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by Steven Saylor

  ‘This late in the afternoon?’

  ‘Yes, father-in-law. The Great One himself.’

  III

  ‘Pompey? Impossible!’

  ‘Even so, father-in-law, he’s waiting in the foyer, with armed bodyguards.’

  ‘He’s breaking the law, then! Pompey has a standing army. Never mind that his legions are off in Spain – proconsuls in command of armies are not allowed to enter the city walls.’

  Diana spoke up. ‘ “Stop quoting laws to us. We carry swords.” ’ She quoted a phrase which Pompey had made famous when he was in Sicily and some locals objected that he was overstepping their treaties with Rome.

  I took a deep breath. ‘How many men are with him, Davus?’

  ‘Only two in the foyer. The rest of the bodyguards are waiting in the street.’

  I looked at the pieces of parchment on the tripod table. ‘Numerius! Where in Hades did his shoes end up? If Pompey finds him barefoot –’

  ‘Calm yourself, father-in-law. His shoes are back on his feet. What do you think I’ve been doing in the garden all afternoon? I dressed Numerius, put the ring back on his finger, and replaced his moneybag. The body’s just as we found it.’

  ‘What about his dagger?’

  ‘I put the little key back inside and slipped the dagger back into his sheath.’

  ‘And the garrote around his throat?’

  Davus nodded grimly. ‘Still there.’

  I lowered my gaze to the table. ‘Everything in place, then – except these pieces of parchment. I meant to put them back before anyone came for the body. If Pompey discovers they’re missing –’

  Davus frowned. ‘Perhaps, if we can keep Pompey from seeing Numerius . . .’

  ‘Hide the body? I don’t think so, Davus. Pompey must know that Numerius came here; that’s why he’s here himself. If we make some clumsy attempt to hide the body, and Pompey discovers it, how would that look?’

  Diana touched my arm. ‘If you’re worned about Pompey catching you with the documents, Papa, we could burn them. There’s a fire in the brazier. It would take only a moment.’

  I stared at the pieces of parchment. ‘We could burn them, yes. Or stuff them back into Numerius’s shoe, if there’s time. Either way, we’ll never know what else they contain. Perhaps there’s more about your brothers, or someone else we care about . . .’

  ‘Shall we hide them, then, so we can decipher them later?’

  ‘And what if Pompey decides to search the house, and finds them? Gordianus, the “wily pragmatist” of dubious allegiance, caught in possession of secret documents, with one of the Great One’s kinsmen lying dead in his garden . . .’

  Diana crossed her arms. ‘Pompey has no right to come barging in here. He has no right to search a citizen’s house.’ The fire in her eyes reminded me of her mother.

  ‘Are you sure of that, daughter? Ten days ago, the Senate passed the Ultimate Decree. The last time that happened was when Cicero was consul and accused Catilina of plotting insurrection. You were too young at the time to remember –’

  ‘I know what the Ultimate Decree means, Papa. I read the notices in the Forum. The consuls and proconsuls are empowered to use any means necessary to safeguard the state.’

  ‘Any means necessary – and you think Pompey would hesitate to ransack this house? For all practical purposes, Rome is under martial law. The very fact that Pompey dares to come into the city with armed men means that ordinary laws no longer exist. Anything could happen. Anything!’

  Diana’s composure wavered. She crossed her arms more tightly. ‘Knowing all that, Papa, what do you want to do about these documents?’

  I stared at them uncertainly, paralyzed with indecision. I had succeeded in frightening myself more than Diana.

  I heard voices from the front of the house and looked up to see Pompey emerge through the doorway into the garden, accompanied by two bodyguards. All three wore expressions of grim determination. I had waited too long. The situation was out of my hands.

  I watched through the window as they turned sharply right, then left, following the colonnaded walkway around the perimeter of the courtyard, heading for my study. Pompey glanced to his left. He halted so abruptly that one of his men bumped into him. From the look on his face I knew what he had seen. I followed his gaze, but the statue of Minerva blocked my view. All I could see of the body of Numerius was one of the feet, wearing the shoe from which we had taken the documents.

  I looked at Pompey. In the blink of an eye, his face become contorted with anguish. He gave a cry and ran to the body. His two guards drew their swords in alarm.

  Without a word from me, Diana scooped the documents from the tripod together with the parchment with her decipherings, walked to the brazier, and added them to the flames. The moment had passed when Davus or I could have done so; Pompey or one of his guards might have seen us, and remembered later. But who would take any notice of the daughter of the house tending to the brazier?

  I drew a deep breath. So much for the documents; whatever other secrets they might have contained were beyond deciphering now.

  From beyond the statue of Minerva, I heard Pompey let out another wail of anguish. His guards quickly circled the garden, poking their swords into the shrubbery and gazing up at the roof, as Davus had done. One of then tried to draw Pompey away from the body, back towards the foyer. Pompey waved the man off. A moment later more bodyguards flooded into the courtyard, drawn by Pompey’s cry.

  ‘Diana! Davus! Back against the wall!’ I said. ‘Davus, take out your dagger and throw it on the ground. Quickly! If they see you draw it out, they’re liable to swarm all over you.’

  Davus’s dagger was on the floor and his hands were pressed flat to the wall even before I finished speaking. In the next instant, three of Pompey’s men were in the room, eyes wide and swords drawn.

  From the garden, Pompey bellowed my name. ‘Gordianus!’

  I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders. I turned to the brazier and pretended to warm my hands while I gazed into the flames to make sure that only ashes remained, then I turned back towards the door.

  I looked the nearest guard in the eye. He was outfitted in full battle gear, including a helmet that hid most of his face. ‘Let me by,’ I said. ‘That’s my name the Great One is calling.’

  The man stared back at me for a long moment, then grunted. The three guards drew apart just enough to let me pass through the doorway. One of them deliberately breathed in my face, making sure I caught the stench of garlic on his breath. Gladiators and bodyguards eat whole heads of garlic raw, claiming it gives them strength. Another made sure that my arm slid against the flat edge of his sword. I knew by such behaviour that they were Pompey’s private slaves, not regular legionaries; some slaves like to take liberties when circumstances put a citizen at a disadvantage. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Diana and Davus alone in the room with three such creatures.

  I took a breath and walked to the centre of the garden. Pompey heard the sound of gravel crunching under my feet and looked up. His plump, round face was made for laughter or casting sardonic glances; expressing grief, his features seemed all askew. I would scarcely have recognized him.

  He loosened his embrace of the body, gazed at his kinsman’s face for a moment, then looked back at me. ‘What happened, Gordianus? Who did this?’

  ‘I thought you might have an answer to that question, Great One.’

  ‘Don’t answer me in riddles, Finder!’ Pompey released the body and got to his feet.

  ‘You can see for yourself, Great One. He was strangled here in my garden. You see the garrote still around his throat. I was about to set out for your villa, to bring you the news myself –’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘No one in the household saw or heard anything. I left Numerius alone for a moment, to go into my study. And then . . .’

  Pompey clutched a fistful of air and shook his head. ‘He’s the first, then. The first to die! How ma
ny more? Damn Caesar!’ He glared at me. ‘Do you have no explanation for this, Finder? No explanation at all? How could it have happened, here in the middle of your house, without anyone knowing? Am I to believe Caesar can send down harpies from the sky to kill his enemies?’

  I looked him straight in the eye. I swallowed hard. ‘Great One, you’ve brought armed men into my house.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Great One, I must ask you, first of all, to call off your bodyguards. There are no assassins lurking in my house –’

  ‘How can you assure me of that, if you never saw the man who did this?’

  ‘At least call your men out of my study. They have no reason to stand watch over my daughter and son-in-law. Please, Great One. A crime has occurred here, yes, but even so, I ask you to respect the sanctity of a citizen’s house.’

  Pompey gave me such a look that for a long, dreadful moment I expected the worst. There were at least ten bodyguards in the garden. There might be more, elsewhere in the house. How long would it take them to ransack the place and kill everyone in it? Of course, they wouldn’t destroy everything or kill everyone, only Davus and me. The things of value and the slaves would be confiscated. As for Bethesda and Diana . . . I couldn’t bear to follow the thought to its conclusion.

  I looked into Pompey’s eyes. In his youth he had been extraordinarily handsome – a second Alexander, people called him, just as brilliant and just as beautiful, a commander touched by the gods. With age he had lost his beauty, as his bland features receded amid the growing fleshiness of his face. Some said he had lost his brilliance as well; his lack of foresight and unwillingness to compromise had allowed the current crisis, with Caesar defying the Senate and marching on Rome while Pompey responded with indecision and uncertainty. Pompey was a man with his back against a wall, and at that moment he was in my house, furious with grief, accompanied by a large bodyguard of trained killers.

  I looked at him steadily. I managed not to flinch. At last the moment passed. Pompey took a breath. So did I.

  ‘You have nerve, Finder.’

  ‘I have rights, Great One. I’m a citizen. This is my home.’

  ‘And this is my kinsman.’ Pompey lowered his gaze, then stiffened his jaw and looked at the guard in the doorway to my study. ‘You, there! Call your fellows out of there. All of you, back into the garden.’

  ‘But Great One, there’s a man in here with a dagger at his feet.’

  ‘And a very pretty girl in his arms,’ added a sniggering voice from inside.

  ‘You idiots! Numerius wasn’t killed with a dagger. That much is obvious. Come out of there and leave the Finder’s family alone.’ Pompey let out a sigh, and in that moment it seemed to me that the worst possible outcome had been averted.

  ‘Thank you, Great One.’

  He made a face, as if displeased at his own restraint. ‘You can show your gratitude by offering me a drink.’

  ‘Of course. Diana, find Mopsus. Have him bring wine.’ She looked at Davus, then at me, then went into the house. ‘You, too, Davus,’ I said. ‘Into the house.’

  ‘But father-in-law, don’t you want me to stay and explain –’

  ‘No,’ I said, grinding my teeth, ‘I want you to go with Diana. Look after Bethesda and Aulus.’

  ‘If he knows something, then he must stay!’ snapped Pompey. He looked Davus up and down. ‘What do you know about this?’

  I watched the colour dram from Davus’s face. Pompey spoke to him in a tone suitable for addressing a slave, and Davus responded subserviently out of ancient habit. He lowered his eyes. ‘It’s as my father-in-law says, Great One. There was no scream, no cry. No one heard footsteps, or anything else. The assassin came and went in silence. The first I knew of it was when my father-in-law gave a yell and I came running.’

  Pompey looked at me. ‘How did you come to find him?’

  ‘As I said, I left him alone here in the garden while I stepped into my study for a moment –’

  ‘Only a moment?’

  I shrugged and gazed down at the dead man.

  ‘What was he doing here? Why did he come to visit you?’ asked Pompey.

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you might be able to answer that question, Great One. Did you not send him to me?’

  ‘I sent him into the city to deliver some messages, yes. But not to you.’

  ‘Then why did you come here, if not to find him?’

  Pompey scowled. ‘Where is that wine?’

  The slave boys appeared, Androcles bearing cups and Mopsus a copper flask. Casting furtive wideeyed glances at the corpse, they made a mess of pouring the wine. I joined Pompey in his first cup, but he drained his second cup alone, downing it without relish as if it were medicine. He wiped his mouth, handed his cup back to Androcles and dismissed the boys with a curt wave of his hand. They ran back into the house.

  ‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘I came here straight from Cicero’s house up the road. I sent Numerius to Cicero with a message earlier today. According to Cicero, Numerius’s next stop was your house. I didn’t expect to still find him here. I only thought that you might know where he’d gone next. What business did he have with you, Finder?’

  I shook my head. ‘Whatever it was, he’s silenced forever now.’

  ‘And how in Hades did anyone get in and out of this garden? Do you think a man could have come down from the roof and then retreated the same way? I don’t see how it’s possible. The roof is above any man’s reach, and the columns are too recessed to be of any use for climbing onto the roof. Not even an African ape could have done it!’

  ‘But two men might have,’ noted Davus. ‘One to boost the other, and then to be hoisted up in turn.’

  ‘Davus is right,’ I said. ‘Or one man alone could have done it, with a sufficient length of rope.’

  Pompey’s scowl intensified. ‘But who? And how did they know to find him here?’

  ‘I’m sure, Great One, if you make inquiries –’

  ‘I’ve no time for that. I’m leaving Rome tonight.’

  ‘Leaving?’

  ‘I’m heading south before dawn. So will anyone else with a shred of sense, or an iota of loyalty to the Senate. Is it possible that you haven’t heard the latest reports? Do you never come out of that study of yours?’

  ‘As seldom as possible these days.’

  He flashed me an angry look that held a glimmer of envy. ‘You do know that six days ago Caesar crossed the Rubicon River into Italy with his troops, and occupied Ariminum. Since then he’s taken Pisaurum and Ancona, and sent Marc Antony to take Arretium. He moves like a whirlwind! Now there’s word that both Antony and Caesar are marching on Rome, closing on us like a vice. The city is defenceless. The closest loyal legion is down in Capua. If rumours are true, Caesar could be here in a matter of days, perhaps even hours.’

  ‘Rumours, you say. Perhaps they’re only that.’

  Pompey looked at me suspiciously. ‘What do you know about it, holed up here in your garden? You have a son with Caesar, don’t you? That boy who used to be one of Crassus’s slaves, and claims to have fought with Catilina. He sleeps in the same tent with Caesar, I’m told, and helps him write those pompous, self-serving memoirs. What sort of contact does he keep with you, Gordianus?’

  ‘My son Meto is his own man, Great One.’

  ‘He’s Caesar’s man! And whose man are you, Finder?’

  ‘It took many years and a great many Romans to conquer Gaul, Great One. Many a citizen has a relative who’s served in Caesar’s legions. That hardly makes us all partisans of Caesar. Look at Cicero – his brother Quintus is one of Caesar’s officers, and his protégé Marcus Caelius has run off to join Caesar. Even so, no one would ever call Cicero a Caesarian.’ I refrained from pointing out that Pompey himself had been married to Caesar’s daughter, and it was only after Julia’s death that their differences became irreconcilable. ‘Great One, I served you loyally enough when you hired me to investigate the murder of Clodius, did I
not?’

  ‘Because I paid you, and because in that instance there was no choice to be made between Caesar and me. That’s not loyalty! Loyalty comes from slaves and soldiers – from beatings, bloodshed and battle. Those are the only ties that truly bind men together. “The most honest man in Rome”, Cicero called you once. No wonder no one trusts you!’

  Pompey turned from me in disgust and knelt beside his kinsman. He observed the body more closely than he had in his initial shock. ‘Here’s his moneybag, with coins in it – the killer was no thief. And here’s his dagger, still in its sheath. He didn’t even have time to draw it. It must be as you said – the killer came silently and took him from behind. He never saw the face of the man who murdered him!’

  In truth, Numerius had been without his dagger when he died; Davus had taken it from him, and replaced it after we searched the body. I could explain none of this to Pompey. He was right not to trust me.

  Pompey touched the dead man’s face with his fingertips. He gritted his teeth, fighting back his grief. ‘Someone must have followed him here when he left Cicero’s house. Perhaps they followed him from the moment he left my villa this morning, waiting for the chance to strike. But who? Someone from Caesar’s camp? Or one of my own men? If there’s a traitor in my household . . .’

  He lifted his angry gaze to the statue of Minerva looming over us. The goddess of wisdom was portrayed in battle gear, ready for war, an upright spear in one hand and a shield in the other, with a crested helmet on her head. An owl perched on her shoulder. A snake coiled at her feet. She had been toppled and broken in two during the Clodian riots. I had spent a small fortune to have the bronze repaired and freshly painted. The colours were so lifelike that the virgin goddess seemed almost to breathe. She looked directly at us, and yet her gaze remained aloof, oblivious of the tragedy at her feet.

  ‘You!’ Pompey rose to his feet and shook his fist. ‘How could you allow such a thing to happen, right before you? Caesar claims Venus for an ancestor, but you should be on my side!’

  There was a rustle among the bodyguards, made uneasy by their master’s impiety.