The House of the Vestals rsr-6

by Steven Saylor

  I got to my feet and ran after Cleon's knife. I picked it up, feeling queasy at the sight of my own blood on the jagged blade. Belbo was back on his feet, his own dagger drawn. Cleon remained flat on his back, gasping for breath. So, I thought: three against two, all parties armed. I had a giant on my side, but my right arm was wounded. Did that make the odds even?

  Apparently not, for the fishermen suddenly stopped in their tracks, bumped against one another in confusion, then ran back to their boat, calling for Cleon to follow. I basked for a moment in the illusion that I had frightened them off (with a little help from Belbo, of course), then realized that before they turned and ran they had been looking at something above and beyond me. I turned around. Sure enough, Marcus and his men had appeared atop the low hills and were running toward the beach with swords drawn.

  Back in the relay boat, two of the fishermen scrambled for their oars while the third leaned toward the beach, crying for Cleon to join them. Cleon had managed to get to his hands and knees but couldn't seem to stand upright. I looked at Marcus and his men, then at the fishermen in the boat, then at Spurius, who stood not far from Cleon with his arms crossed, scowling as if he were watching a dismally unfunny comedy.

  "For the love of Hercules, Spurius, why don't you at least help him to his feet!" I cried, then ran to do it myself. Cleon staggered up and I pushed him in the direction of the boat. "Run!" I said. "Run, unless you want to be a dead man!"

  He did as I told him and went splashing into the surf. Then he suddenly stopped. The relay boat was pulling away, but he turned and stared at Spurius, who gave him a sardonic stare in return.

  "Run!" I screamed. "Run, you fool!" The men in the boat called to him as well, even as they began to row rapidly away. But as long as Spurius met his gaze, Cleon remained frozen, struggling to stand upright in the waves, his face a mask of misery.

  I ran to Spurius, put my hands on his shoulders and spun him around. "Get your hands off me!" he snarled. But the spell was broken. Cleon seemed to wake. His face hardened. He turned and plunged into the waves, swimming after the relay boat.

  I dropped onto the sand, clutching my bleeding arm. A moment later Marcus and his men arrived on the beach brandishing their swords.

  Marcus satisfied himself that Spurius was unharmed, then turned his wrath on me. "You let one of them escape! I saw you help the man to his feet! I heard you telling him to run!"

  "Shut up, Marcus. You don't understand."

  "I understand that they're getting away. Too far out now for us to swim after them. Damn! Just as well. We'll let them reach the bigger ship and then the Crimson Ram can take care of the lot of them."

  Before I could puzzle out what he meant, Belbo let out a cry and pointed toward the water. Cleon had finally reached the relay boat. His friends were pulling him aboard. But something was wrong; the heavy-laden boat began to tip. The experienced fishermen should have been able to right it, but they must have panicked. All at once the relay boat was upside down.

  Marcus snarled. Spurius yelped. Together they cried, "The gold!"

  Farther out, the fishermen on the larger ship were scrambling to set sail. They seemed awfully quick to abandon their friends, I thought, then saw the reason for their hurry. They had been able to see the approach of the warship before those of us on the beach could see it. It was the crimson warship I had seen anchored in the water off Ostia. The bristling oars sliced into the water in unison. The bronze ram's head butted the spuming waves. The Crimson Ram, Marcus had called her. As soon as she came into sight around the bend of the cove, Marcus gave a signal to one of his men back on the hill, who began to wave a red cape-a signal that Spurius had been rescued and the action against the pirates could commence.

  It seems impossible that what came to pass was intended by anyone; but then, that might describe everything about the whole disastrous affair. Surely the Crimson Ram meant to outflank the fishing vessel and board her to recover the gold. A warship should have been able to achieve such a capture with ease. But there was no accounting for the actions of the hapless fishermen. Just as their fellows in the relay boat had panicked, so did they. When the Crimson Ram moved to draw alongside, the fishing vessel seemed to turn as if intent on deliberate self-destruction, like a gladiator impaling himself on an enemy's sword, and offered her starboard flank to the massive bronze ram's head.

  We heard the distant impact, the splintering of wood, the cries of the fishermen. The sail collapsed. The fishing boat convulsed and folded in on itself. The vessel vanished into the rolling sea almost before I could comprehend the horror of it.

  "By the gods!" muttered Belbo.

  "The gold!" snarled Marcus.

  "All that gold…" sighed Spurius.

  The men from the capsized relay boat had set out swimming for their ship. Now they floundered in the water, trapped between the Crimson Ram and Marcus's men on shore. "They'll have to head in eventually," Marcus muttered, "along with any survivors from the other ship. We'll ring the cove and strike them down one by one as they crawl from the water. Men! Listen up!"

  "No, Marcus!" I clutched my arm and staggered to my feet. "You can't kill them. The kidnapping was a hoax!"

  "A hoax, was it? And the lost gold-I suppose that was only an illusion?"

  "But those men aren't pirates. They're simple fishermen. Spurius put them up to the whole thing. They acted on his orders."

  "They defrauded Quintus Fabius."

  "They don't deserve to die!"

  "That's not for you to say. Stay out of this, Finder."

  "No!" I ran into the surf. The scattered fishermen struggled in the waves, too far out for me to tell which was Cleon. "Stay back!" I screamed. "They'll kill you as you come ashore!"

  Something struck the back of my head. Sea and sky merged into a solid white light that flared and then winked into darkness.

  I awoke with a throbbing headache and a dull pain in my right arm. I reached up to find that my head was bandaged. So was my arm.

  "Awake at last!" Belbo leaned over me with a look of relief. "I was beginning to think…"

  "Cleon… and the others…"

  "Shhhh! Lean back. You'll set your arm to bleeding again. I should know; I learned a thing or two about wounds when I was a gladiator. Hungry? That's the best thing, to eat. Puts the fire back in your blood."

  "Hungry? Yes. And thirsty."

  "Well, you're in the right place for both. Here at the Flying Fish they've got everything a stomach needs."

  I looked around the little room. My head was beginning to clear. "Where's Spurius? And Marcus?"

  '"Gone back to Rome with the rest, yesterday. Marcus wanted me to go, too, but I wouldn't. Someone had to stay with you. The Master will understand."

  I cautiously touched the back of my head through the bandages. "Someone hit me."

  Belbo nodded.

  "Marcus?"

  Belbo shook his head. "Spurius. With a rock. He would have hit you again after you were down, but I stopped him. Then I stood over you to make sure he didn't do it again."

  "The vicious little…" It made sense, of course. His scheme foiled, the best Spurius could hope for was to silence everyone who knew about his plot, including me.

  "Cleon and the rest-"

  Belbo lowered his eyes. "The soldiers did as Marcus ordered."

  "But they can't have killed them all…"

  "It was horrible to watch. Seeing men die in the arena is bad enough, but at least there's some sport when it's two armed men, both trained to fight. But the sight of those poor fellows coming out of the water, worn out and gasping for breath, pleading for mercy, and Marcus's men slaughtering them one after another…"

  "What about Cleon?"

  "Him, too, so far as I know. 'Kill every one of them!' was what Marcus said, and his men did just that. Spurius helped, pointing and yelling whenever he saw one of them about to come ashore. They killed the pirates one by one and threw their bodies back into the sea."

  I pictured
the spectacle and my head began to throb. "They weren't pirates, Belbo. There never were any pirates." Suddenly the room became blurry. It wasn't from the blow to my head; it was only the tears welling up in my eyes.

  A few days later I was back at the Senian Baths, lying naked on a bench while one of Lucius Claudius's slaves massaged me. My battered body needed pampering. My bruised conscience needed the release of pouring the whole sordid tale into Lucius's sponge-like ear.

  "Appalling!" he finally muttered. "You're very lucky to be alive, I should think. And when you got back to Rome, did you call on Quintus Fabius?"

  "Of course, to collect the balance of my fee."

  "Not to mention your share of the gold, I should think!"

  I winced, and not from the massage. "That was something of a sore point. As Quintus Fabius pointed out, I was to be paid one-twentieth of whatever portion of the gold was actually recovered. Since the ransom was lost-"

  "He cheated you on a technicality? How typical of the Fabu! But surely some of the gold washed up on the shore. Didn't they go diving for it?"

  "They did, and Marcus's men recovered a little, but only a tiny fraction. My share hardly came to a handful of gold."

  "Only that, after all your labor, and after putting yourself in so much danger! Quintus Fabius must be as miserly as his stepson claims! I suppose you told him the truth about the kidnapping?"

  "Yes. Unfortunately, the very men who could back me up- the fishermen-are dead, and Spurius continues to blithely insist that he was kidnapped by pirates."

  "The bald-faced young liar! Surely Quintus Fabius knows better than to believe him."

  "Publicly, at least, he accepts his stepson's version of the story. But that's only to save himself the embarrassment of a scandal, I think. He probably suspected the truth all along. I think that's the real reason he hired me, to find out for certain. And that's why he ordered Marcus to kill his stepson's accomplices on the spot, to keep the truth from getting out. Oh yes, he knows what really happened. He must detest Spurius more than ever, and the enmity is mutual."

  "Ah, the type of family bitterness that so often ends in-"

  "Murder," I said, daring to utter the unlucky word aloud. "I wouldn't care to wager which will outlive the other!"

  "And the boy's mother, Valeria?"

  "Her son subjected her to agonizing worry, just to satisfy his greed. I thought she had a right to know that. But when I tried to tell her, she suddenly seemed to go deaf. If she heard a word I said, she didn't show it. When I was done, she politely thanked me for rescuing her son from those awful pirates, then dismissed me."

  Lucius shook his head.

  "But I did get something I wanted from Quintus Fabius."

  "Yes?"

  "Since he refused to give me a full share of the ransom, I insisted that he give me something else he owned, a possession he clearly undervalued."

  "Ah yes, your new bodyguard." Lucius glanced at Belbo, who stood across the room with folded arms, sternly guarding the niche that held my clothing as if it contained a senator's ransom. "The fellow is a treasure."

  "The fellow saved my life on that beach outside Ostia. It may not be the last time."

  Every now and again, business takes me south to the vicinity of Neapolis and the bay. I always make a point of visiting the waterfront where the fishermen congregate. I ask in Greek if any of them knows of a young man named Cleon. Alas, the Neapolitans are a close-lipped, suspicious bunch. Not one of them has ever admitted to knowing a fisherman by that name, though surely someone in Neapolis must have known him.

  I scan the faces on the fishing boats, on the chance that I might see him. For no good reason, I have convinced myself that he somehow eluded Marcus's men on that fateful day and made his way home.

  Once, I was almost certain that I did get a glimpse of him. The man was clean-shaven, not bearded, but his eyes were Cleon's eyes. I called out from the dock, but the boat slipped by before I could get a better look. I was never able to confirm whether it was Cleon I saw or not. Perhaps it was a relative, or merely a man who resembled him. I didn't pursue the matter as fully as I might have, perhaps afraid that the truth would disappoint me. I prefer to believe that it was Cleon after all, proof or no proof. Could there be two men in the world with the same soulful green eyes?

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SATURNALIA SILVER

  "Gambling in the Forum! Really, Gordianus, who can countenance such behavior?" Cicero sniffed, turning his nose up at the nearby circle of men busy casting dice on the paving stones.

  "But Cicero, it is Saturnalia," I said wearily. Eco and I had run into him on our way to the house of Lucius Claudius, and Cicero had insisted that we walk with him. He was in a testy mood, and I couldn't imagine why he wanted our company, unless it was simply to swell the ranks of his little retinue of secretaries and hangers-on as he walked through the Forum. A Roman politician can never be seen with too large an entourage, even if its members include a citizen of dubious respectability like myself and a thirteen-year-old mute.

  The clatter of dice was followed by squeals of glee and moans of defeat, then the jingling of coins changing hands. "Yes, Saturnalia," sighed Cicero. "By tradition the city commissioners must allow such behavior in public during the midwinter festival, and Roman traditions are always to be revered. Still, it pains me to see such demeaning activity in the very heart of the city."

  I shrugged. "Men gamble all the time in the Subura."

  "Yes, in the Subura," he said, his polished orator's voice dripping disdain for the precinct where I lived, "but not here in the Forum!"

  From nowhere, a group of drunken revelers appeared and went careening through the midst of Cicero's retinue. The revelers whirled about, making the hems of their loose gowns spin above their knees. With their forefingers they raised their felt skullcaps off their heads and spun them in the air, making blurs of red, blue and green. In the midst of the celebrants, held aloft in a litter chair, was a hunchback dressed like old King Numa in a bright yellow gown with a papyrus crown atop his head. He nodded tipsily, squirting wine into his lips from a wineskin in one hand while waving a gnarled walking stick in the other, as if it were a scepter. Eco, delighted by the spectacle, opened his mouth in a silent laugh and clapped his hands. Cicero was not amused.

  "Surely Saturnalia is my least favorite of festivals, no matter how wise our ancestors were to establish it," he grumbled. "All this drunken revelry and licentiousness has no place in a sensible society. As you see, I'm wearing my toga today, as usual, no matter what custom decrees for the holiday. No loose gown for me, thank you. Men whirling about to show off their naked legs, indeed! Loose clothing leads to loose morals. A toga keeps a man all in one piece, if you take my meaning." He squared his shoulders and shook his elbows slightly, making the folds of his toga fell into an orderly pattern, then gathered one arm to his chest to keep the folds in place. To look respectable in a toga, my father used to say, a man must have a spine of iron. The toga suited Cicero well.

  He lowered his voice. "Worst of all are the liberties granted to slaves for the holiday. Yes, I give mine a day of rest and I allow them to speak their minds freely, within reason, but I draw the line at letting them go carousing through the streets wearing colored felt caps like free men. Imagine a day when you can't tell whether a stranger in the Forum is a citizen or someone else's property! The festival is consecrated to Saturn, but it might as well be Chaos! And I absolutely refuse to follow the absurd custom of allowing my slaves to wear my clothes and recline upon my dining couch while I serve them dinner!"

  "But Cicero, it happens only once a year."

  "Which is once too often."

  "There are those who would say it's a good practice to turn things upside down every so often-to let a hunchback be a king, and set masters to wait upon their slaves. What better time for a bit of whimsy than midwinter, when the harvesting is all done, ships are safely docked, old magistrates are about to be booted out of their offices so that new ones ca
n take their place, and the whole Republic lets out a collective sigh of relief at having survived yet another year of corruption, greed, backstabbings and betrayals? Why shouldn't Rome slip into some loose clothing for a few days and uncork a new wineskin?"

  "You make Rome out to be a whore," said Cicero disapprovingly.

  "Instead of a scowling politician with a stiff neck? I think that Rome is both, depending on which side one looks at. Don't forget, they say that Saturnalia was established by the god Janus, and Janus has two faces."

  Cicero harrumphed.

  "But I'm sure you observe at least one of the traditions of saturnalia," I said, "which is the exchange of gifts with friends and family." I made this comment with no ulterior motive, only to remind him of the finer aspects of the holiday.

  He stared at me gloomily, then a smile broke out across his ace as if he suddenly dropped a mask. "That I do!" he said, and clapped for one of his slaves, who brought him a small bag from which he drew a tiny object which he placed in my hand. "For you, Gordianus!" He laughed aloud at the expression of surprise on my face. "What, did you think I made you walk across the Forum with me just so I could regale you with my low opinion of the revelry?"

  Eco drew close to me and together we peered down at the tiny round object which glittered on my open palm beneath the dead white winter sun. It seemed to be a simple silver bead flawed by some irregularity, but when I held it closer I saw that it was fashioned like a miniature chickpea-the cicer bean, from which Cicero's family took its name. Eco let out a noiseless gasp.

  "Cicero, I'm honored!" I said. From the weight of the little thing, it had to be solid silver. Silver is the substance of choice for Saturnalia gift-giving, among those who can afford such extravagance.

  "I'm giving my mother a whole necklace of them," Cicero said proudly. "I had them made last year in Athens, during my studies there."

  "Well," I said, gesturing to Eco to reach inside the pouch he carried, "I have nothing to match it, I fear, only this." No man goes out during Saturnalia without gifts to offer should the need arise, and I had given Eco a pouch to carry before we went out, containing a bundle of wax tapers. Eco handed me one, which I then held out to Cicero. It was the traditional gift of a poorer man to a man better off, and Cicero accepted it graciously.