Roman blood rsr-1

by Steven Saylor

  'Certainly not! I wouldn't even be in Rome. I'd be far to the north in my house in Ameria — having nightmares, probably.'

  'You'd hire some assassins to do it for you?'

  'Of course.'

  'People you knew and trusted?'

  'Would I be likely to know such people personally? A hardworking Amerian farmer?' I shrugged. 'More likely I'd be relying on strangers. A gang leader met in a tavern in the Subura. A nameless acquaintance recommended by another acquaintance known to a casual friend…'

  'Is that how it's done?' Cicero was genuinely curious. He spoke no longer to the hypothetical parricide, but to Gordianus the Finder. 'They told me that you would actually know a thing or two about this sort of business. They said: "Yes, if you want to get in touch with the kind of men who don't mind getting blood on their hands, Gordianus is one place to start.'"

  'They! Whom do you mean, Cicero? Who says that I drink from the same cup with killers?'

  He bit his lip, not quite certain how much he wanted to tell me yet. I answered for him. 'I think you mean Hortensius, don't you? Since it was Hortensius who recommended me to you?'

  Cicero shot a sharp glance at Tiro, who was suddenly quite awake.

  'No, Master, I told him nothing. He guessed it — ' For the first time that day, Tiro sounded to me like a slave. 'Guessed? What do you mean?'

  'Deduced would be a better word. Tiro is telling the truth. I know, more or less anyway, what you've called me for. A murder case involving a father and son, both called Sextus Roscius.'

  'You guessed that this was my reason for calling on you? But how? I only decided yesterday to take on Roscius as a client.'

  I sighed. The curtain sighed. The heat crept up my feet and legs, like water slowly rising in a well. 'Perhaps you should have Tiro explain it to you later. I think it's too hot for me to go through it all again step by step. But I know that Hortensius had the case to begin with, and that you have it now. And I presume that all this talk about hypothetical conspiracies has something to do with the actual murder?'

  Cicero looked glum. I think he felt foolish at finding that I had known the true circumstances all along. 'Yes,' he said, 'It's hot. Tiro, you'll bring some refreshment. Some wine, mixed with cool water. Perhaps some fruit. Do you like dried apples, Gordianus?'

  Tiro rose from his chair. 'I'll tell Athalena.'

  'No, Tiro, fetch it yourself. Take your time.' The order was demeaning, and intentionally so; I could tell by the look of hurt in Tiro's eyes, and by the look in Cicero's as well, heavy-lidded and drooping from something other than the heat. Tiro was unused to being given such menial tasks. And Cicero? One sees it all the time, a master taking out petty frustrations on the slaves around him. The habit becomes so commonplace that they do it without thinking; slaves come to accept it without humiliation or repining, as if it were a god-sent inconvenience, like rainfall on a market day.

  Cicero and Tiro were not nearly so advanced along that path. Before Tiro had disappeared pouting from the room, Cicero relented, as much as he could without losing face. 'Tiro!' he called. He waited for the slave to turn. He looked him in the eye. 'Be sure to bring a portion for yourself as well.'

  A crueller man would have smiled as he spoke. A lesser man would have cast his eyes to the floor. Cicero did neither, and in that moment I discovered my first glimmering of respect for him.

  Tiro departed. For a moment Cicero toyed with a ring on his finger, then turned his attention back to me.

  'You were about to tell me something of how one goes about arranging a murder in the streets of Rome. Forgive me if the question is presumptuous. I don't mean to imply that you yourself have ever offended the gods by taking part in such crimes. But they say — Hortensius says — that you happen to know more than a little about these matters. Who, how, and how much…'

  I shrugged. 'If a man wants another man murdered, there's nothing so difficult about that. As I said, a word to the right man, a bit of gold passed from hand to hand, and the job is done.'

  'But where does one find the right man?'

  I had been forgetting how young and inexperienced he was, despite his education and wit. 'It's easier than you might think. For years the gangs have been controlling the streets of Rome after dark, and sometimes even in broad daylight.'

  'But the gangs fight each other.'

  "The gangs fight anyone who gets in their way.'

  'Their crimes are political. They ally themselves with a particular party—'

  'They have no politics, except the politics of whatever man hires them. And no loyalty, except the loyalty that money buys. Think, Cicero. Where do the gangs come from? Some of them are spawned right here in Rome, like maggots under a rock — the poor, the children of the poor, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Whole dynasties of crime, generations of villains breeding pedigrees of vice. They negotiate with one another like little nations. They intermarry like noble families. And they hire themselves out like mercenaries to whatever politician or general offers the grandest promises.'

  Cicero glanced away, peering into the translucent folds of the yellow curtain, as if he could see beyond it all the human refuse of Rome. 'Where do they all come from?' he muttered.

  'They grow up through the pavement,' I said, 'like weeds. Or they drift in from the countryside, refugees from war after war. Think about it: Sulla wins his war against the rebellious Italian allies and pays his soldiers in land. But to acquire that land, the defeated allies must first be uprooted. Where do they end up, except as beggars and slaves in Rome? And all for what? The countryside is devastated by war. The soldiers know nothing of farming; in a month or a year they sell their holdings to the highest bidder and head back to the city. The countryside falls into the grip of vast landholders. Small farmers struggle to compete, are defeated and dispossessed — they find their way to Rome. More and more I've seen it in my own lifetime, the gulf between the rich and poor, the smallness of the one, the vastness of the other. Rome is like a woman of fabulous wealth and beauty, draped in gold and festooned with jewels, her belly big with a foetus named Empire — and infested from head to foot by a million scampering lice.'

  Cicero frowned. 'Hortensius warned me that you would talk politics.'

  'Only because politics is the air we breathe — I inhale a breath, and what else could come out? It may be otherwise in other cities, but not in the Republic, and not in our lifetimes. Call it politics, call it reality. The gangs exist for a reason. No one can get rid of them. Everyone fears them. A man bent on murder would find a way to use them. He'd only be following the example of a successful politician.'

  'You mean—'

  'I don't mean any particular politician. They all use the gangs, or try to.'

  'But you mean Sulla.'

  Cicero spoke the name first. I was surprised. I was impressed. At some point the conversation had slipped out of control. It was quickly turning seditious.

  'Yes,' I said 'If you insist: Sulla.' I looked away. My eyes fell on the yellow curtain. I found myself gazing at it and into it, as if in the vagueness of the shapes beyond I could make out the images of an old nightmare. 'Were you in Rome when the proscriptions began?'

  Cicero nodded.

  'So was I. Then you know what it was like. Each day the new list of the proscribed would be posted in the Forum. And who were always first in line to read the names? No, not anyone who might have been on the list, because they were all cowering at home, or wisely barricaded in the countryside. First in line were the gangs and their leaders — because Sulla didn't care who destroyed his enemies, or his imagined enemies, so long as they were destroyed. Show up with the head of a proscribed man slung over your shoulder, sign a receipt, and receive a bag of silver in exchange. To acquire that head, stop at nothing. Break down the doors of a citizen's house. Beat his children, rape his wife — but leave his valuables in place, for once head and body are parted, the property of a proscribed Roman becomes the property of Sulla.'

 
'Not exactly…'

  'I misspoke, of course. I meant to say that when an enemy of the state is beheaded, his estate is confiscated and becomes property of the state — meaning that it will be auctioned at the earliest convenient date at insanely low prices to Sulla's friends.'

  Even Cicero blanched at this. He concealed his agitation well, but I noticed his eyes shift for the briefest instant from side to side, as if he were wary of spies concealed among the scrolls. ‘You're a man of strong opinions, Gordianus. The heat loosens your tongue. But what has any of this to do with the subject at hand?'

  I had to laugh. 'And what is the subject? I think I've forgotten.'

  'Arranging a murder,' Cicero snapped, sounding for all the world like a teacher of oratory attempting to steer an unruly pupil back to the prescribed topic. 'A murder of purely personal motive.'

  ‘Well, then, I'm only trying to point out how easy it is these days to find a willing assassin. And not only in the Subura. Look on any street corner — yes, even this one. I'd gladly wager that I could leave your door, walk around the block exactly once, and return with a newfound friend more than willing to murder my pleasure-loving, whoremongering, hypothetical father.'

  'You go too far, Gordianus. Had you been trained in rhetoric, you'd know the limits of hyperbole.'

  'I don't exaggerate. The gangs have grown that bold. It's Sulla's fault and no one else's. He made them his personal bounty hunters.

  He unleashed them to run wild across Rome, like packs of wolves. Until the proscriptions officially ended last year, the gangs had almost unlimited power to hunt and kill. So they bring in the head of an innocent man, a man who's hot oh the list — so what? Accidents happen. Add his name to the list of the proscribed. The dead man becomes a retroactive enemy of the state. What matter if that means his family will be disinherited, his children ruined and reduced to paupers, fresh fodder for the gangs? It also means that some friend of Sulla's will acquire a new house in the city.'

  Cicero looked as if a bad tooth were worrying him. He raised his hand to silence me. I raised my own hand to stave him off.

  'I'm only now reaching my point. You see, it wasn't only the rich and powerful who suffered during the proscriptions, and still suffer. Once Pandora's box is opened, no one can close it. Crime becomes habit. The unthinkable becomes commonplace. You don't see it from here, where you live. This street is too narrow, too quiet. No weeds grow through the paving stones that run by your door. Oh, no doubt, in the worst of it, you had a few neighbours dragged from their homes in the middle of the night. Perhaps you have a view of the Forum from the roof and on a clear day you might have counted the new heads added to the pikes.

  '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.

  5

  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 fanner 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.