Roman blood rsr-1

by Steven Saylor

  I opened my eyes again. Bethesda, fully dressed, was standing over me and shaking my shoulder. The room was filled with yellow light.

  'What's the matter with you?' she was saying. I sat up at once and shook my head. 'Are you sick? No? Then I think you'd better hurry. All the others have already gone.' She filled a cup with cool water and handed it to me. 'I had thought they must have forgotten you entirely, until Tiro came running back and asked me where you were. When I told him I'd tried to wake you twice already and you were still in bed, he just threw up his hands and went running after his master.' 'How long ago was this?'

  She shrugged. 'Only a little while. But you won't be able to catch them, not if you take time to wash yourself and eat something. Tiro said not to worry, he'd save you a place beside him at the Rostra.' She took the empty cup from me and smiled. 'I had a look at the woman.'

  'What woman?' The image of Electra flashed in my mind; it seemed I had dreamed about her, though I couldn't quite remember. 'And surely I have a clean tunic?'

  She pointed to a chair in the comer where my best clothes had been laid out. One of Cicero's slaves must have fetched them from my house. The tunic was spotless. A rent comer in the hem of my toga had been newly restitched. Even my shoes had been freshly scrubbed and polished with oil.

  'The woman,' Bethesda said again. 'The one they call Caecilia.'

  'Caecilia Metella was here? This morning?'

  'She arrived just after dawn in a very grand litter. There was such a commotion among the slaves that the noise got me out of bed. She's let you inside her house twice, hasn't she? It must be very grand.'

  'It is. She came alone? I mean, with only her retinue?'

  'No, the man came as well; Sextus Roscius. Hanked by six guards with their swords drawn.' She paused and looked remote, as if trying to recall important derails. 'One of the guards was extremely handsome.'

  I sat on the bed to fasten the leather straps of my shoes. 'I don't suppose you noticed Roscius himself?'

  'I did.'

  'And how did he look?'

  'Very pale. Of course, the light was weak.'

  'Not so weak that you couldn't see the guard well enough.'

  'I could have seen the guard well enough in the dark.'

  'I'm sure you could have. Now help me arrange my toga.'

  The Forum had the unsettled feeling of a half-holiday. Since it was the Ides, both the people's Comitia and the Curia of the

  Senate were closed. But a number of moneylenders and bankers had their offices open, and while the outlying pathways were empty, as I drew towards the centre of the Forum the streets became increasingly congested. Men of all classes, alone or in groups, were making their way towards the Rostra with an air of sombre excitement. The crowd that thronged the open square around the Rostra itself was so think that I had to elbow my way through. There is nothing that thrills a Roman like a trial, especially when it promises to end in someone's ruin.

  In the midst of the crowd I passed a sumptuous litter with its curtains drawn shut. As I stepped alongside, a hand shot through the hangings and gripped my forearm. I glanced down, amazed that so withered a limb could command such strength. The hand released me and withdrew, leaving behind the clear indentations of five sharp fingernails. The curtains parted and the same hand beckoned me to stick my head inside.

  Caecilia Metella, reclined upon a bed of plush cushions, was wearing a loose purple gown and a necklace of pearls. Her high, coiled hair was held in place by a silver needle decorated at the head with a cluster of lapis. At her right shoulder, sitting cross-legged, was the eunuch Ahausarus.

  'What do you think, young man?' she asked in a hoarse whisper. 'How will it go?'

  'For whom? Cicero? Sulla? The assassins?'

  She furrowed her brow arid frowned. 'Don't be facetious. For young Sextus Roscius, of course.'

  'Hard to say. Only augurs and oracles can read the future.'

  'But with all Cicero's hard work, and with Rufus to help him, surely Roscius will receive the verdict he deserves.'

  'How can I answer, when I don't know what that verdict should be?'

  She looked at me darkly and touched her long, henna-stained nails to her lips. 'What are you saying? After all you've learned of the truth, you can't believe he's guilty. Can you?' Her voice trembled.

  'Like every good citizen,' I said, 'I put my faith in Roman justice.' I pulled back my head and let the curtain drop.

  Somewhere near the centre of the crowd I heard a voice call my name. At that particular moment it seemed very unlikely that anyone who knew me could wish me well; I pressed on, but a group of broad-shouldered labourers blocked my way. A hand gripped my shoulder. I took a deep breath and turned slowly around.

  At first I didn't recognize him, having seen him only on his farm, weary from the day's work with dirt on his tunic, or else relaxed and full of wine. Titus Megarus of Ameria looked altogether different, wearing a fine toga, with his hair carefully oiled and combed. His son Lucius, not yet old enough for a toga, was dressed in modest long sleeves. His expression was one of rapturous excitement,

  'Gordianus, what a piece of luck that I should find you in this crowd! You don't know how good it is for a country farmer to see a familiar face in the city—'

  'It's fantastic!' Lucius interrupted. ‘What a place — I could never have imagined it. So big, so beautiful. And all the people. Which part of the city do you live in? It must be wonderful to live in such a place, where so much is always happening.'

  'You'll forgive his manners, I hope.' Titus fondly brushed an unruly forelock from his son's brow. 'At his age I'd never been to Rome either. Of course I've only been here three times in my life — no, four, but once it was only for a day. See over there, Lucius, just as I told you, the Rostra itself — that giant pedestal decorated with the prows of Carthaginian ships taken in battle. The speaker mounts it from stairs around the back, then addresses the audience from the platform on top, where everyone in the square can see him. I once heard the tribune Sulpicius himself speak from the Rostra, in the days before the civil wars.'

  I stared at him blankly. On his farm in Ameria I had been struck by his graciousness and charm, by his air of wholesome refinement. Here in the Forum he was as out of his element as a fish out of water, pointing and yammering like any country bumpkin.

  'How long have you been in the city?' I finally said. 'Only since last night. We rode from Ameria in two days.' 'Two very long and hard days.' Lucius laughed, pretending to massage his bottom.

  'Then you haven't yet seen Cicero?'

  Titus lowered his eyes. 'No, I'm afraid not. But I did manage to find the stables in the Subura and return Vespa to her owner.'

  'But I thought you were going to arrive yesterday. You were

  going to come to Cicero's house, to let him interview you, to see if he could use you as a witness.'

  'Yes, well…'

  'It's too late now.'

  'Yes, I suppose so.' Titus shrugged and looked away.

  'I see.' I stepped back. Titus Megarus would not look me in the eye. ‘But you decided to come to the trial anyway. Just to observe.'

  His mouth tightened. 'Sextus Roscius is — was — my neighbour. I have more reason to be here than most of these people.' 'And more reason to help him.'

  Titus lowered his voice. 'I've helped him already — the petition to Sulla, talking to you. But to speak out publicly, here in Rome — I'm a father, don't you understand? I have a family to consider.'

  'And if they find him guilty and execute him, I suppose you'll stay for that as well.'

  'I've never seen a monkey,' said Lucius happily. 'Do you suppose they'll really sew him up in a bag—'

  'Yes,' I said to Titus, 'be sure to bring the boy to see it. A sight I'm sure he'll never forget.'

  Titus gave me a pained, imploring look. Lucius meanwhile was gazing at something beyond my shoulder, oblivious to everything but the excitement of the trial and the glories of the Forum. I turned quic
kly and slipped into the crowd. Behind me I heard Lucius cry out in his clear, boyish voice, 'Father, call him back — how will we ever find him again?' But Titus Megarus did not call my name.

  The crowd suddenly compressed as an unseen dignitary arrived, preceded by a retinue of gladiators who cleared a path straight to the judges' tiers beyond the Rostra. I found myself trapped in an eddy of bodies, pushed back until my shoulders struck something as solid and unyielding as a wall — the pedestal of a statue that rose like an island from the sea of bodies.

  I looked upwards over my shoulder, into the flaring nostrils of a gilded war horse. Seated on the back of the beast was the dictator himself, dressed as a general but with his head uncovered so that nothing obscured his jubilant face. The glittering, smiling warrior atop his steed was considerably younger than the man I had seen in the house of Chrysogonus, but the sculptor-had done a credible job in capturing the strong jaw of the original, along with the imperturbable, terrible self-confidence of his eyes. Those eyes gazed out not over the Forum or down onto the crowd or into the judges' tiers, but directly at the speaker's stand atop the Rostra, putting whoever might dare to mount it eye to eye with the state's supreme protector. I stepped back and looked at the pedestal's inscription, which read simply: L. CORNELIUS SULLA, DICTATOR, EVER FORTUNATE.

  A hand gripped my arm. I turned and saw Tiro leaning on his crutch. 'Good,' he said, 'you came after all. I was afraid — well, no matter. I saw you from across the way. Here, follow me.' He hobbled through the crowd, pulling me after him. An armed guard nodded at Tiro and let us pass beyond a cordon. We crossed an open space to the very foot of the Rostra itself. The copper-plated beak of an ancient warship loomed over our heads, fashioned in the shape of a nightmarish beast with a horned skull. The thing stared down at us, looking almost alive. Carthage had never lacked for nightmares; when we killed her, she passed them on to Rome.

  The space before the Rostra was a small, open square. On one side stood the crowd of spectators from which the statue of Sulla rose like an island; they stood and peered over one another's shoulders, confined behind the cordon maintained by officers of the court. On the other side were rows of benches for friends of the litigants and for spectators too esteemed to stand. At the corner of the square, between the spectators and the Rostra, were the respective benches of the advocates for the prosecution and defence. Directly before the Rostra, in chairs set on a series of low tiers, sat the seventy-five judges chosen from the Senate.

  I scanned the faces of the judges. Some dozed, some read. Some ate. Some argued among themselves. Some fidgeted nervously in their seats, clearly unhappy with the duty that had fallen on them. Others seemed to be conducting their regular business, dictating to slaves and ordering clerks about. All wore the senatorial toga that set them apart from the rabble that milled beyond the cordon. Once upon a time, courts were made up of senators and common citizens together. Sulla put an end to that.

  I glanced at the accuser's bench where Magnus sat with his arms crossed, scowling and glaring at me with baleful eyes. Beside him, the prosecutor Gaius Erucius and his assistants were leafing through documents. Erucius was notorious for mounting vicious prosecutions, sometimes for hire and sometimes out of spite; he was equally notorious for winning. I had worked for him myself, but only when I was very hungry. He paid well. No doubt he had been promised a very handsome fee to obtain the death of Sextus Roscius.

  Erucius glanced up as I passed, gave me a contemptuous snort of recognition, then turned about to wag his finger at a messenger who was awaiting instructions. Erucius had aged considerably since I had last seen him, and the changes were not for the better. The rolls of fat around his neck had become thicker and his eyebrows needed plucking. Because of the plumpness of his purple lips he seemed always to pout, and his eyes had a narrow, calculating appearance. He was the very image of the conniving advocate. Many in the courts despised him. The mob adored him. His blatant corruption, together with his suave voice and unctuous mannerisms, exerted a reptilian fascination over the mob against which homespun honesty and simple Roman virtue could not possibly compete. Given a strong case, he would skilfully whip up the mob's craving to see a guilty man punished. Given a weak case, he was a master at sowing corrosive doubts and suspicions. Given a case with political ramifications, he could be relied upon to remind the judges, subtly but surely, exactly where their own self-interest lay.

  Hortensius would have been a match for him. But Cicero? Erucius was clearly not impressed with his competition. He yelled out loud for one of his slaves; he turned to exchange some joke with Magnus (they both laughed); he stretched and strolled about with his hands on his hips, not even bothering to glance at the bench of the accused. There Sextus Roscius sat hunched over with two guards at his back — the same two who had been posted at Caecilia's portal. He looked like a man already condemned — pale, silent, as inanimate as stone. Next to him, even Cicero looked robust as he stood and clutched my arm in greeting.

  'Good, good! Tiro said he had spotted you in the crowd. I was afraid you'd be late, or stay away altogether.' He leaned towards me, smiling, still holding my arm, and spoke in a confidential voice as if I were his closest friend. Such intimacy after his coldness oflate unnerved me. 'Look at the judges up there in the tiers, Gordianus.

  Half of them are bored to death; the other half are scared to death. To which half should I pitch my arguments?' He laughed — not in a forced way, but with genuine good humour. The ill-tempered Cicero who had fretted and snapped ever since my return from Ameria seemed to have vanished with the Ides.

  Tiro sat on Cicero's right, next to Sextus Roscius, and carefully laid his crutch out of sight. Rufus sat on Cicero's left, along with the nobles who had been helping him in the Forum. I recognized Marcus Metellus, another of Caecilia's young relations, along with the esteemed nonentity and once-magistrate Publius Scipio.

  'Of course you can't be seated with us at the bench,' Cicero said, 'but I want you nearby. Who knows? A name or a date might slip my mind at the last moment. Tiro posted a slave to warm a place for you.' He gestured to the gallery, where I recognized numerous senators and magistrates, among them the orator Hortensius and various Messalli and Metelli. I also recognized old Capito, looking wizened and small next to the giant Mallius Glaucia, who wore a bandage on his head. Chrysogonus was nowhere to be seen. Sulla was present only by virtue of his gilded statue.

  At Cicero's gesture a slave rose from one of the benches. While I walked towards the gallery to take his place, Mallius Glaucia elbowed Capito and whispered in his ear. Both turned their heads and stared as I took my seat two rows behind them. Glaucia furrowed his brows and curled his upper Hp in a snarl, looking remarkably like a wild beast in the midst of so many sedate and well-groomed Romans.

  The Forum was bathed in long morning shadows. Just as the sun rose over the Basilica Fulvia, the praetor Marcus Fannius, chairman of the court, mounted the Rostra and cleared his throat. With due gravity he convened the court, invoked the gods, and read the charges.

  I settled into that mental stupor that inevitably overtakes any reasonable man in a court of law, awash in an ocean of briny rhetoric pounding against weathered crags of metaphor. While Fannius droned on, I studied their faces — Magnus slowly burning like an ember, Erucius pompous and bored, Tiro struggling to suppress his eagerness, Rufus looking like a child amid so many grey jurists. Cicero, meanwhile, remained serenely and unaccountably calm, while Sextus Roscius himself nervously surveyed the crowd like a cornered, wounded animal too blood-spent to put up a fight.

  Fannius finished at last and took his seat among the judges. Gaius Erucius rose from the accuser's bench and made a laborious show of carrying his portly frame up the steps to the Rostra. He blew through his cheeks and took a deep breath. The judges put aside their paperwork and conversations. The crowd grew quiet.

  'Esteemed Judges, selected members of the Senate, I come here today with a most unpleasant task. For how can it ever be pleasant to
accuse a man of murder? Yet this is one of the necessary duties that falls from time to time onto the shoulders of those who pursue the fulfilment of the law.'

  Erucius cast his eyes downward to assume a countenance of abject sorrow. 'But, esteemed Judges, my task is not merely to bring a murderer to justice, but to see that a far older, far deeper principle than the laws of mortal men is upheld in this court today. For the crime of which Sextus Roscius is guilty is not simply murder — and that is surely horrifying enough — but parricide.'

  Abject sorrow became abject horror. Erucius furrowed the plump wrinkles of his face and stamped his foot, 'Parricide!' he cried, so shrilly that even at the far edges of the crowd men gave a start. I imagined Caecilia Metella quivering in her litter and covering her ears.

  'Imagine it, if you will — no, do not back away from the hideousness of this crime, but look straight into the jaws of the ravening beast. We are men, we are Romans, and we must not let our natural revulsion rob us of the strength to face even the foulest crime. We must swallow our gorge and see that justice is done.

  'Look at that man who sits at the bench of the accused, with armed guards at his back. That man is a murderer. That man is a parricide! I call him "that man" because it pains me to speak his name: Sextus Roscius. It pains me because it was the same name that his father bore before him, the father that man put into his grave — a once-honourable name that now drips with blood, like the bloody tunic that was found on the old man's body, shredded to rags by his assassins' blades. That man has turned the fine name his father gave him into a curse!

  'What can I tell you about.. Sextus Roscius?' Erucius infused the name with all the considerable loathing his voice and countenance could muster. 'In Ameria, the town he comes from, they will tell you he is far from a pious man. Go to Ameria, as I have done, and ask the townsfolk when they last saw Sextus Roscius at a religious festival. They will hardly know of whom you speak. But then remind them of Sextus Roscius, the man accused of killing his own father, and they will give you a knowing look and a sigh and avert their eyes for fear of the gods' wrath.