“Marcus Tullius Cicero, quaestor of the Republic,” Cicero declared, announcing himself. At his shoulder stood Batiatus, tugging his tunic back into shape after an unseen tussle, and the gladiator Varro, who stared threateningly at unseen scribes in the next room.
“What is the meaning of this, Cicero?” Helva said. “I heard of your arrival in town, on business Sibylline, if I recall.”
“A quaestor questions where he may,” Cicero said. “And I seek clarification of some matters regarding this estate.”
Helva looked dolefully at his signet ring, already off his finger and ready to apply to the papyrus.
“Very well,” he sighed. “What is your contention?”
“A misunderstanding,” Cicero said carefully.
“Mis-!” Batiatus began, only to be stayed by his counsel’s upraised hand.
“A misunderstanding,” Cicero continued, “that would see the estate of Pelorus wrongly assigned, absent diligence.”
Butchers worked their carcasses on stone tables in front of their shops. Grocers haggled with household slaves over vegetables. Two painted whores leaned lazily on the staircase to a cheaper, second-floor establishment, and did not even bother to call out to passers-by. The street was damp from earlier rains, but already warm. It was as if the buildings sweated in imitation of their residents.
Spartacus pushed through the crowd, his attention focused on the forum building that loomed above the smaller houses and insulae. He dragged Medea behind him, their wrists chained together.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“Batiatus seeks audience with the magistrate,” Spartacus said, ducking around an ambling pair of blacksmiths.
“Then let him,” Medea said, barely circumventing them herself. “It makes no difference to us.”
“It will if he dies,” Spartacus said. “Enemies are at large and yet unknown to him.”
“Let me go,” Medea said thoughtfully. “Unchain me that we can move faster through this crowd.”
Spartacus laughed despite his concern.
“I am a slave, Medea. I am not a fool.”
Autumn came early to the hills. The air swam with yellow leaves, spiraling and circling in a downward slant, like flocks of birds circling toward one single prey. Always, they swept along with the wind, darting and in occasional eddies, but always downward, down toward the damp, grimy flagstones of the road.
Far below, the forest gave way to hills, the hills to fields, the fields to the sea. A dark, angry mountain marked the general location of Neapolis, now far behind Lucretia’s litter. Her four bearers plodded on without a word, and she left the sidings to flutter in the mounting breeze. It let her see the ceaseless corridors of trees that avenued their path; it let her see glimpses of the featureless road ahead; and it let her see Barca, faithful Barca, marching at her side, his hand ever on the hilt of his sword, his eyes scanning the trees for invisible foes.
There was a flutter of wings ahead. A platoon of surprised crows darted for the sky, like black shadows against the confetti of leaves.
Barca gestured for the bearers to stop.
“Something lies up ahead,” the Carthaginian whispered.
“Home!” Lucretia said. “Capua lies but hours before us. That is the sole destination for which I care.”
But she was talking to Barca’s back as the giant stepped ahead, his sword half-drawn.
Cursing silently, Lucretia dropped from the litter, gathering her silken robes against her to ward off the mountain chill.
“Barca!” she fumed, tottering after him on legs not yet fully awake. “We flee dangers Neapolitan. They will not lie ahead of us. It would please me not to dawdle so long upon this road.”
Barca had stopped at the side of the road and knelt beside something.
“Tell me what it is.” Lucretia asked, nearing the hunched giant.
Barca’s gazed down upon his findings.
“There are no bandits here,” Lucretia said. “No dangers for us to-”
She stopped at Barca’s side. He was knelt before what had once been a man.
The corpse lay sprawled in the gutter, its back arched by the tightening tendons of the dead. One arm was stretched out, imploringly, the other clutched at what had once been its side. The eyes were gone, the flesh torn from the face in strips. Chunks had been wrenched from the limbs by animals with larger jaws, leaving gobbets of meat and gristle scattered on the road nearby. One foot was missing entirely, along with the lower portion of the leg.
“What do you see?” Lucretia asked.
“A slave,” Barca replied.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because I was witness to his abandonment,” Barca said. “As we journeyed to Neapolis, our drover left an old man at this place.”
“That is no concern of mine,” Lucretia said, with a sigh. She began to walk back to the litter.
Barca looked back at his mistress for a moment, and then rose to his feet. He said a short Carthaginian prayer, little more than a cantrip, for the departed slave.
“I vow I will not meet similar end.”
Cicero had started softly, but his voice now thundered around the chamber. He left his chair, pacing in front of the magistrate, stopping only occasionally to fix the glowering Verres with a knowing stare.
“The property is not yours to disburse!” he said. “Pelorus died by your negligence, and now you scatter his coin in your own honor!”
“My negligence? My negligence!” Verres sputtered. “Do you accuse a Roman citizen of murder? Witnesses innumerable saw the Getae witch slay Pelorus at his banquet.”
“Removed now to their estates in Pompeii and Herculaneum, Baiae and Capriae in circumstance most convenient, and unable to discuss Pelorus’s final moments,” Cicero countered.
“Not even I was present at his moment of death.”
“Pelorus was killed with a knife. His throat slit with brutal thrust. How might he impart last words of such import when he was incapable of utterance?”
“He whispered.”
“To a man who ‘was not present’? You expect us to believe such words?”
“I can only speak truth.”
“Yet voice seems capable of lying. Perhaps we should call the pollinctores who dressed the body of Pelorus, and demand description exact of his wounds? Let us see what they tell us of the nature of his death.”
“Call them! Call them!” Verres bellowed. “Apologies, magistrate Helva. Call adjournment, pending testimony of the undertakers.”
“That will not be necessary, magistrate,” Cicero said. “Batiatus and I called upon the undertakers today. And Verres surely knows what we found at their residence.”
“I do not,” Verres said. “I have not had cause to visit undertakers, a task more fitting a slave.”
“Someone has visited them,” Cicero said. “Someone visited upon them a knife in the dark, and burned the dead bodies within their own household. The pollinctores, dead. The fossores, dead. Another household visited by grim Nemesis, absent cause, absent reason, absent honor.”
“And you would put blame toward me for that as well?” Verres asked.
Batiatus watched carefully, not the argument between Cicero and Verres, but the reaction on the face of Timarchides.
“See,” he whispered to Varro. “The freedman makes clear attempt to conceal his countenance. He knows something. Cicero has found them out!”
“Do you question the words of a Roman citizen?” Verres was saying.
“I do, Gaius Verres. That is my job, after all,” Cicero responded.
“If I were going to speak false of Pelorus’s wishes, why would I not make claim of his worldly goods for myself?”
“Why indeed? Your decision to award Timarchides shows virtue most praiseworthy. I understand that Timarchides has also been offered a position in your own entourage.”
“He is a good man.”
“Perhaps so. But our purpose here is not to discuss the
virtues of the freedman Timarchides. We are here to discover whether you are empowered to sign over the estate of Pelorus into his hands.”
“Then hasten decision. I am due in Sicilia shortly, on the business of the Republic.”
“My question, Gaius Verres, concerns the unfortunate events that led to the death of Pelorus.”
“An answer already given. Pelorus met with unfortunate death at the hands of escaped slave, Medea of the Getae.”
“And what was the manner of her escape?”
“I do not know.”
“Let us ask someone who does. Call the witness.”
Helva smiled in surprise.
“You have a witness at the ready, quaestor? Such dedication!”
Cicero stood still, staring at his fingernails in search of imaginary dirt. He smiled calmly at Batiatus, and then turned to stare at Verres. The governor fumed in his chair, his eyes narrowed in vengeful slits.
In a distant chamber, there was the sound of footsteps and guardians’ spears clanking aside. The hurried footfalls of a household slave, mixed with the light rustle of a woman’s steps.
She entered the courtroom, her veil hiding her face. She bowed, demurely and without a word, to the magistrate, and then advanced to the podium.
“Gratitude,” Cicero said, “to this fine, upstanding lady of Neapolis, who steps forward to offer account of events of fateful night. Your name?”
“Successa,” the veiled woman said. Only her eyes, dark and flashing, could be seen over the dark silk that stretched across her face.
“Of what house?”
“Of no house, save that of the Winged Cock,” she said, naming the famed symbol that matched her Pompeiian accent.
“Lady Successa, I understand that you were present at the banquet on the night of Pelorus’s murder,” Cicero said.
“I was.”
“In what capacity?”
“So it please the court, I was hired as companion.”
“Let us not be coy. You mean in the amatory manner?”
“I do. My favors are highly regarded. Were highly regarded.”
Batiatus raised his eyebrows in agreement.
“By the people of Neapolis?” Cicero asked.
“By Pelorus himself. He said that I was the best fuck in Campania, and that I was to ensure that his honored guest, Gaius Verres, was to depart Neapolis thinking the same.”
“And, if I may ask, lady Successa, how did Pelorus come to know that you were the ‘best fuck in Campania’?”
“He was a regular visitor.”
“At the, what was it now, the House of the Winged Cock?”
“Yes.”
“He was intimate with you?”
“Upon multiple occasions.”
“And with other ladies of that establishment?”
“With all of them.”
“And with the men of your house?”
“Never.”
“For what reason?”
“Pelorus had no interest in cock.”
“I must protest!” Verres exclaimed. “Cicero employs hearsay against hearsay. Taking the word of a whore against that of a Roman citizen!”
“In my defence,” Cicero suggested, “the lady Successa is present and able to testify. She is neither conveniently dead, nor miraculously able to convey her wishes with a slit throat.”
“She has already attested that she sells her cunt for a few denarii!” Verres said. “How much cheaper is her mouth?”
“I cannot claim knowledge of pricing policies of Neapolitan brothels,” Cicero said dryly.
“My meaning,” Verres said through gritted teeth, “is that this woman’s testimony must surely be available for a price. It is not, after all, very likely that she will be amassing much more coin on her back!”
Cicero waited politely while Verres’s words resounded around the chamber.
“Really, Verres?” he said after a time. “For what reason is that?”
Verres swallowed nervously and turned to the magistrate with calm composure.
“Time comes that this farce must reach conclusion,” he said.
“I have interest in hearing Cicero’s closing arguments, nonetheless,” the magistrate said.
“As it pleases you,” Cicero said. “I would ask the lady Successa to remove her veil.”
“I have removed far more than that in the past,” Successa said, a smile clearly audible in her voice.
She reached up to withdraw a hook from an eye in her headdress, allowing the veil to fall away with exquisite slowness. It was the practiced tease of a woman who knew how to reveal her body-but now revealed a horror rather than a delight.
“Tell me, lady Successa,” Cicero said, “what it is you owe to Gaius Verres.”
“He promised me a stipend,” she replied. “I do not know how to-”
“Let me try to parse it for you,” Cicero suggested. “Gaius Verres, the kind-hearted governor-designate of Sicilia; Gaius Verres, the apparent long-term friend and hospes of the deceased Marcus Pelorus, is well known as an honorable man. And, following events of the night of this last ides past, Gaius Verres, that noble Roman, took pity on the lady Successa, so badly wounded in the fray at the House of Pelorus, and made promise to her that he would provide a stipend of five hundred denarii for years remaining. This agreement so notarized in the records of the Neapolis magistracy, and impossible to deny. And what must you do to earn this impressive honorarium, lady Successa?”
“Nothing, Cicero,” she replied.
“Nothing!” Cicero laughed. “And so it please the magistrate, ‘nothing’ is precisely what it says upon their contract. But I am lover of words and puns and poetries, and I must say that the meaning is ambiguous. It might be taken to mean that you need do ‘no thing’ in order to receive the charity of the good-natured Verres. Or, it might mean that your silence has been purchased, and that the coin is yours so long as you say and do ‘no thing’ regarding the aforesaid Gaius Verres.”
“Sophistry!” Verres shouted. “You will be claiming next that black is white.”
“Gaius Verres has been most kind to me,” Successa protested. “I had no complaint against him.”
“I am sure you did not,” Cicero said. “Not until this last night past, when sicarii ambushed you in your home and sought to send you to the afterlife.”
“And I am responsible for this, too?” Verres cried raising his arms in supplication to the ceiling above and the gods beyond. “Why not lay blame at my door for earthquakes and storms?”
Cicero ignored him, and continued in his questioning.
“Lady Successa, with bonds of silence dissolved, speak of events passed on the ides of September. How did you find yourself so injured?”
“Precious time wasted on worthless words,” Verres said.
“If it pleases the magistrate,” Cicero said. “The slave Medea was wild beast, in locked cell, from which she was somehow set free to bring destruction upon House Pelorus. The slave Medea, as her later actions in the arena have demonstrated with ample clarity to all, is a living weapon, capable of infecting great harm upon her victims. Whoever unleashed her on that night is as culpable in the death of Pelorus as falconer who looses bird, or hunter who frees hounds. Lady Successa, I implore you, who set Medea free that night?”
“It was Gaius Verres,” she said.
“Open eyes and see stipend’s end,” Verres spat.
“A thing never seen recieved,” she snarled at him, suddenly roused. “Nor would it buy me much in the afterlife!”
“Enough!” Helva declared, banging his hands on the arms of his chair. “Enough!”
“Magistrate, I implore you-” Verres began.
“Magistrate, I am yet unfinished-” Cicero began.
“Silence, I beg you!” Helva said. “This matter full of thorns, and attended by many deliberations, twists and turns. However, representatives for both sides have identified a means through whispered threats and honeyed promises. In the matter of B
atiatus versus Verres, I find reasonable doubt in the assignation of rights familiae emptor to the aforesaid Verres. Perhaps Verres misheard his friend’s last words; perhaps he misinterpreted them.”
Batiatus made to stand in protest, but Cicero stayed his arm, a finger raised in a weak parody of the gladiator’s gesture of surrender. Batiatus saw the signal and read it for what it was-a sign that they would have to concede some ground.
“However, I can have no doubt that the intentions of the pious Verres were wholly honorable,” the magistrate continued. “In treatment of the injured lady Successa, he has displayed a noble quality in the dispensation of charity. In his attempt to do right by the freedman Timarchides, he has shown great kindness.”
Verres permitted himself a sly half-smile.
Batiatus stared at Cicero, his nostrils flared in anger.
“Do you misremember whose side you represent?” Batiatus hissed to the quaestor. “This fool has ignored every one of your words.”
“Patience, Batiatus,” Cicero whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“In the matter of the accusations leveled against him,” the magistrate stated, “I remind the plaintiff that Verres became the governor of Sicilia at midnight on the night of the event in question, and that henceforth, even if Cicero were to pursue his insinuations of wrongdoing, the person of Gaius Verres is sacrosanct, protected and above reproach.”
Verres smiled at Batiatus, the smile widening into a grin fit to contain the world.
“In the matter of the estate of the late Marcus Pelorus, I shall retire to deliberate on its best dispensation. It may take some days, considering the light of these crimes peripheral, now entered into the record.”
“If I may speed the process, magistrate?” Verres asked.
The magistrate shrugged and gestured for him to continue.
“Since my duties are not required in the role of familiae emptor, I have no matters to address in it. May I suggest that I withdraw all opposition to the suit of Batiatus, and depart as friend.”
Timarchides leapt to his feet in surprise, grabbing at Verres’s toga.
“You said that purse was mine!”
Verres held out his arms in conciliation.
“Timarchides, please!” he said. “The magistrate has spoken. We must abide by Roman law or we are no better than barbarians.”
Spartacus: Swords and Ashes Page 24