A Murder on the Appian Way

by Steven Saylor

  I turned and saw that I was alone with his lifeless body in the pit. Eco had already scrambled up and out. I heard the sound of a struggle taking place in the stable above.

  I put the makeshift dagger between my teeth, tasting blood, and leaped for the opening. I grabbed one of the iron bars and pulled myself up. We had practiced this movement every day, leaping and pulling ourselves up, strengthening our arms. Still, I thought that pulling myself through the opening would be a greater challenge than it was. Instead I seemed almost to fly upward, as if an unseen hand pushed me from below. Cold fury propelled me, and the certain knowledge that Fortune had turned in our direction.

  Eco and the keeper were rolling on the floor, thrashing at each other. Eco was by far the smaller of the two, but he was driven by the same fury that drove me, and he was managing to hold his own. I ran toward them, raising the crude wooden dagger. There was already a patch of blood on the man’s forehead. There was more blood, and a loud scream, when I brought the dagger down on his neck. He escaped from Eco’s clutches and ran for the door, blood spurting between the fingers that clutched his neck.

  We followed him outside, dazed by the full light of day. I girded myself for more fighting, but there was no one to be seen. We were alone on a patch of weedy ground in front of a disused stable, surrounded by trees and overgrown farmland.

  “The other one is still in the pit!” said Eco. He ran back inside, lifted the trapdoor single-handed and dropped it shut with a great clang. “Ha! See how you like that! Now you’ll tell us where we are and who you work for, you son of a sow!”

  I followed Eco inside, still exhilarated but suddenly weary. “Come, Eco. We’d better hurry. Who knows where the other one went, or if he has more friends close by? We’re not out of danger yet.”

  “But, Papa—”

  “Eco, the fellow is dead.”

  “No!” Eco peered down into the dim pit. The man had landed in a convoluted heap that no living person could contrive. Still, Eco was unconvinced until a large rat went scurrying over the fellow’s head.

  “Papa, you killed him?”

  “No. The fall broke his neck. It happened in the blink of an eye.”

  “Too bad. He should have suffered!”

  I shook my head, unable to agree. The fellow had never shown us any cruelty, as many men would have, given such power over others. He had been our servant, in fact, bringing us food and disposing of our wastes. Our argument was not with him.

  The fact that I was able to think so calmly was a dangerous sign. The cold fury had begun to leak out of me. The bloody stick in my hand revolted me. The moment of escape toward which all had been building had come and passed. If more adversaries were to arrive, they would find me with my edge for violence blunted. The truly dangerous part of our escape was just beginning.

  24

  We were alone and friendless in unknown territory. We had no money. We did have a day’s ration of bread—the food that our keepers had brought for us that morning.

  We were somewhere in the countryside. That was unfortunate. In a city, we could have stolen what we needed—new clothes to replace our filthy rags, enough small coins to visit the local baths and a barber to make ourselves look respectable—and then proceeded to ask questions of strangers and move about without attracting undue notice. In a city, we might have found someone we knew, or who knew a mutual friend, and so might agree to loan us money or arrange for our return to Rome. But the countryside was another matter. Walking on country roads, we could not help but be conspicuous. Enemies searching for us would have a great advantage. Given our wretched appearance, strangers might take us for runaway slaves, despite our citizen’s rings. It is easier to skulk through a crowded alley than across an empty field.

  Where were we? From the surrounding hills and farms, there was no way to tell. I could determine directions by the sun, but was Rome north, south, east or west? Near or far? There was no way to begin the journey home except to begin walking, keeping out of sight as much as possible. I tried to keep track of our route, so that we could find our way back later, but I was dazed and exhausted and every field looked the same.

  We slept that night under the open sky. We were cold, and snuggled together for warmth, and I woke before dawn with a gnawing in my belly and my feet like ice. But for the first night in many nights I did not dream of Eudamus and Birria, and the sight of the open sky above when I opened my eyes was very sweet indeed.

  We came upon a paved road that was clearly a major highway, but which? All roads lead to Rome, but only if you go in the right direction.

  “North or south?” I said.

  Eco scrutinized the road for a long moment. “South.”

  “I agree. Do you think we might be like dogs, and find our way home purely by instinct?”

  “No,” he said bluntly. He was beginning to feel hungry. So was I.

  We proceeded south, avoiding other travelers as best we could.

  “When Fortune smiles, the Fates may yet play a joke.” So goes the old Etruscan aphorism.

  Stomachs growling, feet aching, we walked for hour after hour, thinking that sooner or later the road must lead to some place where we could at least determine where we were. We came to a region where the road traversed a series of low, rolling hills, so that we were able to see, intermittently, what was coming our way a considerable distance ahead. We first saw the approaching entourage three hilltops away, then two. Someone in their party had probably seen us first, since there were so many of them and some of them had the higher vantage point of riding on horseback. It would almost be more suspicious to attempt to hide beside the road than to simply pass by with heads lowered. They could hardly be a search party, since they were coming toward us, and not from behind. Still …

  We reached the next hilltop. There they were, cresting the hill just opposite us, with a small valley between.

  “If any of them should question us,” I said to Eco, “allow them no liberties. We are citizens, after all. We have every right to be on this road … wherever it is. And—”

  “Papa …”

  “And if they do speak first, then we might as well ask how close the next town is, and what it’s call—”

  “Papa!”

  “What is it, Eco?”

  “Can you not see with your own eyes?”

  I stopped and stared at the approaching group of men. They looked like serious travelers on serious business, sober-faced and dusty from hard riding. Some were obviously bodyguards. Others …

  “By Jupiter, Eco! Can it be?”

  Eco nodded and raised his hand in a gesture of greeting. After a final moment of disbelief, I did the same. Even so, the riders hardly glanced at us. No doubt they took us for a pair of bearded derelicts. It was Tiro who gave a start, muttered an exclamation of surprise and reached for his old master’s sleeve. The entourage came to a halt.

  “By all the gods!” Cicero leaned forward and peered at me as if I were some freakish curiosity being shown off in the arena. “Can it be Gordianus, beneath all that hair and filth? And Eco?”

  “You’re alive! Both of you, alive!” Tiro’s voice caught in his throat. He leaped from his mount and rushed to embrace us both, weeping with joy.

  Cicero managed to restrain any such feelings and remained on his horse. He caught our scent and made a face. He stared at me and slowly shook his head. “Gordianus, you look frightful! What on earth have you been up to?”

  “Your disappearance has been much talked about in Rome,” said Cicero that night, as we dined in a private room at an inn outside the town of Ariminum.

  “I’m surprised anyone noticed I was gone.”

  “Oh, quite the contrary. You’re better known than you might think. There’s been no end of speculation. Even vendors in the fish markets talk about the inexplicable disappearance of the Finder and his son; so my slaves tell me, anyway. Of course, Rome has been full of all sorts of strange happenings and curious rumors in the last month. Your vanishi
ng was just one more.”

  “But my family is well?” I had already asked this question more than once.

  Tiro patiently reassured me. “Quite well. Just before we left Rome, I paid a visit to see if there was any news of you. They were all in good health—your wife and daughter, your son’s wife and children. They were quite worried about the two of you, of course …”

  Eco shook his head. “We should be hurrying back to Rome right now, Papa, instead of sitting here stuffing our faces!”

  “Nonsense,” said Cicero. He gestured to a slave to refill my cup of watered wine and bring more food. “I think you have no idea just how wretched you both looked when I came upon you this afternoon. Fortunately, the town of Ariminum has good baths, so we were able to get you decently washed and barbered. And this inn has decent food, so hopefully we can begin to fatten you up a bit, as well. You’ve almost begun to look like human beings again. As for the idea that you should go riding breakneck back to Rome, I advise against it. You need rest and recuperation, good food, country air and sunshine, and above all the safety of traveling in an armed company. Oh no, I insist that you stay with me, at least until we reach Ravenna tomorrow.”

  Cicero had explained that he was on a journey to see Julius Caesar at the commander’s winter headquarters in Ravenna. I had not yet discovered why. He and Tiro had left Rome four days previously—a bit of information which Eco had seized upon with a good deal of gloating, citing it as proof that his memory of a four-day journey at the beginning of our captivity was accurate. Indeed, his reckoning of the days and my calculation of the date proved to be exactly right: it was six days before the Ides of March, seventy-two days since the death of Publius Clodius. We had been held prisoners for forty-four days somewhere in the vicinity of Ariminum, where the northernmost spur of the Flaminian Way ends and the newer Popillian Way continues northward toward Ravenna.

  “What else are they talking about in Rome?” I said. “The vendors in the fish markets, I mean. I take that as a good sign, that the markets are open.”

  “Yes, things have calmed down considerably in Rome since your … misfortune. The Senate authorized Pompey to raise troops to maintain order, and they’ve done a reasonably good job. There have been some clashes between soldiers and civilians, and a few minor incidents of arson, but for the most part order has been restored.”

  “And elections?”

  Cicero winced. Dyspepsia, or politics? “The question of elections became increasingly … problematic. Untenable, ultimately. Can you imagine, thirteen interrexes since Lepidus, and no elections? That’s over now. Only a few days before Tiro and I left Rome, the Senate voted to make Pompey sole consul for the rest of the year.” His voice trailed away to a dry whisper. He coughed and reached for his cup of wine. The cancellation of the consular elections had to signify a great personal and political defeat for him. What would become of his champion Milo now? Would the electoral process ever return to normal?

  Cicero cleared his throat and went on. “There has been a great deal of wrangling and maneuvering in the Senate, as you can imagine.” He made this comment without his usual relish. Cicero had made much of my wretched appearance, but I began to see that he looked rather tired and drawn himself. “First the Clodians tried to force Milo to hand over his slaves for questioning. Milo forestalled them there, eh, Tiro? He made the slaves in question freedmen ahead of time so that even the Senate couldn’t round them up and torture them for evidence. We countered with a demand that Fulvia deliver Clodius’s slaves for a bit of torture and interrogation. She and her family didn’t care very much for that idea.” Cicero smiled wanly at this minor triumph. “Since Pompey became consul, the Clodians have been trying to force a special inquest into Clodius’s death. A show trial with Milo being crucified like a slave is what they’d like, something overblown and dramatic. Then they’ll claim that Milo’s offense was so spectacular that the Senate had to pass a special law just to deal with it. They proposed such an inquest, and we countered by attaching additional legislation which specifically condemned the burning of the Senate House and the attack on the house of the interrex Lepidus. That way, all three incidents would have been condemned equally in the eyes of the law, and all the malefactors would have been liable for equal penalties. Oh, the Clodians don’t like the sound of that! No, no, no! They expect someone to be destroyed for the death of their precious leader, but they think they can burn down half the Forum and not pay for the crime! Well, we shall see, we shall see …” Cicero threw back his head and narrowed his eyes. It occurred to me that he had had too much to drink. I had never, ever before seen Cicero inebriated.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Meanwhile, Pompey has his own ideas of how to straighten things out. He’s come up with a package of new laws; these will speed up the courts and put down sedition, he says. Pompey’s idea of law and order is to make it easier to convict a man and to inflict harsher penalties on him, never mind whether he’s guilty or not! Some of his so-called reforms are positively ludicrous. Shorter trials, he says; that’s the answer. We can’t afford the luxury of letting an orator take the time he needs to build an irrefutable argument. No more of this nonsense of the prosecution and defense each taking a whole day to deliver their speeches! Instead, the prosecution will be allowed two hours, and the defense will be allowed three hours. I suppose if an advocate is in the middle of a speech when the time runs out, they’ll clamp his jaw shut. And witnesses! Witnesses will come first, not last, before the speeches instead of after. That makes the witnesses the main focus of the trial, and the speeches a mere addendum! Pompey’s never been much of an orator himself. He distrusts oratory, so he wants to demote it, dismiss it. But to give such prominence to witnesses is pure folly—anyone with sense knows that most witnesses are deluded, or unreliable, or bribed. And no character witnesses! Pompey has forbidden character witnesses. Never mind that a man can arrange for half the Senate to speak up for his good character, such testimony is now irrelevant. Juries will now be drawn from a list of eligible names handpicked by Pompey himself. Handpicked by a single man, not even by two, because we have only one consul, and that one not even elected by the citizens!”

  Tiro laid a restraining hand on his old master’s elbow, but Cicero shook it off. “I know what I’m saying. And I’m not drunk. I’m just tired, very tired. Traveling disagrees with me. Besides, Gordianus appreciates candor. Don’t you, Gordianus? Ah, but I forget, you’re one of Pompey’s men now, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One could hardly help but notice all those guards keeping watch at your house for the last month. They do come from Pompey, don’t they?”

  “Perhaps,” I said, uneasy at Cicero’s scrutiny but for the most part glad to learn that Pompey had kept his word. “It doesn’t mean I’m Pompey’s man.”

  Cicero stared into his cup and blinked. “Gordianus, I have never pretended to understand your desultory allegiances. For all I know, you’re spying on Pompey and not for him, and somehow managed to talk him into guarding your family while you do it.”

  “You were talking about Pompey’s reforms,” I said, wanting to change the subject.

  Cicero laughed aloud. How much wine had he drunk? “So I was. You know, my very favorite is the Great One’s brilliant new innovation for rooting out bribery. If a man’s convicted of bribery, he can arrange for a pardon, provided he can turn around and convict two other men of bribery! Soon everyone in Rome will be standing in a circle pointing the finger of blame at the man next to him. That’s one way to keep everyone busy while the Republic slips away from us. It’s ludicrous, it makes a mockery of the law. But Pompey’s never understood the law, never had any real respect for it, any more than he respects oratory. He respects institutions, like the Senate, but only in some vague, abstract, sentimental way. He has no regard for the law at all. He doesn’t see how beautiful it is, how awesome, how it circles and binds us all together, like a golden thread. He rips his way through it like a man g
etting rid of cobwebs. He has the vulgar, pragmatic mind of an autocrat.”

  Cicero pressed his stomach and winced. “Thank the gods that Caelius is a tribune this year and has the power to veto any legislation that infringes on individual rights. Caelius has warned Pompey that he’ll use his veto on the new laws. Do you know what Pompey replied? He said, quite calmly, ‘Do as you must, but I shall do whatever is necessary to defend the state.’ So typical! Why doesn’t he just pull out a sword and brandish it in Caelius’s face? In the end there’ll be a compromise, of course; there always is. We shall have to let Pompey have his way, or else he’ll complain that he doesn’t have enough power to keep order and demand even more. And where will that lead?” Cicero made an elaborate shrug of disgust. “Ah, but Gordianus, you’ve hardly spoken at all about your travails.”

  “You’ve hardly asked.”

  “How awful for you! Kidnapped, trundled off to some place far from Rome, kept in a pit. Who could have perpetrated such an atrocity?”

  “I have wondered about that a great deal. I had much time to consider it.”

  “I’m sure you did! And did you come to any conclusions?” Did he look at me shrewdly, or had his eyelids simply grown heavy from fatigue and too much drink?

  “Not yet.”

  “Ah, Gordianus, always the one to bide his time, sift every shred of evidence, seek for further revelations, postpone the final judgment. You’d have made a terrible advocate. You don’t have the gift for making things up. So you have no idea who kidnapped you, or why?”

  “We never properly saw our captors, and they never gave us any clue about who employed them, or why we were kept alive, for that matter.”

  “Ah, a mystery, then! But here you are, free again at last and safe.”

  “Yes, safe. But of course it matters to me a great deal to know who treated my son and myself with such contempt. We’re both alive and well—”