Rubicon

by Steven Saylor

  I tried to explain to Davus how a cipher worked. Thanks to Diana, he had mastered the basic idea that letters could represent sounds and collections of letters could represent words, but his hold on the alphabet was tenuous. As I explained how letters could be shuffled arbitrarily about, then unshuffled, his face registered mounting bewilderment.

  ‘But I thought the whole point of letters was that they didn’t change, that they always stood for the same thing.’

  ‘Yes. Well . . .’ I tried to think of a metaphor. ‘Imagine the letters all taking on disguises. Take your name: the D might masquerade as an M, the A as a T, and so on, and altogether you’d have five letters that didn’t look like any sort of word at all. But figure a way to see through those disguises, and you can unmask the whole word.’ I smiled, thinking this was rather clever, but the look on Davus’s face was now of confusion verging on panic.

  ‘If only Meto were here,’ I muttered. The younger of my two adopted sons had turned out to have a genius for letters. His natural gifts had served him well in Caesar’s ranks. He had become the general’s literary adjutant. To hear Meto tell it, he had done much of the actual writing of Caesar’s account of the Gallic Wars, which everyone in Rome had been reading for the last year. No one was more brilliant than Meto at cracking codes, anagrams and ciphers.

  But Meto was not in Rome – not yet, anyway, though expectations of Caesar’s imminent arrival continued to mount day by day, causing jubilation in some quarters, terror in others.

  ‘There are rules about solving ciphers,’ I muttered aloud, trying to remember the simple tricks that Meto had taught me. ‘ “A cipher is simply a puzzle, solving a puzzle is merely a game, and –” ’

  ‘ “And all games have rules, which any fool can follow.” ’

  I looked up and saw my daughter standing in the doorway.

  ‘Diana! I told you to stay in the front of the house. What if little Aulus –’

  ‘Mother is watching him. She’ll keep him out of the garden. You know how superstitious she is about dead bodies.’ Diana clicked her tongue. ‘That poor fellow looks awful!’

  ‘I wanted to spare you the sight.’

  ‘Papa, I’ve seen dead bodies before.’

  ‘But not . . .’

  ‘Not strangled like that, no. Though I have seen a garrote before. It looks a lot like the one used to murder Titus Trebonius a few years ago, the fellow you proved was strangled by his wife. You kept the garrote as a souvenir, remember? Mother threatened to use it on Davus if he ever displeased me.’

  ‘She was joking, I think. Such weapons are as common as daggers these days,’ I said.

  ‘Davus, are you doing a good job of helping Papa?’ Diana moved to her husband’s side and laid a slender arm over his brawny shoulders, then touched her lips to his forehead. Davus grinned. A strand of Diana’s long black hair fell across his face, tickling his nose.

  I cleared my throat. ‘The problem appears to be a cipher. Davus and I have practically solved it already. Run along, Diana, back to your mother.’

  ‘Isis and Osiris, Papa! How can you possibly read such fine writing?’ She squinted at the parchment.

  ‘Contrary to prevailing opinion in this household, I am neither deaf nor blind,’ I said. ‘And it is unseemly for girls to speak impiously in front of their fathers, even if the deities invoked are Egyptian.’ A passion for all things Egyptian was Diana’s latest rage. She called it a homage to her mother’s origins. I called it an affectation.

  ‘I’m not a girl, Papa. I’m twenty years old, married, and a mother.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ I looked sidelong at Davus, who was completely absorbed in blowing wisps of his wife’s shimmering black hair away from his nose.

  ‘If solving a cipher is the problem, Papa, then let me help you. Davus can go and stand watch in the garden, to make sure no one else comes over the rooftop.’

  Davus brightened at this suggestion. I nodded. He strode off at once. ‘You, too, Diana,’ I said. ‘Off with you!’ Instead, she took Davus’s place in the chair across from me. I sighed.

  ‘It needs to be done quickly,’ I said. ‘The dead fellow out there is a relative of Pompey’s. For all I know, Pompey may have already sent someone looking for him.’

  ‘Where did these pieces of parchment come from?’

  ‘They were hidden in a secret compartment in his shoe.’

  Diana raised an eyebrow. ‘This fellow was one of Pompey’s spies?’

  I hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Why did he come here? Why did he want to see you, Papa?’

  I shrugged. ‘We hardly spoke before I left him alone for a moment.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Davus came into the garden, found his body, and raised the alarm.’

  Diana eagerly reached for a sheet of parchment. ‘If we look for vowels, and common consonant combinations –’

  ‘And common words, and case endings.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Or likely words,’ I added.

  ‘Likely?’

  ‘Words likely to occur in a document carried by Pompey’s spy. Such as . . . such as “Pompey,” for example. Or more likely, “Magnus” – Great One.’

  Diana nodded. ‘Or . . . “Gordianus,” perhaps?’ She looked at me askance.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  Diana fetched two styluses and two wax tablets for scribbling notes. We studied our separate pieces of parchment in silence. Out in the garden, Davus paced back and forth in the sunlight, whistling tunelessly and scanning the roof. He pulled Numerius’s dagger from its scabbard and cleaned his fingernails. From the front of the house came more screams from Aulus, and then the sound of Bethesda crooning an Egyptian lullaby.

  ‘I think . . .’

  ‘Yes, Diana?’

  ‘I think I may have found “Magnus.” I see the same sequence of letters three times on this piece. Look, there it is on your piece, too.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There: λVΨCΣQ.’

  ‘So it is. By Hercules, these letters are small! If you’re right, that gives us λ for M, V for A . . .’

  ‘Ψ for G . . .’

  We scribbled on our wax tablets. Diana scanned her piece of parchment, put it down and scanned two others. ‘Papa, may I see your piece?’

  I handed it to her. Her eyes moved down the page, then stopped. She sucked in a breath.

  ‘What is it, daughter?’

  ‘Look, there!’ She pointed to a group of letters. They began with Ψ and ended with CΣQ – or, according to our cipher, began with a G and ended with NUS – and had five letters between.

  ‘ “Gordianus,” ’ she whispered.

  My heart pounded in my chest. ‘Maybe. Forget the other pieces for now. Let’s work together on this one.’

  We concentrated on the section of text immediately following my name. It was Diana who spotted the large numbers strewn throughout; rather than quantities, they appeared to be years, following Varro’s fashionable new system of dating everything from the founding of Rome. The cipher letters for D and I (presumed already from GORDIANUS) turned out to stand as well for the numerals D (five hundred) and I (one). Deciphering the years also gave us the letters for C, L, X, and V.

  Using our growing list of deciphered letters, we quickly spotted familiar names embedded in the text. There was METO, and CAESAR . . . ECO (my other son) . . . CICERO . . . even BETHESDA and DIANA, who seemed more amused than alarmed at seeing her name in a dead man’s document. As we made further progress, the most devious feature of the text became obvious: not only did the cipher mix Greek and Latin letters, but the text alternated between phrases in both languages, with a patchwork of truncated and irregular grammar. My Greek had grown rusty in recent years. Fortunately, Diana’s Egyptomania had included brushing up on the language of the Ptolemies.

  With her sharper eyes and quicker stylus, Diana drew ahead of me. Eventually, despite some remaining gaps here and there, she managed to make a
hasty translation of the entire passage into Latin, scribbling it out on a long piece of blank parchment. When she was done, I asked her to read it aloud.

  ‘ “Subject: Gordianus, called the Finder. Loyalty to the Great One: Questionable.” ’

  ‘A loyalty report!’ I shook my head. ‘All these bits of parchment must constitute some sort of secret dossier on various men in Rome – someone’s evaluation of where they each might stand in the event of a –’

  ‘In the war that’s coming between Pompey and Caesar?’ How matter-of-factly Diana was able to say the words I choked on; she had no experience of civil war, no memories of Rome besieged and conquered, of enemy lists and seized property and heads on stakes in the Forum.

  Diana read on. ‘ “Plebeian. Family origins obscure. No known military service. Age about sixty.” Then there’s a sort of résumé, a chronological list of highlights from your illustrious career.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘ “Little known of activities prior to Year of Rome 674, when he gathered information for Cicero for the parricide trial of Sextus Roscius. Earned gratitude of Cicero (his first major defence), enmity of the dictator Sulla. Numerous episodes of employment by Cicero and others in subsequent years, often related to murder trials. Travel to Spain and Sicily.

  ‘ “Year of Rome 681: Vestal Virgins Fabia and Licinia accused of intercourse with Catilina and Crassus, respectively. Gordianus thought to have some hand in the defence, but his role obscure.

  ‘ “Year of Rome 682: Employed by Crassus (on the eve of his command against Spartacus) to investigate the murder of a relative in Baiae. Again, his role obscure. His relations with Crassus strained thereafter.

  ‘ “Year of Rome 684: Birth of his brilliant and beautiful daughter, Diana . . .” ’

  ‘That’s not in there!’

  ‘No. Clearly, whoever compiled this little review doesn’t know everything. Actually, the next entry reads: “Year of Rome 690: Death of his patrician patron Lucius Claudius. Inherited Etruscan farm and moved out of Rome.

  ‘ “Year of Rome 691: Played murky role in conspiracy of Catilina. Spied on Catilina for Cicero, or vice versa, or both? Relations with Cicero strained thereafter. Traded Etruscan farm for his current residence on the Palatine Hill. Assumed pretence of respectability.” ’

  ‘Pretence? Don’t read that part to your mother! Go on.’

  ‘ “Year of Rome 698: Assisted Clodia in prosecution of Marcus Caelius for the murder of the philosopher Dio.” ’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘ “Further estrangement from Cicero (defending Caelius).” ’

  I grunted. ‘The less said about that case . . .’

  ‘. . . the better,’ concluded Diana, who shared with me a secret about the untimely death of Dio. She cleared her throat. ‘ “Year of Rome 702: Employed by the Great One to investigate murder of Clodius on the Appian Way. Service satisfactory.” ’

  ‘Satisfactory! Is that all, after what this family suffered to find the truth for Pompey?’

  ‘I’m sure Pompey would say we were well rewarded.’ Diana cast a wistful glance towards the garden. Davus smiled back at her and waved.

  ‘And the less said about that the better, as well,’ I muttered. ‘Are those all the entries?’

  ‘There’s one more, dated last month. “December, Year of Rome 704: No known activity for either side in recent . . .” ’ She frowned and showed me her text. ‘It’s a Greek word I couldn’t translate.’

  I squinted. ‘That’s a nautical term. It means “manoeuvring.” ’

  ‘Manoeuvring?’

  ‘In the sense of two ships getting into position so as to engage in battle.’

  ‘Oh. Well, then: “No known activity for either side in recent manoeuvring between Pompey and Caesar.” ’

  ‘Is that it? My whole career, reduced to a few arbitrary episodes? I don’t think I care for this business of being epitomized by some stranger.’

  ‘There is a bit more, about the family.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘ “Wife: A former slave, acquired in Alexandria, named Bethesda. Of no political significance.

  ‘ “One natural offspring, a daughter, Gordiana, addressed as Diana, age about twenty, married to a manumitted slave, one Davus.

  ‘ “Two sons. Eco, adopted as a street urchin, age about forty, married to a daughter of the Menenius family. No military career. Resides in old family house on Esquiline Hill. Sometimes assists his father. Political connections resemble his father’s – wide-ranging but fluid and uncertain. Loyalty to the Great One: Questionable.” ’

  She glanced up from her text. ‘The next part was also underlined: “Of particular interest: second son, Meto, also adopted. Originally a slave owned by Marcus Crassus. Age about thirty. Military career from early age. Rumoured to have fought for Catilina at battle of Pistoria. Briefly served under Pompey in Year of Rome 692. Since 693, with Caesar. Numerous episodes of bravery in Gaul. Worked his way up through ranks to join inner circle. Notable for literary skills: handles correspondence, helped to edit Caesar’s account of Gallic campaigns. Firmly in Caesar’s camp – some say in Caesar’s . . .” ’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes? Go on.’

  ‘ “Some say in Caesar’s bed, as well.” ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what it says, Papa. More or less; the original was a bit more uncouth. That part was in Greek, but I knew all the words.’

  ‘Outrageous!’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Meto loves Caesar, of course; you’d have to love a man to risk your life for him on any given day. Hero worship – it’s a cult among military men. I’ve never understood it, myself. But that’s not the same as . . .’

  Diana shrugged. ‘Meto’s never said anything explicit to me about himself and Caesar, but even so, just from the way he talks about their relationship, I’ve always assumed there must be . . .’

  ‘Assumed what?’

  ‘Papa, there’s no need to raise your voice.’

  ‘Well! It appears you’re not the only one who’s been making wild assumptions. In a confidential report intended for Pompey’s eyes, no less! Caesar’s enemies have been spreading this kind of tale about him for thirty years, ever since he befriended King Nicomedes. You can still hear him called the Queen of Bithynia in the Forum. But how dare they draw Meto into their rumourmongering? Don’t roll your eyes, Diana! You seem to think I’m making something out of nothing.’

  ‘I think there’s no need to shout, Papa.’

  ‘Yes. Well . . .’

  She laid her hand on mine. ‘We’re all worried about Meto, Papa. About his being so close to Caesar . . . and what’s going to happen next. Only the gods know how it will all turn out.’

  I nodded. The room seemed suddenly very quiet. The sunlight from the garden was already softening; days are short in Januarius. My temples began to throb. We had been working for hours. The only break had been to stoke the fire in the brazier, to ward off the growing chill. The brazier had been burning since first light. The room was smoky.

  I glanced at Diana’s text and saw that she had more left to read. ‘Go on,’ I said quietly. ‘What else?’

  ‘ “Few slaves in the household. Among them: two boys, brothers acquired from the widow of Clodius shortly after his death, originally stableboys at his villa on the Appian Way. Mopsus (older) and Androcles (younger). Often act as messengers for Gordianus. Little jugs have big handles.” ’ Diana frowned. ‘I’m sure that’s what it says.’

  ‘It’s a quotation from a play by Ennius,’ I said. ‘It means that little boys have big ears – implying that Mopsus and Androcles might make useful informers. Go on.’

  ‘There’s a bit more about Mopsus and Androcles: “Given Gordianus’s inclination to adopt orphans and slaves, will he end up with two more sons?” ’ She raised an eyebrow and waited for a comment.

  ‘Go on,’ I finally said. ‘What else?’

  ‘A summary: “Subject possesses no
political power and little wealth, yet is held in high regard by many who do. Once called by Cicero ‘the most honest man in Rome’, but where does his reputation for integrity come from? By never firmly taking sides in any dangerous controversy, he manages to appear above the fray and so remains able to move freely back and forth between sides. Even when employed by one side, he maintains an appearance of independence and neutrality, committed to finding ‘truth’ rather than achieving a partisan agenda. He combines the skills of the investigator with those of the diplomat. This could be his chief value in a crisis: as a go-between trusted by both sides.

  ‘ “On the other hand, some see him as a wily pragmatist, exploiting the trust of powerful men without giving them full allegiance. What sort of man hires out his integrity, case by case?

  ‘ “In the event of an unprecedented crisis, where will his true allegiance lie? He has a fine house on the Palatine and has managed to stay out of debt (another factor in his independence); it is hard to see how revolution or civil war could be to his interest. On the other hand, his unconventional family of adoptees and manumitted slaves indicates a man with little concern for traditional Roman values. Most troublesome is his connection to Caesar through his son Meto. This, more than anything else, may act to pull him into Caesar’s orbit.

  ‘ “Conclusion: Gordianus may be of use to the Great One, but should be carefully watched.” ’

  Diana looked up. ‘That’s all of it.’

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘ “A wily pragmatist?” ’ That stung as sharply as the gossip about Meto.

  ‘Actually, I think it’s flattering, on the whole,’ said Diana. ‘It makes you out to be a rather subtle fellow.’

  ‘Subtle fellows lose their heads in times like these.’

  ‘Then Davus will be safe, at least.’ She looked at me with a straight face, then laughed. I managed a smile. She was only trying to cheer me up, I knew; but she really had no idea of the enormity of the danger that was looming. I suddenly felt a great tenderness for her. I touched her hair.

  There was some sort of commotion from the front of the house. Davus left the garden. A moment later he was back. He strode into my study. ‘Another visitor,’ he said. His face was pale.