Render Unto Caesar

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “All of you naked?” she asked.

  “All of us,” he confirmed, “though Rufus wore all his rings—which, I assure you, are a deadly weapon. They marked poor Xanthos. Anyway, Pyrrhus snatched all the clothes from the shelves like a thief in the public baths, and we ran out into the colonnade, to the amazement of the gardeners—and there you found us.”

  Cantabra, grinning, slapped his leg. “The story is done, and so is the massage.”

  He sat up, caught her oily hands, pressed them, and said loudly, “Thank you. Thank you very much. I feel much better now.”

  She grinned back at him conspiratorially.

  Pollio’s doctor came in a little later. He examined the cut and the ankle—again without undoing the splints—and expressed his satisfaction. He cleaned and anointed the wound again, and recommended rest, plenty of fluids, and a diet restricted to barley broth for the next day. Hermogenes thanked him politely, then said tentatively, “That purgative you gave me was very strong.”

  “Yes,” agreed the doctor with satisfaction. “I brew them that way. It worked well, didn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” Hermogenes agreed. “Very well, and I’m grateful. My guts are still upset, though, and I don’t know whether I will be able to rest as you recommend. To tell the truth, I’ve been having trouble sleeping anyway, what with this crisis in my affairs. I was wondering if you could give me something to dry up my guts and perhaps help me sleep.”

  The doctor had no objections to this. He rummaged in his leather bag of supplies and brought out a small redware flask with a stopper. “Have you ever had opium before?” he asked.

  “No,” said Hermogenes, who’d taken it several times for an enteritic fever.

  “A very useful drug, and, I think, exactly what you want. It dries and tightens the bowels and promotes sleep. Here, I’ll leave you a dose, and when you’re ready to go to bed, just mix it with some of your barley broth and drink it down.”

  “Make it a good dose,” Hermogenes told him. “I haven’t slept well for months.”

  The doctor smiled and poured a good dose into a cup. Hermogenes covered it with a cloth. Now he had to think of a way to make sure the slaves drank it.

  The doctor left. The steward Socrates arrived. He nodded to Pyrrhus and Nestor, smiled at Cantabra, who was sitting on the floor in the corner again looking bored, and inclined his head respectfully to Hermogenes. “Sir,” he said politely, “my master invites you to eat dinner with him.”

  “That is very kind of him,” Hermogenes replied, forcing himself to smoothness, “but the doctor has just advised me to eat nothing but barley broth for another day.”

  That actually threw the steward—for a moment. “I will see that the cook knows that,” he said, recovering. “I think that really my master wishes to discuss business with you.”

  “In that case, I am delighted to accept his invitation.”

  Xanthos appeared back at the room about an hour later to help Pyrrhus carry him to the dinner. As the two young men carried his chair along the corridor with Cantabra stalking silently behind, he asked the young man how his arm was.

  Xanthos gave him a surprised smile. “Still sore, sir, thank you. That fellow hits hard.”

  “He gave me this,” Hermogenes informed him, touching the stitches on his cheek.

  “Then I’m glad he only hit my arm!”

  “Hush!” said Pyrrhus, in a tone half-frightened and half-scandalized. Xanthos glanced around nervously and hushed.

  They weren’t allowed to talk to guests, Hermogenes suddenly understood, even if the guests invited it. Slaves in this household were expected to be obedient domestic conveniences. Normal human conversation from them was a fault which could be reported to the stewards, who, on the master’s orders, would punish it. He discovered that he hated Pollio just as much as he hated Rufus.

  “I’m sorry,” he told the two young men sincerely. “I don’t mean to get you into trouble. I’ll stop.” They both gave him looks of surprise and doubt.

  Pollio’s dining hall was, like the rest of his house, huge and lavish. The high domed ceiling was blue, with constellations picked out on it in gold, and the floor was decorated with a superb mosaic of sea creatures and fish. Pollio reclined in it alone on a gilded couch, nibbling something off a dish on a small gold table set up in front of him. When the slaves brought his guest in, he patted the cushions next to him. “Come and join me,” he said.

  There didn’t seem to be any other choice: the other couches had been moved back against the wall. Hermogenes levered himself out of the chair and reluctantly lay down next to his host. Xanthos and Pyrrhus carried the chair out, and Cantabra, after a moment’s hesitation, moved over to stand silently next to the wall, where, he noticed, a number of slaves stood waiting for their master’s orders. A beautiful young girl came over to him with a cup of green glass, bowed, and handed it to him.

  It was barley broth, but it was steaming and it smelled of spices. Pollio giggled. “I gathered you’re allowed nothing else,” he said. “I told my cooks to try to make it interesting for you.”

  “That was very considerate,” Hermogenes replied, and sipped the drink. It had been flavored with nutmeg and pepper and sweetened with honey: hardly what the doctor had in mind. “This is delicious.”

  Pollio helped himself to some of his own first course—eggs stuffed with forcemeat. “I can’t stand the stuff myself,” he said. “The doctor says he’s cured the infection, though, and that your ankle is beginning to knit, so we won’t argue with him, eh?” He patted his guest’s arm affectionately. “Tell me, are you sleeping with your gladiatrix?”

  “No,” Hermogenes replied, without heat. “I hired her as a bodyguard.”

  “I thought you’d have better taste than that ugly red-haired heifer. What do you like, then, eh? Boys, girls, women, young men? Dark or fair, heavy or slim? Tell me, and tonight I’ll send you whatever you want. I have a couple of hundred people here, and most of ’em are young and pretty. I only keep the older ones if they’re useful.” He put his hand on his guest’s arm again. The swollen fingers were hot.

  “The doctor also recommended that I rest, Lord Vedius Pollio.”

  “Killjoys, doctors. If a man obeyed them, he’d have no pleasures left. Go on, what do you prefer?”

  “Women who want me.”

  Pollio laughed. “Any of my women’ll do for you, then. If they don’t want a guest, they know better than to let him see it.”

  “Lord, I am tired and bruised, my ankle is broken, and I am still recovering from your doctor’s very potent purgative. I do not want a woman tonight.”

  “Oh, that purgative, I’d forgotten! That’s a fierce decoction, isn’t it? Well, a pity, then. Tomorrow night, perhaps.” Pollio took his hand away and used it to stuff another egg into his mouth. “Right now I suppose you want to know what I decided about the debt?”

  “Yes,” he said truthfully. “I would.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve decided to buy it, rather than help you collect it. You did annoy Lucius this afternoon; Hercules, you did!” Pollio laughed again, his rheumy eyes glinting with malicious pleasure. “I think helping you collect after that would be more trouble than it’s worth. But I will give you your two-thirds, plus the interest. I’ll have the contract drawn up tomorrow morning. When we’ve signed, you can go collect the documents. You notice that I don’t ask for them beforehand.”

  Hermogenes was silent a moment, checking through his options and trying to find a way to discover what he wanted to know without giving away his suspicion. “I will be extremely glad to have the matter resolved,” he said at last, trying to sound merely relieved. “Extremely glad. When should I tell my bodyguard to fetch a sedan chair for me?”

  “I will lend you my own litter, and instruct the bearers to take you wherever you want to go.”

  “I would prefer to hire a chair, lord.”

  “I insist.”

  “Lord Vedius Pollio, Rufus’s men may recogni
ze your litter. I do not trust him. He might attack me in the street if he thought he could get the documents that way.”

  “He isn’t that stupid—and my people will protect you. I insist.”

  That emphasis. No, he would not be allowed to collect the documents by himself. He still would not be permitted to slip away.

  “If you insist, lord, I must accept,” Hermogenes said, with an inclination of the head.

  “Oh, very smooth!” Pollio clapped his hands, and two of the slaves darted forward to collect his plate and his guest’s empty cup. “You might almost have the talent to be someone.”

  “I believe I am someone. Marcus Aelius Hermogenes.”

  “No.” Pollio smiled at him, picking a scrap of forcemeat from one of his pointed teeth with the nail of his little finger. “No, if you were someone, Rufus would written to you promising to pay the debt the moment it came into your hands. He would have known, you see, that he could not ignore you the way he did Nikomachos. But you were just a small man, playing at moneymaking with a handful of syndicates and staying well clear of politics. Nobody to worry about.” He put his hand, finger still wet from his mouth, back on his guest’s arm. “You still think that money is for buying things, don’t you? You haven’t tried buying power.”

  “That would make me happy, would it?” Hermogenes asked dryly.

  Pollio blinked at him, nonplussed, as though he had countered a remark about shipping with one about philosophy.

  “I think I know my limitations, lord,” Hermogenes told him. “I prefer to be the nobody I am.” Particularly, he thought, if being “someone” means you end up foul and sick and universally despised, reclining on a gold couch in a huge hall alone—apart from slaves who don’t dare show what they really feel.

  The two servitors hurried forward again, one with a covered dish for Pollio, the other with a gold cup. The cup contained barley broth heated with salt and parsley and fish sauce. The dish contained lampreys.

  “My favorite!” said Pollio, with a pointed-toothed smile.

  He knows everyone’s heard. Hermogenes thought, forcing himself to sip the broth unconcernedly. Another joke, like the steam room. “Too rich for me,” he said calmly, “and I fear that fish sauce doesn’t really go with barley broth, though your cook is to be complimented for the attempt.”

  Pollio laughed and patted him on the arm again.

  Throughout the lampreys, Pollio talked about Alexandria, sometimes questioning his guest, sometimes telling anecdotes of his own. He had been there after the conquest of Egypt, and had acquired various items of plunder, some of which he had profitably disposed of, some of which he had kept. He kept touching his guest, usually on the arm or shoulder, occasionally on the thigh. Hermogenes endured it with composure. Pollio liked both young men and girls—that was clear from the way he looked at his slaves—but he himself was not so young, and he was certain that the caresses were intended principally to worry and disturb him. That, too, seemed to be something Pollio liked.

  The lampreys were cleared away, and the servitors brought Pollio a dish of stuffed dormice, and Hermogenes a crystal cup full of chilled barley broth sweetened, thickened with barley grounds, and scented with cloves. They also brought Caecuban wine.

  “Have just one cup, and damn the doctor!” his host urged him.

  Hermogenes accepted the one cup, and sipped it alternately with the barley broth, although they didn’t mix well. Pollio downed his own cup quickly, called for another, then sat up a little and patted his guest on the thigh. “I had an idea earlier how we might entertain ourselves this evening, eh? Your gladiatrix is quite a formidable fighter for a woman, and last time she was here she nearly came to blows with one of my men, who was a gladiator in the same school. He’s itching to get back at her. What do you say we have them fight?”

  Hermogenes stared at him, finally unable to keep his composure. “No!” he said angrily.

  “Come! You’re as joyless as my doctor. Don’t you like fights?”

  “I hate fights, and I have never liked the games.”

  Pollio rolled his eyes. “What, you’re a philosopher? You’re going to tell me that the games inflame all the baser passions, and suffocate the nobler ones; that the deaths of men and women should not be treated as mere entertainment?”

  “If you know that, there is no point in me saying it.”

  “The trouble with Plato’s Republic, dear simpleton, is that it’s a place which never did exist and never could. Men have baser passions, and they will indulge them, regardless of what philosophers may think of it. That’s the reason philosophers will never rule. I named all my household stewards after philosophers, and like their counterparts in the world, they take orders from power.” He clapped his hands and ordered, “Fetch Ajax.”

  A slave ran off to do so. Hermogenes sat very still, struggling to reason despite the white-hot blaze of indignation. Little as he knew of the games, he did know that female gladiators usually fought each other, not men. This was a blatant attempt to get rid of his bodyguard and make things easier for the men who would seize him. It was also, he decided, looking at Pollio’s avid face, something his host genuinely wanted. The foul old man considered Cantabra grotesque and amusing, and he would find it entertaining to see her injured or killed.

  He sat up and swung his feet off the couch. Cantabra was still standing motionless by the wall, as she had done for the whole meal. They had been speaking in Latin, however, and she had heard and understood: that was immediately clear from the grim set of her face and from her hot eyes. Hermogenes bent and picked up his crutch.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Pollio sharply.

  Hermogenes stood, then bowed his head. “I am sorry, Lord Vedius Pollio. I am suddenly feeling most unwell. I think I should not have drunk the wine; the doctor did warn me to avoid it. That purgative … please excuse me, but I simply must use the latrine.”

  Pollio glared at him. “Go, then. But leave the woman. She’s happy enough to fight; she had to be restrained from it when she was last here!”

  “I work for Lord Harmogenes,” Cantabra announced suddenly. “He says he does not want me to fight. I cannot disobey him.”

  Hermogenes nodded to her once, gestured for her to come, and began to hobble forward. He had taken only one hopping step, however, when the slave Pollio had sent out came back, leading two men in red tunics. One was carrying weapons and pieces of armor; the other was already fully armed as the type of gladiator called a retiarius, with a harpoon, a net on a cord, and leather and metal bands at his ankles, waist, and left shoulder. The fight must have been arranged beforehand, and everything was in hand for it to proceed, regardless of objections and evasions.

  The two guards looked around for Cantabra; when they saw her, the retiarius leered. He was a tall, slim young man in his early twenties, heavily scarred on the arms, good-looking in a dark, sullen sort of way. Cantabra stared at him impassively, then caught up her long tail of hair and twisted it about the front of her head. She began to tuck the end back into the leather band that held it. Somehow the gesture made it utterly clear to everyone that she would fight.

  “Sit down,” Pollio ordered Hermogenes, and settled himself more comfortably on the couch.

  “Lord Vedius Pollio,” Hermogenes replied, “I fear that I must play the part of your doctor, and advise you that your pleasures are likely to do you harm.”

  The old man frowned at him.

  “This is not an arena,” Hermogenes told him. “It is a private house. These people are no longer gladiators. They are a free man and a free woman. In the arena, if one of them should kill the other, it would be lawful. Here it would be murder—particularly when there are witnesses to the fact that the woman does not wish to fight.”

  He looked away from his host, and addressed his next words to the two guardsmen—the ex-gladiator and the other, who he suspected was the commander of Pollio’s bodyguards. “Murder is a crime for which a man who is not a citizen—as I
presume you are not—would be punished by a cruel death, or by being sent to the mines. You should bear that in mind, because if one of Lord Pollio’s enemies should learn of it, and decide to take advantage of it, I do not think he would sacrifice anything to protect you.” He turned back to Pollio. “Lord, you know that you have enemies, and you know that the protection you once had is something you do not presently enjoy. Are you going to give your enemies this gift—a legally valid charge of incitement to murder—for them to use against you in any way they please?”

  “Who would tell them?” Pollio asked, very softly. “You?”

  Hermogenes spread his hands. “Lord Pollio, do you think that swaggering bully with the net won’t boast of this to all his friends in the barracks? Do you think they won’t laugh about it in the taverns? Do you think that Rufus isn’t watching you—now, of all times? He would love to find a charge to use against you. I repeat, I am playing the part of a doctor. Can you really believe that this entertainment you propose is good for your health?”

  Pollio stared at him for a long moment, picking his teeth. Then he waved a hand to his bodyguards. “Go back to your barracks,” he ordered.

  The retiarius, Ajax, looked keenly disappointed. The other man merely shrugged. The two left as silently as they had come.

  “You should be careful, Alexandrian,” Pollio told him, still very softly. “You people always consider yourselves the most cunning and intelligent in all the world—but you often seem to forget that we defeated you.”

  “I do not forget,” Hermogenes told him. “Lord, I truly am not well, and tomorrow we have much to do. If you excuse me, I would like to go to my room now and rest.”

  He ended up walking back to his room, since Pollio didn’t send for the chair and he was too proud to ask for it. It was several corridors, and there was one short flight of steps. His armpit and left leg were both hurting by the time he reached that, and he stood gritting his teeth and wondering if he dared use his right foot. Cantabra came up from behind him, took the crutch out of his right hand and put it in his left, and pulled his right arm over her shoulder. He managed the steps.