Now the time had come for Caesar's triumph, and for Vercingetorix to face his destiny.
It was hard to see how the captured leader of the Gauls could pose any threat to Caesar-surely he was kept under strict guard-yet Calpurnia had arranged for Hieronymus to see him, so she must have considered him a possible menace. Looking through Hieronymus's notes on their single meeting, I saw references to the Gaul's appearance and state of mind, but the most important question was not addressed: Had Vercingetorix been allowed any contact at all with friends and family? If he had been kept in complete seclusion, as I suspected, then he could not be plotting against Caesar, nor have any knowledge of a plot. On the other hand, even during the most controlled visits from the outside he might have exchanged information in code or might simply have given inspiration to his visitors by a show of fortitude. Caesar had done his best to undermine any remaining Gallic resistance, partly by rewarding those who cooperated, but there must be many Gauls who hated him fiercely and wished him dead.
Hieronymus had not remarked on the question of outside contacts with Vercingetorix, perhaps because Calpurnia already had that information. Mostly he ruminated on the special attributes he possessed for winning the captive's trust:
The two of us have something in common, after all. As the Scapegoat in Massilia, impending doom hung over me every day, every hour. I tasted the torment that V. faces as his final day draws near. Because I escaped the Fates, he may deduce that I received special dispensation from the gods. For a man in his circumstances, it will be natural to draw close to me, hoping that some of that favor might rub off on him.
"Hieronymus, Hieronymus!" I whispered, shaking my head. "You cheated the Fates for a time, but no man escapes them forever. The doomed Gaul still lives, while you lie on a bier in my vestibule. Did he have anything to do with your death?"
"Papa?"
Diana stepped into the garden. The sunlight sparkled and glimmered upon her dark hair. I was struck anew by her beauty-inherited entirely from her mother-but her face was grave.
"What is it, daughter?"
"There's a visitor who's come to pay respects to Hieronymus."
"So soon?" Word of his death had already begun to spread, then, faster than I expected. The official entry had been registered by the undertakers, of course, and there are gossip vultures who follow those lists daily. Or had someone in Calpurnia's household spread the news? "Who is it?" I asked.
"Fulvia. She says she'd like to speak to you."
"Of course. Would you show her to the garden yourself, Diana? Have the boys bring refreshment."
My association with Fulvia went back many years. It was safe to say that she was the most ambitious woman in Rome. But what had she gained by her ambitions except a widow's garments? First she married the rabble-rouser Clodius, whose mobs terrorized the city; but when Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way, Fulvia, as a woman, could do nothing with the tremendous political power her husband had harnessed. Then she married Curio, one of Caesar's most promising young lieutenants. When the civil war began, Curio captured Sicily and pressed on to Africa-where King Juba of Numidia made Fulvia a widow again and took Curio's head for a trophy. When I last saw her, before my departure for Alexandria, she was still beautiful, but bitter and brooding, lacking the one thing a woman in Rome needed to exercise power: an equally ambitious husband. In Alexandria, a woman like Cleopatra may exercise power alone, but Romans are not Egyptians. We may revert to having a king, but we have never submitted to the rule of a queen.
So far as I had seen, Fulvia did not figure in any of Hieronymus's reports to Calpurnia. Her ambitions thwarted, she had become irrelevant. But if Hieronymus had not visited her, why was she coming to pay her respects? Even as I recalled Hieronymus's reference to a threat "from a direction we did not anticipate," Fulvia stepped into my garden.
Appropriately for such a visit, she was dressed in a dark stola, with a black mantle over her head. But she had been similarly dressed when I last saw her, in mourning for Curio. Perhaps she had never put off her widow's garments. She was now in her late thirties; her face was beginning to show the strain and suffering she had endured over the years, but the fire in her eyes had not gone out.
Fulvia spoke first, as if she were the hostess and I the guest. That was like her, to take the initiative. "It's good to see you, Gordianus, even if the occasion is a sad one. I had heard-"
"Yes, yes, I know-that I was dead."
She smiled faintly and nodded.
"But you must have known that wasn't the truth, Fulvia. Surely you knew the moment I arrived back in Rome, from your famous network of all-seeing, all-hearing spies. I seem to recall, at our last meeting, that you boasted to me that nothing of importance could occur in Rome without your knowledge."
"Perhaps your return to Rome was not of sufficient importance."
I winced. Was this sarcasm? Her expression indicated that she was simply stating a fact.
"You came here to pay respects to Hieronymus?"
"Yes."
"Did you know him well?"
She hesitated an instant too long, and chose not to answer.
"You didn't know Hieronymus at all, did you, Fulvia?"
She hesitated again. "I never met him. I never spoke to him."
"But you knew of Hieronymus-who he was, where he went, what he was up to?"
"Perhaps."
"And somehow you knew about his death, ahead of nearly everyone in Rome, and of the presence of his body in this house. How could that be? I wonder. And why should you care enough about this stranger Hieronymus to come pay your respects?"
She drew back her shoulders and stood rigid for a moment, then released her tension with a short laugh. "It's a good thing I have nothing to hide from you, Gordianus. With only two eyes and two ears, you perceive all. What a gift you possess! Very well: I know who Hieronymus was, because I have men who watch the House of the Beaks and report back to me on everyone who comes and goes-including your old friend, the so-called Scapegoat."
"And your men were watching this morning, weren't they? They saw me arrive, with Cytheris, and at least one of them tracked me when I left. I knew someone was following me! The fellow must be very good. Try as I might, I couldn't trick him into revealing himself."
"That's quite a compliment, coming from Gordianus the Finder. He'll be flattered."
"And when your spy saw the cypress wreath on my door, he knew there must be a dead body in my vestibule."
"The death of Hieronymus is a matter of public record now. My man had merely to check the registry."
"And that gave you the pretext for this visit."
"Yes. But I see now that I needn't have bothered with a pretext. I should simply have come to you… as a friend."
This was exaggerating our relationship, but I let it pass. "And as a friend, what would you ask of me, Fulvia?"
"Why did you visit Antony's house today? Who's employing you to spy on him?"
My response was equally blunt. "Do your men merely watch the comings and goings at the House of the Beaks, or does someone follow Cytheris wherever she goes?"
Fulvia did not answer.
"Because, if one of your men was following Cytheris, he could tell you that she met me quite by chance outside the Temple of Tellus and invited me on the spot to come home with her."
"I don't believe it. If you met Cytheris in the street, it didn't happen by chance but because you wanted it to happen. You were at Antony's house today because you meant to be there, Gordianus. And that would happen only because someone has hired you to investigate Antony. Either that or you're acting entirely on your own-in which case you must suspect that Antony had something to do with your friend's death."
"Couldn't it simply be that I wished to inform Antony and Cytheris of Hieronymus's demise, knowing that he had been a guest in their home in recent months?"
She wrinkled her brow. "Perhaps." Her shoulders slumped. She was suddenly tired of sparring with me. I realized she wa
s standing in the hot sunlight.
"Please sit, Fulvia, here beside me in the shade. There should be some wine on its way. I wonder where those useless boys have got to…"
As if they had been lurking out of sight, waiting to be prompted, Mopsus and Androcles appeared at once, one bearing a silver pitcher and the other two cups. At least they had the good sense to bring the best vessels. Hopefully they also had brought the best vintage.
At the sight of them, Fulvia expressed surprise, then smiled. "My, how they've grown! They're almost a big as my son, Publius."
I had almost forgotten that the boys had once belonged to Fulvia; I acquired them from her in the course of my investigation into the murder of her first husband. I saw now why the boys had hung back; they were still in awe of their former mistress, and why not? I was a little in awe of Fulvia myself. Androcles approached her with downcast eyes and offered her a cup. Mopsus was equally shy when he poured from the pitcher.
"They've served me very well," I said. "They went to Egypt with me, and kept me company in Alexandria. You may go now, boys."
After daring to raise their eyes to catch a glimpse of Fulvia's face, the two of them withdrew from the garden.
The wine was very good, a Mamertine vintage that was almost as smooth and delicate as a fine Falernian. I thought Fulvia might comment on it, but she said nothing. No doubt she took such quality for granted.
"As I see it, Fulvia, the question is not why I was at Antony's house this morning. The question is, why are you keeping such a close watch on him?"
She studied me over the rim of her cup. "Was this your first contact with Antony and Cytheris since your return?"
"Yes."
"And what did you make of their little household?"
"They seem very comfortable with each other."
"Were they… amorous?"
I smiled. "Not in my presence. If you're asking if they carried on like sex-mad lovers, the answer is no. To be candid, Antony seemed a bit hungover. I think he may have been asleep when I arrived. But Cytheris was lively enough."
"Cytheris!" Fulvia spoke the name with disdain. "Well, at least she's achieved her goal of getting him to divorce Antonia."
"I think Antonia may have done her part to make that happen, carrying on with Dolabella."
"Indeed. Well, their marriage is over, and that's what matters. Now it's just a matter of prying him away from that dreadful actress."
"You intend to marry Antony?"
"Yes."
"But does he intend to marry you?"
"We've discussed the matter at some length." She spoke as if they were negotiating a business partnership or planning a military expedition. "We agree on the advantages of such a marriage. We also agree on our… compatibility… in certain other areas. I am in every way woman enough to satisfy a man like Antony." She said this defiantly, as there might be some doubt. "I was a passionate wife to Clodius, and to Curio, as well a good partner. Why Antony thinks he must hold on to that creature, I can't understand. He actually proposes that I should agree to some formal arrangement for keeping her, letting her live in one of Antony's houses and draw an income, as if she were a second wife. When my mother heard that… well, the repercussions were not pleasant for anyone."
I remembered the gaunt, white-haired Sempronia, who was every bit as ambitious as her daughter but less charming.
"As for those who say I brought ill fortune to my previous husbands, and would bring ill fortune to Antony as well-"
"Who says such a thing?"
"Cytheris, of course. But it's a lie and a slander to suggest that I carry a curse. Given the times we live in, is it any wonder that two men who dared to raise themselves above the pack were struck down?"
I tended to agree with Fulvia, but it seemed prudent to change the subject. "What about Antony's falling-out with Caesar?" I said.
"The situation is ridiculous! And totally unnecessary. Cytheris is behind it, of course. She's the one who talked him into settling in at the House of the Beaks. She's made it their little love nest, where they can entertain her dubious circle of foreign dancers and acrobats."
"Dubious foreigners… like my friend Hieronymus?" I said.
"I'm sure they welcomed him into their circle because he had a certain freakish appeal-the Scapegoat who cheated death."
"On the contrary, Hieronymus could be quite witty and entertaining."
"Of course. I didn't mean to speak ill of your friend, Gordianus. But a woman like Cytheris is not to be trusted. She cares only for her own advancement. Everyone else is merely a stepping-stone, including Antony."
It occurred to me that Fulvia might be describing herself. "So your marriage to Antony…?"
"Our plans have not been finalized. He won't be pinned down. He's behaving like an irresponsible boy, rejecting the sensible advice of the two people who care most about his career and can do most to help him, Caesar and myself. He's spurning us to carry on with that-that Alexandrian whore!"
"Perhaps Antony is not such a good match for you, after all. If he lacks sound judgment…"
"No. He's come this far, and he'll go much, much farther. He's the man I should have married in the first place. We both know that; we've known it for years. But circumstances simply never fell out that way. I married Clodius, and he married that first wife of his, that nobody… I can't even remember her name. Then the Fates led us both to a second marriage but not to each other-I to Curio, Antony to Antonia-and our mutual destiny was postponed… until now. I am a widow again; Antony is divorced. Now is the time. It will happen. It must happen."
I shrugged. "The gods have a habit of thwarting even our most reasonable expectations."
"No! Not this time. It will happen because I will make it happen. Antony will achieve the destiny he deserves… and so will I."
I sighed. I feared it would not be the gods who denied Fulvia her desire but another mortal: Antony. There is nothing so unsure as the plans we make that rely on the sensible behavior of another human being.
"I gather, Fulvia, that you intend to 'save' Antony-from Cytheris, from himself. But what if Antony refuses to be saved?"
Her face lengthened. "Was that your impression, from your visit to the House of the Beaks?"
"Not exactly. I was there to talk about Hieronymus, not Antony." This was not entirely true, but the fact was that I had nothing useful to tell her about Antony's future plans, at least regarding the women in his life. "I do know that he won't be taking part in the Gallic Triumph, but I'm not sure if that was Caesar's decision or Antony's."
She shook her head. "He should be in the very front line, just behind Caesar. The whole city should see him and remember the part he played in conquering the Gauls. He offended many people when he was in charge of the city, but if they could be reminded of his sacrifice, his bravery, his loyalty-what a squandered opportunity! This rift with Caesar… it must be ended, one way or another!" The light behind her eyes suddenly flared, like flames fanned by a hot wind.
She closed her eyes, as if to hide their intensity from me. "At least I shall be able to take some satisfaction from the African Triumph, eight days from now. King Juba claimed my husband's head as a trophy; now Juba is dead, his kingdom belongs to Rome, and Caesar shall parade Juba's little son as a captive."
She abruptly rose and made ready to go, adjusting her mantle and gathering the folds of her stola. "As always, Gordianus, your candor is greatly refreshing. This city is full of flatterers and outright liars! Sometimes I think you must be exactly what that monster Cicero called you, 'the most honest man in Rome.' "
I smiled. "That was a rare compliment from Cicero, and I'm not sure he'd repeat it nowadays." I spoke carefully; if anyone hated Cicero even more than Antony did, it was Fulvia. "I haven't seen Cicero in a very long time."
"Not since you returned from Egypt?"
"No."
"I see. Then you don't know what the old goat is up to?"
"No." I raised an eyebrow.
She laughed shrilly. "It's too delicious! But I don't think I'll tell you. I'll let you find out for yourself. You won't believe it-what a fool that old scoundrel Cicero has made of himself."
I followed her out of the garden and into the vestibule. She paused for a moment to gaze at the body of Hieronymus.
"I truly am sorry about your friend," she whispered, and then stepped outside, where a retinue with a litter awaited her in the street.
I watched her depart. Hieronymus had jotted no notes about Fulvia in his reports or his journal, but he had also spoken of a menace from an unexpected quarter. It was Fulvia's ambition that Antony must be made to fulfill his destiny, at any cost. Before that could happen, his rift with Caesar must be ended-"one way or another," as Fulvia had stressed.
VI
After Fulvia's departure, I sent a message to Calpurnia, telling her I wanted to be admitted to visit Vercingetorix in his cell the next day. She sent a message back to me before sunset. Apparently she had been able to arrange my visit at a moment's notice-and without Caesar's knowledge, since she cautioned me to tell no one, lest he learn of it. The extent of her authority continued to surprise me.
It occurred to me that Calpurnia was the woman Fulvia wished to become. How could that happen, as long as Caesar was alive?
That night at dinner with the family, I recounted some of my conversation with Antony and Cytheris but kept to myself anything that might embarrass (or simply displease) Calpurnia should it spread beyond my house. It was not that I doubted the discretion of my loved ones, but in my experience, words once uttered have a way of taking flight, as if acting on their own volition. I was struck again at Rupa's suitability to act as my companion and bodyguard. He heard all but could repeat nothing.
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