The Year of Confusion s-13

by John Maddox Roberts

  “What will it be, Balbus?” I asked. “Parthia?”

  “Almost certainly. Caesar is my patron, and just now he’s on the outs with Antonius, so I’ll probably go as his legate, if not Master of Horse. Antonius is to stay in Rome.”

  “So I’ve heard. My wife thinks he’ll loot the whole city.”

  “Unlikely. He’ll squeeze, but he’s a better politician than that. Caesar will return someday, and Antonius will want to be in his good graces.”

  “I am not so sure. Antonius’s propensity for extreme behavior has astonished men even more cynical than I.”

  “Then we shall see how much he fears Caesar.”

  Asklepiodes finished with his examination. “You will have to give this limb a rest for at least a month. You have strained the tendons of your knee and they need time to heal. I know it is difficult for a man as active as you to rest and relax, but I must insist upon it: no running, wrestling, or fighting for at least a month. You may ride, but be very careful in dismounting and remember to favor this leg.”

  “That sounds like a bore,” Balbus said.

  “Nonetheless, it is what you must do,” Asklepiodes insisted. “If you injure it further it may give you trouble for the rest of your life.”

  Balbus eyed his thick knee dubiously. “It looks all right.”

  Asklepiodes sighed like any other expert having to put up with the objections of an ignoramus. “The damage is internal and therefore not visible, but you can feel it, can you not? It needs time to heal just like a cut or a broken bone. Therefore I adjure you to do as I say.”

  “I’ll do it,” he grumped.

  “Some people must be convinced to stay alive and well,” the physician observed.

  “Any progress on the neck-breakings?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard some talk about this,” Balbus said. “What is the problem?”

  So yet again we had to explain about the broken necks and the strange marks and the physician’s puzzlement over the leverage applied. Like Brutus, Balbus pantomimed the act with his enormous hands, with which he could probably have twisted a man’s head clean off had he so wished. “I see what you mean,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Somehow you have to bring the two first knuckles of each hand to bear against the spine just below the skull, one hand to each side of the spinal column, and exert enough force to separate the vertebrae.”

  “You have a fine grasp of anatomy,” Asklepiodes commended.

  “My old wrestling instructor probably knew as much about the subject as you, doctor.”

  “A Greek, I presume?” Asklepiodes said.

  “No, a Phoenician from Cartago Nova.”

  “I see. They are also quite expert in the anatomical arts, for barbarians.”

  “I can almost picture in my mind how it could be done,” Balbus said, frowning, “but somehow it will not become clear. Tonight I’ll sacrifice to my family gods and maybe they’ll send me a dream that will reveal the technique to me.”

  “I hope your gods are more cooperative than mine,” said Asklepiodes. “I’ve been sacrificing regularly with no results so far.”

  The slaves brought in our dinner and we applied ourselves to it, speaking of gossip and inconsequentialities for a while. My mind wandered to my recent conversation with Archelaus.

  “What do you think of that extraordinary scene in the Senate, Balbus?”

  He set his cup down. “You mean Caesar’s dressing down of the Parthian ambassador? It was rough, but I’ve known Spanish kings to skin an offending ambassador alive and send his tanned hide to his sovereign as an answer.”

  “We are a bit more sophisticated here in Rome,” I said, “and Caesar is sophisticated even for a Roman.”

  “Caesar isn’t a young man anymore,” Balbus observed. “Old men sometimes get cranky.”

  “That’s just what Rome needs,” I said. “A cranky dictator. Peevishness isn’t something you want in a man who holds absolute power.” It made me think of all those oriental tyrants to whom the anti-Caesarians were always comparing him.

  “Do you think Caesar may be ill?” Asklepiodes said.

  “Eh?” said Balbus.

  “I have known him only slightly,” said the Greek, “but he has always seemed the soul of congeniality, and of course he is famed the world over for his clemency. But any man’s good nature can be warped by debilitating disease, especially so if it is one of the terribly painful ones.”

  “Now I think of it,” Balbus said, “that day he came in by way of the door to the rear of the consular podium, and left the same way, instead of coming up the front steps.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “In all the excitement I forgot that. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen looking infirm.”

  This gave me much to think about and that evening I spoke with Julia concerning this alarming possibility.

  “Why would he conceal an illness?” she asked, frowning.

  “Because a man who holds absolute power dares not show the slightest hint of weakness. It could be eating away at him, too. He still feels he has great things to accomplish, but the years and infirmity have crept up on him. It’s the sort of thing that can make even Caesar ill-tempered. He hasn’t yet outshone Alexander so he has to win this Parthian war and after that, I suspect, India.”

  “Nonsense! He only wishes to set the republic back in order. Then he will retire.”

  “Retire? Caius Julius Caesar? He’ll retire when Jupiter retires from Olympus. I want to know about this. Pay a call upon your uncle. Pump Servilia for information. She’s been with him more than anyone else lately.”

  “I’ll do it, but I think you are wrong. This Archelaus must have done something to provoke him. You’ve said yourself that my uncle was rather sharp with Gallic and German envoys when their rulers had behaved haughtily.”

  “So Archelaus did, but a Roman citizen is not the same thing as a barbarian, and the king of Parthia is a monarch worthy of respect, even if he is an enemy. It is unlike Caesar to treat one he considers a peer disrespectfully.”

  “It does seem odd,” she said, not protesting that Caesar would never consider a king his peer.

  9

  Now I had another complication in an investigation that was sufficiently complex as it was. Might Caesar be seriously ill, and, if so, what might this portend? I mulled this over as I crossed the Forum, closely attended by Hermes.

  “I don’t see how Caesar’s being sick-” Hermes began.

  “if he’s sick,” I said.

  “-If he’s sick-should have anything to do with some murdered astronomers.”

  “It shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection.”

  “That sounds very profound. What do you mean?” We found a vacant bench just outside the enclosure of the Lacus Curtius and sat. Since I wasn’t very popular lately we weren’t disturbed by too many well-wishers.

  “I’ve been concentrating on this almost to the exclusion of all else since my conversation with Asklepiodes and Balbus yesterday. Certain facts seem to come together and are probably related. Caesar is determined to outshine Alexander the Great, but Caesar is getting old. He may well be sick, perhaps deathly sick. He has always been the soul of rationality, so much so that even his seeming follies always prove to be shrewdly calculated. Yet now he has begun to behave irrationally. His brutal treatment of Archelaus in the Senate was perhaps the most public example.”

  “Clear so far,” Hermes said, “though I fail to see where this is going.”

  “Be patient. Asklepiodes noted that severe illness affects a man’s nature. A great and thwarted ambition can do the same. Suppose both factors were present here.”

  “All right, I’m supposing it. I’m still not coming up with anything.”

  “You aren’t thinking very clearly today. I think you need something to eat, maybe some wine to go with it.”

  “It would be ill-mannered to indulge myself alone, in front of my patron. You must join me.” />
  “I accept your invitation.” So we went to a nearby tavern and loaded up on sausages and onions grilled over charcoal and chunks of ripe cheese, along with plenty of rough, peasant wine. This is the sort of fare that promotes clarity of thought. At length Hermes sat back and belched with satisfaction.

  “Has anything come to you?” I asked, downing the last sausage.

  “I think so. I’m not well read, but I’ve heard a bit about great and ambitious men, and we’ve encountered a few of them. Most are very concerned with their greatness and reputation and how they will be remembered.”

  “I knew some food and wine would do you good,” I commented. “Continue.”

  “Some of them, especially as they grow older, turn to oracles and fortune-tellers to reassure themselves that their fame will live forever. Marius and Sertorius were famous for it. Pompey, too.”

  “Excellent. Now connect that to our current investigation.”

  “Caesar may be consulting astrologers.”

  “On the day Polasser was killed, Cassius hinted that he was seeking a horoscope for Caesar. He didn’t speak the name, but he could hardly have meant anyone else, and it was Polasser he wanted to consult with.”

  “Caesar also showed up with Servilia at the house of Callista,” Hermes pointed out. “Do you think Callista may be involved somehow?”

  “I would hate to think that, but it has crossed my mind, I confess. She knows all the Greek astronomers, all sorts of people attend her salons, not just intellectuals but politicians and wealthy parvenus and foreigners of all sorts. It’s an excellent venue for carrying out a conspiracy.”

  “But a conspiracy to do what?” Hermes asked.

  “That I haven’t figured out yet.”

  Then he surprised me. “So where does all of this come together?”

  “Eh?”

  “Where do all the paths cross? Where is-what is the word? — where is the nexus?”

  “That is an excellent question. There may be more than one. There is the Tiber Island, for instance. Both murders occurred there. And there is the house of that odd foreign woman. A lot of the women involved went there.”

  “Maybe we should talk to her.”

  I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it first. “Splendid idea. Let’s go call on her.”

  From where we were, the shortest way across the river was to take the Aemilian Bridge, which leads to the via Aurelia, the highway that goes north along the coast of Latium and Etruria. Once over the bridge we turned left, away from the via Aurelia and into the sprawl of the Trans-Tiber district, and thence up the slope of the Janiculum.

  The crest of this “Eighth Hill of Rome” was the site of a fort erected in the old days to guard against attack by our old enemies, the Etruscans. The fort had long since fallen into ruin but its great flagpole still stood, flying its long, red banner. By ancient tradition, the banner was to be lowered at the approach of an enemy. More than one politician had forestalled a vote or closed a court by having a confederate go up the Janiculum and lower the flag. At an opportune moment, the politician would point to the hill and proclaim that the flag was not flying. By ancient custom all official business had to halt while the citizens assembled in arms, even though they knew that there could not be a hostile army within a thousand miles.

  Slowly, new houses were encroaching upon the slopes of the hill. It had been so long since a foreign army had attacked Rome that people had little fear of building outside the walls, and land here was much cheaper than within the City. Some imposing homes now stood on the Janiculum, mostly those of wealthy equites and foreigners, as an address outside the pomerium was considered unfitting for patricians and consulars.

  We climbed until the buildings thinned out and found a fine, new house that looked as if it had to be the one Julia had described. It was surrounded by new and very expensive plantings. The formal garden was as impressive as Julia had intimated, with numerous fruit trees planted in huge tufa pots. I wondered how the inhabitants got water so high up, as the Trans-Tiber was not served by a great aqueduct in those days.

  “I know land is cheap here, compared to the City proper,” Hermes noted, “but somebody has spent substantially on this place.”

  “My own thought,” I concurred. “This woman is not the sort who tells fortunes in the Forum for a few copper asses.”

  We went to the door and Hermes knocked. To my surprise, Ashthuva herself opened it. I knew it had to be Ashthuva, as Julia’s description had been so thorough. Briefly, I wondered why someone so obviously prosperous had no doorkeeper for this task, but the woman herself had a way of driving all lesser thoughts from a man’s mind.

  In my life I had encountered many beautiful women, some of them exotic in the extreme, but I had never beheld one quite like this. Her regularity of feature and glowing, tawny skin were astonishingly set off by the dots and lines of color painted on her forehead, cheeks and chin. The gown, or rather wrapping, as Julia had described it, was gold this day, covering her as securely as an Egyptian mummy, but with tantalizing glimpses of flesh here and there. The huge red navel jewel was in place. But most enticing of all was her perfume, which Julia for some reason had not mentioned. It was an amalgam of flowers and spices and something indescribable, just below the level of consciousness, but not above the level of the testes, which this fragrance sent into an uproar.

  “Yes, Senator?” the woman said in a voice so furry that it constituted a full-body caress. She placed her hands together, scarlet nails pointed upward just below her chin, and performed that serpentine bow Julia had described as wonderfully graceful, and that I perceived as unutterably lascivious. I had never seen every part of a woman’s body in such enticing motion except among certain supremely accomplished Spanish dancers of the sort that were frequently forbidden by the censors to enter Rome lest they endanger public morals.

  “Ah, well, I am Senator Metellus and I-ah, that is to say-” I had been more articulate in the presence of German chieftains bent upon my torture and slow death.

  “Good lady,” Hermes said, no less stimulated than I, but in better control of himself, “the senator is engaged in an investigation on behalf of the dictator. We must ask you a few questions, if we may.”

  “Of course. Please come in.” We passed within and like Julia I smelled fresh paint and new plaster. The decorations were astrological and clearly had been done by artists trained in the Greek tradition; I saw no Chaldean or Egyptian influence.

  We followed her and the rear view was as maddening as the front. Hermes’ eyes popped and his breathing became labored. I nudged him in the ribs, but I had no cause to pride myself upon my self-control. I found that I had to adjust the front of my toga for the sake of decency.

  She led us to a room Julia apparently had not seen. It was illuminated, amazingly, by a skylight composed of a framework of lead strips in which were secured hundreds of small panes of colored glass. They formed no recognizable picture, but they seemed to be arranged in some subtle pattern I could not quite make out. It shed an unsettling light.

  “Please be seated, gentlemen,” she said in a way that turned that commonplace phrase into something sublimely seductive. There was no proper furniture, but the floor was nearly covered by heavily stuffed cushions, colorfully dyed. We collapsed with unseemly haste. Fragrant herbs were included in the stuffing of the cushions. It seemed that no sensual refinement went overlooked in this household.

  “Please excuse me while I go see to your refreshment.” When she was gone Hermes turned to me.

  “Did Julia mention that this woman is like some sort of Syrian fertility goddess?”

  “No, but that was an all-female group that night. Maybe her magic only works on men.” But I remembered that Callista had said Ashthuva had exercised seductive tactics upon her.

  Moments later the woman was back with a tray of delicacies and a pitcher. We had just eaten, but the formalities had to be observed. The snacks seemed to be an amalgam of meats, fruit, veget
ables, and eggs, chopped and mixed so that nothing was recognizable, fried and served on tiny squares of crisp, unleavened bread. It was highly seasoned and I found it delicious. The wine was excessively sweet and I judged it to be Syrian. Might that be where this woman was from?

  “What interest might so exalted a person as the dictator Caesar have in me?” she asked when we had downed a few bites.

  “The dictator has assigned me to investigate the murders of two astronomers on the Tiber Island.”

  “Oh, yes, I had heard about that. How terrible.” She made a strange gesture of head and one shoulder that is difficult to describe. I remembered my conversation with Callista about how each culture has its own vocabulary of gestures and I wondered what this one might signify. Horror, perhaps.

  “One of the victims was a notable astrologer, the one who called himself Polasser of Kish. Did you know him?”

  She made another gesture, this one a flick of her right hand, which I guessed to denote denial. “No, Senator. There is no guild of astrologers. We tend to be solitary, not gregarious. An astrologer may have apprentices, but rarely colleagues.”

  “That seems odd,” I said. “Astronomers are always flocking together to talk and argue.”

  “That is because, like philosophers, they are always coming up with something new and want to discuss it with their peers. Astrology is a very ancient art, and it never changes. All was discovered before human memory, and there are no new findings.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” I admitted. “That is an observation worthy of Callista herself.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Ah! I met that learned lady just a few nights ago. She is the most remarkable woman I have ever encountered.”

  “She was quite impressed by you, as well,” I said. I could have bitten my tongue. It was stupid of me to let her know that I had been discussing her with Callista. This woman’s awesome sexuality drove my cautious instincts clear out of my head. “But I fear she has little regard for your art,” I went on.