"They don't seem connected, do they? What have those two concocted between them? I think it must be behind all this."
"They both argue that their settlements will strengthen the state," Father said while I dripped on the tiles of his atrium. "Be a reservoir from which to draw soldiers for future generations. All that sort of talk."
In spite of everything, I managed a short laugh. "What pap! We all talk about the fine old times of the founding fathers and the virtues of the Italian peasant, backbone of the state. Does anyone really believe we can conjure those times back, like some necromancer raising the dead to prophesy? How long will those stalwart veterans last on their idyllic little farm plots, Father? How long before they sell up and leave the land to join the urban mob here in Rome? What peasant, however hard-working, can compete with latifundia the size of small countries and worked by thousands of slaves?"
"They might last for Pompey's lifetime," Father said. "That's long enough for his purposes."
"How very true."
"And what would you do?" he asked, his face getting red. "How would you change things?"
"Break up the latifundia for a start," I said. "Forbid the importation of new slaves and the selling of Italians into slavery. Tax those plantations until the owners have to sell off land."
"Tax Roman citizens?" Father bellowed. "You're mad!"
"We're dying by inches as it is," I insisted. I usually didn't talk like this, but I was very tired and had lost a lot of blood. "I'd pay the owners a small, very small, indemnity and repatriate those slaves right out of Italy. They're the root of most of our problems. The fact is, we Romans have grown too damned lazy to do our own work. All we do anymore is fight and steal. We have slaves to do all the rest."
"This is wild talk," Father said. "You sound worse than Clodius and Caesar combined, far worse."
I laughed again, this time quietly and a little shakily. "I'm no radical, Father," I said. "You know that. And I'm not going out into the streets to rabble-rouse, if only because I know how futile it would be. Reform or reaction, all they mean is Roman blood in Roman streets. We see enough of that as it is."
"See that you curb your tongue, then. Talk gets you killed as efficiently as action, these days."
"I don't suppose," I said, "that I could talk you out of a litter and some bearers to take me to my physician?"
"All that bad, is it? Oh, very well." He called to another slave and there was some scurrying about. The old man was mellowing with age. Time was when he would have lectured me half the day about how he had marched for fifty miles in full armor with wounds far worse. Maybe he had. I never claimed to be especially rugged.
The ride to the Statilian ludus was a bit hazy. The sun kept getting brighter, then dimmer. I think only the fortification of that excellent Caecuban kept me from passing out. As it was, the gods sent me visions. I thought I saw the goddess Diana, in her brief hunting tunic, bow and quiver, but then she became Clodia, and she was laughing at me. Clodia had laughed at me before, with good reason. I was about to tell her what a scheming slut she was when I realized that it was not Clodia but Fausta. She said something that I could not understand, and I tried to ask her to repeat it, but then I saw that it was not Fausta but her brother, Faustus. The metamorphosis had been subtle because the twins were so alike. He was reaching something out to me in a beringed hand, but that did not seem right, because soldiers rarely wear a great many rings, especially large poison rings. Another transformation had occurred. Now it was Appius Claudius Nero, and he was holding something, something he urgently wanted me to take, trying to speak despite the puncture in his throat and the dent in his brow.
Then a huge shadow reared up behind Nero. It was a four-footed beast towering over him, and its great paw descended, crushing him before he could give me whatever it was. I looked up and saw that the beast was Cerberus, the guard-dog of the underworld. I knew this because, unlike ordinary dogs, he was gigantic and had three heads. They were not dog heads, though, but human heads, like one of those hybrid Egyptian deities. The head on the right was that of Crassus, regarding me with those cold blue eyes. That on the left was the jovial head of Pompey. The one in the center was in shadow and I could not recognize it, but I knew that this one was the master of the other two, else why was he in the center? Then someone else was in front of Cerberus. This was Julia, and she, too, was reaching out for me. Her hand touched my shoulder.
"Decius?" Asklepiodes gripped my unwounded shoulder lightly and shook me. His face wavered in my vision, then solidified.
"I really would have preferred Julia," I said.
"What?" His elegantly bearded Greek face showed concern. "I was not expecting to see you again quite so soon, Decius." He turned and shouted something over his shoulder. A pair of gladiators came and lifted me out of the litter as lightly as if I had been an infant and carried me to the physician's quarters, where his servants efficiently stripped and washed me as he examined my wounds.
"Up to your old activities again, eh? Are those human teeth marks I see on your face?"
"Actually, they belong to a rodent, a species of weasel, or perhaps a stoat." His poking and prodding elicited the usual flares of agony. This was the part he liked.
"Well, I can stitch and patch you up enough to keep you alive and relatively mobile, but the ladies will shun your company for a few days. Speaking of ladies, who is Julia?"
I averted my eyes as the silent slaves brought in horsehair sutures, wickedly curved needles and ornate bronze pliers.
"I was confused. I had a vision on the way here, and the last thing I saw was a lady of my acquaintance named Julia."
"She must be exceptional, since you seem to prefer her company to mine despite your manifest need for my attentions. What sort of vision? I am not especially skilled in the interpretation of dreams, but I know of some skilled practitioners not far from here."
"It wasn't a real dream, but a sort of waking vision. I was aware of what was going on around me while it happened." I spoke mainly to take my mind off his activities. I am not among those person who believe that all their dreams are of great significance, and wish to tell you all about them, at great length. I rarely remember them, those I do remember are usually duller than my waking life, and such visions as the gods have given me have usually come to me under just such circumstances as these: wounds, blood loss or severe blows to the head.
I related my vision to Asklepiodes, and he sat facing me with chin in hand, murmuring occasional wise noises. When I had finished, he resumed his horrid labors.
"The appearance of persons with whom you have recently been involved is not at all unusual, even in the common or nonportentous dream," he said. "But the appearance of a mythical beast is always of the highest significance. Does Cerberus have a significance among you that he does not have among Greeks?"
"None that I know of," I said. "He is the watchdog of Pluto, who keeps the dead from leaving the underworld or the living from entering."
"Pluto, then: How does he differ from Hades?"
"Well, besides being lord of the dead, he is also the god of wealth."
"He is so among us, too, and by the same name, Pluto. That may be from confusion with Plutus, the son of Demeter, who is also a personification of wealth. But then, this may be because the name of both is derived from the very word for 'wealth,' which is-" He broke off when I squealed almost as Clodius had recently. In his pedantic reverie, he had dug a needle in too deep. "Oh, please forgive me."
"You're enjoying this," I said.
"I always enjoy learned discourse," he said, deliberately obtuse. "But it may be that wealth is behind all this."
"It usually is, when men plot villainy," I said. "But I think it may be more significant that Cerberus has three heads. One body, three heads; that is important."
"You saw the heads of Pompey and Crassus, enemies you have come up against in the past. But the third was unclear?"
"Unclear, and the greatest of the three. How can that be? Who could be
greater than Pompey and Crassus?" This, truly, seemed an impossibility.
"I don't suppose it could be Clodius? You are rather obsessive about him."
I almost laughed, but I knew how it would pull at the stitches. "No, not Clodius. He is a flunky and a criminal, nothing more."
"Then what of the boy Appius Claudius Nero? What was he trying to give to you, and why did the three-part beast crush him?"
"That," I said, "I would give a great deal to know."
Chapter XI
I woke up and immediately wished I hadn't. Not only were my wounds screaming at me, but the night before, I had sought to promote sleep by draining a good-sized pitcher of cheap wine. I was now suffering the effects of both.
"Serves you right," Hermes said. "Leaving me there like that, holding your toga while you ran like a mountain goat up those stairs."
"You should have seen me on the flats," I croaked. "Faster than a racehorse then. Silverwing on his best day couldn't have touched me."
"Those men might have killed me!" he said indignantly. Slaves like Hermes take things so seriously.
"Why would they have done that?" I said. "It was me they were after. I'm just glad that none of them thought to snatch my toga and you didn't think to sell it."
"You certainly have a low opinion of me!" he huffed.
"Yes, I know I'm probably wronging you, but just now I am not a friend to humanity. I feel like going out and upending a chamberpot all over a Vestal." I got some breakfast in me and felt a tiny bit better. My morning calls went by in a fog, and I was about to leave for Celer's when a new man arrived. It was the gap-toothed Gaul I had seen at the warehouse with Milo.
"The chief wants to see you at the baths, Senator," the man said without preamble.
"The baths? At this hour?" I said.
"He doesn't keep most people's hours," the Gaul said.
When I thought of it, a long, hot soak sounded like a good idea. I told Hermes to get my bath things and followed the Gaul through the streets. Celer was a busy man and probably wouldn't even notice that I was absent. The bathhouse we went to was a modest one, but it adjoined the building that served as Milo's home and headquarters.
Leaving Hermes to watch my belongings, I followed the Gaul into a steam room, where Milo sat with a group of his cronies. He looked up and grinned when I walked in.
"It's true!" he crowed. "All Rome says you fought a pitched battle with Clodius and his men and ended up right in front of Octavius while he was holding court!" He laughed his huge, infectious laugh. I would have joined in, but it would have hurt too much.
"Come back from the army without a scratch," Milo went on, "then cut to ribbons in the streets of Rome! What irony!"
"Oh," I said, sitting down stiffly, "one expects the occasional scar when in service to Senate and People." Indeed, in this company it was easy to be modest about a few little scars. Some of the men were arena veterans with more scar tissue than skin showing when they were stripped. One of them leaned forward and studied my shoulder.
"Neat bit of stitching there. Asklepiodes, eh?" I confirmed that he was correct.
"Seems unmanly to me, all this Greek seamstress work," said another veteran. He gestured to a hideous trough of puckered flesh that slanted from his right shoulder to his left hip. "A red-hot searing-iron, that's the way to stop a cut bleeding. Atlas gave me this one, a left-handed Samnite."
"Got to watch out for those lefties," said a companion.
Milo turned to me, and the others turned away from him. They were a well-drilled band, and we might as well have been alone.
"How did it go with Fausta?" he asked bluntly.
"Extremely well," I assured him. "I conversed with her for some time, and she seems most sympathetic to your suit. She is bored with the men of her own class, as well she might be, and finds you exciting and interesting. I think that if you call on her, she will welcome you most warmly."
"Very good," he said.
"Always glad to be of service," I told him.
"And I'll be of service to you as well. I've passed the word that any assault against you by any of Clodius's men earns instant death. My people will watch out for you in the streets. As long as you stay in plain view, that is. When you go sneaking around, as you have a habit of doing, I can't guarantee your safety."
"I can take care of myself," I said, slightly miffed.
He leaned close. "Are those teeth marks on your face? I thought you fancied yourself a swordsman, not a bestiarius."
"I do appreciate your help, Titus. My real problem now is that I am at a loss to understand what is going on. With each new bit of evidence that comes my way, I think I have the key that will make all else fit, but it never does."
"Bring me up to date," Milo said. I told him of the various oddments of information I had picked up. He raised an eyebrow slightly when I spoke of Julia, and frowned when I mentioned Fausta's words.
"I do not like the idea that she is involved," he said ominously. Keeping the sundry women out of the matter was getting difficult.
"Oddly, I think that both she and Julia are speaking the truth. How this can be so I can't say yet."
"Then here is another bit of information for you to exercise upon: The day after the sacrilege, Crassus posted surety for all of Caesar's greatest debts. He is free to leave Rome now. All that keeps him here now is Pompey's upcoming triumph."
"This is significant," I said. "But why should he hang around for the triumph, other than that it is sure to be a fine show? I would think that the only triumph that could interest Caesar would be his own, and the very prospect of that is laughable."
"That's another little question for you to ponder, isn't it?"
"How does this happen, Titus?" I said, a little of my long-held disgust coming to the surface. "Here in Rome we've built the only viable Republic in history, and now it's falling to the shadowy machinations of shadowy men like these. I mean, it all worked so well. We had the popular assemblies, the Centuriate Assembly, the Senate and the Consuls. No kings. We could have the occasional Dictator when the times called for one, but only on a time-limited basis, the power to be handed back to Senate and People as soon as the emergency was over. Now it's all falling to military adventurers like Pompey, plutocrats like Crassus and demagogues like Clodius. Why?"
He stretched and leaned his head back against his folded arms. "Because the times have changed irrevocably, Decius. What you describe is a system that was perfect for a little city-state that had recently thrown off its foreign kings. It even worked well enough for a rather powerful city-state that dominated much of Italy. But the city-state days are over. Rome governs an empire that extends from the Pillars of Hercules to Asia. Spain, large chunks of Gaul, Greece, the islands, most of the southern Mediterranean lands: Africa, Numidia, Carthage, Mauretania. And what governs all this? The Senate!" He loosed his huge laugh again.
"The greatest governing body known to man," I said with great dignity. I was, after all, a new-minted Senator myself.
"Nonsense," Milo said without rancor. "They are, for the most part, a pack of time-serving nobodies. They've won office because their forefathers won the same offices. Decius, these men have been handed an empire to govern, and what is their qualification? That their great-great-great-grandfathers were wealthy farmers! At least these schemers you detest have worked and fought and, yes, schemed to get what they want."
"Can Rome be handed over to the likes of Clodius?" I said.
"No, but not for constitutional reasons. I plan to kill him first. But you, what is your protection from him? Besides my friendship, I mean."
"There are still plenty of people in Rome who have no use for his sort of demagoguery. My neighbors in the Subura will keep his men from my door."
"Forgive me, Decius, but you hold their esteem as much by your colorful, brawling habits as by your Republican rectitude. How long do you think you will keep their loyalty if Clodius should succeed in transferring to the plebs and gets elected tribun
e, as surely he will? He promises every Roman citizen a perpetual grain dole. That is a powerful inducement, my friend."
"It is not worthy of a free people," I said grudgingly, knowing that I sounded like my father.
"They may be free in the technical sense, but they're poor, and that's a sort of slavery. The day of the freeholder is past, Decius, and it won't come back. They've become a mob, and politically they will act like a mob."
"And you intend to control Rome as a mob leader," I said. I wasn't asking a question.
"Better me than Clodius."
"I won't argue that." There seemed to be no more to say on the subject. I studied the austere but tasteful bathhouse. "This is convenient, having a place like this so handy."
"I own it," Milo reported. "I own the whole block now, and all the buildings on the facing streets."
"That's better than convenient," I commended, "it's tactically sound."
"I try to look ahead. When you're through soaking here, why don't you let my masseur work you over?" He pointed to a low doorway. "The table room's through there."
I winced at the very thought. "The last thing I want is someone pounding my body."
"Try him anyway," Milo said. "Handling wounded men is his specialty."
Mile could be a hard man to refuse, so I tried his masseur. To my amazement, the man was exactly what I needed. He was a huge Cretan, and in his way his knowledge was as profound as that of Asklepiodes. His powerful hands were brutal where the flesh was merely bruised and contused, gentle where I was cut. By the time he was finished, I actually felt not far from normal. My muscles and joints flexed with their usual ease, and only the areas around my wounds were painfully tight. I was almost ready to take on another fight, as long as it was not too strenuous.
There was still a question left unanswered but answerable, and I went to resolve it. The walk from Milo's citadel to the Aventine let me loosen my newly massaged muscles, and I was pleasantly winded at the end of the brief climb.
I stood on the steps of the lovely Temple of Ceres. It overlooked the open end of the Circus Maximus and commanded one of Rome's more breathtaking views, and Rome is a city of numerous splendid views. Aside from its religious function, serving the all-important goddess of grain, the temple was the ancient headquarters of the aediles. It was the special province of the plebeian aediles, since they were the judges of the grain market, but the curule aediles, though higher ranking, also had their offices here.
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