed her what has transpired in her absence. I also informed her that she has long outworn her welcome in this street, and she might be more comfortable housed on the Carinae or the Caelian. We are a quiet body of people hereabouts. It would pain me to have to lodge a complaint— and a suit—with the urban praetor to protect our entitlement to peace, quiet, and physical well-being. But pain or no, Iam prepared to lodge that suit if I have to, Lucius Cornelius. Like the rest of your neighbors, I have had enough.”
Sulla didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes; as Caesar stood wondering how much of this homily had sunk in, his ears heard a snore. He turned at once and left.
But it was Sulla who got a letter from Circei first, not Gaius Julius Caesar. The next day a messenger came bearing a missive from Clitumna’s steward, informing Sulla that the lady Clitumna’s body, had been found at the base of the cliff bordering her estate. Her neck had been broken in the fall, but there were no suspicious circumstances. As Sulla knew, said the steward, the lady Clitumna’s mental state had been extremely depressed of late.
Sulla swung his legs out of bed and stood up.
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