‘But I see a different Rome, Cicero, that other Rome that Sulla has left to posterity. They say he plans to retire soon, leaving behind him a new constitution to strengthen the upper classes and put the people in their place. And what is that place, but the crime-ridden Rome that Sulla bequeaths to us? My Rome, Cicero. A Rome that breeds in shadow, that moves at night, that breathes the very air of vice without the disguises of politics or wealth. After all, that’s why you’ve called me here, isn’t it? To take you into that world, or to enter it myself and bring back to you whatever it is you’re seeking. That’s what I can offer you, if you’re seeking the truth.’
At that moment Tiro returned, bearing a silver tray set with three cups, a round loaf of bread, dried apples, and white cheese. His presence instantly sobered me. We were no longer two men alone in a room discussing politics, but two citizens and a slave, or two men and a boy, considering Tiro’s innocence. I would never have spoken so recklessly had he never left the room. I feared I had said too much already.
V
Tiro set the tray on a low table between us. Cicero glanced at it without interest. ‘So much food, Tiro?’
‘It’s almost midday, Master. Gordianus will be hungry.’
‘Very well, then. We must show him our hospitality.’ He stared at the tray, hardly seeming to see it. He gently rubbed his temples, as if I had stuffed his head too full of seditious ideas.
The walk had made me hungry. The talk had left my mouth thick and dry. The heat had given me a deep thirst. Even so, I patiently waited for Cicero to initiate the meal – my politics may be radical but my manners have never been questioned – when Tiro gave me a start by leaning forwards eagerly in his chair, tearing a piece from a loaf, and reaching for a cup.
At just such moments one learns how deeply convention is bred into the soul. For all that life had taught me about the arbitrary nature of fate and the absurdities of slavery, for all that I had endeavoured from the moment I met him to treat Tiro as a man, I still let out a quiet gasp at seeing a slave take the first food from a table while his master sat back, not yet ready to begin.
They both heard it. Tiro looked up, puzzled. Cicero laughed softly.
‘Gordianus is shocked. He’s not used to our ways, Tiro, or to your manners. It’s all right, Gordianus. Tiro knows that I never eat at midday. He’s used to beginning without me. Please, eat something yourself. The cheese is quite good, all the way from the dairy at Arpinum, sent with my grandmother’s love.
‘As for me, I’ll have a bit of the wine. Only a bit; in this heat it’s likely to turn sour in the stomach. Is it only me who suffers from that particular malady? I can’t eat at all in midsummer; I fast for days at a time. Meantime, while your mouth is busy with food instead of treason, perhaps I’ll have a chance to say a bit more about my reasons for asking you here.’
Cicero swallowed and gave a slight wince, as if the wine had begun to sour the moment it passed his lips. ‘We strayed from the subject some while ago, didn’t we? What would Diodotus say to that, Tiro? What have I been paying that old Greek for all these years if I’m not even able to hold an orderly conversation in my own home? Disorderly speech is not only unseemly; in the wrong time and the wrong place it can be deadly.’
‘I was never quite certain what the subject was, esteemed Cicero. I seem to recall that we were plotting to murder someone’s father. My father, or was it Tiro’s? No, they’re both already dead. Perhaps it was yours?’
Cicero was not amused. ‘I introduced a hypothetical model, Gordianus, simply to sound you out about some factors – methodology, practicality, plausibility – regarding a very real and very deadly crime. A crime already accomplished. The tragic fact is that a certain farmer from the hamlet of Ameria—’
‘Much like the hypothetical old farmer you described?’
‘Exactly like him. As I was saying, a certain farmer from Ameria was murdered in the streets of Rome on the Ides of September, the night of the full moon – almost eight months ago. His name you already seem to know: Sextus Roscius. Now, in exactly eight days – on the Ides of May – the son of Sextus Roscius will go on trial, accused of arranging the murder of his father. I’ll be defending him.’
‘With such a defence I should think there’d be no need for a prosecutor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘From all you’ve said, it seems obvious that you think the son is guilty.’
‘Nonsense! Was I that convincing? I suppose I should be pleased. I was only trying to paint the case as his accusers might describe it.’
‘You’re saying that you believe this Sextus Roscius is innocent?’
‘Of course! Why else should I be defending him against these outrageous charges?’
‘Cicero, I know enough about advocates and orators to know that they don’t necessarily have to believe in a point to argue for it. Nor do they have to believe in a man’s innocence to defend him.’
Tiro suddenly glowered at me across the table. ‘You have no right,’ he said, with a desperate little break in his voice. ‘Marcus Tullius Cicero is a man of the highest principles, of unquestionable integrity, a man who speaks what he believes and believes every word he speaks, rare enough in Rome these days perhaps, but even so—’
‘Enough!’ Cicero’s voice carried tremendous force, but little anger. He raised his hand in an orator’s gesture of desist, and seemed unable to keep from smiling.
‘You’ll forgive young Tiro,’ he said, leaning towards me with an air of confidentiality. ‘He’s a loyal servant, and for that I’m grateful. There are few enough to be found nowadays.’ He gazed at Tiro with a look of pure affection, open, genuine, and unabashed. Tiro suddenly found it convenient to gaze elsewhere – at the table, the tray of food, the softly billowing curtain.
‘But perhaps he is sometimes too loyal. What do you think, Gordianus? What do you think, Tiro – perhaps we should pose such a proposition to Diodotus the next time he calls and see what the master of rhetoric can make of it. A fit subject for debate: is it possible that a slave can be too loyal to his master? That is to say, too enthusiastic in his devotion, too ready to spring to his master’s defence?’
Cicero glanced at the tray and reached for a bit of dried apple. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and studied it as if considering whether his delicate constitution could tolerate even such a tiny morsel in the full heat of the day. There was a pause and a silence, broken only by the trilling of a bird in the atrium outside. In the stillness the room around us seemed to breathe again, or rather to attempt to breathe, vainly struggling to catch a shallow breath and coming up short; the curtain billowed tentatively inward, then out, then in again, never quite enough to release a gust of air in either direction, as if the breeze were a warm and palpable thing trapped beneath its brocaded hem. Cicero frowned and replaced the morsel on the tray.
Suddenly the curtain gave an audible snap. A breath of warmth eddied across the tiles and over my feet. The room had finally released its pent-up sigh.
‘You ask if I believe that Sextus Roscius is innocent of his father’s murder.’ Cicero spread his fingers and pressed the tips together. ‘The answer is yes. When you meet him, you too will believe in his innocence.’
It seemed at last that we might be getting down to business. I had had enough of the games passing back and forth in Cicero’s study, enough of the yellow curtain and the stifling heat.
‘How exactly did he die, the old man? Bludgeons, knives, stones? How many assailants? Were they seen? Can they be identified? Where was the son at the very moment the crime took place, and how did he learn the news? Who else had reason to kill the old man? What were the terms of his will? Who brings the charges against the son, and why?’ I paused, but only to take a sip of wine. ‘And tell me this—’
‘Gordianus,’ Cicero laughed, ‘if I knew all this, I would hardly be needing your services, would I?’
‘But you must know a little.’
‘More than a
little, but still not enough. Very well, I can at least answer your last question. The charges have been lodged by a prosecutor named Gaius Erucius. I see you’ve heard of him – or has the wine turned to vinegar in your mouth?’
‘I’ve more than heard of him,’ I said. ‘From time to time I’ve actually worked for him, but only from hunger. Erucius was born a slave in Sicily; now he’s a freedman with the shadiest law practice in Rome. He takes cases for money, not merit. He’d defend a man who raped his mother if there was gold in it, and then turn around and prosecute the old woman for slander if he saw a profit. Any idea who’s hired him to take on the case?’
‘No, but when you meet Sextus Roscius—’
‘You keep saying that I’ll soon be meeting someone – first Caecilia Metella, now Sextus Roscius. Will they be arriving soon?’
‘Actually, it’s best if we pay them a visit ourselves.’
‘What makes you so certain that I’ll be coming along? I came here under the impression that you had work for me, but so far you haven’t even explained what you want. Nor have you made any mention of payment.’
‘I’m aware of your regular fees, at least as Hortensius explained them. I assume he would know.’
I nodded.
‘As for the job, it’s this: I want proof that Sextus Roscius is innocent of his father’s murder. Better than that, I want to know who the real murderers were. Even better, I want to know who hired those murderers, and why. And all of this in eight days, before the Ides.’
‘You talk as if I’d already accepted the job. Perhaps I’m not interested, Cicero.’
He shook his head and pressed his lips into a thin smile.
‘You’re not the only man who can deduce another man’s character before you’ve met him, Gordianus. I do know a thing or two about you. Three things, in fact. Any one of them would persuade you to take this case. First, you need the money. A man of your means, living in a big house up on the Esquiline – there can never be enough money. Am I right?’
I shrugged.
‘Secondly, Hortensius tells me that you love a mystery. Or rather that you hate a mystery. You’re the type that can’t abide the unknown, that feels compelled to wrest truth from falsehood, strike order from chaos. Who killed old Roscius, Gordianus? You’re already hooked, like a fish on a line. Admit it.’
‘Well …’
‘Thirdly, you’re a man who loves justice.’
‘Did Hortensius tell you that, too? Hortensius wouldn’t know a just man from—’
‘No one told me. That I deduced for myself, in the last half hour. No man speaks his mind as candidly as you have who isn’t a lover of justice. I’m offering you a chance to see it done.’ He leaned forwards in his chair. ‘Can you bear to see an innocent man put to death? Well, then – will you take the case, or won’t you?’
‘I will.’
Cicero clapped his hands and sprang to his feet. ‘Good. Very good! We’ll leave for Caecilia’s house right away.’
‘Now? In this heat? It’s just past noon.’
‘There’s no time to waste. If the heat is too much for you, I could summon a litter – but no, that would take too long. It isn’t far. Tiro, fetch us a pair of broad-brimmed hats.’
Tiro gave his master a plaintive look.
‘Very well, then, fetch three.’
VI
‘What makes you think she’ll even be awake at this hour?’
The Forum was deserted. The paving stones shimmered with heat. Not a soul was afoot except for the three of us stealing like thieves across the flagstones. I quickened the pace. The heat burned through the thin soles of my shoes. Both my companions, I noticed, wore more expensive footwear than my own, with thick leather soles to protect their feet.
‘Caecilia will be awake,’ Cicero assured me. ‘She’s a hopeless insomniac – so far as I can tell, she never sleeps at all.’
We reached the foot of the Sacred Way. My heart sank as I gazed up the steep, narrow avenue that led to the imposing villas atop the Palatine. The world was all sun and stone, utterly without shade. The layers of shimmering heat made the summit of the Palatine seem hazy and indistinct, very high and far away.
We began the ascent. Tiro led the way, oblivious of the effort. There was something strange about his eagerness to come along, something beyond mere curiosity or the desire to follow his master. I was too hot to puzzle over it.
‘One thing I must ask of you, Gordianus.’ Cicero was beginning to show signs of exertion, but he talked through them, like a true stoic. ‘I appreciated your candour when you spoke your mind in my study. No one can say you are less than an honest man. But hold your tongue in Caecilia’s house. Her family has long been allied with Sulla – his late fourth wife was a Metella.’
‘You mean the daughter of Delmaticus? The one he divorced while she lay dying?’
‘Exactly. The Metelli were not happy about the divorce, despite Sulla’s excuses.’
‘The augurs looked in a bowl of sheep entrails and told him his wife’s illness would pollute his household.’
‘So Sulla claimed. Caecilia herself would probably take no offence at anything you might say, but you can never tell. She’s an old woman, unmarried and childless. Given to strange ways – such as happens when a woman is left to her own devices too long, without a husband and family to occupy her with wholesome pursuits. Her passion these days is for whatever Oriental cult happens to be new and fashionable in Rome, the more foreign and bizarre, the better. She’s not much concerned with mere earthly matters.
‘But it’s likely there’ll be another in the house with keener ears and sharper eyes. I’m thinking of my good young friend Marcus Messalla – we call him Rufus, on account of his red hair. He’s no stranger to Caecilia Metella’s house; he’s known her since he was a child, and she’s almost like an aunt to him. A fine young man – or not quite a man yet, only sixteen. Rufus comes to my house rather often, for gatherings and lectures and such, and he already knows his way around the law courts. He’s quite eager to help in Sextus Roscius’s behalf.’
‘But?’
‘But his family connections make him dangerous. Hortensius is his half brother – when Hortensius dropped the case, it was young Rufus he sent to my door to beg me to take it on. More to the point, the boy’s older sister is that same young Valeria whom Sulla recently took to be his fifth wife. Poor Rufus has little affection for his new brother-in-law, but the marriage does put him in an awkward position. I would ask that you restrain yourself from slandering our esteemed dictator in his presence.’
‘Of course, Cicero.’ When I left the house that morning I had never expected to be circulating with high nobles like the Metelli and Messalli. I looked down at the garments I wore, a common citizen’s toga over a plain tunic. The only touch of purple was a wine stain near the hem. Bethesda claimed to have spent hours trying to remove it without success.
By the time we reached the summit, even Tiro was showing signs of fatigue. His dark curls were pasted to his forehead with sweat. His face was flushed with exertion – or perhaps with something more like excitement. I wondered again about his eagerness to reach Caecilia Metella’s house.
‘This is it,’ Cicero huffed, pausing to catch his breath. The house before us was a sprawling mass of rose stucco, ringed about by ancient oaks. The doorway was recessed beneath a portico and flanked by two helmeted soldiers in full battle gear with swords at their belts and spears in their fists. Grizzled veterans from Sulla’s army, I thought, and gave a start.
‘The guards,’ Cicero said, making a vague gesture with his hand as he mounted the steps. ‘Ignore them. They must be sweltering beneath all that leather. Tiro?’
Tiro, who had been staring in fascination at the soldiers’ gear, sprang ahead of his master to rap at the heavy oak doors. A long moment passed in which we all caught our breaths and removed our hats beneath the shaded portico.
The door opened inward on silent hinges. Cool air and the scent of
incense wafted out to greet us.
Tiro and the door slave exchanged the typical formalities – ‘My master comes to see your mistress’ – then we waited for another moment before the slave of the foyer came to usher us inside. He relieved us of our hats, then disappeared to fetch the announcer. I looked over my shoulder at the doorkeeper, who sat on a stool beside the portal busying himself with some sort of handicraft, his foot attached to the wall by a chain just long enough to allow him to reach the door.
The announcer arrived, obviously disappointed to find that it was Cicero and not some grovelling client from whom he might extort a few denarii before allowing further admission to the house. From small signs – his high voice, the visible enlargement of his breasts – I realized he was a eunuch. While in the East they are an indispensable and ancient part of the social fabric, the unsexed remain a rarity in Rome and are looked on with great distaste. Cicero had said that Caecilia was a follower of Oriental cults, but to keep a eunuch in her household struck me as a truly bizarre affectation.
We followed him around the central atrium and up a flight of marble steps. The announcer pulled back a hanging curtain, and I followed Cicero into a chamber that would not have looked too out of place in a high-priced Alexandrian brothel.
We seemed to have stepped into a large and overdecorated tent, plush and pillow-strewn, with carpets and hangings everywhere. Brass lamps hung from standing braziers in the corners and exhaled trickles of smoke. It was from this room that the smell of incense permeated the house. I could hardly breathe. The various spices were being burned without the least sensitivity to their individual proportions and properties. The crude concentrations of sandalwood and myrrh were nauseating. Any Egyptian housewife would have known better.
Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) Page 6
