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 skillful 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 pretense 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 center 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 fervor 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 needed 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-colored 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 that 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 Pomp
eius. 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 color 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!"
"Yes. Still, you do manage to climb up and down that ladder, don't you?" I likewise tried to keep my tone light.
I excused myself to go to the privy, which was out the back door and across an alley in a little lean-to. There were several holes in the paved floor, but the drunken patrons of the Salacious Tavern were poor marksmen and the place stank of standing urine. It occurred to me that the Cloaca Maxima, the central sewer line into the Tiber, was probably located just beneath my feet.
When I returned to the corner bench, Tiro had vanished. I stayed and drank another cup of wine, in no hurry to go home. The interview had yielded more than I expected. Where were the documents of which Numerius had boasted to Tiro only days before his death? Who else knew about them? Like poor Numerius, I felt I was sitting on something enormous, if only I could lay my hands on it.
IX
The remaining days of Februarius brought despair for Pompey's supporters, joy for Caesar's.
Flush with an unbroken chain of victories, Caesar continued his southward advance and surrounded Corfinium. Domitius Ahenobarbus, trapped in the city, sent desperate messages to Pompey begging for reinforcements. Pompey curtly replied that he had no intention of relieving Corfinium because Domitius had no business making a stand there in the first place.
Domitius concealed the contents of the letter from his officers and claimed that Pompey was on his way, but his agitated demeanor fooled no one. Behind his back, his officers decided to hand the city over to Caesar without a fight.
Domitius's longstanding grudge against Caesar was personal. Domitius's grandfather and father had begun the settlement of southern Gaul, conquering the Allobroges and the Arverni, building roads, establishing Roman colonies on the coast, and along the way amassing an enormous family fortune. The family had come to think of the region as their personal domain, to which Domitius should be heir. Caesar they considered an upstart who had built on their achievements to launch his own conquests. When Domitius made his first bid to acquire governorship of southern Gaul, six years ago, Caesar successfully thwarted him and held on to command of the region. Now Caesar's tenure had at last expired. Legally he was obliged to relinquish Gaul and let Domitius succeed him. Caesar's answer had been to cross the Rubicon with his army. Domitius had good reason to hate him, and better reason to fear him.
Finding himself betrayed and despairing of an ignoble death at the hands of Caesar or, even more ignobly, at the hands of his own rebellious men, Domitius asked his physician to give him poison. No sooner had
Domitius swallowed the dose than word arrived that Caesar was treating all captives, even his bitterest enemies, with mercy and respect. Domitius wailed and tore his hair and cursed himself for acting too soon- until the physician, who knew his master better than his master knew himself, revealed that the dose was not poison, but a harmless narcotic. Domitius surrendered to Caesar and was allowed to keep his head.
In Rome, copies of Caesar's public pronouncement on entering Corfinium were posted in the Forum by his supporters:
I did not leave my province with intent to harm anybody. I merely want to protect myself against the slanders of my enemies, to restore to their rightful positions the tribunes of the people, who have been expelled because of their involvement in my cause, and to reclaim for myself and for the Roman people independence from the domination of a small clique.
Fence-sitters among the rich and powerful were heartened by the news of Caesar's clemency. Some who had fled now began to return to the city.
His army swelled by the troops of Domitius Ahenobarbus and by fresh reinforcements from Gaul, Caesar continued his southward advance. Pompey fell back and ordered all loyalist troops to rendezvous at Brundisium, in the heel of Italy.
"Davus will die there," Diana said. "He'll die in Brundisium, trapped with the rest of Pompey's men. Caesar will put his foot into the boot of Italy and grind them all beneath his heel."
"Caesar has shown mercy, so far," I said cautiously. "He took Corfinium without spilling a drop of blood."
"But this is different. This is Pompey. He'll never surrender to Caesar."
"Perhaps Pompey will flee, rather than fight."
"Across the sea? But Davus can't swim!"
I tried not to smile. "I imagine they'll take ships, Diana."
"I know that! I'm thinking of the weather. No one sails at this time of year if they can help it. It's too dangerous, especially crossing the Adriatic. Storms and shipwrecks- I keep seeing Davus clinging to a scrap of flotsam, waves crashing over his head, lightning all around…"
The curse of an overactive imagination was something she inherited from her mother. "Davus is cleverer than you think," I said. "He can take care of himself."
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