A Murder on the Appian Way

by Steven Saylor

  In the end, of course, Cicero had prevailed. The alleged conspirators (including Marc Antony’s stepfather) had been rounded up and strangled to death without a trial. Many disagreed, later if not at the time, and their anger, harnessed by Clodius, eventually led to Cicero’s exile for sixteen months. But even his worst enemies had never proposed that Cicero should be put into a prison, like a slavish courtier who had offended a monarch.

  Such repetitious, circular meditations were my means of dealing with the madness of our situation. They wore a groove into my mind, just as surely as Eco’s fist had impressed its shape into the earth wall that held us prisoner.

  Eco stopped his pounding. From the unseen world above we heard the familiar sound of a wide, rickety door swing open and shut. I smelled the aroma of fresh bread, so faint I might have only imagined it. Eco’s belly growled louder than ever, and I began to salivate, as dogs do when they know they’re about to be fed. How ruthlessly imprisonment strips away a man’s dignity. How swiftly it reduces him to the status of an animal.

  The next day was the forty-first of our captivity, according to Eco’s reckoning. I decided to calculate the exact date, but the imposition of the leap-month of Intercalarius complicated the matter. I knew that Februarius was past—we had been captured two days after the Ides, which in Februarius fell on the thirteenth—and I knew that all of Intercalarius had come and gone, so we were somewhere in early Martius.

  “Of course, the leap-month of Intercalarius doesn’t always have the same number of days,” I said. “It’s only inserted into the calendar every other year, and even then not always, and each time the priests adjust it according to however many days are needed to fill out the year properly.”

  Eco frowned. “So how many days are in the leap-month this year?”

  “Twenty-seven, I think.”

  Eco shook his head dubiously. “That just doesn’t sound right to me. I thought Intercalarius always had the same number of days as Februarius.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, this year Februarius had only twenty-four days.”

  “Not twenty-eight?”

  “No. This year Januarius had twenty-nine days, as always, Februarius had twenty-four, Intercalarius had twenty-seven, and Martius will have the customary thirty-one. Eco, this information has only been posted on scrolls in the Forum every day since the new year began. How can you not have seen it?”

  “I never pay attention to such things, Papa. I have enough garbage in my head already.”

  “But how do you keep up with which days the Senate is meeting, and when the holidays fall, and when the banks are open?”

  “I ask Menenia. Women always know these things. They have an instinct for it. They know which markets are open on which days, and which are closed, and when you have to buy extra food because there’s to be a holiday, and so on.”

  “Do you always ask Menenia when you need to know the date?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say you’re writing an important letter, and you need to know the day of the month—”

  “I ask Menenia.”

  “And she knows?”

  “Always. Doesn’t Bethesda always know the date?”

  “Now that you mention it …”

  “Try it. Next time you need to know, ask her.”

  “You mean, instead of following the postings in the Forum, and making my own calculations—”

  “Just ask Bethesda.”

  “It can’t be that simple. When I think of all the hours and the days I’ve wasted over the years—”

  We both laughed.

  I regrouped my thoughts. “So, if this is indeed day forty-one—”

  “How on earth do the priests calculate how many days to put into Intercalarius, anyway? And why don’t they leave Februarius alone?”

  “Not ‘how on earth,’ Eco, but ‘how in the heavens?’ It all has to do with the movement of the stars and the phases of the moon and the length of the seasons and so on. The years go round and round, each pretty much like the last, but not exactly. Some cycles have more days in them than others, and there’s no perfect system to account for the discrepancy. So the calendar has to be adjusted every two years.”

  “Except when it’s not.”

  “Other people have other sorts of calendars, you know—”

  “Just as other countries have kings.”

  “Which Rome shall never have again—”

  “Unless it does.”

  “Be quiet! The Roman calendar is the most perfect yet devised. It has twelve months.”

  “Except when it has thirteen, as this year.”

  “And all of these months have either thirty-one or twenty-nine days.”

  “Except for Februarius, which has twenty-eight. Only this year, according to you, it has only twenty-four.”

  “It works out in the end.”

  “Or does it? I mean, the calendar is so permanently out of joint now that sometimes the seasons don’t match the traditional holidays.”

  “Yes, and I’ve seen it get progressively worse in my lifetime. I suppose it would be even worse without snipping away at Februarius and inserting Intercalarius as needed.”

  “That’s another thing, Papa—‘as needed.’ The priests always seem to decide to insert the leap-month at the last moment. Can’t they tell a year in advance whether they’ll need it?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’d say the Roman calendar needs serious reforming.”

  “It’s interesting that you say that. Your brother recently mentioned in a letter that Caesar thinks the same thing. It’s one of his pet projects. When he has time, in between slaughtering Gauls and dictating his memoirs on horseback, the general likes to fiddle with ways of fixing the calendar.”

  “A new calendar for Rome? It would take a king to force a change like that.”

  He meant for me to laugh, but I frowned instead. “You shouldn’t talk that way, Eco. You shouldn’t even joke about it.”

  “Sorry, Papa.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “if Caesar can fix the calendar, surely you and I can at least figure out what day this is.”

  “Without Menenia and Bethesda to tell us?”

  “Entirely on our own! Now, if it’s been—”

  I sucked in a breath as I heard the familiar rattle of the door swing open and shut in the room above. I let out a low moan and slumped down against the wall, bowing my head and clutching my stomach.

  The hatch in the grate creaked open. A rope slithered and I knew that a basket of fresh bread was being lowered to us. Eco unhooked it and attached the empty basket from yesterday.

  I moaned again, trying to make it sound as if I were stifling the sound instead of forcing it. A proud citizen does not like to show weakness to the slave of his enemy.

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked a voice from above.

  “What do you care?” said Eco.

  I kept my head lowered, resisting an urge to look up. I could never make out much of our captors’ faces, anyway. Due to the dim light and the distance, they were nothing more than hulking silhouettes.

  “Would you empty the bucket?” said Eco.

  “Again? I emptied it just yesterday.”

  “Please?”

  The man made a grunt of disgust. “Oh, all right. Here’s the rope.”

  Eco attached the bucket. There was a faint sloshing noise as the man pulled it up, fist over fist. As he walked away, I heard him mumble, “What’s this?” There was a pause, and I imagined him squinting, grinding his jaw, wrinkling his nose as he studied the watery contents. Then he resumed his walk to the door and pulled it open. From somewhere farther away I heard the ghost of a hushed conversation and then a distant splash as they emptied the contents.

  A little later the man returned and lowered the bucket back into the pit. “Is he all right?” he said.

  I stifled a moan and pulled my hands from my stomach.

  “Just go
away,” said Eco coldly.

  Footsteps departed. The door opened and shut.

  After a while I said to Eco, “How do you think it went?”

  “You seemed convincing to me.”

  I nodded. We both looked toward the little mound of earth which covered the body of the rat Eco had killed that morning, whose blood we had copiously added to our own urine in the bucket.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to catch another rat as easily?” I said.

  “In broad daylight if we have to,” Eco assured me.

  23

  I opened my eyes to pitch darkness. The air was cold and clammy, stale and foul-smelling.

  Where was I? The pit, of course. Now I remembered. Where every day was like the last, where nothing ever changed—except that something was different. We were not alone.

  I felt it, sensed it. How? Not with my eyes, certainly. Was it a noise? The sound of another breath, besides Eco’s? Or a faint movement? Or a smell … ?

  Yes: the smell of garlic, sweated from pores, exhaled on the breath. Another stench added to the miasma that settled in the pit at night, pressed down by the dank evening air. My head reeled from it.

  Who eats garlic? Gladiators. They claim it gives them stamina. Lets them knock down an opponent with a single breath, runs the tired joke. I broke into a sweat, despite the chill. Perspiration poured off my forehead in such a torrent that I had to wipe it away with my sleeve, the filthy sleeve of a tunic worn for forty-odd days in a row. I could hear them breathing now, even above the sudden booming of my heart. Who, or what, was in the pit with us?

  Surely no one could have entered through the grill above without waking us. The hatch was too small for a man to pass through; for that there was a trapdoor, which was locked with a heavy chain. The chain would have clanged and clattered. The hinge of the trapdoor (never used once since Eco and I passed through it) would have squealed and groaned. I suddenly had a horrible intuition of how the intruders had entered, and where they had come from …

  Deep in the earth a flame leaped up, and a red glow illuminated the jagged fissure that had opened in the side of the pit. The earth itself had gaped up. The glow showed the two of them in silhouette—huge, hulking, monstrous, looming larger as they lumbered closer. They must have come straight from Hades.

  Eco stirred and woke. “Papa … what—?”

  I touched his lips for silence, but the two intruders had already seen us. I saw them clearly as well, for the fiery glow had seeped into every corner of the pit. It glinted off the blood-encrusted swords they carried. It lit up their hideous faces. What do men look like who have killed hundreds of men without regret, who take pleasure in cruelty, who feed from the savage pleasure of extinguishing the lives of others? Such men look like Eudamus and Birria, of course. The two of them stood over us, looking almost comic the way they leered and smirked and flared their nostrils. What a despicable fate, I thought, that these should be the last two faces I should ever see this side of Hades.

  Or …

  No, don’t even think it! But why not? Hope until the last possible moment! Seize hope, wrap your arms tight around it, strangle it! The gods have been amused by your small life for fifty-odd years. Why should they give up on you now? Think: among your fellow mortals, who knows anymore which ones are friends and which ones are foes? Maybe … just maybe … Eudamus and Birria are here not to slaughter you, but to save you, yes, to rescue you from this wretched place!

  Gordianus! You have no weapons, but you still have your dignity. Stand up! Don’t cower like a victim. Stiffen your spine. You are a Roman citizen. They are another man’s slaves. Give them the barest nod of acknowledgment. Try not to look at their swords. Show no fear. Look them in the eye. Stare them down. Never mind that they tower over you, and the stench of garlic withers you like a leaf in autumn. Never mind that glint of metal you glimpse from the corner of your eye as they swing their swords aloft—don’t flinch!

  What is it like to be beheaded?

  You shake like a leaf! You try to stop, and yet you shake and shake and shake until …

  I opened my eyes to the soft light that passed for morning in the pit. Eco leaned over me, looking concerned, gently shaking me.

  “Papa! Are you all right?

  “What?”

  “First you seemed to be having a horrible nightmare. Then you seemed to relax. Then you let out such a horrible noise that I had to wake you.”

  “A dream. Just another bad dream …”

  “The one about Eudamus and Birria?”

  “Yes.” I tried to swallow. My mouth was as dry as parchment. “Do we have any water left from yesterday?”

  “A little. Here.” He dipped his cupped hand into the bucket and put it to my lips.

  I sucked it up greedily. “Sometimes I wish the dream would come true, for better or worse. If only someone would come, to put an end to this misery one way or another.”

  “Hush, Papa. You’ll feel better after you’ve gotten up and stretched a bit.”

  So began, by Eco’s calculation, our forty-second day of captivity, the fifth day of the month of Martius, nine days before the Ides, in the year without consuls.

  “What do you think is happening in Rome right now, Papa?” said Eco, with a wistful note in his voice.

  I cleared my throat. “Who knows? We heard all sorts of wild rumors on Mount Alba, before we were captured. Some made more sense than others. I can’t believe that Milo would kill himself, for instance. He’s too stubborn. He may have caught himself in a trap that he can’t get out of, like his namesake from Croton, but he’ll see it through to the end, kicking and screaming. Of course, anything may have happened—by Hercules, forty-two days is an eternity!”

  “Long enough for the Hebrew god to flood the whole world,” said Eco wryly.

  “And long enough for the Roman state to be drowned in blood, I suppose. But if I had to place a wager, I’d bet on order rather than chaos, in the short run, anyway. We know that Pompey intended to get the Senate’s authority to raise troops to quell the lawlessness in the city. I’d bet he got his way on that. Pompey at the head of an army is a pretty unstoppable force.”

  Eco was skeptical. “Good for conquering foreign troops in the field, maybe, but what about people throwing rocks in Roman alleys?”

  “I can’t see the Clodian rabble standing up to Pompey’s troops.”

  “Soldiers can’t be everywhere at once. Little riots and fires can pop up anywhere at any time.”

  “Yes, there could still be disorder, even with Pompey’s troops in charge, but only on a minor scale. The Forum will be safe.”

  “Safe enough for elections?”

  I shook my head. “This business with Milo and Clodius will have to be dealt with first. Can you imagine, if they held the elections and Milo were to win? It’s still possible, I suppose, but the inevitable result would be another round of riots, and that would mean open warfare with Pompey’s troops in the streets—I can’t see the Senate allowing that to happen.”

  “Then who’s running the state? Do you think they’ve appointed Pompey dictator?”

  “Surely not, with Caesar up in Gaul at the head of his own army. Caesar might feel he had no choice but to march on Rome himself.” I quailed at the thought of Meto being swept into civil war.

  “Surely not.”

  “It sounds unthinkable, I know, but who would ever have imagined that the Senate House would be burned down in broad daylight?” I shook my head. We had already had this conversation a score of times. Sometimes Eco assumed the voice of reason, sometimes I was the insidious doubter. It was impossible not to speculate on what was happening in our absence, just as it was impossible to know.

  After a long pause, Eco said quietly, “That wasn’t what I meant, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I said, ‘What do you think is happening in Rome, right now?’ I didn’t mean politics or elections or any of that. I meant—”

  “I
knew what you meant. I could tell from the tone of your voice.”

  “Why did you change the subject, then? Don’t you want to talk about it? About home …”

  “Thinking about them makes me feel warm at first, comforted. But then something cold creeps in, and makes a knot in my gut, as cold and hard as ice.”

  “I know, Papa. I’m frightened for them too.”

  “We’ve been gone so very long now. They must think we’re dead. Can you imagine Bethesda grieving? I can hardly bear it.”

  “I know what you mean. I imagine Menenia weeping, and it tears my heart. Women grieving—remember Fulvia and Clodia, that night we saw Clodius’s body? He was really quite an awful fellow, wasn’t he, Papa?”

  I shrugged. “It all depends whom you ask. He was ruthless to his enemies, that’s for sure. He caused more than his share of suffering in this world. But he also gave a great deal of hope and some real power to a great many people who had neither, not to mention the guarantee of enough bread in their bellies. To those people he’s a hero.”

  “But still a vain, power-mad, greedy man. You can see that just by looking at the houses he built.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And yet, when he died, his sister wept. And Fulvia—do you remember the way she tried to show nothing when we were in the room? But afterward, in front of that crowd, the way she shrieked and wailed. I thought it was an act at the time, but now I think she was truly suffering, lost, hopeless. I think of Menenia and Bethesda, grieving for us, frightened of the future, and I think of Clodia and Fulvia, and I feel a great sadness for them all.” He wrinkled his brow and turned his eyes upward to the patches of sunlight that showed through the bars and the roof. “But we’re still not talking about the real worry, are we? We’re talking about them grieving for us. What I really meant is—”

  “What if something has happened to them?”