Catilina's riddle rsr-3

by Steven Saylor

  Claudia, who before had shrieked with alarm, now shrieked with laughter, as did not a few of the women gathered around, and there was plentiful laughter in the lower registers as well. Manius Claudius turned so red that I thought he might burst open like the sack at his feet, and his whole body seemed to twitch, as if he desperately wanted to bolt from the garden but was rooted to the spot. He fixed me with a smouldering stare and at last managed to raise his arm and make an inchoate gesture in the air, accompanied by a sputtering, incoherent curse. He spun around and might have exited with some of his dignity intact had not his stamping foot landed on a honeyed date. The slippery misstep sent him sprawling quite as effectively as if I had planted the kick I longed to deliver on his backside. He did not fall — not quite — but his awkward, bumbling withdrawal left him without a foot to stand on, metaphorically at least. He did not grace us with another look at his face, but I could see that his ears were bright scarlet. I could easily imagine streams of smoke pouring from his nostrils.

  I began to laugh, so hard that when Eco and Meto rushed to my side, thinking I was choking, it was impossible for me to explain what had transpired. I laughed so hard I wept, and all the bitterness and anger than Manius had stirred up inside me became as sweet as honey.

  When at last I managed to catch my breath and wipe the tears from my eyes, I saw that Claudia had vanished, with less fanfare than her cousin but probably with no less embarrassment. Poor Claudia, I thought, you meant well, but all your efforts to make peace between our families have come to naught.

  XVIII

  I was not allowed either to brood or gloat over the incident with Manius Claudius, for the party continued and the demands on the paterfamilias went on. I greeted, charmed, said farewells. Eventually, after a few embarrassing lapses, I insisted that Eco stay close by my side, as if I were a politician in the Forum and he were my nomenclator, whispering in my ear the names I couldn't quite remember. The number of people one has met after living continuously for more than twenty years in a city like Rome is staggering. A profession such as mine had brought me into intimate contact with an ever-expanding circle of well-connected clients, and Eco had carried on my work. The remarkable thing was how respectable we seemed to have become. I could remember a time when orators and advocates would never deign to enter my house or invite me into theirs; they dealt with me through their slaves instead. But perseverance and prosperity lend credibility, and over the years I suppose any line of endeavour can become respectable so long as it succeeds and survives, and especially if it brings profit to the right class of people.

  My feet began to ache from so much standing. I ate far too much for the middle of a hot summer day, and I drank too much wine (because my throat was dry from so much talking — at least that was my excuse). And yet, altogether, I was elated. I felt light as a feather. I was at the party, and yet I also observed the party, detached and amused, like a visitor from Olympus. It was the wine, I told myself or the succession of flattering accolades bestowed on myself and on Meto, or the lingering glow of Manius Claudius's humiliation — it was these things, I told myself, that accounted for my mood, which became happier and happier as the day progressed. It had nothing to do with the simple fact of being back in Rome, of feeling myself at the very centre of the greatest concentration of humanity in the world, of sensing all around me the power and passion of those who live, love, connive, suffer, triumph, and the every day in such a mad place. I no longer loved Rome, I told myself; we had been lovers once, but that was over now, once and for all. I might return to her from time to time, but merely as a visitor, free of the torrid, squalid, jubilant memory of our tumultuous marriage. I loved Rome no longer, I told myself, and almost believed it.

  No moment of all the moments in that day was more purely joyous than the one in which a certain booming laugh struck my ears and stirred my memory to instant recognition. I looked up from whatever superficial conversation I was engaged in and searched for the source of the laughter, but in the crowd I could not discern the face I looked for. Then I heard the same laugh close at hand and turned to see Meto being squeezed in the bearish grip of a broadly smiling, stoutly muscled man with a thick beard all black and white like variegated marble. Behind the bearish man stood another figure in a toga, a strikingly handsome younger man with an enigmatic smile on his lips, like a Greek statue in Roman dress.

  At last the man released Meto, who caught his breath and dazedly tried to straighten the folds of his toga. Meto felt my gaze and returned it with a strange expression on his face. 'Papa,' he called, with an odd quaver in his voice, 'look who's here!'

  'As usual, I heard you before I saw you!' I said, laughing and striding towards the newcomer. I braced myself for the ironlike hug of my old friend Marcus Mummius.

  It was Mummius who had defied the will of Marcus Crassus, sought out Meto in Sicily and saved him from a life of slavery chasing after crows in a dusty field. Mummius had delivered Meto to this house on the very day that Diana was born. In my heart he would always have a special place.

  Meto had not been the only one of Crassus's slaves whom Mummius had made a special endeavour to save. Behind him now stood Apollonius, whom Crassus had sold to a cruel Egyptian master. Mummius had sailed across the inland sea to rescue the slave, had brought him back to Rome and had ultimately set him free. Apollonius remained in Mummius's household as his freedman and constant companion. How Crassus had despised the passion that had driven his lieutenant to care so deeply for the fate of a mere slave! That discord had been the wedge that drove Crassus and Mummius further and further apart until Mummius at last switched his allegiance to Pompey — which was just as well, for only in the service of Pompey, scourge of the sea pirates and conqueror of the East, could a military man like Mummius exercise his true genius.

  'Marcus!' I cried. 'And Apollonius! How good to see you both, especially on this of all days. But what a surprise! I should have thought you were still in the East with Pompey.'

  'What, with no more fighting to be done?' said Mummius. 'Mithridates is finished, the lesser kingdoms have been brought under Roman control — there's nothing left to do but make political settlements. Playing Jupiter, I call it, moving petty princes about like knucklebones on a playing board. Pompey loves that sort of work, but you know I haven't the patience for it. It's taking an army into battle that I'm good at, though I think I must be getting too old and slow to be a soldier much longer, unless that's how I want to die. Here, just look at this!'

  Without hesitation he hoisted up his purple-bordered senator's toga to show his burly thighs. Since the wearing of a toga entails the absence of any sort of underclothes that might constrict the private parts — a man could hardly tend to the call of nature with his left arm draped, all the folds of a toga to contend with, and a loincloth as well — Mummius was dangerously near to exposing himself. As I recalled, there was quite a bit of him to be exposed. I looked about a little nervously and gestured with my hands as if I were putting out a fire, but one might as well try to stop a bear from scratching its stomach as try to stop Marcus Mummius from showing off a war wound. Fortunately the only woman who happened to be passing by was Bethesda, heading towards the kitchen with an officious air. At the spectacle of Mummius showing off his burly legs, she paused, cocked her head, and cast a cool, calculating stare as if she were passing judgment on a purchase at the butcher's market.

  'Here, see this one!' Mummius pointed to a long, thin scar that ran from the pale flesh of his upper thigh down to the region of his knee, where the skin was tanned as dark as an Egyptian's. Amid the furlike covering of hair, the pink, denuded strip of flesh stood out vividly. Mummius flexed the muscles beneath and made the long scar writhe like a snake. He seemed to find this uproariously amusing, to judge by his raucous laughter. I glanced over his shoulder at Apollonius, who rolled his eyes but smiled indulgently. No doubt he had witnessed the scene many times before.

  'Battle of the Abas River!' Muroinius declared, dropping the
hem of his toga. 'And I was a fool to let it happen. I was on horseback and the Albanian was on foot, wearing nothing but a bearskin and rushing at me with his sword drawn, screaming at the top of his lungs. I saw him coming — had plenty of time to knock him flat with the blunt end of my spear, or else impale him on the point, or draw my sword and parry his blows, r osimply give my horse a good kick to get out of his way. The problem was, I had too much time to think — couldn't settle on one choice or the other. Should have been pure reflex, but on that day I found out that my reflexes are as dead as Carthage. Found out the hard way. Oh, the burning when that blade broke the flesh and then tore straight down! I was the one screaming then.'

  'What did you do?' said Meto, who had always loved soldiers' tales.

  'Where before I had done nothing, now I did everything at once! Banged the fellow's helmet with the blunt end of my spear, whipped it around and stabbed him in the chest with the point, unsheathed my sword with my other hand and slashed his throat, then gave my horse a hard kick and headed straight into the enemy ranks! It all happened in the blink of an eye.'

  'You went towards the enemy, not away? Even wounded as you were?' said Meto.

  'I had no choice. Something I've learned in battles before — if you take a bad wound, the worst thing to do is stop. That's the one thing you mustn't do, because then the pain'll come crashing down on you all at once and that's the end of you. I've seen many a man die from a wound that shouldn't have killed him, just because he stopped what he was doing and gave in to the thing. No, you open your mouth in a scream to let the Furies come inside you, and you plunge into the thick of it. That way you never even feel the wound at all, and you don't bleed to death either, because all the blood rushes into your head and your sword arm, instead of pouring out of the cut'

  Meto stared at him, awed.

  'You know, they say there were Amazons fighting with the Albanians in that battle, though I didn't see any, and there were no women found among the dead. I'm no t sure I'd care to go up against a woman in combat… But here I am talking about myself, as usual, when this day belongs to young Meto! What a sight you make in your manly toga! Why, I remember when you were a small thing, running about the villa at Baiae, carrying messages and pestering the other — the others…'

  The last word came out oddly. 'Other slaves,' he had meant to say.

  I saw again the strange look that had crossed Meto's face on Mummius's arrival. So long as Mummius carried on in his usual bluff manner, boasting of his battles, Meto could simply listen in fascination, but as soon as the conversation turned to the past, Mummius became a palpable reminder of the very circumstances from which he had rescued Meto long ago. Meto's cheeks turned red, but not as red as those of Mummius, who realized that he had trod upon uncertain ground. He attempted a hasty retreat, but found himself mired.

  'I mean to say — do you remember what Gordianus said of you then — that you were the eyes and ears of the household? You slipped about hardly noticed, seeing and hearing all An arm of Nemesis, he called you afterwards, for the part you played in saving all the other — the others…' Once again, like the general who finds himself lost in a fog and unwittingly circles back into the same ambush from which he had fled, Mummius stumbled over the forbidden word. I groaned.

  'The other slaves,' Meto said, very quietly.

  'What?' stammered Mummius, who could hardly have failed to hear.

  'The other slaves, you meant to say,' said Meto. 'You were speaking of my part in saving the other slaves — meaning the others who were slaves, like myself, of Crassus.'

  Mummius twisted his mouth into various shapes. Was he ever this tongue-tied when addressing his troops? 'Well — yes, I suppose that's what I'm trying to say.' Or trying not to say, I thought.

  Meto lowered his eyes. 'It's all right, Marcus Mummius. There's no point in obscuring the truth; so my father has taught me. If we hide what is true, then we see only what is false.' He raised his eyes, and his gaze was steady and strong. 'We have all been many things on the way to becoming what we are. This toga does not hide what I was; that is not its purpose. It clothes what I am. I am the son of Gordianus. Today I become a man and a full citizen of Rome.'

  Mummius drew back and raised his eyebrows. Then his face burst into a smile. 'Splendid!' he cried out. 'What a splendid way you have with words! You shall do us all proud in years to come, I know it!'

  The tension was broken. There were smiles all around. Eco gripped Meto's shoulder and squeezed it. My sons have never been very physically demonstrative with each other, and this spontaneous gesture of affection gratified and surprised me.

  'You must be very proud,' said a voice dose to my ear.

  I turned to see the handsome face of a young man with a bland smile and a mischievous glint in his dark eyes, framed by a chin-strap beard and a fashionable haircut. The face was out of place and its owner most certainly uninvited; for a brief instant I was disoriented, hardly believing he was there.

  'Marcus Caelius! What are you doing here?' I glanced over my shoulder. Meto and Eco were talking together in low voices. Mummius and Apollonius had turned to pay their respects to Bethesda. I seized Caelius's elbow and took him aside.

  He raised one eyebrow. 'If I were of a sensitive nature I might think you were unhappy to see me.'

  'Spare your wit for the Forum, Caelius.'

  'Really, Gordianus do you think I would waste my wit on politicians? I find that poets and prostitutes appreciate it far more.'

  'I don't think you were invited here today,' I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  'No, but Cicero was. Your elder son Eco made sure that the consul received an invitation months in advance. But Cicero cannot come today. Too busy taking advantage of his last chance to harangue the voters down in the Forum before tomorrow's election. And of course he could hardly be seen attending this party, given the fictitious state of discord between the two of you. I've been doing my best to sow those rumours of grave unhappiness between Cicero and Gordianus — all to convince Catilina that he can trust you, of course.'

  'That's all over now, Caelius. Or will be with tomorrow's election.'

  'All over, Gordianus? I think not. Just beginning, I imagine. Anyway, Cicero sends his regrets, knowing that you'll understand why he can't come himself. Officially, of course, to anyone who should happen to ask, I'm here on behalf of Catilina, to extend his respects on the occasion of your son's coming of age.'

  'How many masters do you have, Marcus Caelius?' I used the word 'master' deliberately to insult him, but Caelius was unfazed.

  'Catilina knows that I'm loyal only to him. So does Cicero. But with Cicero it happens to be true.'

  'I wonder.'

  His face changed. The crooked smile, like that of a schoolboy with a secret, faded from his lips, and the mischievous glint in his eyes vanished. He lowered his voice. 'Forgive me, Gordianus. We're all wrought up after the last few days here in Rome, especially those of us closest to Cicero. Imagine what it's like for me shuttling back and forth between him and Catilina, pretending to serve them both. I tend to behave facetiously when the strain becomes too great.'

  'Marcus Caelius, why are you here?' I asked wearily.

  'For the reasons I've just stated. To convey regards from Catilina, who believes I represent him when in fact I do not, and to give to you Cicero's apologies for his absence, since the pretence of your estrangement from Cicero must be maintained.'

  'Maintained? But why? I've done as you and Cicero demanded; I opened my doors to Catilina, though for what purpose I still don't know. Tomorrow the voters will decide Catilina's future, and then I'm finished with all of you, for good. Whether Catilina wins or loses, I'll have done as you asked. My debt to Cicero is discharged, and that's the end of it.’

  'Not quite,' said Caelius.

  'What do you mean?'

  'I mean that things are not as simple as that, Gordianus. I mean that tomorrow's election — if indeed Cicero doesn't manage this afternoon to
convince the Senate to postpone it again — is only the opening gambit in the contest to come.'

  'What contest? Are you saying that Cicero still expects me to carry on this charade of being friendly with Catilina?'

  'Your cooperation is more important now than ever before.'

  'Marcus Caelius, — you're beginning to make me angry.'

  'Forgive me, Gordianus. I’ll depart.'

  'Caelius—'

  'Yes?'

  'Caelius, what do you know of the body that was left in my barn?'

  'A body?' said Caelius, without expression.

  'Right after your visit to my farm, right after you posed a riddle about bodies without heads, and heads without bodies. Catilina's riddle, you called it. And then the body appeared on my property. The body without its head.'

  Caelius wrinkled his brow. Was his consternation real or feigned? Under my scrutiny the light seemed to fade from his eyes so that they became entirely opaque, and I could no more discern the truth in them than I could by looking into the painted eyes of a statue. 'I know nothing about a body,' he said.

  'Would Cicero say the same if I asked him? Would Catilina?' 'Believe me, Cicero would know no more than I do. As for Catilina 'Yes?'