Render Unto Caesar

by Gillian Bradshaw

  He thought of his uncle’s letters to the man he was about to meet, copies of which lay in the satchel over Menestor’s shoulder. Nikomachos, struggling against a mounting tide of debt, had pleaded for “at least the interest on the money!” for years, and received only insults and threats. The man who had refused to pay that money had been living in this house, and buying a hundred million sestertii worth of land in Picenum, wherever that was.

  He shifted, suddenly sick with anger, then closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe slowly. O you gods of Olympus, he prayed silently, and you, Isis, Lady of the Waves—don’t let me lose my temper.

  He had plenty of time to grow calm again; indeed, he had time to grow bored. At last, however, the slave returned, announced, “The consul will see you now,” and ushered him out of the atrium, through a courtyard, and into a lavish reception room.

  The floor was a mosaic in red, black, and white; the walls were frescoed with country scenes, and there were a couple of very fine marble portrait busts sitting on ebony tables. The consul Lucius Tarius Rufus was sitting in a chair of ebony and ivory, with another two men standing behind him. Rufus was a thick-set, heavy-featured man in his late forties. His hair was dark, peppered with gray, and his mouth was thick lipped and seemed naturally inclined to a sneer, though he was smiling when his visitor came in. He was wearing the purple cloak of a consul, and Hermogenes estimated that his rings alone were worth over four thousand sestertii. There was a jug and a single cup on the table beside him. Hermogenes realized that he was thirsty, and ran his tongue over dry lips.

  “Well,” said the consul, giving his visitor a genial glance up and down. “You’re Hermogenes, and you’ve come to see me about a legacy left me by your uncle.” He spoke in Greek, fluently and confidently.

  Hermogenes inclined his head. “A legacy? I am sorry, Lord Consul, no. I should have made it clearer in my letter. I have come to see you, my lord, about a debt I inherited from my uncle.”

  “Your uncle owed me money?” Rufus was surprised and confused.

  “No, Lord Consul. The other way round, I fear. You owed him money. Twelve years ago—”

  The consul’s face folded into a thunderous frown. “Get out! How dare you come into my house demanding money?”

  “My uncle was Nikomachos, son of Lysander, of Cyprus,” Hermogenes said levelly. “I am his heir. I have copies of the contract you signed.”

  There was a crash of silence. Hermogenes saw at once that Rufus knew all about the outstanding debt: no secretary had deceived him. He had feared that it might be the case—there had been three different secretaries writing to his uncle, and it had seemed unlikely that they were all dishonest—but he had hoped that at least there had been forgetfulness and negligence.

  “I told you to get out, Greekling!” said Rufus in a low voice.

  One of the men behind the consul took a step forward, and Hermogenes heard the slave who had admitted him stir at his back. “Lord Consul,” he said, in a very calm, level, and reasonable voice, “I have not come here as your enemy. You are much mistaken if you believe that.” That created enough of a pause that he was able to continue. “If I were your enemy, Lord Consul, I would not have come here to you. I would have taken my documents to your predecessor in office, Cornelius Scipio, and asked him to protect me while I sued you for recovery of the debt.”

  Sharp, sharp silence. The consul stared at him, nostrils rimmed with white, eyes wide, the irises looking pale about the contracted pupil.

  “I have no wish at all that a Roman consul should be subjected to the disgrace of being summoned by an Egyptian moneylender,” Hermogenes went on deliberately. “That, my lord, is why I have come to you, and not to your enemies.”

  Rufus erupted from the chair, took three running strides across the floor, and hit him.

  It was like being kicked by a horse. The whole world went white for a moment, then red. Hermogenes found himself lying on the floor, one hand pressed against a throbbing face, with Menestor kneeling over him and giving little gasps of shock and horror. The consul towered over his head, glaring down from a face red and swollen with rage. “That was for threatening me in my own house,” he said harshly. “Very well, Egyptian. You shall have your money.”

  Hermogenes pushed himself up off the floor, hand still clasped against his face. His cheek was wet and his eye hurt. “When?” he asked.

  “I told you, you shall have it!” snarled the consul. “Do you doubt my word?”

  “Nikomachos accepted your word,” Hermogenes replied. “He died bankrupt, his house was seized by his creditors, and his widow was turned out into the street.”

  He thought the consul would hit him again. He remained where he was, half sitting, half lying, looking up unflinchingly into the other man’s eyes.

  When nothing happened, Hermogenes went on, “I have heard that the consulship is a great expense. I do not insist on receiving the entire sum at once. I would accept a down payment and a schedule for repayment of the rest.”

  Rufus spat on him. The gobbet of spittle splashed against his forehead and dribbled down onto the hot throbbing under his fingers. “You Egyptian scum!” the consul said, with deep loathing. “I commanded the left wing at Actium. My flagship gave chase to your whoring queen, and sent her flying back to her filthy nest on the Nile. I conquered your whole degenerate nation, and helped raise Rome to the rule the world. And it’s come to this: an Egyptian thief will ‘accept’ a down payment, and refuse my sworn word!” He spat again.

  “I am a Roman citizen, Lord Consul,” Hermogenes pointed out. “A resident of a Roman province subject to the emperor and to the Senate and People of Rome. The Senate and People have passed laws regarding debts and their repayment. I ask that the supreme magistrate of the Roman state see to it that those laws are enforced. What grounds is there in that for calling me a thief?”

  Rufus turned away angrily and stamped back to his chair. He sat down heavily and glared at his creditor. One of his attendants came over and whispered in his ear.

  Hermogenes sat up the rest of the way, nursing his face. Blood was oozing out from under his palm and trickling down the side of his neck. One of those expensive rings had split his cheek.

  “I suppose you can prove your title to the debt?” the consul at last demanded bitingly.

  “My secretary has copies of all the relevant documents,” Hermogenes replied at once. “Menestor!”

  The boy was still kneeling, shocked and frightened. He fumbled open the satchel with clumsy fingers, then took out the wad of documents. He got to his feet and looked around uncertainly. His face was white.

  The attendant who had been whispering came over and took the papers. He glanced through them, then looked up at his master. “These are unsealed,” he remarked.

  “Yes,” agreed Hermogenes. “I said they were copies.”

  “Where are the originals?” demanded the attendant, looking him in the eye.

  “In a safe place. I assure you, I could produce them in court. But, as I told the lord consul, I am not his enemy, and I do not wish to take him to court and disgrace him at the summit of his achievements. I am sure those copies will serve your purpose.”

  The consul glanced round at his other attendant, a tall, thin man with a hollow-cheeked expressionless face. The man stepped closer and whispered in his master’s other ear. The consul gritted his teeth, then asked harshly, “How much do you want?”

  “All that is owed,” Hermogenes replied steadily. “The debt stands at four hundred thousand sestertii, as you probably recall, Lord Consul, plus six years’ unpaid interest, amounting to another hundred and twenty thousand sestertii. I would accept a down payment of ten percent—that is, forty thousand—plus half the outstanding interest, with the balance to be paid in quarterly installments over the next two years. Interest would continue to accrue on the outstanding balance, of course, until the entire sum is repaid, and would be at the rate fixed by the contract—that is, at five percent. Give
n that the debt is in default, however, I am bound to insist upon a fresh contract, with penalties for nonpayment.”

  Rufus hit the arm of his chair so hard that the ivory cracked away from the black wood. “You are bound to insist, Greekling?” he screamed.

  “While you were ruining my uncle,” Hermogenes said evenly, “you invested a hundred million sestertii in land. Forgive me, Lord Consul, if I take the view that you are unlikely to pay this time unless there is some severe penalty attached to the default.” It felt extraordinarily good to say that. It was even worth having been hit.

  The consul went puce again. “Get out!” he ordered. “My secretary will look over your documents, and if he is convinced that they are genuine, he will arrange for you to receive the down payment.”

  Hermogenes climbed slowly to his feet; Menestor hurried over and helped him. “How long will your secretary need to convince himself?” he asked politely.

  The consul set his teeth. The hollow-cheeked man whispered to him again. “Three days,” he said at last, almost choking on the words.

  Hermogenes bowed slightly, even though the movement hurt his face. “Then I expect to have word from you by the evening three days from now, Lord Consul, or by the morning of the following day at the latest. I will have a fresh contract drawn up for your consideration. Good health to you.”

  He walked unsteadily from the reception room into the courtyard of the house. The noon sun shone brightly from a clear sky, and the air was full of the scent of the jasmine that shaded the colonnade. He stopped, looking up at the sky, and drew in a deep breath.

  Menestor hurried up. “Sir?” the boy whispered. “Sir, are you all right?”

  He wanted to laugh, but his face hurt too much. Triumph beat through him in waves far fiercer than the pain. He had won. He had taken on the man who led the left wing at Actium and broken the power of Egypt, and he had won. Rufus had struck him, spat on him, and insulted him, but Rufus had to pay. He had to, or he handed his blue-blooded predecessor a weapon that would turn him into the laughingstock of Rome for the rest of his life.

  “Yes,” he told Menestor joyfully. “I am well.”

  Hermogenes was glad he had the sedan chair. By the time he had walked back to the stables he was shaking, and he felt a desperate desire to have a long cold drink and lie down. It was a relief to collapse into the chair and rest his throbbing face against his knees.

  The two Rubrii were dumbfounded at the state in which he’d returned from a meeting with a Roman consul; Phormion was furious. He gave them no explanations, only ordered them to set off at once. When the gate guards permitted the chair back into the free streets of the city without comment, he heaved a sigh of relief.

  They plodded in silence back down the hill and past the blocks of insulae to the Via Tusculana. The Rubrii set their chair down by the gate of Crispus’s house, and Hermogenes climbed out rather stiffly and paid Gaius a denarius. The man took it without smiling, then looked up and met his passenger’s eyes with a resolute expression. “Sir,” he said, “can I ask what this is about?”

  Hermogenes had to consider his reply, and before he could find one, the other man went on, “See, you overpaid us again, even more this time, and … well, sir, wha’ I mean is, I don’… we’re loyal Romans, me’n Quintus, and we don’ wan’ ta get mixed up in a foreigner’s quarrel with a consul.”

  Hermogenes gave a snort of mingled amusement and disgust. “Lucius Tarius Rufus owes me money,” he said flatly. “He got very angry when I asked him politely to pay, but he has now agreed to do so. That is what this is about. Shall I hire someone else next time?”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Gaius, staring in amazement. “He borrowed money from you? But he’s richer’n what you are, isn’ he?”

  “Very much so. I believe the sum he borrowed was merely to spend while he was in Cyprus.”

  “Oh. And he flew into a rage when you asked him to pay it back?” Gaius Rubrius looked at his brother, who shrugged.

  “You c’n hire us again, sir,” Quintus Rubrius volunteered. “We were jus’ worried it was somethin’, you know, political.”

  Hermogenes had no energy to reply. He nodded to them and went through the door, which Kyon was holding open for him. Now that the first flush of triumph had worn off, he was feeling shaken and sick. His head ached, too.

  Back in his room, he discovered that the blood from his split cheek had run down his neck and left a great blotch on the breast of his clean white tunic; it had also, to his dismay, caught the edge of his best cloak. He took both off, ordered Menestor to get them into cold water at once, and went into his sleeping cubicle to lie down on the bed while his slaves went to find washing water, ointments, and bandages.

  When the door first opened, however, it was to admit Crispus, looking alarmed. He stopped in the entrance to the cubicle and looked down at his guest in dismay. “Jupiter! I couldn’t believe it when Kyon told me you’d come in all covered in blood. Hermogenes, my dear fellow, what happened? Were you robbed?”

  “No,” Hermogenes said wearily. He wished he could have put this conversation off for a few more hours, at least until after he’d had a chance to wash and put something on his cut. Still, Crispus was his host, and he owed the man the courtesy of an explanation. “No, you were right to say that Rufus would not find me a welcome visitor. He considers it disgraceful that a victor of Actium should be asked to pay a debt to an Egyptian.” He spoke in Greek: his head was aching so much that it would require an effort to speak Latin, and Crispus spoke Greek fluently.

  “He hit you?” asked Crispus in horror.

  “Hit me, spat on me, called me Egyptian scum. He has, however, agreed to pay what he owes.” Something of the heat of that triumph warmed him again.

  Menestor and Phormion came into the dayroom carrying jugs and a basin; they hesitated at the sight of Crispus. The businessman moved aside, and Menestor slipped past him and set the basin down on the floor beside the bed. Phormion passed in the jugs, and Crispus watched Menestor pour hot water into the basin, then top it with cold.

  “Stentor put vinegar in this, sir,” Menestor said in a low voice, “and some salt. It may sting. Can you sit up?”

  Hermogenes sat up, and Menestor began to clean the cut with a sponge. It did sting. He became uncomfortably aware of Crispus’s eyes on his body, and pulled the sheet across his lap.

  “What did you do to offend him?” Crispus resumed in a strained voice.

  Hermogenes sighed. “My great offense was to ask him to pay his debt. But he’s afraid that if he doesn’t pay, I’ll go to his enemies, and that they will help me in order to embarrass him. I implied that that might happen. Titus, I understand that you don’t want any trouble to touch your household. If you like, I’ll leave here and find an inn.”

  “You’re blackmailing him?” Crispus’s voice was shrill. “You’re going to his enemies? He’s a friend of the emperor!”

  “I said that he was afraid I would, not that I would do it,” Hermogenes told him soothingly. “I don’t want to involve myself with Roman factions—though, as to that, you’re probably mistaken if you think Rufus’s enemies aren’t also friends of the emperor. Still, I don’t want to get caught in Roman politics, and won’t, unless my life depends upon it. I would certainly leave this house before I did. But this is beside the point. He has agreed to pay.”

  “You said you were going to ask quietly and peacefully!”

  “I said, as quietly and peacefully as I could. That was how I wanted to do it and that was how I tried to do it. I think now, though, that the only way Rufus would have received me quietly and peacefully would have been if I’d agreed to write off the debt—and I’m sorry, Titus, but that is something I will not do.”

  “My master was very polite, sir,” Menestor put in tentatively. “Even after the Roman hit him.” He squeezed out the sponge and applied it again, tenderly mopping the half-dried blood off his master’s shoulder.

  “Hermogenes…” Crispus said unea
sily. “You said you inherited all your uncle’s debts. Are you facing ruin if you don’t recover this money?”

  Hermogenes laughed, then winced at the effect on his face. “No,” he said. “No, I wouldn’t be ruined. Nikomachos was very imprudent, though, and dug himself into a deep hole in his attempts to save himself, and even the sale of his estate didn’t cover his debts. To meet his obligations in full, I’d have to call in some of my money, and that would cause problems for those who borrowed from me or accepted my investments. Why should I cause hardship to people who have behaved honestly and honorably in all their dealings with me, when there is Lucius Tarius Rufus—who ruined my uncle and occasioned my father’s death—sitting in a palace on the Esquiline? He can pay, and he will.” He acknowledged, with another thrill of triumph, that he wouldn’t have dared admit that burning desire to claim his rights if it hadn’t been for the fact that Rufus had agreed to pay.

  Crispus stood staring at him with an expression of deep misgiving.

  “I think this needs stitches, sir,” Menestor commented, studying the cut.

  Crispus took a couple of steps forward and bent over to have a look for himself, bracing himself with a hand on Menestor’s shoulder.

  “He was wearing rings,” Hermogenes explained, turning his face to be inspected. “Titus, as I said, if you are concerned that this may harm your business or your household, I will take myself off to an inn. I do believe, though, that it is essentially over. He has agreed to pay. He asked for three days for his secretary to study the documents—the copies, that is; obviously I didn’t give him the originals—and he agreed that if his secretary was satisfied, he would pay. I’m sure he hopes to find some kind of defect in either the contract itself or in my title to it, but there isn’t one. I am going to accept ten percent now, give him a contract scheduling repayment of the rest, and go home to Alexandria.”