I remembered seeing Trebonius, before Caelius began his harangue, dispatch one of his clerks with a message; evidently Isauricus had come in response to Trebonius’s alarm. Once again Caelius was threatening to spur the mob to a riot, and something would have to be done.
The lictors pushed and shoved their way towards Caelius’ tribunal. The churning, raucous crowd might have overwhelmed them by sheer numbers, but in the face of the disciplined lictors the crowd became confused and disorganized. The lictors had another advantage, for the first impulse of a Roman citizen, no matter how riled, is to show respect to anyone bearing fasces and to defer to any magistrate accompanied by lictors. Even in that disaffected crowd, a patriotic respect for Roman authority ran deep.
The lictors reached the tribunal, where Caelius awaited them with hands on his hips. Isauricus emerged from the cordon of armed men and mounted the tribunal to stand before Caelius. His face was very nearly the same colour as the purple stripe on his toga. Next to Caelius – a handsome man in his thirties, worked up by his speech to his highest pitch of charismatic radiance – Isauricus looked like a sputtering, hopelessly out-of-touch old grandfather in a comedy by Plautus. The weird theatricality of the moment was reinforced by the fact that the two of them stood on a platform not unlike a portable stage. All they needed were grotesque masks and a bit of background music to turn them into comic actors.
Isauricus shook his finger at Caelius and spoke in an angry voice, keeping his pitch too low for the crowd to hear. Apparently I was not alone in imagining the two as actors, because a wiseacre in the crowd began to shout, ‘Speak up! We can’t hear you! You’re swallowing your lines!’ Laughter rippled through the crowd, and someone started a new chant: ‘Isauricus, speak up! Isauricus, speak up!’
The consul abruptly looked out at the crowd, furious to hear his name shouted at him so rudely. Caelius, who had so far kept a sardonic smirk on his face, appeared to lose his temper in the same instant. The two commenced shouting at each other. Whatever they said was drowned out by the swelling roar of mingled yells and laughter from the crowd, but it was easy enough to imagine. Isauricus was telling Caelius that he had no legal authority to set up a tribunal in the first place, and that by interfering with a fellow magistrate in the commission of his duties he was coming very close to treason. Caelius was probably resorting to more personal insults; I could easily imagine him calling Isauricus a finger puppet with the hand of Caesar up his backside.
Whatever Caelius said to Isauricus, it must have cut to the quick. The consul, overcome by a burst of fury, abruptly picked up Caelius’ chair of state and lifted it over his head. It looked as if he intended to strike Caelius with it, and even headstrong Caelius quailed a bit, stepping back and raising his arms to protect himself. Instead, Isauricus slammed the chair down in front of him and seized the fasces from the nearest lictor. He extracted the axe from the bundled rods and raised it above his head.
The crowd let out a collective gasp. Davus, unable to see because he still held me aloft, cried, ‘What is it, Father-in-Law? What’s going on?’
‘By Hercules,’ I said, ‘I think we’re about to see a murder!’
Sunlight glinted on the upraised axe. The crowd fell silent except for a few scattered screams. My blood ran cold. The mob had rioted for days and had burned down the Senate House after Clodius was killed on the Appian Way. Now Caelius had taken up Clodius’ mantle as champion of the downtrodden. What would they do if they saw him murdered in cold blood by the consul of Rome right before their eyes?
Caelius staggered back, his mouth open in shock, his face as white as a Vestal’s stola.
Isauricus brought down the axe – not on Caelius, but on Caelius’ chair of state. With a great crash, the seat was shattered. Isauricus raised the axe and brought it down again. There was another crash, and bits of wood went flying in all directions.
For a brief instant a look of relief crossed Caelius’ face. Only a moment before he had been staring into the mouth of Hades. Just as quickly, relief was replaced by utter outrage. In a heartbeat his face turned from bloodless white to deepest red. He cried out and rushed towards Isauricus, oblivious of the axe the consul wielded.
At once, lictors swarmed onto the tribunal, unsheathing their axes and interposing themselves between the two magistrates. A moment later, to defend Caelius, men from the crowd jumped onto the tribunal. Isauricus and Caelius were separated, and Caelius was pulled from the tribunal into the crowd. His supporters wanted to protect him, but it seemed to me they were subjecting him to the risk of being trampled to death.
‘Enough, Davus!’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough. Set me down! We almost got caught in the last riot, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.’
But it was too late. A vortex of humanity swirled all around us. Men screamed, shouted, laughed. Faces flashed before me: some jubilant, some angry, some terrified. The crowd spun me about until I grew dizzy. I looked for Davus but saw him nowhere. Hieronymus, too, had vanished, along with all the familiar chin-waggers. I gazed about, disoriented and confused, unable to spot a familiar landmark. I saw only a blur of strange faces and, beyond them, a confusion of walls and buildings. The crush of bodies squeezed the breath out of me, lifted me off my feet, carried me along against my will. I saw spots before my eyes—
And then, out of nowhere, incongruous amid so much ugly chaos, I saw the face of the woman called Cassandra. In her eyes I saw no panic, but quite the opposite – a deep serenity, oblivious of the madness around us. Was that a sign of madness, to appear so calm amid such insanity?
I lost consciousness.
When I came to my senses, another face confronted me. For a moment I was confused because he looked so much like Cassandra – the same golden hair, the same blue eyes, the same incongruity of a young, handsome face burned by the sun, smudged with dirt, and surrounded by unkempt hair.
I gave a start and uttered a cry. The young man looming over me gave a start in response and grunted. A figure standing behind him stepped into view. It was Cassandra.
‘Don’t frighten him, Rupa. He’s had a shock.’
I rose on my elbows. I was lying on a threadbare pallet in a tiny room with a dirt floor. The only light came from a narrow window set high in one wall, and from the doorway, where a ragged cloth that served as a curtain was pulled back to show a shadowy hallway beyond. From the hallway came a smell compounded of boiled cabbage, urine, and unwashed humanity. From the window came the sounds of a couple arguing, a baby crying, and a dog barking. There was also a peculiar, persistent, not entirely unpleasant sound of metal clinking and clanging against metal somewhere in the distance.
I had been inside enough such buildings over the years to know exactly the sort of place in which I found myself. It was one of the ruder tenements in the city, probably located somewhere in the Subura, where the most wretched of Rome’s citizens live tightly packed into close quarters, at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords and each other.
The young man called Rupa looked at me not unkindly, then rose from the pallet and stood. He was a big fellow – as big as Davus, which meant he was big enough to have carried me from the Forum to the Subura over his back. That must have been what happened, for there was no injury to my tunic or my flesh to indicate I had been dragged.
Cassandra stepped forward. ‘I suppose you’ll want to know where you are,’ she said.
‘In the Subura, I imagine. Not far from the Street of Copper Pots.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you were unconscious while Rupa carried you here.’
‘I was. I don’t remember a thing since I fainted in the Forum. But I know the smell of an apartment in a Subura tenement, and I suspect that persistent clanking from outside is the sound of copper pots hung up for sale striking against one another. The sound they make is slightly different from the sound made by vessels of iron or brass or bronze. Given the angle of the light from that window and the distance of the sound, I’d say that we’re about two
blocks to the north of the Street of Copper Pots. Since we’re on the ground floor of the tenement—’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because the floor is made of packed dirt. Yet there’s a tiny bit of blue sky visible through that window, above the roof of the yellow building next door; therefore, the yellow building can’t be more than two storeys tall. Rather short for a tenement in the Subura. I think I know the one. Are we in the red building next to it, the one where there’s always a barking dog chained next to the entry?’
‘Exactly!’ She smiled. ‘And I was thinking you’d wake up and be completely disoriented, like a . . .’
‘Like an old man who lost consciousness merely from being spun about a bit? No, my wits are back, or at least such wits as I have left.’
She smiled. ‘I like you,’ she said, without showing the least awareness of how such a smile and such words, coming from such a beautiful young woman, could suddenly light up the whole world for a man.
Rupa wrinkled his brow and made a signal to her with one hand.
‘Rupa says he likes you, too.’ Her smile wavered. ‘You see, Rupa is—’
‘Mute? Yes, I gathered that. For many years my elder son, Eco, was unable to speak—’ I caught myself. Since I had disowned Meto at Massilia, I no longer had an elder and a younger son. Eco was my only son. And Meto – for me, Meto no longer existed . . .
Cassandra saw the expression on my face. She frowned. ‘You’ve lost a child,’ she said.
I raised an eyebrow, surprised.
She shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But it’s true, isn’t it?’
I cleared my throat. ‘Yes, in a way. I’ve lost a son. Or misplaced him . . .’
She saw that I cared to say no more and changed the subject. ‘Are you hungry?’
I was, in fact, but I had no intention of taking food from anyone who clearly had as little to spare as Cassandra and her companion. I shook my head. ‘I should go. My family will be wondering what’s become of me.’ I stood up, feeling unsteady.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’
‘When a man reaches my years, he learns to accommodate small complaints, rather as a rich man learns to accommodate unwanted relatives. It’s only a bit of lightheadedness. Nothing, I should think, compared to the spells from which you suffer.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘You’re talking about that day I fell into your arms. I wasn’t sure you’d remember.’
‘It’s not every day a beautiful young woman falls into my arms. Nor am I likely to forget the previous time I saw you.’
‘A previous time?’
‘You were in front of the Temple of Vesta. You did more than faint on that occasion.’
‘Did I?’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘I suppose I must have. They told me about it later. I don’t really remember.’
‘Have you always suffered such episodes?’
She looked elsewhere. ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Forgive me. I had no right to ask. It’s only because . . .’
‘What?’
I shrugged. ‘You fell into my arms. Now I’ve fallen into your arms . . . more or less. It’s enough to make a fellow think the gods must want the two of us to meet.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m only joking! You mustn’t blame an old fellow for flirting a bit.’ I glanced at Rupa, who seemed amused. In that moment I suspected he was not her lover. What then? A servant, relative, friend?
She smiled. ‘You were kind enough to catch me that day. Today in the Forum, when I saw you in distress, I wanted to return the favour.’
‘Good. That makes us even, then. But I haven’t introduced myself, have I? My name is Gordianus.’
She nodded. ‘They call me Cassandra.’
‘Yes, I know. Don’t look surprised. You’re not entirely unknown in the Forum. People tend to notice a person . . . such as you. I don’t suppose Cassandra is your real name?’
‘As real as any other.’
‘I’m being presumptuous. Forgive me. I should go.’
She turned away from me. Had I offended her? Embarrassed her? I hoped for one more exchange of glances before I left the room, one more look from her troubled blue eyes, but she kept her face averted.
Rupa led me into the hallway, and I passed from the world lit by Cassandra’s presence into the world of boiled cabbage and barking dogs. At the front door, where a Molossian mastiff was tethered to a post, Rupa abruptly turned back, giving me no sign at all, not even a nod. I felt a prickle of envy. He was returning to Cassandra.
I walked home alone, feeling a touch of lightheadedness, but of a different sort than I had felt before; a similar sensation but curiously pleasant. As I passed down the Street of Copper Pots, the clanking of so much metal seemed to echo the muddle in my own head. An unexpected brush with beauty makes a man feel happy, and carefree, and foolish.
‘You will no longer spend your idle hours loitering in the Forum. Too dangerous!’
So declared Bethesda that night in the dining room off the garden. On my safe return, she had met me with an icy stare and spoken hardly a word, but her display of anger was only a show. Hieronymus drew me aside and informed me in a whisper that she had been frantic and close to tears when he and Davus returned to the house without me.
Confronted with Bethesda’s decree, I sighed, and unable to think of a rebuttal, picked up my wine cup instead. If I argued that I would always take Davus along to protect me, she would only point out that Davus had failed to do so that very afternoon.
Already outmanoeuvered, I soon found myself outnumbered. ‘Mother’s right,’ said Diana. ‘Davus does his best to look after you, Papa . . .’ She gave her husband a melting look and patted his hand. He stopped chewing for a moment and actually blushed. Then she turned her stern gaze back to me. ‘But even Davus can’t be responsible if you’re going to start fainting and wandering off in a daze—’
‘I didn’t wander off! I was carried off by a pair of friendly strangers to a safe place.’
‘But, Papa, you might as easily have been carried off by strangers who weren’t so friendly. Those two might have robbed and murdered you and thrown your body in the Tiber, and we’d never have known what became of you.’
‘Daughter, you tempt the Fates!’ Bethesda tore off a bit of flat bread and threw it over her shoulder to distract any malicious (and presumably hungry) spirits who might be listening.
Hieronymus cleared his throat and came to my rescue by changing the subject. ‘I was quite shocked by that harangue from Marcus Caelius today. Not only what he said – that was radical enough – but how he said it, baiting Trebonius and the Senate in such an open fashion.’
‘Yes, now that Marc Antony’s left Italy to join Caesar, Caelius has grown considerably bolder.’ I stole a glance at Bethesda, who seemed more interested in the flat bread in her hand. Politics bored her.
‘He very nearly spoke ill of Caesar himself,’ said Hieronymus.
‘He never spoke Caesar’s name,’ I pointed out.
‘To be sure,’ admitted Hieronymus, ‘but his insinuation was clear. Caesar was once the champion of the common people, but now he’s their enemy. Once he stood against Pompey and the so-called Best People, but now he’s shown himself to be just another politician in the service of the rich.’
‘Which means that the people need a new champion,’ I said.
‘And Marcus Caelius is offering himself for that role.’
I nodded. ‘For a newcomer to the city, Hieronymus, you’re a shrewd judge of Roman politics.’
‘Politics here are different from politics in Massilia. All this rabble-rousing and rioting would never have been tolerated there. But politicians are the same everywhere. They have a nose for power. They can smell it the way a hungry man can smell bread. When they see an unclaimed loaf, they rush to seize it for their own. That’s what Caelius is doing. He looks around and sees that a great many people are greatly
unhappy, and he moves to make himself their champion.’
‘It’s been done before,’ I pointed out, ‘by Catilina, by Clodius, by Caesar himself But I don’t see how Caelius can accomplish anything except to get himself killed – as Catilina and Clodius did. His problem is simple: he doesn’t have an army.’
‘Perhaps he means to get himself one.’
I had been about to take a sip of wine but stopped short. ‘What an idea, Hieronymus! A third army vying for control of the world?’ I shook my head. ‘Ridiculous, of course. Caelius has a little military experience, but not nearly enough to challenge either Caesar or Pompey.’
‘Unless those two finish each other off,’ said Diana. ‘Who’s to say that one or the other must return alive from Greece? Word could reach Rome tomorrow that Caesar and Pompey are both dead. Who would take control of Rome then?’
I put down my cup. ‘By Hercules! Sometimes, Daughter, you see what I can’t see, even though it’s right before me. You’re right. A gambler like Caelius doesn’t go through life thinking of all the ways he might fail. He narrows his thoughts until he can perceive the one path by which he might succeed, then bends all his will towards that path, heedless of the odds against him. If he loses, he loses everything. But if he wins . . .’
‘He wins the world,’ said Hieronymus.
VIII
On the day after I called on Terentia and Fulvia, I rose early, taking care not to disturb Bethesda, ate a light breakfast, then called Mopsus and Androcles to come and help me put on my best toga again. The wool was a bit dusty from my outing the previous day. After it was properly draped about me, I stood very still while Mopsus gave it a good brushing.
A Mist of Prophecies Page 11
