I cleared my throat rather loudly. “Gentlemen, I hesitate to speak in so distinguished a company, but I thought we were here to discuss what to do about an impious cult practicing forbidden rites on Roman soil, not how to deal with the patrician presence at those rites. I saw quite a few, after all. Those three were only the ones I recognized.” Father glared at me but he didn’t say anything.
“Quite right,” Bestia said. “It might be a mistake to prosecute Fulvia. Who knows whom she might name as her sisters in these unclean rituals?”
“We are dealing with unlawful human sacrifice!” I insisted.
“True,” Caesar said. “The law is quite clear on the question. The problem is, I do not know of a single case in which anyone was prosecuted on the charge. If the victim was a slave and the property of one of the participants, the charge of murder is invalid. The censors may expel citizens for immorality, but legal prosecution is another thing.”
“Then,” I said, “as pontifex maximus can you declare these persons and their cult to be enemies of the state and take action against them? Could you not condemn them, level their holy site, and fill in their mundus?”
“I could, but what would be the point? Except for the highly placed thrill seekers, these people are mostly aliens, even if they come from places with titular Roman citizenship. The real purpose of driving the more disgusting foreign cults from the City is to preserve public order. These witches practice their rites at a discreet distance from the walls and, as far as we can tell, have been doing so for centuries without causing any public disorder at all.”
“But what they are doing is infamous!” I said. “It is an offense to our laws and our gods!”
“I believe,” Caesar said, “that I am a better judge of that on both counts. Before I leave for Gaul, I shall appoint an investigative board to look into the matter, and I shall authorize the members to take action by my authority. I shall also speak with Clodius concerning his sister and her friend, Fulvia, who I believe is living with her. I shall speak with Lucullus as well. Fausta is his ward. Her brother, Faustus, is with Lucius Culleolus in Illyricum, and I shall speak with him as well when I get there. I shall urge that all three women be sent away from Rome, not to return, for their own good and for the good of their families. It will, of course, have to be done with discretion to avoid public scandal.”
“If you will forgive me, Caius Julius,” I broke in, “I think a public scandal is exactly what is needed just now. What I saw …”
“What you saw, Decius,” Caesar said, in tones like ringing sword steel, “was enough to bring charges against three silly patrician women and exactly one Etruscan peasant woman. I daresay you could harangue the Popular Assemblies and get some sort of action, but it would be mob hysteria and it would be aimed at all the market people from the outlying territories, specifically the Marsians. I need hardly remind you that we fought a very bloody war with the Marsians not so long ago, and it wouldn’t take a great provocation to make them take arms against us now, the very last thing we need with war facing us in Gaul.”
“Very true,” Bestia said. “People are on edge just now. A bit of loose talk about witchcraft and human sacrifice would spread through the slums like a fire. One foreign slave sacrificed over a mundus would become twenty citizen’s children murdered and eaten. I agree, it’s too risky.”
“I urge moderation also,” said Varro. “The offense scarcely seems to merit the sort of public unrest sure to arise.”
“I do not like the idea of alien barbarities practiced right on Rome’s doorstep,” Father said, “practically beneath the noses of the censors, for all practical purposes. Perhaps we can indict the woman Furia and try her alone. Punish their ringleader or high priestess or whatever she is, and the others will scuttle for their hills.”
“An excellent idea at any other time,” Caesar said, “but there will be no courts for the balance of December, and with the new year the new magistrates take office. To testify against the woman, your son will have to be in the City while Publius Clodius is tribune.”
“That does make it touchy,” Father said.
“I’m not afraid of Clodius!” I protested.
“Who needs to be afraid of Clodius?” Father said. “Do you think it will be some sort of Homeric duel between champions? He’ll be untouchable, and he’ll have a thousand men each eager to curry favor with him by delivering your head.”
“Unless,” Bestia put in, “it’s true what I heard, that you and Clodius have patched things up?”
“What’s this?” Father said, frowning.
“Yes, Decius,” Caesar said, amused, “tell us all about this prodigy.”
“Clodius thinks my investigation will prove his sister innocent,” I said, cursing Bestia’s big mouth. “I put no stock in his protestations of a truce. Whether I find for or against her, it will be open war again.”
“All the more reason to be away from Rome next year,” Caesar said. He smiled and cocked an eye at Father. “Cut-Nose, why not send him with me to Gaul? I have plenty of room on my staff for another aide.”
This proposal chilled my spine as even the sights out on the Vatican field had not. I was about to squawk out a horrified protest when the smirks on the faces of Varro and Bestia made me stop.
“I am honored, Caius Julius,” I said, managing not to grit my teeth. “I shall, of course, defer to my father’s wishes.”
“Let me discuss it with the family,” said the heartless old villain. “Might do him some good.”
Having apparently settled things to their satisfaction, the others took their leave and I saw them all to the door. From outside came the sounds of reveling. The final, frantic night of Saturnalia was well underway.
When they were gone, I turned to Father. “Are you insane?” I cried. “He is marching into a war with a major coalition of Gauls!”
“Of course he is,” Father said. “You need a good war. When was the last time you saw any real fighting? Wasn’t it that business in Spain against Sertorius? And what year was that?” He thought a bit. “It was during the slave rebellion, in the consulship of Gellius and Clodianus. By Jupiter, that was thirteen years ago! You’ll have no future in office if you don’t get a few successful campaigns behind you.”
“I’ll have no future at all if I march off with Caesar! According to Lisas, he’s going to end up fighting Germans!”
“So what?” Father said scornfully. “They’re just barbarians. They die like anybody else when you stick your sword in them. Why are you so reluctant to spend some time with the legions?”
“It’s a foolish war. Most of them are foolish these days. Our wars are just excuses for political adventurers like Caesar and Pompey to win glory and get elected.”
“Exactly. And some of them will win glory and will get elected, and the men who support them in winning that glory will hold the positions of power. Use your head, boy! If they aren’t fighting barbarians, they’ll fight each other. Then it will be Roman against Roman, just as it was when Marius and Sulla fought it out twenty-odd years ago. Do you want to see those days come again? Let them slaughter Gauls and Germans and Spaniards and Macedonians. Let them march down the Nile and fight the Pygmies, for all I care, so long as they don’t shed the blood of citizens here in Rome!”
It was unusual for him to take the trouble to explain himself to me. But then, sending me off to a possibly disastrous war was an unusual circumstance. I choked back my dread and got back to the business at hand.
“They seemed uncommonly passive concerning the doings out on the Vatican. Granted Caesar has bigger things on his mind, but not the other two. A splashy prosecution is just the sort of thing you’d think men like Bestia and Varro would be looking for next year if they plan to stand for the praetorship, and there’s no reason to be aedile unless you want to be a praetor.”
He rubbed his chin absently. “Yes, it seems odd, but they probably have other plans for advancing themselves. There’s nothing we can do about i
t now. You can get back to your investigation, and try not to be too long about it.”
So on that unsatisfactory note I left Father’s house and began to make my way back toward my own. The celebrations were in full roar, but I had lost my taste for all the gaiety. Despondent, I trudged on toward the Subura.
It is difficult to explain how I knew I was being followed even in the midst of a raucous crowd, but I knew it nonetheless. I paused to turn around from time to time, which was easy when so many people were jostling me, but I saw no one who looked familiar or especially malevolent; but with so many in masks that would have been difficult in any case. But I had that sensation, and I’d had enough experience of danger in the streets of Rome to know that I had better not ignore my instincts.
In a jammed alleyway I darted through the open gate of an insula and into its courtyard, which was as jammed as the alley outside. People were dancing on the pavement and hanging out the windows that looked out over the courtyard from the central air shaft that towered, canyonlike, five stories overhead. Celebrators swayed precariously on the rickety balconies built, most of them in violation of the building codes, outside the windows. Everybody seemed to be roaring drunk and the wine jars were passed promiscuously about.
I took a fast drink from one of them as it flew past, ducked beneath the attempted embrace of a fat, laughing woman, and dashed through an open door. I found myself in a dark apartment where overexcited persons were embracing passionately amid the gloom. I pushed my way through sweaty bodies until I found an outside door and came out onto a street only slightly larger than the alley I had left. I chose a direction at random and followed the street until it turned into a steep stair. I took the stairs at a run, scattering people and pet dogs like grain before a threshing flail.
Celebrators whooped and laughed as I passed. Desperate fugitives are not all that rare during Saturnalia. Despite the general atmosphere of license, there are always a few humorless husbands who grow unreasonably upset upon discovering the wife and the nextdoor neighbor locked in a feverish grapple: and sometimes a slave oversteps the recognized boundaries and finds himself pursued down the street by the master, waving the kitchen cleaver and bawling for blood.
I paused, gasping, at a little square with a fountain in its center and a tiny shrine to Mercury at the corner where a street entered the square. I paused long enough to buy a couple of honey cakes from a vendor and I left them at the feet of the god, hoping that he would lend me speed and invisibility, two of his most salient qualities. I suspected that Mercury, like everybody else, had taken time off from official business, but it never hurts to try.
On such a hectic night it is easy to lose your way in Rome, but I soon had my bearings and was headed for the Subura once more. I slowed to a walk, certain that I had lost my followers. This did not mean I was out of danger. Having lost me, they might easily take a more direct route to my house and wait for me there. The logical course for me was to avoid my house and go put up with friends somewhere or else just stay in the streets and celebrate until daylight.
I was, however, still gripped by the strange mood of self-destruction that had sent me out to spy upon the witches, and playing it safe seemed to be a poor and spiritless way to proceed. Besides, it looked as if I was going to go campaigning in Gaul with Caesar, and the prospect of a horde of snarling Germans made Italian assassins seem a minor danger, relatively speaking.
My flight had gotten me turned around, and I found myself crossing the Forum. The dice games were still going on, and as near as I could tell the very same men were rolling the cubes and the knucklebones. Near the rostra, who should I find in the midst of his followers but the very man I most needed at that moment.
“Milo!” I called, waving over the heads of the reeling crowd. In that great multitude he heard and saw me instantly. That dazzling smile spread across his godlike face and he waved me over. I plowed through the mob, and the final cordon of Milo’s thugs parted to let me through.
“Decius!” Milo said, grinning. “You look almost sober. What’s wrong?” Since becoming a respectable political gang leader, Milo usually wore a formal toga and a senatorial tunic in public (he had served his quaestorship two years before), but for this occasion he was dressed in a brief Greek chiton that came to midthigh and was pinned over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. He looked more than ever like a statue of Apollo.
Less edifying was the sight of his long, muscular arm draped over the shoulders of Fausta. She was dressed almost as minimally as he was, in a hunting tunic like Diana’s, girdled up to show off her long, shapely thighs. The upper part was pinned loosely, allowing the neckline to drop perilously low. I would have been more intrigued had I not seen her wearing considerably less the night before. I made a point of ogling her anyway.
“I hope Cato happens by,” I said. “I’d like to see him drop in a foaming fit and bark at the moon.”
“You sound a little breathless, Decius,” Milo said. “Trouble?”
“Some people are trying to kill me. Could you lend me some bullies to escort me home?”
“Of course. Who is it this time?” Milo passed me a fat wine skin, and I took a long pull. Ordinarily he was extremely moderate with food and wine, but he was lowering his limits this night.
“Oh, you know. Just politics.” The last thing I wanted was to explain and bring Fausta into it. “It’s not Clodius.”
“I never knew a man like you for sheer variety of enemies,” he said admiringly. “How many are there?”
“Probably no more than two or three. I lost them somewhere near my father’s house, but they may be waiting for me in the Subura.”
“Castor, Aurius,” he called. “Escort Senator Metellus safely to his house.” He grinned at me again. “These two can handle any six you’re likely to encounter. Are you sure you want to leave the festival so soon? I’m throwing a public banquet for my whole district, and it will go on until dawn.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I’ve had two eventful days and very little sleep, and by now one drunken brawl is pretty much like another. I hate to take your men away from all the fun.”
“These fools would rather fight than celebrate any day. Good night, Decius. Tell me all about this when you have the time.”
“I shall,” I said, knowing that I never would.
I felt much more secure with the two thugs flanking me. Castor, the shorter, had a wiry, compact build and the quick movements of a Thracian gladiator. Aurius had the heavy shoulders and bull neck of a Samnite. Not Samnite by nation, but the type of gladiator we called Samnite back then, who fought with the big shield and straight sword. These days that type is called a murmillo if he fights in the old style and a secutor if he wears a crestless, visored helmet and fights the netman. The Thracian, with his small shield, curved sword, and griffon-crested helmet, is still with us.
Both men wore heavy leather wrappings around the right forearm and their hair tied in a small topknot at the back of the crown, both trademarks of the practicing gladiator. I saw no edged weapons on them, but each had a wooden truncheon thonged to his broad, bronze-studded belt. They were heavily scarred and looked eminently capable.
“Have no fear, Senator,” said Castor, “we won’t allow a single hair of your head to be harmed.” He sounded as cheery as a man just come into his inheritance.
“That’s right,” said Aurius, just as happily, “Milo thinks the world of you. Anyone makes a move for you, just back away and let us handle it.” Despite their foreign names and fighting styles, I knew by their accents that both men were City-born. They were also cold sober. Milo had not been joking when he said that they liked to fight. They were bored senseless with the festival and were now all but whistling with glee at the prospect of bloodshed.
I wondered if we were to have a repeat of the little scene of two nights before. As it was, there were similarities and differences. Instead of two Marsian bumpkins stalking me to my gate, we were set upon by no fewer than five men ly
ing in wait, and this time there were no warnings or threats.
The streets of the Subura weren’t as crowded as those closer to the Forum. In fact, most of the Suburans were in the Forum and its environs. Those who weren’t were mostly celebrating in the guild headquarters, the insula courtyards, and on the various temple grounds. We were passing before the huge iron-working shop owned by Crassus, its clanging hammers stilled for the holiday night, when they set upon us.
Three men rushed us from the shadows of the portico fronting the iron factory. This drew our attention to the left. A moment later two more came in from behind a statue of Hercules strangling the Nemean lion that stood on the right side of the street. All of them had bare steel in their hands, and I hoped Milo’s boys were as good as he’d said they were.
I had my dagger in my right hand and my caestus on my left before they got to us, and I whirled to face the two coming in from behind the statue, trusting the gladiators to protect my back. I heard howls and crunching impacts behind me as I assaulted a man in a dark tunic, who held a wicked, sinuously curved dagger. He seemed surprised that I was taking the offensive and hesitated for a fatal instant, giving me the chance to cut his forearm and smash his jaw with two quick moves of the dagger and caestus. The knife fell one way and the daggerman went another and I made a half-turn to face his companion, but that worthy was already crumpling. Castor stood behind him, watching him fall with a look of deep, sensual gratification.
All five of the attackers were on the pavement in the abandoned poses of unconsciousness. Weapons littered the street and a good many drunks were already gathering to gape. Castor and Aurius seemed to be unhurt and were accepting graciously the compliments of a few witnesses.
“Are any of them dead?” I asked.
“We tried not to kill them,” Castor said. “It’s unlawful even to execute a criminal during Saturnalia. We’re law-abiding men, Senator.”
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