Not everyone was leaving Rome. Hordes of people were coming into the city from the countryside to seek refuge. Caesar, according to one rumour, was on the outskirts of Rome no more than an hour away, leading an army of savage Gauls to whom he had promised full citizenship – one Gaul to be enrolled for every Roman killed, until the entire male population of the city was replaced by barbarians loyal to Caesar.
Amid so much chaotic movement, my gaze was suddenly arrested by the sight of a formal cordon of magistrates wearing their senatorial togas with purple stripes – the only togas besides my own I had seen in the Forum that day. The entourage strode through the Forum at an unusually quick pace, preceded by twelve lictors in single file, each bearing on his shoulder the ceremonial bundle of rods called the fasces. A dozen lictors meant a consular procession, and sure enough, within the cordon of senators I recognized the two newly installed consuls, Lentulus and Marcellus. They looked grim-jawed but rabbit-eyed, as if a sudden loud noise could send them scurrying for the nearest cubbyhole.
‘I wonder what that’s about,’ I said aloud.
‘They’re leaving the Temple of the Public Lares,’ said Maecia’s messenger. ‘I saw them going in on my way to your house. They were performing a special ceremony. What’s it called? A “rite of safekeeping” – asking the hearth-gods to watch over the city while the two consuls are away.’
‘Only one consul at a time ever leaves Rome,’ I explained, remembering he was simple. ‘One may go off to lead an army, but the other stays to run the city.’
‘Maybe so, but this time they’re both leaving town.’
I took a last, fleeting look at Lentulus and Marcellus, and knew the fellow was right. They had been consuls for less than a month, but this might well be their last formal walk across the Forum. Hence the grim jaws; hence the rabbit eyes and the unseemly pace of the procession. The consuls were abandoning Rome. The state was deserting the people. In a matter of hours – however long it took Lentulus and Marcellus to return to their homes and join in the mad rush to get out of Rome – there would be no government remaining in the city.
Maecia’s house was in the Carinae district on the lower slopes of the Esquilme Hill, where a great deal of real estate had been in the hands of the Pompeius family for generations. Pompey’s private compound was not far away. Maecia’s house was not as grand as that. It faced onto a quiet street and was freshly painted in bright shades of blue and yellow. The black wreath on the yellow door struck a discordant note.
The slave knocked with his foot. Someone inside peered at us through a peephole, then the door swung open. As I stepped across the threshold, I hardened myself for the sight that awaited me.
Just beyond the foyer, the body of Numerius Pompeius lay upon a bier in the atrium, beneath the skylight. His feet pointed towards the door. The smell of the evergreen branches surrounding him mingled with the heady odour from a pan of incense set in a brazier nearby. The overcast morning light surrounded his white toga and waxen flesh with a pale ivory nimbus.
I forced myself to step closer and look at his face. Someone had done a good job of removing the horrible grimace. Embalmers sometimes break a jaw or stuff the cheeks to achieve the proper effect. Numerius seemed almost to be smiling, as if enjoying a pleasant dream. His toga had been arranged to hide the ugly marks around his throat. I saw him in memory nonetheless, and clenched my jaw.
‘Is it so hard to look at him?’
I looked up to see a Roman matron dressed in black. Her hair was undressed and her face without makeup, but the ivory glow from the skylight was kind to her. I thought for a moment that she might be Numerius’s sister, then looked again and decided she must be his mother.
‘I think he looks rather peaceful,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘But the look on your face – I think you must have been remembering how he looked when you found him. I didn’t see him until later, of course, and not . . . not until Pompey made sure he was presentable. That was kind of Pompey, to think of a mother’s feelings, with so much else on his mind. Was Numerius so terrible to look at, when he found him?’
I tried to think of an answer. ‘Your son . . .’ I shook my head. ‘The older I become, the more of death I see, yet the harder it is to look at.’
She nodded. ‘And we shall be seeing so much more of it, in days to come. But you haven’t answered me. I think you know what I’m asking. Did he look as if . . . as if he suffered a great deal? As if his final thoughts were of the horror of what was happening to him?’
The skin prickled across the back of my neck. How could I possibly answer such a question? To avoid her gaze I looked down at Numerius. Why could she not be content to remember him as he looked now, with his eyes closed and a serene expression on his face?
‘I’ve seen the marks on his throat,’ she said quietly. ‘And his hands – they couldn’t quite unclench them. I imagine him with that thing around his neck, reaching up to claw at it. I imagine what he must have felt . . . what thoughts went through his mind. I try not to think of those things, but I can’t stop myself.’ She looked at me steadily. Her eyes were red from weeping, but there were no tears in them now. Her voice was calm. She stood erect, with her hands clasped before her.
‘You needn’t worry that I’ll collapse to the floor sobbing,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe in hair-tearing, especially in front of an outsider. I have no more tears. None I intend for a stranger to see, anyway.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘The men of this house have all run off, except for the slaves. They’ve left me to bury Numerius by myself.’
‘Your husband?’
‘He died two years ago. The men of this house are Numerius’s two younger brothers and his uncle Maecius; my brother moved in to head the household when I became a widow. Now they’ve all run off with Pompey, and left me to handle this. They know I can do it, you see. They saw how strong I was when my husband died, how strong I’ve been every day since then. I never flinch, never shirk. I’m famous for it. I’m the model of a Roman matron. So you see, when I ask you to tell me what it was like for my son at the end – and I ask you because it happened in your house, because you were there, and who else could tell me? – you mustn’t avoid answering out of fear that you’ll reduce me to tears and have a sobbing, hysterical woman on your hands. You must answer as if I were a man.’
She had gradually moved closer to me, so that now she stood very near, her face turned up to mine. Her son’s beauty came from her. Her undressed hair fell back from her face in dark, shining tresses. Her black gown emphasized the creamy flesh of her throat and the gentle flush of her cheeks. Her green eyes gazed up at me with disconcerting intensity. It was impossible to think of her as a man.
‘Surely the Great One told you all you need to know. It would be his duty to you, as the boy’s cousin and your kinsman –’
‘Pompey told me what he thought I needed to know, that Numerius was . . . strangled. That he must have been taken by surprise from behind, off his guard, with no chance to respond. Pompey said that meant it must have been quick. Quick and . . . not so terribly painful.’
Not necessarily, I thought. Did Maecia really want me to confirm her worst fears? To tell her that a man strangled by a garrote, with no chance to escape, might nonetheless struggle against the inevitable for quite some time – an eternity for him, no doubt – before succumbing? Did she truly wish to dwell on what Numerius might have thought and felt in those final panic-stricken moments of life?
‘Pompey . . . told you the truth.’
‘But not the exact details,’ she said. ‘When I pressed him . . . you must know how he is. When the Great One has no more to say, no more will be said. But you were there. You found my son. You saw . . .’
‘I saw a young man lying in my garden, before my statue of Minerva.’
‘And the instrument used to kill him . . .’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t do this.’
‘Tell me, please.’
I sighed. ‘A garrote. A si
mple device that serves no other purpose than to kill.’
‘Pompey says he left it with you, because you might need it for your inquiries. I can’t even imagine what such a thing must look like.’
‘A piece of wood as long as my forearm, but not so thick, with a hole bored near each end; a slightly longer piece of stout rope, pulled through the holes and tied into knots.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Please –’
‘Tell me!’
‘You slip the rope over a man’s head, then twist the piece of wood.’
‘Pompey said it was still around his throat.’
‘There are ways to catch the rope over the wood so that it stays twisted tight and can’t be removed by the victim.’
She touched the creamy flesh of his throat. ‘I saw the marks. Now I understand.’ Her eyes glistened. ‘When you found him, with that thing still around his neck, what did his face look like?’
I lowered my eyes. ‘Just as he looks now.’
‘Yet you won’t look at me as you say that. Can you look at him?’
I tried to turn my gaze to Numerius, but couldn’t.
‘He must have looked quite horrible, to have such an effect on a man of your experience.’
‘He was hard to look at, yes.’
She shut her eyes. Tears glistened in her lashes. She blinked until they vanished. ‘Thank you. I had to know how he died. Now I can turn to asking why, and by whose hand. Pompey says you make your livelihood following such inquiries.’
‘I used to.’
‘Pompey says you’ll help us now.’
‘He gave me no choice.’ Her eyebrows lifted. She had demanded unflinching answers, after all. ‘Did the Great One not explain that he coerced me into accepting this duty?’
‘No. I never ask after his methods. But you will help?’
I thought of Davus and Diana, and Cicatrix in my home. ‘I’ll do what I must to satisfy Pompey.’
Maecia nodded. ‘There’s something . . . something I couldn’t tell Pompey.’
‘A secret? Anything you tell me may end up in the Great One’s ear. I can’t promise you otherwise.’
She shrugged uncertainly. ‘If there’s anything to be found out, Numerius has already suffered the consequences. I’m not even sure there’s anything to it. A mother’s suspicions . . .’
‘What do you mean?
‘Between Numerius and Pompey, everything may not have been as it seemed.’
‘Numerius was the Great One’s favourite, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, Pompey doted on him. And Numerius had always been loyal to Pompey. But in recent months . . .’ She had broached the subject herself, but seemed reluctant to pursue it. ‘In recent months . . . as the situation with Caesar grew more tense, and the debates in the Senate became more acrimonious . . . as it became evident that war might come, and soon – I began to think that Numerius might not be quite so loyal to Pompey as we all thought.’
‘What made you doubt him?’
‘He was mixed up in something. Something he kept secret. There was money . . .’
‘Money and secrets. Are you saying he was a spy?’
‘A spy . . . or something worse.’ Now it was Maecia who could neither look me in the eye nor stand to look at her son.
‘What do you mean?’ I said quietly.
‘I discovered a box in his room. It was full of gold coins – so heavy with gold I couldn’t lift the box. We’re not a rich family and never have been, in spite of our connections to Pompey. I couldn’t imagine where Numerius had come by so much money.’
‘When was this?’
‘About a month ago. I remember, it was the day one of the tribunes – Caesar’s attack dog, Marc Antony – made that horrible speech against Pompey in the Senate, ridiculing his whole career, demanding amnesty for all the political criminals expelled from the city by Pompey’s reforms. “Every virtuous Roman in exile must be returned and given back his property, even if it takes a war to do it!” You see, a woman can follow politics.’
‘More closely than many men, I’m sure. But the gold?’
‘That night, I asked Numerius where it had come from. I caught him by surprise. He was flustered. He wouldn’t tell me. I pressed him. He refused. He spoke . . . harshly to me. That was when I knew something was very wrong. Numerius and I never argued. We were always very close, from the day he was born. And after my husband died . . . it was Numerius who reminded me most of his father, more than his younger brothers. It upset me very much that he had kept something secret from me. It worried me. The city in such a state, and Numerius somehow piling up money and refusing to explain, acting guilty when I questioned him . . .’
‘Guilty?’
‘He said that I mustn’t tell Pompey about the money. So you see, the money couldn’t have come from Pompey. From whom, then? And why must it be a secret from Pompey? I told him I didn’t like it. I said to him, “You’re doing something dangerous, aren’t you?” ’
‘What did he say?’
‘He told me not to worry. He said he knew what he was doing. Blind certainty! Every man on his father’s side of the family is just the same. I’ve yet to meet a Pompeius who doesn’t think he’s indestructible.’
‘Did you have any idea of what he was up to?’
‘Nothing specific. I knew Pompey had made him a confidential courier. Pompey trusted him. Why not? Pompey was in and out of this house all the time while Numerius was growing up; Pompey watched him grow from child to man. Numerius was always his favourite of the younger generation. But these days, everything is twisted and turned upside down. The young have no sense of what it means to be a Roman. Every man looks out for himself, not even putting family first. So much money pours in from the provinces, corrupting everything. Young men become confused . . .’
She took refuge in abstractions; it was easier to talk about Rome’s problems than about her own suspicions. I nodded. ‘When you say that Numerius was a confidential courier for Pompey, you mean that he carried secret information.’
‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. Her eyes glistened. ‘Secret information has value, doesn’t it? Men will pay gold to get it.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said carefully. ‘You say you found a box full of gold. Did you find any other boxes with surprises inside?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If Numerius possessed valuable information – documents – he must have kept them somewhere.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Only the box with the gold.’
‘Have you looked again? I mean, since . . .’ I glanced at the body.
‘I stayed up all last night searching the house, pretending to help my brother and sons pack. If there were any more surprises to be found, I wanted them to be found by me – not by my brother, or by Pompey . . . or by the assassin who killed my son. I found nothing.’ She exhaled wearily. ‘You take it for granted, don’t you – that Numerius was a spy? It doesn’t even shock you.’
‘It’s as you say, we live in a world turned upside down. Men become capable of . . . anything. Even good men.’
‘My son was a spy. There, I’ve said it, for the first time aloud. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. But to say the rest . . . to call him a . . .’
‘A traitor? Perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps he spied for Pompey, not against him.’
‘Then why did he insist the gold be kept secret from Pompey? No, he was doing something behind Pompey’s back. I’m sure of it.’
‘And you think this was the reason he was killed?’
‘Why else? He had no personal enemies.’
‘Unless there were other secrets he kept from you.’
She gave me such a fierce look that a shiver ran up my spine. The atrium suddenly seemed very cold. The light from the overcast sky grew even weaker, dwindling to a soft, uncertain radiance that cast no shadows. Numerius on his bier, bloodless and dressed in white, glowed like a statue carved from solid ivory.
VI
Before the Temple of Vesta an old man gripped my arm. ‘Have you heard? Caesar is at the Colline Gate!’
‘Odd,’ I said. ‘Just moments ago a fishmonger told me Caesar was on the opposite side of town, coming in the Capena Gate at the head of an army of Gauls, carrying Pompey’s head on a stake.’
The old man reeled back in horror. ‘He and his barbarians have surrounded us, then! Jupiter help us!’ He ran off before I could say a word. I had thought to comfort the poor man by mocking his rumour with another that contradicted it; instead he believed both rumours and now was off to tell people the city was doomed.
I continued to make my way across the Forum, alone. Maecia had offered to send her messenger back with me for protection. I had declined. It was one thing to have him lead me to her house, another to take advantage of her generosity. She was without her brother or sons and had only her male slaves to protect her. Who knew how lawless the city might become in the next few hours, especially if rumours of Caesar’s approach were true?
From the Temple of Vesta I could see that the Ramp was crowded, but not jammed. Foot traffic was passing in both directions. Still, my heart beat faster as I entered the confined passage between the House of the Vestals and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. I saw no sign of that morning’s panicked stampede until I took the sharp leftward turn onto the Ramp. I sucked in a breath when I saw blood on the flagstones, smeared by the passage of hundreds of feet. I remembered the screaming woman. Someone had been trampled by the crowd, after all. I quickened my pace and began the ascent.
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