Roman blood rsr-1

by Steven Saylor

  Caecilia Metella made a face as if she had eaten something disagreeable. Without a word she rose from her chair and strode out the door, with the slave girl and her peacock fen following behind. Rufus jumped up, but I motioned for him to stay.

  Roscius sat with his face in his hands. 'You are a, strange man,' I finally said. 'You are wretched, yet somehow I can't pity you. You stand close to a horrible death, in a place where most men would tell any lie to save themselves, and yet you omit telling the truth that alone could save you. Now that the truth is known you admit it and have no reason to lie, and yet… You make me doubt my own instincts, Sextus Roscius. I'm confounded, like a hound who scents a fox in a rabbit hole.'

  He slowly lifted his head. His face was twisted with loathing, distrust, and the fear that lurked always in his eyes.

  I shook my head. 'Talking to you exhausts me. You give me a headache. I only hope Cicero's head is stronger.' We rose to leave. I turned back. 'There was something else,' I said. 'A trifle, really. About a young whore named Elena. Do you know whom I mean?'

  'Yes. Of course. For a while she lived in the house after Capito took it over.'

  'And how did she come to be there?'

  He stopped to think. At least the weeping had ended.

  'Magnus and Glaucia. found her in the city, I think. I suppose my father must have purchased her some time before, but had left her in the brothel owner's keeping. After the auctions Magnus claimed her as his property.'

  'She was with child, I believe.'.

  He paused. 'Yes, you're right.'

  'Whose child?'

  'Who knows? She was a whore, after all.' 'Of course. And what became of her?' 'How should I know?' 'I mean, after she had the baby.'

  'How should I know?' he said again, angrily. 'What would you do with a whore and a newborn slave child if you were a man like Capito? They've probably both been sold at market long ago.'

  'No,' I said. 'Not both. At least one of them is dead, buried close by your father's grave in Ameria.'

  I watched him carefully from the doorway and waited, but he made no response.

  We walked back towards Caecilia's quarters in silence. From the corner of my eye I could see that Tiro dragged his feet, growing more anxious as we drew close to departing. My head was too full of Sextus Roscius to deal with him, but at last, as we returned to Caecilia's wing, I began to consider what flimsy excuse I might contrive to set him free to go in search of the girl.

  But Tiro was ahead of me. He suddenly stopped and reached about himself with the air of a man who has lost something. 'By Hercules,' he said, 'I've left my stylus and tablet behind. It will only take a moment to fetch them — unless I didn't have them with me when you interviewed Roscius, and left them somewhere else altogether,' he added, grasping at some way to prolong his absence.

  'You had them with you,' Rufus said with a faintly hostile edge in his voice. 'I remember seeing them in your hands.'

  I shook my head. 'I'm not sure about that. At any rate, you'd better go back and see if you can find them, Tiro. Take your time. It's too late for Rufus to get anything done in the Forum today, and the sun is still too fierce to go hurrying back to Cicero's house. I think that Rufus and I may prevail on our hostess to entertain us in her garden for a while, so that we may take a respite from this heat.'

  Caecilia, in fact, was unable to join us; the eunuch Ahausarus explained that the interview with Sextus Roscius had exhausted her. Though she was indisposed, she gave us the use of her servants, who scurried about the peristyle moving furniture out of the sun into the shade, fetching cool drinks, and doing their best to make us comfortable. Rufus was lisdess and on edge. I approached him again about the party to be held the following night at the house of Chrysogonus.

  'If you're seriously uncomfortable about going,' I said, 'then don't. I only thought that you might be able to get me into the house, through the slaves' entrance perhaps. There are a few details I'm not sure I can discover otherwise. But of course I have no right to ask it of you—'

  'No, no,' he murmured, as if I had caught him daydreaming. 'I'll go. I'll show you his house before we leave the Palatine; it's quite nearby. If only for the sake of Cicero, as you said.'

  He called for one of the servants and asked for more wine. It seemed to me that he might already have had too much. When the wine came he drank it in a single draught and called for another. I cleared my throat and frowned. 'Surely the dictum reads, all things in moderation, Rufus. Or so I'm sure Cicero would insist.'

  'Cicero,' he said, as if it were a curse; and then said it again as if it were a joke. He moved from his backless chair to a plush divan and splayed himself among the pillows. A mild breeze moved through the garden, causing the dry leaves of the papyrus to rattle and the acanthus to sigh. Rufus shut his eyes, and from the sweet look on his face I was reminded that he really was still only a boy, despite his noble status and his manly ways, still dressed in a boy's gown with its long modest sleeves, the same way that Roscia was no doubt dressed at that very moment, unless Tiro had already pulled the garment from her body.

  'What do you think they're doing right now?' Rufus suddenly asked, opening one eye to catch the startled look on my face.

  I feigned confusion and shook my head.

  'You know whom I mean,' Rufus groaned. 'Tiro is taking an awfully long time to fetch his stylus, isn't he? His stylus!' He laughed, as if he had just caught the joke. But the laugh was short and bitter.

  'Then you know,' I said.

  'Of course I know. It happened the first time he came here with Cicero. It's happened every time since. I was beginning to think you hadn't noticed. I was wondering what sort of finder you could be, not to notice something so obvious. It's ridiculous, how obvious they are.'

  He sounded jealous and bitter. I nodded in sympathy. Roscia, after all, was a very desirable girl. I was a little jealous of Tiro myself.

  I lowered my voice, trying to be gentle but not patronizing. 'He's only a slave, after all, with so little to look forward to in life.'

  'That's just it!' Rufus said. "That a mere slave should be able to find satisfaction, and for me it's impossible. Chrysogonus was a slave, too, and he found what he wanted, just as Sulla found what he wanted in Chrysogonus, and in Valeria, and all the rest of his conquests and concubines and wives. Sometimes it seems to me that the whole world is made up of people finding one another while I stand alone outside it all. And who in all the world should want me but Sulla — it's a joke of the gods!' He shook his head but did not laugh. 'Sulla wants me and can't have me; I want another who doesn't even know I exist. How terrible it is, to want only one other in the whole world and to have your longing go unanswered! Have you ever loved another who didn't love you in return, Gordianus?' 'Of course. What man hasn't?'

  A slave arrived with a fresh cup of wine. Rufus took a sip, then set it on the table and stared at it. It seemed to me that Roscia was hardly worth so much agony, but then I was not sixteen. 'So blatantly obvious,' he muttered. 'How long are they going to be at it?'

  'Does Caecilia know?' I asked. 'Or Sextus Roscius?'

  'About the lovebirds? I'm sure they don't. Caecilia lives in a fog, and who knows what goes on in Sextus's head? I suppose even he might feel obliged to muster a little outrage if he found out that his daughter is cavorting with another man's slave.'

  I paused for a moment, not wanting to ply him with questions too quickly. I was thinking about Tiro and the danger he might be courting. Rufus was young and frustrated and highborn, after all, and Tiro was a slave committing the unthinkable in a grand woman's house. With a word Rufus could destroy his life forever. 'And what about Cicero — does Cicero know?'

  Rufus looked me straight in the eye. The look on his face was so strange that I couldn't account for it. 'Cicero know?' he whispered. Then the spasm passed. He seemed very weary. 'About Tiro and Roscia, you mean. No, of course he doesn't know. He would never notice such a thing. Such passions are beneath his notice.'

&
nbsp; Rufus slumped back against the pillows in utter despair.

  'I understand,' I said. 'Though you may find it hard to believe, I do understand. Roscia is of course a fine girl, but consider her situation. There's no honourable way you could openly court her.'

  'Roscia?' He looked baffled, then rolled his eyes. 'What do I care about Roscia?'

  'I see,' I said, not seeing at all. 'Oh. Then it's Tiro whom you….' I suddenly confronted a whole new set of complications.

  Then I realized the truth. In an instant I understood, not by his words or even by his face, but by some inflexion just then remembered, some disconnected moment set next to another in memory, in that way that revelations sometimes come to us unprepared for and seemingly inexplicable.

  How absurd, I thought, and yet how touching, for who could help being moved by the earnestness of his suffering? The laws of man strive for balance, but the laws of love are pure caprice. It seemed to me that Cicero — staid, fussy, dyspeptic Cicero — was probably the least likely man in Rome to reciprocate Rufus's desires; the boy could not have chosen a more hopeless object for his infatuation. No doubt Rufus, so young, so full of intense feeling, steeped in the Greek ideals of Cicero's circle, thought of himself as Alcibiades to Cicero's Socrates. No wonder it infuriated him to think of what Tiro and Roscia were enjoying at that very instant, while he burned with an unspoken passion and all the pent-up energy of youth.

  I sat back, perplexed and without a word of advice to give him. I clapped and waved to the slave girl and told her to bring us more wine.

  21

  The stablemaster was not pleased when he saw the farm horse I came riding in place of his beloved Vespa. A handful of coins and assurances that he would be amply rewarded for any inconvenience satisfied him. As for Bethesda, he informed me that she had sulked throughout my absence, that she had broken three bowls in his kitchen, ruined the needlework she had been given and had driven both the head cook and the housekeeper to tears. His steward had begged for permission to beat her, but the stablemaster, true to my demands, had forbidden it. He shouted at one of his slaves to go and fetch her. 'And good riddance^' he added, though when she came striding imperiously out of his house and into the stables, I noticed that he couldn't take his eyes off her.

  I pretended to be disinterested. She pretended to be cold. She insisted on stopping by the market on our way home so that we would have something to eat that night. While she shopped I wandered about the street, absorbing the squalid smells and sights of the Subura, happy to be home. Even the pile of fresh dung that we had to bypass on the climb up did not dampen my mood.

  The stablemaster's slave Scaldus sat on the ground before the door, leaning against it with his legs outstretched. At first I thought he slept, but at our approach the colossus stirred and rose to its feet with alarming speed. Recognizing my face, he relaxed and grinned stupidly. He told me that he had taken turns with his brother so that the house had never gone unguarded, and that no one else had been there in my absence. I gave him a coin and told him to be off, and he obediently began loping down the hill.

  Bethesda looked at me in alarm, but I assured her we would be safe. Cicero had promised to pay for protecting my house. I would find a professional in the Subura before we slept.

  She began to speak, and from the way she curled her lips I knew she was about to say something sarcastic. Instead I covered them with a kiss. I walked her backwards into the house and closed the door with my foot. She dropped her armful of greens and bread and clutched at my shoulders and neck. She sank to the floor and pulled me with her.

  She was overjoyed to see me again, and she showed me. She was angry at having been left in a strange household, and she showed that as well, clutching her nails against my shoulders and beating her fists against my back, nipping at my neck and earlobes. I devoured her like a man starved for days. It seemed impossible that I had been gone for only two nights.

  She had bathed that morning. Her flesh had the taste of a different soap, and behind her ears and on her throat and in the secret places of her body she had anointed herself with an unfamiliar perfume — filched, she told me later, from the private cache of the stablemaster's wife while no one was looking. In the last rays of sunlight we lay exhausted and naked in the vestibule, our sweat leaving obscene imprints on the worn rug. That was when I chanced to look beyond the sleek planes of her body and noticed the message still scrawled in blood on the wall above us: 'Be silent or die.. .'

  A sudden breeze from the atrium chilled the sweat on my spine. Bethesda's shoulder turned to gooseflesh beneath my tongue. There was a strange moment in which it seemed that my heart ceased to beat, suspended between the fading light and heat of her body and the message above us. The world seemed suddenly a strange and unfamiliar place, and I imagined I heard those words whispered aloud in my ear. I might have read this as an omen. I might then have fled from the house, from Rome, from Roman justice. Instead I bit her shoulder, and Bethesda gasped, and the night continued to its desperate conclusion.

  Together we lit the lamps — and though she showed a fearless face, again Bethesda insisted that every room be lit. I told her she should come with me down to the Subura to shop for a guard, but she insisted on staying behind to cook the meal. I felt a pang of dread at the idea of leaving her alone in the house even for a short while, but she was adamant and only asked me to be quick. I could see that she was choosing to be brave and that in her own way she wanted to reassert her power over the house; in my absence she would burn a stick of incense and perform some rite learned long ago from her mother. After the door closed behind me, I listened to make sure she bolted it securely from within.

  The moon was rising and nearly full, casting a blue light over the quiet houses on the hillside, making the tile roots look as if they had been scalloped from copper. The Subura was a vast pool of light and muted sound below me, that swallowed me up as I quickly descended the hill until I stepped onto the busiest night-time street in Rome.

  I could have found a gang member on any corner, but I didn't want a common thug. I wanted a professional fighter and bodyguard from a rich man's retinue, a slave of proven worth who be could trusted. I went to a little tavern tucked behind one of the more expensive brothels on the Subura and found Varus the Go-Between. He understood what I wanted immediately, and he knew my credit was good. After I had bought him a cup of wine he disappeared. Not too long after he returned with a giant in tow.

  They made quite a contrast walking into the dim little room side by side. Varus was so short he came only to the giant's elbow; his bald pate and ringed fingers shone in the light while his doughy features seemed to soften and run together in the glow of the lamps. The beast beside him looked hardly tamed; there was a brooding red light in his eyes that didn't come from the lamps. He gave an impression of almost unnatural strength and solidity, as if he had been built out of granite blocks or tree trunks; even his face had the look of having been chiselled from stone, a rough model discarded by a sculptor who decided it was too brutal to finish. His hair and beard were long and shaggy but not unkempt, and his tunic was made of good cloth. Such grooming bespoke a responsible owner. He looked as well cared for as a fine horse. He also looked capable of killing a man with his bare hands.

  He was exactly the man I wanted. His name was Zoticus.

  'His master's favourite,' Varus assured me. 'The man never steps outside his house without Zoticus at his side. A proven killer — broke the neck of a burglar only last month. And strong as an ox, to be sure. Smell the garlic on his breath? His master feeds it to him like oats to a horse. A trick the gladiators use gives a man strength. His master is wealthy, respectable, owner of three brothels, two taverns, and a gaming hall all located in the Subura; a pious man without an enemy in the worid, I'm sure, but he likes to protect himself from the unforeseen. Who wouldn't? Never takes a step without his faithful Zoticus. But especially for me, because he owes a favour to Varus, the man will let me have this creature on loan
— for the four days you requested, no more. To repay a long-standing debt he owes me. How very lucky you are, Gordianus, to be a friend of Varus the Go-Between.'

  We haggled over the terms, and I let him have too sweet a deal, being anxious to return to Bethesda. But the slave was worth the price; stepping through the crowds of the Subura I watched strangers draw back and give way before us, and I saw the cowed looks in their eyes as they stared above my head at the monster behind me. Zoticus spoke little, which pleased me. As we ascended the deserted pathway to my house, leaving the noise of the Subura behind, he loomed behind me like a protective spirit, ceaselessly peering into the shadows around us.

  As we stepped within sight of the house I heard his breath quicken, and felt his hand like a brick on my shoulder. Another man stood before the door with crossed arms. He shouted at us to stop where we were, then pulled a long dagger from his sleeve. In the blink of an eye I found myself behind Zoticus instead of before him, and as the world whirled past I glimpsed a long steel blade in his fist.