"When I met you a few days ago, you were speaking with Crassus. More accurately, you were arguing with him. When I approached, you broke off your argument. Then Crassus said something strange. There were two men with me, Valgius and Thorius, both involved in the conspiracy. Crassus said that he had not met them. Yet when I spoke to your charioteer, he said that Valgius had accompanied Crassus to your house."
"That is so. I believe that, just now, Crassus is trying to put distance between himself and anyone involved in the conspiracy."
"And the nature of your argument?" I asked… "He wants me to surrender my patronage of the Allobroges. He claims it is for business purposes, involving his many Gaulish interests." He snorted disgust. "He offered to buy my patronship, as if such a thing could be subleased! Crassus thinks of everything in terms of money. Of course, he simply wants to manipulate the Gauls in Catilina's behalf. He does not yet know that they have already revealed everything to me."
"And you told Cicero of this?" I asked.
"I did. By now, you know that he is afraid to prosecute Crassus."
"So I have found, and I cannot understand why. I thought that Marcus Cicero was afraid of nothing. Why is he so fixed on Catilina when he knows that there must be someone more powerful behind him?"
He brooded over the expanse of moonlit marble around us. "Decius Caecilius, you and I are of ancient senatorial families, mine patrician, yours plebeian, families almost synonymous with the Roman state. Cicero is a good man, but he is novus homo, and can never forget it. No matter how high he climbs, he will never be secure." This was a sorrowful thing to hear about a man I greatly admired, but in later years I was to find it an accurate assessment of Cicero. "He will pursue Catilina, and that ruthlessly, precisely because he is the least of the leading traitors. He wants to smash the rebellion before it has a chance to become fully organized, in hopes that the great men will then back away from a lost cause."
"But won't Catilina implicate them?" I asked. He shrugged. "Who will believe him? We have already heard the names of wholly innocent men he and his followers have thrown around to appear stronger than they are. If he should accuse Crassus of backing him, why should Crassus not claim to be as innocent as your father?"
"Why, indeed?" I said. "And we can be sure that Crassus will put his name to no foolish letter to the Gauls."
"Of that you can be certain," Fabius agreed. "Quintus Fabius," I said, "one more question. You went to Cicero with your report of treason. Why not to Antonius Hibrida?"
He laughed, a flat, humorless sound. "The same reason as you. Hibrida is no more to be trusted than any other man bearing the name of Antonius. They are a reckless, unreliable breed, and I've no doubt that Catilina has already approached him."
I had not thought of that. "Any chance that he is with them, do you think?"
He shook his head. "You recall how the proconsular provinces were assigned, after the election?"
"Certainly. Cicero drew Macedonia, Anotonius drew Cisalpine Gaul. But for some reason Cicero refused Macedonia and Antonius got it by default. Catilina thinks Cicero is afraid of the command because there is fighting in Macedonia."
"Wrong. Catilina wanted to be Consul this year with Antonius as his colleague, but Antonius threw in with Cicero instead. Too much dirt has clung to Catilina from past corruptions. Anyway, Cicero made him a better offer."
"A better offer?"
"He gave Antonius Macedonia because Antonius wanted it. Antonius wanted a foreign war and the loot that a foreign war brings. And thus he bought Antonius's loyalty. I don't doubt that Antonius is toying with Catilina even now, but not seriously."
He was uncommonly well informed for a man who spent little time in Rome, but patricians have their ways of passing information among themselves. Another imponderable occurred to me.
"I am greatly troubled by the position of tribune-elect Bestia in all this," I said. "He is more intelligent than the others, and I think he's playing some game of his own."
"When are tribunes ever anything but troublemakers?" he said, in true patrician fashion. "Somehow, over the centuries they've bypassed the Senate and the courts and come to be the most crucial members of the government, and anybody can get elected to the tribunate."
"Anybody but a patrician," I reminded him. "Clodius has given up his patrician status just to become a tribune."
"It's about what you'd expect from a Claudian," Sanga all but growled. "I know very little about Bestia, but he seems to be a friend of your kinsman, Metellus Nepos."
"Pompey's legatus? That makes little sense."
"Things seldom make much sense in politics until you get a closer look. Sometimes not even then."
"How true. For all I know, Nepos and Bestia are old school friends, studied philosophy at Rhodes or some such. Pompey is the one man we can be certain has nothing to do with this conspiracy."
"Nothing is certain," Sanga reminded me. "Good night, Decius Caecilius Metellus."
I bade him good night and we went our ways. Before returning home, I trudged the long climb to the Capitol and entered the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. At that hour there was no one in the temple but a slave who, every hour or so, would check the oil level in the lamps and trim their wicks.
The new statue of Jupiter was a beautiful thing, much like the old one but nearly double its size. It was in the traditional mode, modeled after the legendary Olympian Zeus of Phidias. This statue had been paid for by the great Catulus and the god's body was sculpted of the whitest alabaster, his robes of porphyry. His hair and beard were covered with gold leaf and his eyes were inlaid with lapis lazuli. In the flickering lamplight, he almost seemed to breathe.
I took a handful of powdered incense from a chased bronze bowl and tossed it onto the brazier of coals that glowed at the feet of the god. The haruspices had said that this new Jupiter would warn us of dangers to the state, but as the smoke ascended he said nothing. As I left the temple, I paused on the steps, but I saw no mysterious flights of birds, no lightning from the clear sky, no falling stars or thunders from inauspicious directions. As I walked home, I decided that the gods probably had little interest in the petty schemings of the degenerate dwarfs men had become. In the days of heroes, when Achilles and Hector, Aeneas and Agamemnon had contended, the gods themselves had taken an active part in the struggle. Those heroes were near to being gods in their own right. The gods were not likely to bestir themselves for anyone like Catilina, Crassus or Pompey, and least of all for Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger.
Chapter X
The next morning Asklepiodes was found murdered on the bridge connecting the island to the riverbank. Since I was investigating these murderous doings, I made my way to the Temple of Aesculapius to view the body. Anything to get out of the Temple of Saturn. Forum gossip was full of speculation about this latest wrinkle in the wave of murders that had swept the city. Most of the other victims had been wealthy equites. This one, while wealthy, was not even a citizen. For once, I had the satisfaction of knowing what it was all about.
Asklepiodes had a fair number of friends and many professional colleagues, but the city was being swept by one of its frequent gusts of superstition, and the rumor had gotten around that, with so many murders in the city, it might be bad luck to attend the obsequies of the slain. As a result, poor Asklepiodes was laid out in an atrium of the temple with few attendants except for his own slaves. Among the few visitors I recognized Thorius, his jaw still in a sling, sent there to confirm that I had indeed murdered my creditor. As he left he winked at me, the little swine.
Asklepiodes had been washed and laid out on his bier, with lamps burning at its four quarters. His skin was gray and there was a shocking wound in his throat. This was carrying fakery to an amazing extreme. Surreptitiously, I touched his face. His skin was cold. I took a wrist. There was no pulse. He was really dead.
I was shaken more thoroughly than at any time since this whole insane business had begun. Who had murdered him? For a few disor
dered moments I entertained the thought that I had done it myself. Perhaps I was as crazy as the rest of them. One of the physician's slaves came up to me and handed me a note. I unfolded the papyrus and read.
The Quaestor Metellus is requested to attend the office of the physician Asklepiodes on the sixth hour on a matter touching the physician's will.
"Who wrote this?" I asked. The slave shrugged. None of his assistants spoke Latin, or so he claimed.
I passed the day in a state of agitation. In fact, that had been my invariable state for some time. I kept checking the sundials as the shadows crept slowly across them. When it looked as if the sixth hour might be approaching, I hurried off to the island.
When I arrived the atrium was vacant, the body having been removed to await the arrival of the Greek's city patron, who would have the duty of seeing to his burial. A slave conducted me into Asklepiodes's office, which was empty. As I sat the slave shut the door behind me and, far too late, it occurred to me that this was a trap. Somebody had murdered Asklepiodes, and I was next. I leapt to my feet, my hand going to my dagger, as another door opened. I would sell my life dearly if need be.
"Please, Decius, you needn't stand for me," Asklepiodes said. "I pray you resume your seat."
I sat, or rather collapsed into the chair. "I saw you this morning," I said. "You were irrefutably dead."
"And if you thought so, knowing that we were planning to perpetrate a fraud, how much more convincing must it have looked to those who suspected no such thing?"
I knew what he wanted me to ask and I struggled against the temptation while he sat there, smiling smugly, all bland Greek superiority. At last I could stand it no longer.
"How did you do it?"
"Through skill, artistry, and, I doubt not, some aid from the god who is my patron. A decoction of hemlock, belladonna and wormwood, taken in a minutely measured quantity, brings on a near-cessation of the vital signs, convincing to any but the most astute of physicians, of which I must say in all modesty I am the only specimen in Rome."
"It could bring about a complete cessation, I would think. Wasn't it hemlock that Socrates was executed with?"
"It is a matter for delicate judgment, but it has been used in the past to simulate death when such a subterfuge seemed desirable. I tested it first on a slave, a man of my own age, physique and general state of health, The results were wholly satisfactory; three hours of deathlike coma followed by a quick recovery and no aftereffects."
"And the wound?" I asked, searching his neck for marks.
"A most excellent effect, was it not? I obtained the skin of an unborn lamb, such as is used to make the finest parchment. This I trimmed to proper shape and used to cover my neck. The skin is all but transparent, and the cosmetic I applied to exposed areas to simulate a deathlike pallor contributed to the illusion. I had the skin stitched up at the back of my neck, and the edges where it met with my actual flesh were covered by my hair, my beard or my clothes. The slit over my throat I packed with thin strips of calf's liver to simulate a most ghastly wound. Was it not convincing?"
"It was a masterpiece," I said sincerely. I had gotten over my fright and now was all admiration. "How did you manage an illusion so elaborate on such short notice?"
Asklepiodes preened. Like all Greeks, he throve on praise. "I have been called upon before this, to simulate wounds. Your Italian mimes, who perform on the stage without masks, sometimes wish to add an extra note of realism. And certain gentlemen of high rank who must remain nameless, who wished to avoid military service, have called upon this particular skill of mine."
"Asklepiodes, you shock me!" I said.
"Mine is but the skill," he said, "and theirs the guilty conscience. Just remember me when your superiors plan your participation in some particularly suicidal military adventure."
"A man dedicated as I am to serving the Senate and People of Rome could never stoop to such perfidy," I said piously. He just sat there, smiling his superior Greek smile, knowing that I would do exactly as he advised should it come to that. I was not about to get killed winning glory for the likes of Crassus or Pompey.
"In any case," he said, "you may now rest assured that you are as respectable a murderer as any in the conspiracy. My congratulations."
"I thank you," I said, rising. "Within a few days this business should be over and you will be able to reveal yourself and enjoy the looks on everyone's faces."
"That I look forward to with great anticipation."
"In the meantime, enjoy your solitude, catch up on your writing, and I hope you will suffer no disagreeable aftereffects from your brush with the fatal hemlock."
"It was quite refreshing, really. I may employ it in therapy." He rose to see me to the door.
"Then don't tell anyone what's in it," I advised.
"I seldom do. Good day, Decius Caecilius, and good luck."
I left the island feeling better than I had in many days. With the shadow of Asklepiodes's ostensible murder lifted, everything else looked much better as well. I was well in with the conspirators, and I felt that my official backing was far more secure now that I had conferred with Cicero. And the political situation was not quite so murky. I was still not certain exactly who was involved, but it was clear that Catilina actually had a halfway credible plan of action and was backed by one or more of the great players of the day. The rest of us were, to use my cousin Felicia's metaphor, knucklebones.
In my happy mood I extended the metaphor. Not all knucklebones are honest. They may look like the others but, like dice, they may be loaded. I knew that I was one of the loaded knucklebones. Were there others? Some had at least had their corners shaved. Fulvia was an informer and by extension Curius had become Cicero's tool.
And what of Bestia, the tribune-elect? In those days, the tribunes were elected by the Consilium Plebis, a profoundly undiscriminating body of citizens. Of the elective bodies, it was the most fertile field for a demagogue and far too many of our tribunes were uncultivated, self-seeking knaves and scoundrels. It had become the quickest route to real power and was thus avidly sought by men such as Clodius and Milo. Cato had sought the tribunate as a way to frustrate the activities of political enemies. My kinsman Nepos, recently seen in the company of Bestia, had won a tribunate to use as a platform from which to push Pompey's fortunes and career, as if such a thing was needed. It made sense that a tribune would be in league with Catilina. A tribune was in an excellent position to whip up the urban mob into a rage against the current government, something a haughty patrician like Catilina could scarcely do. Yet, I had been disturbed by the tone of insinuation I had detected in Bestia. He had not seemed mad or self-deluded like the others, merely amused and superior.
My improved mood even lightened my fears about Aurelia. If she was being used by Catilina as bait, surely it was not through her own connivance. Surely, I thought, she could not be a part of the conspiracy. Catilina and his men were not the only self-deluded fools in Rome that day.
The next days were filled with elation and anxiety. There were no more meetings with the conspirators, although from time to time I would encounter one or more of them in the Forum or at the baths, at which times they could not help giving me adolescent signs of complicity, as if we were fellow initiates of one of the mystery cults.
I sought excuses to call on Aurelia, but the slaves at Orestilla's house told me that both ladies were away, although they were vague about the destination and duration of this absence. Naturally enough, once I was cut off from contact with Aurelia, I was able to think of nothing else. Memories of our night together ran through my mind like the most salacious of those mimes frowned upon by the Censors, each fantasy more heated and fevered than the last.
I neglected my duties at the treasury, but the slaves and freedmen there took no notice, since I customarily neglected them at the best of times. Dinner companions noticed my fidgeting and abstraction and plied me, successfully, with wine. It may be taken as a matter for wonder that a man embr
oiled in an incredibly dangerous mesh of intrigue, treachery and murder should be distracted by the charms of one young woman, however voluptuous. It is simply that young men are like that. I was, at any rate. The Greeks and Trojans once fought a war over a woman, so I was not alone in this fixation, although there seemed to be something un-Roman about it.
The day of the gathering of the Caecilii arrived, and with the others I crossed the river and climbed the Janiculum to the expansive villa where Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus awaited permission to celebrate his triumph. Every great family has one or 'more of these yearly gatherings, where special family rites are observed, marriages are arranged and decisions concerning the whole gens are made.
Of course, not every Roman bearing the name Caecilius attended, for then several thousand persons would have had to crowd into the villa. Every paterfamilias who was not on foreign military service was there, and their adult male offspring. These would pass on the decisions and celebrate the rites at home for their own Caecilian freedmen and clients.
The villa and its grounds were cluttered with the loot of Crete, kept there in anticipation of the coming triumph and guarded by hard-eyed veterans of Creticus's legions. I was glad to see that there were so many of them, since they would be needed soon.
Among those present were my father, the Praetor Metellus Celer, the pontifex and Caecilian by adoption Metellus Pius Scipio, and Pompey's legatus Metellus Nepos. I feared that my major problem would be finding a few minutes to speak privately with Creticus.
After the opening invocation of the gods, the genius of the family and the lares and penates of the house, the serious business of the meeting began. Among the questions brought up was, of all things, my name. Some of the older and more traditional members of the family wanted the name Decius banned from future generations. Decius, they said, was not properly a praenomen at all, but a nomen. My father argued, eloquently, that a name decreed by a god must be deemed just and fitting and we had won the fight with the Samnites the next day and so Decius must be a fitting praenomen for gens Caecilii. The anti-Decian faction were not impressed. Apparently, they thought that the family simply could not have enough Quintuses. I think this gives some indication of how slack and complacent all of Rome had become during the easy years. Never once was the family's political stand brought up. The business about my name was never decided, and remains undecided to this day.
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