‘But why incognito?’
‘So as to gather information without drawing attention to Cicero. The disguise is simple. A beard, a change of colouring; that’s all.’
‘But you’re slender again, as thin as when I first met you. It changes the shape of your face.’
‘As it happened, I did fall ill on the way back from Cilicia, early on, and lost quite a bit of weight. I decided to keep myself slim as part of the charade. No more sesame and honey cakes for me, I’m afraid! Altogether, the changes hardly constitute a disguise, but the combined effect suffices. No one seems to recognize me at a distance, or if they do, they decide they must be mistaken, because Cicero made a point of letting everyone know that his beloved Tiro is suffering a prolonged illness back in Greece. People put more faith in what they “know” than in what they see. Except for you, Gordianus. I should have known you’d be the one to find me out.’
‘Since you got back, have you spent the whole time here in the city?’
‘By Hercules, no! I’ve been all over Italy, visiting Caesar’s garrisons, scouting Antony’s movements, checking on Domitius’s situation in Corfinium, relaying messages between Cicero and Pompey . . .’
‘You’ve become Cicero’s secret agent.’
Tiro shrugged. ‘I rehearsed for the role during his term as governor of Cilicia. No one would talk to Tiro, the governor’s secretary. Soscarides the Alexandrian, on the other hand, was everyone’s friend.’
I gazed at him over my wine cup. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Having made up your mind you’d seen me back in Rome, you’d have figured it out for yourself, sooner or later. And you might have jumped to some wrong conclusions.’
‘You could have refused to see me today.’
‘While you shouted my name in the street, and set those two little boys to dog my every step? No, Gordianus, I know how tenacious you can be, like a hound who can’t remember where he buried a bone. Better to point you straight to it than have you digging holes all over the place. Holes are dangerous. They can hurt innocent people. So can jumping to wrong conclusions.’
Our host brought more wine. The second cup was better than the first, but only by a little. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. In the orange haze of the smoky lamps I could make out faces, but only vaguely. The noise would keep anyone from overhearing us.
I thought of something. ‘The guards told me that Cicero writes letters to you all the time, back in Greece.’
‘So he does. Our host in Patrae, who supposedly is nursing me back to health, is in on the scheme. As soon as he receives the letters, he posts back false ones, bearing my name.’
‘So Cicero’s letters to you are blank?’
‘Hardly! They’re full of gossip, quotations from plays, exhortations to get better. You see, he always has the letters done in duplicate. Nothing unusual about that, except that he posts both copies. One goes by regular messenger all the way back to Patrae, to keep up the deception. The other is sent by secret messenger to me, wherever I actually happen to be.’
‘But if the messages are identical, Cicero is merely sending you gossip and get-well wishes.’
‘On the surface, yes. Safer that way.’ He smiled, seemed to mull something over, then produced a pouch from his tunic. From the pouch he pulled out a folded piece of parchment. He called for one of the serving girls to unhook a hanging lamp and bring it to our table. By its sputtering glow, I read the letter. It was dated the first day of the month, some fifteen days previous.
AT FORMIAE, ON THE KALENDS OF FEBRUARIUS.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, to Marcus Tullius Tiro at Patrae:
I remain very anxious about your health. The news that your complaint is not dangerous consoles me, but its lingering nature worries me. The absence of my skilful secretary vexes me, but more vexing is the absence of one dear to me. Yet though I long to see you, I urge you not to stir until you are fully recovered, especially as long as harsh weather prevails. Even in snug houses it is difficult to escape the cold, to say nothing of enduring wet, windy weather at sea. As Euripides says, ‘Cold to tender skin is deadliest foe.’
Caesar continues to make pretence of negotiating with Pompey even as he plays invader. Like Hannibal sending diplomats ahead of his elephants! He says now that he will give up Gaul to Domitius and come to Rome to stand for the consulship in person, as the law requires – but only if Pompey will disband all the loyalist forces recently levied in Italy and depart at once to Spain. Caesar says nothing of giving up the garrisons seized since he crossed the Rubicon.
Our hope is that the Gauls among Caesar’s troops may desert him, for they certainly have reason to hate him after all the pain he inflicted in conquering Gaul. To the north he would have a rebellious Gaul; to the west, Pompey’s six legions in Spain; and to the east, the provinces which Pompey pacified long ago and where the Great One is still held in high esteem. If only the centre can hold long enough to keep Caesar from sacking Rome!
Terentia asks, are you wearing the yellow scarf she gave you when we left for Cilicia? Do all you can to ward off the chill!
I looked up from the letter. ‘His hope that the Gauls will desert Caesar seems far-fetched to me. My son Meto tells me they cling to Caesar with the fervour of religious converts. Otherwise, the letter seems straightforward enough.’
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Words can carry more than one meaning.’
I frowned and scrutinized the text under the flickering light. ‘Are you saying that the letter is in some sort of code?’ It was Tiro, during Cicero’s consulship, who had invented and introduced the use of an abbreviated writing system for recording debates in the Senate. But this was not Tironian shorthand; nor was it ciphered.
Tiro smiled. ‘We all know what the word “blue” means, for instance. But if I say to you ahead of time, “Use blue to mean a legion and red to mean a cohort,” and later you write to me about a blue scarf, then only the two us know what you truly mean.’
‘I see. And if Cicero quotes a line from Euripides . . .’
‘It might mean something very different than if he had cited Ennius. The actual content of the quotation is irrelevant. If he mentions sea travel, it might mean that Pompey has a head cold. “Snug houses” might refer to a particular senator who bears watching. Even the mention of elephants might have a secret meaning.’
I shook my head. ‘You and Cicero make quite a team. What need for swords, when you have words for weapons?’
‘We’ve been together a long time, Gordianus. I helped Cicero write every speech he’s ever given. I’ve transcribed his treatises, edited all his commentaries. I often know what he’ll say next even before he knows. It wasn’t hard for the two of us to concoct an invisible language to use between ourselves. Everyone can see the words. No one but us can see the meaning.’
I gazed into the dim corners of the room. ‘I wonder if Meto and Caesar were ever that close?’
He seemed not to notice the rueful tone in my voice. He tapped his forehead. ‘Perhaps. Great men like Cicero – even Caesar, I suppose – need more than one head to store their intellects.’
‘Freedom hasn’t changed you, Tiro. You still underestimate yourself and overestimate your former master.’
‘We shall see.’
As he refolded the letter and slipped it back into his pouch, I had a sudden realization. ‘It was Cicero, wasn’t it?’
‘What do you mean, Gordianus?’
‘It was Cicero who wrote that confidential report for Pompey, about me and my family.’
Tiro hesitated. ‘What report?’
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘Do I?’
‘Tiro, you can hide behind words, but you can’t hide behind your face, not with me. You do know what I’m talking about.’
‘Perhaps.’
It all makes sense. If Pompey wanted an intelligence report on various men in Rome, and n
eeded it on short notice, and from someone he trusts – who better than Cicero, who’s been seeing phantoms under beds ever since he sniffed out the so-called conspiracy of Catilina. Cicero’s probably kept a dossier on me for years! That remark about my lack of “Roman values”, the dig at me about adopting slaves out of habit – oh, yes, that’s Cicero, looking down his nose at me, as usual. And who better to help Cicero transcribe his confidential report into ciphered code than you, Tiro – his trusted secretary, the inventor of shorthand, the other half of his brain? You were in town that day, weren’t you – the day Numerius died? I caught a glimpse of you in the street, after I left Cicero’s house. Was that Numerius’s last errand for the Great One, to pick up Cicero’s secret loyalty report?’
Tiro looked at me shrewdly. ‘If there ever was such a report . . . the copy Cicero gave Numerius went missing. Pompey was never able to find it, even though he turned Numerius’s clothing inside out and tore open the stitches. He assumed that whoever murdered Numerius must have absconded with it. How did you come to know about it, Gordianus?’
‘I read it. The part about myself, anyway. I found it on Numerius’s body, inside a hidden compartment in the heel of his shoe.’
‘His shoe!’ Tiro laughed. ‘That’s something new. But what did you do with the report? Do you still have it?’
‘I burned it.’
‘But you said you read only the part about yourself. You burned it without having read it all? The cipher wasn’t that complicated.’
‘Pompey arrived at the house unexpectedly. I had no time to replace it in Numerius’s shoe. If Pompey found it in my study . . .’
‘I see. Well, there’s a riddle solved. Cicero and I have been wondering where that report ended up.’
‘When you write to him about this meeting – as I presume you will – I suppose you’ll have to mention the “rosy-coloured dawn”, or whatever passed between the two of you for “secret report went up in flames”.’
‘That would be a particular quotation from Sophocles, actually. Do you think Numerius was murdered because someone knew he was carrying Cicero’s “loyalty list”, as you call it?’
I hesitated. ‘There may have been other reasons why someone wanted him dead.’
‘Such as?’
‘His mother seems to think he had a secret livelihood. Working as a paid spy, perhaps.’
Tiro frowned. ‘For someone other than Pompey?’
‘Yes. She’s ashamed of the possibility, but she told me her suspicions nonetheless. The poor woman is desperate to know the truth about her son’s death.’
Tiro nodded. ‘I met Maecia once. An extraordinary woman. Did she hire you to look into Numerius’s murder?’
‘No, Pompey did. Or rather, the Great One ordered me to investigate.’
‘Ordered you? He’s not our dictator, yet.’
‘Nonetheless, he was very persuasive. He forced my son-in-law into his service, against Davus’s will but following the letter of the law. Pompey was explicit: he won’t return Davus to us unless and until I’m able to name his kinsman’s killer. My daughter is distraught. Davus could end up in Greece, or Spain, or even Egypt. And if Pompey loses patience with me . . .’ I shook my head. ‘Generals assign dangerous duties to men they don’t like. Davus is at his mercy.’
Tiro looked pensively into his wine cup, which was made of cheap yellow earthenware. He ran his finger over the chipped rim. ‘You’ve been very candid with me, Gordianus.’
‘And you’ve been candid with me, Tiro.’
‘The two of us have never been enemies.’
‘We never shall be, I hope.’
‘I’m going to tell you a secret, Gordianus. Something I probably shouldn’t.’ He lowered his voice. I had to strain my ears to hear him above the bursts of laughter and the clatter of thrown dice. ‘Only a few days before his death, I met with Numerius Pompeius. We had messages to exchange, between Pompey and Cicero. We met here in the Salacious Tavern – in this very corner, as a matter of fact. His corner, he called it. I got the impression he transacted quite a bit of business from the very spot where you’re sitting.’
I shivered at the thought of the dead man’s lemur sitting beside me. ‘What sort of business?’
Tiro hesitated. ‘So far as I know, Numerius was loyal to Pompey. I never had reason to believe otherwise. But the last time I met with him, he claimed to know some interesting things. Dangerous things.’
‘Go on, Tiro. You have my attention.’
‘Numerius drank more than he should have. That loosened his tongue. And he was very excited.’
‘About what?’
‘About some documents he’d acquired. “I’m sitting on something enormous,” he told me, smiling like a fox. “Something so big it could get me killed if you breathe a word of this to anyone.” ’
‘What was it, Tiro?’
‘Something to do with a plot to kill Caesar.’
I managed a grim laugh. ‘Concocted by Pompey?’
‘No! A conspiracy inside Caesar’s own camp, involving men close to him. How Numerius could know of such a plot, and what sort of documents he had obtained, I don’t know. But that’s what he told me.’
‘When was this assassination supposed to take place?’
‘It was supposed to have happened when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the moment he invaded the motherland and showed his true intentions. For some reason it didn’t come off. But this was the thing: Numerius seemed to think it still had a chance of happening.’
‘Wishful thinking!’ I scoffed.
‘Maybe. But he claimed to have proof of the plot in the form of documents.’ Tiro leaned closer to me. ‘You wouldn’t know about that, would you, Gordianus?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You say you found Cicero’s report to Pompey in Numerius’s shoe. What else did you find there? Be honest with me, Gordianus. I’ve been honest with you.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I found exactly five pieces of parchment, all of the same colour and quality, all written in the same hand and the same sort of cipher.’
Tiro nodded. ‘That would have been Cicero’s entire report; there were five pages in all. And you found nothing else?’
‘That was all I found in Numerius’s shoe.’
Tiro sat back. After a moment he raised his cup and called for more wine. ‘And a decent cup as well, with a smooth lip!’ he added, in a tone harsh enough to cause the eunuch’s grin to vanish. I suddenly realized why he had been so generous with his information. He had hoped I would give him information in return, about the conspiracy documents. I had disappointed him.
We waited for our wine, then drank in silence. Across the room someone shouted, ‘Gaius Julius!’ Dice clattered, and the gambler jumped from his seat. ‘The Caesar Throw! The Caesar Throw beats all!’ The man did a victory dance and scooped up his winnings.
‘Not a gracious winner,’ I muttered.
‘I wonder if Caesar will be,’ Tiro muttered back.
‘This talk you had with Numerius here in the tavern, about a plot to kill Caesar – that was a few days before he died.’
‘Yes.’
‘But on the day he died, it was the documents from Cicero he was carrying. And wasn’t there . . .’ I had to tread carefully. ‘Wasn’t there some sort of altercation that day, between Cicero and Numerius, just before he left Cicero’s house and came to mine?’
‘Altercation?’
‘Shouting, loud enough to be heard in the street.’
‘Those damned guards! Did they tell you that?’
‘I hate to get them in trouble . . .’
Tiro shrugged. ‘Cicero may have raised his voice to Numerius that day.’
‘Raised his voice? He was practically screaming, according to the guards. Something about a debt owed to Caesar. Was it Numerius who owed money to Caesar . . . or was it Cicero?’
Tiro’s face told me I had touched on something sensitive. ‘Lots of people owe money to Caesar. That
hardly compromises their loyalty to Pompey or the Senate.’
I nodded. ‘It’s only . . . I got the impression from his mother that Numerius might have been blackmailing someone.’
Tiro shifted in his seat. ‘I think I’ve had enough of this wretched wine. After a certain point it gets worse, not better. And this damned cup has more chips than the last!’
‘You were in Rome that day, Tiro, the day Numerius died. Did you happen to . . . follow him . . . after he left Cicero’s house?’
‘I don’t think I like the tone of your voice, Gordianus.’
Did he think I suspected him of the murder? ‘I only wondered, if you did happen to follow Numerius, whether you might have seen anything significant. Someone besides yourself following him, for instance. Or someone to whom he might have passed documents before he entered my house . . .’
Tiro looked at me squarely. ‘Yes, I followed Numerius. Cicero was curious to know where he was headed next. So I followed him along the rim road to your house. I waited so long for him to leave that I finally assumed he’d given me the slip. How was I to know that he was dead inside? And no, I didn’t see him pass anything to anyone, nor did I notice anyone else following him. And before you ask, no, I didn’t see anyone climb over the roof into your garden, either – though I could hardly have seen all four sides of your house at once, could I?’
I smiled.
‘And don’t even think of asking if I climbed over the roof and into your garden!’ He tried to inject some levity into his voice. ‘You saw how carefully I had to climb down that rickety ladder at Cicero’s house!’
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