Rubicon rsr-7

by Steven Saylor

She touched my arm. "If you go there, you'll find the love poems. I'd be grateful if you could-"

  "Of course. I'll find some way to return them to you."

  She shook her head. "No, I could never have them in the house. But I can't bear to think of anyone else reading them. Burn them." She turned and rejoined her bodyguards.

  I followed them through the house. Just before we reached the foyer, little Aulus appeared from nowhere and went stamping across the atrium, laughing and clapping his hands, directly in front of Aemilia. Mopsus and Androcles came running after him, but not before Aemilia gave a shudder and fled weeping through the foyer and out of the house, her guards trailing after her.

  That night I tossed and turned. At last Bethesda rolled toward me. "Can't you sleep, husband?"

  The moonlight picked out glints of silver in her undone hair but left her eyes in shadow. "I'm thinking about the girl who came to visit me today." I had told her Aemilia's story over dinner.

  "Very sad," said Bethesda.

  "Yes. I was wondering… I don't know much about how it's done."

  "What?"

  "How a baby is gotten rid of."

  Bethesda sighed in the darkness. "It's one of those things most men don't care to know much about. There are several ways. Sometimes a willow wand…"

  "Willow?"

  "With the bark stripped off. It needs to be thin and flexible to reach into the uterus."

  I nodded.

  "Or the girl may take poison."

  "Poison?"

  "Something strong enough to kill the child and expel it from her body. You brew a strong tea, using roots and herbs and fungi. Rue, nightshade, ergot…"

  "But isn't that likely to kill the mother as well?"

  "Sometimes that happens. I saw the girl on her way out. She looked rather frail to me." Bethesda sighed wearily and rolled away.

  I stared at the ceiling. Aemilia believed that the killer of Numerius was equally responsible for the destruction of her unborn child. If Aemilia died, aborting the baby, would Numerius's killer then be responsible for three deaths?

  I wondered, did men like Caesar in the cold, dark hours of the night ever ponder such chains of responsibility? To kill a man on the battlefield Caesar would consider an honorable act. But what of the man's widow and child left to starve, or the parents who die of grief, or the lover who kills himself in despair, or the whole villages that perish to famine and disease in the wake of war? How many such chains of suffering and death radiated from every battlefield in Gaul? How many such casualties would there be in Italy now that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon?

  I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

  X

  The next day, taking Mopsus and Androcles with me, I made my way to the Carinae district. I had forgotten exactly where the Street of the Basketmakers was located. Mopsus thought he knew. So did Androcles. To the right, said Mopsus. To the left, said Androcles. While they squabbled, I asked directions of a slave who passed by carrying an armload of baskets. He pointed straight ahead. I followed and was nearly around a bend when the boys noticed and came running after me.

  The narrow, curving street was lined with shops, all with doors flung open and wares on display. Baskets spilled out onto little tripod tables. More baskets hung suspended from ropes that crisscrossed overhead. Many were local products, but the best and most expensive came from Egypt, made of Nile reeds, with dyed strands woven into the fabric to make intricate patterns and repeating pictures. I made the mistake of pausing to look at a curious specimen decorated with a circular band of Nile river-horses. The shop owner descended on me at once.

  "Those are called hippopotami," he said.

  "Yes, I know. I lived in Egypt for a while when I was young."

  "Then you'll want the basket as a souvenir. It was made for you!"

  I smiled, shook my head and hurried on. The man followed me down the street, badgering me and waving the basket. When I refused to bargain, he threw down the basket with a curse. Times were hard on the Street of the Basketmakers.

  It was not hard to locate the mottled red and yellow tenement Aemilia had described. It had a seedy, run-down appearance, with chipped plaster and broken shutters hanging from the windows. Someone was stewing cabbage inside. A baby was crying. The sound made me think of Aemilia.

  Some tenement landlords post a slave at the front door to keep out thieves and troublemakers, but there was no slave at the entrance, and when I tested the door I found it had no lock, either. It was hard to imagine anything inside such a building to tempt a burglar.

  "Mopsus," I said, "I want you to stand across the street while Androcles and I go inside. Try not to look like a runaway slave up to no good."

  "I'll stand watch!" said Mopsus eagerly. "If anybody dangerous-looking goes in after you, I'll run up and tell you."

  I shook my head. "No, Mopsus. I imagine any number of dangerous-looking men, and women for that matter, are likely to live in this building; this is a dangerous neighborhood. But tenement dwellers must come and go. How could you possibly know who has legitimate business in this building and who does not?"

  Mopsus scratched his head.

  "And if some assassin were to enter this building, intending to do me harm, how could you get past him to warn me?"

  Mopsus frowned. Androcles covered his mouth, laughing at his older brother's consternation. I put my hands on their shoulders and walked them both across the street.

  "Mopsus, I want you to stand precisely here. Now, do you see that corner window up on the fourth floor? The one with the shutters intact? I want you to watch that window. In a moment, if all goes well, I'll open those shutters and give you a wave. Don't wave back. But keep watching the window. If something should go wrong, you'll see me or Androcles at that window again. If we scream for help, I want you to run to Eco's house and tell him. Do you think you could find your way to Eco's house from here? It's just up the Esquiline Hill."

  Mopsus nodded mutely, his eyes wide at the gravity of his post.

  "Good. Now keep your eyes on that window!"

  I crossed the street with Androcles and entered the tenement. The narrow hallway was deserted and, except for the crying baby, quiet. The tenants, like most people in Rome, were out in the markets searching for the necessities of life, which became harder to find each day.

  A stairway at one end of the hall led to the upper floors. I ascended and Androcles followed. "We shall be visiting a secret room, Androcles, where we have no business being. I shall need you to keep watch in the hall outside."

  He mimicked his brother's grave nod.

  "And I may need you for something even more important."

  "What, Master?"

  "I shall be searching for something. It may be well hidden and hard to reach. A pair of tiny hands could turn out to be very useful."

  "My hands are smaller than Mopsus's," he boasted, holding them up for me to see.

  "So they are."

  We reached the landing of the third floor. The sound of the crying baby receded. The smell of cabbage grew stronger, mingled now with other smells- onions, perfume, lamp oil, stale urine. What had the daughter of Titus Aemilius thought of such a place?

  We came to the top floor. The hallway was empty and dim. I motioned to Androcles to tread quietly.

  I located the loose floorboard, just where Aemilia had described it. Wedged in a narrow space beneath was the key. It was not one of those stout keys with notches, to be inserted into a lock and given a strong turn, but a thin bronze rod which curved eccentrically this way and that, as if it might have been accidentally bent beneath a wagon wheel. At one end there was a tiny hook.

  Finding such a key is only half the trick in using it. The eccentric shape allows it to slip through the equally eccentric passage inside the keyhole. Once through, the hook at the end needs to find the eye it was fashioned for, which, unless the user has used that particular lock before, can require a considerable amount of trial and error.

  I re
placed the floorboard and stepped to the door. The lock was a bronze box bolted to the wood from inside. In such a neglected, insecure building, the elaborate mechanism seemed conspicuously out of place.

  I slipped the key in, twisted it this way and that to negotiate the hole, then tried to imagine in my mind's eye what the hook needed to catch against. Up or down? Farther in or farther out? A jiggle or a twist? I tried various motions, then finally removed the key and started over. Again, I had no luck. My patience nearing an end, I pulled out and tried once more. This time, I seemed to locate a divergent keyhole. The key entered in a different direction. The hook caught on something. I held my breath, turned the key and pulled toward me. The lock gave a satisfying click. The door opened.

  Behind me, I heard Androcles release a pent-up breath. I looked over my shoulder and nodded toward the stairs. "Stand watch on the landing," I whispered. "If anyone starts up, come quietly and let me know. Can you do that?"

  He nodded and tiptoed toward the stairs.

  I stepped inside and pulled the door not quite shut behind me. The room was even darker than the hallway. I found my way to the window at the southwest corner, which was covered with heavy winter drapes, made of a fabric far superior, I wagered, to anything to be found in the other apartments. I pulled them apart and opened the shutters. Above the rooftops, as Aemilia had said, I could see the sacred temples atop the Capitoline Hill. Mopsus stood across the street, leaning against a wall, his arms crossed, idly kicking his heels against the ground. He looked up at the sound of the shutters opening. I waved. He uncrossed his arms and started to wave back, then caught himself. He peered up and down the street, hardening his posture and trying to look formidable. I shook my head. If I had specifically asked him to look like an errant slave bent on getting into mischief, he could not have delivered a better performance.

  I turned around and surveyed the room. It was sparsely furnished with a low sleeping couch and a little trunk against one wall. Perhaps it was nothing more than a love nest, after all. Lovers' needs were simple.

  Atop the trunk there was a simple oil lamp, a vessel containing spare oil, and a small round mirror. I peered inside the lamp and the vessel and poured oil back and forth between them until I was satisfied that they contained nothing else. The mirror was of solid silver and had no secret parts. I glanced at my reflection. I saw a bearded man with furrowed brow but clear eyes, not yet entirely gray and youthful-looking for his years, a sign of the gods' favor. The fact that it was Aemilia's mirror made me uneasy. I put it aside.

  The trunk was not locked. Inside I found a few pieces of clothing- a man's loincloth and tunic, a cloak that might have been worn by either sex. There was also a spare coverlet for the bed. At the very bottom, there was a small dagger. That was all.

  The trunk appeared to contain nothing of significance. But remembering that Numerius Pompeius had carried confidential reports in his shoe, I looked at each item again. Satisfied that the dagger had no secret compartments, I used it to cut open the stitches of each garment. I had brought my own knife for the purpose, but this one looked sharper. I found nothing.

  I examined the empty trunk. I used the dagger to undo the hinges and cut into the leather. I turned it over and rapped on the bottom, listening for the hollow echo of a hidden compartment. The trunk was nothing more than an ordinary trunk.

  I turned my attention to the bed.

  It was a fine piece of furniture- like the drapes, surely finer than anything to be found in the humble apartments down the hall or on the floors below. The frame was made entirely of ebony with ornately carved legs. Against the wall, an ebony sideboard inlaid with ivory ran the length of the frame from head to foot. Aemilia would have lain on the inner side, next to the board and the wall; Numerius would have lain on the outside, as men typically do. I once explained to Bethesda that this arrangement was so because the man protects the woman in sleep. She laughed and said it was because men needed to get up and pass water more often during the night.

  But I imagined the lovers had done little sleeping in this bed. They would have met here in the day; it seemed doubtful that Aemilia could have escaped her parents' vigilance after dark. It was a bed for the waking hours, a bed for loving, not sleeping. The bed where their baby was made.

  The thick mattress was covered with a linen sheet, haphazardly tucked at the corners. A woolen coverlet was thrown over it. Several pillows were scattered about. The bed had a rumpled, used look. Both Numerius and Aemilia were no doubt used to having their beds made by a slave, and either did not know how to do it themselves or did not care to. Keeping house was not how they spent their time in this room.

  I pulled off the coverlet and cut open the stitches. There was nothing hidden inside.

  I pulled off the linen sheet. It was too sheer to conceal anything. It gave off a faint odor. I held it to my nose and smelled jasmine, spikenard, the scent of warm bodies. For an instant I imagined it wrapped around Aemilia, clinging to her. I imagined the two of them lying side by side, with only the sheet to cover them. I shook my head to clear it.

  The pillows and the mattress were the most likely places to conceal something. I pulled them off the bed and saw several pieces of parchment hidden beneath the mattress, atop the webbing of straps strung between the sideposts. If they were Aemilia's Greek love poems, copied out in her own hand, I had no desire to read them. But how could I determine what they were unless I examined them?

  I looked at the first poem. The handwriting was self-consciously fancy, painfully childish. The words were not.

  When I look at you I can no longer speak.

  My tongue is broken. A thin flame runs under my skin.

  I see nothing. My ears roar. Sweat pours down me.

  A trembling seizes me all over.

  I am greener than grass. I feel close to dying.

  Somehow this can be endured, when I look at you…

  Sappho, of course. What love-smitten teenage girl could resist the poet of Lesbos?

  I forced myself to read the other poems, one by one. The words made my face flush hotly.

  Finally, having read them all, I examined the pieces of parchment front and back. I walked to the window and held each one to the light, looking for signs of invisible lemon ink or perforations that could be a code, but saw nothing of the sort. The love poems were only that, bits of Sappho and my old friend Catullus copied out by a daydreaming girl to pass the hours between visits to her lover. Incriminating, to be sure, but only if shown to her parents.

  Standing at the window, from the corner of my eye I noticed Mopsus down on the street corner. He waved at me. I glowered, shook my head, and refused to look back at him. I had specifically told him not to wave, which would only attract attention to us both. When I ignored him, he only seemed to wave more frantically. I determined to thrash him with my tongue when I was done. I stepped away from the window.

  Beneath the bed I noticed a wide shallow bowl. I moved the bowl to the floor in the middle of the room. I knelt and dropped the poems into it. I reached into my tunic for the flint box I had brought for the purpose, and concentrated so hard on striking a spark that I didn't hear Androcles's footsteps in the hall outside. I gave a start when he pushed open the door and stuck his head inside.

  "Master! There's a man coming up the stairs!"

  I suddenly understood why Mopsus waved so frantically. I looked back to Androcles. "Come inside then, quickly!" I whispered.

  Androcles slipped inside, then turned to shut the door. He was too late. The door caught on something. Androcles pushed hard, but to no avail. A man's foot was thrust into the breach. Androcles gave a little squeal of panic.

  Fingers wrapped around the edge of the door. Androcles threw his whole body against it, but he was no match for the man on the other side. The door relentlessly began to open.

  I dropped my flint box. I reached for the knife. I rose to my feet and braced myself, my heart pounding.

  "Master, I can't stop him!" cried
Androcles.

  Slowly but steadily the door opened, until the sunlight from the window fell upon the quizzical, artificially darkened face of my old friend Tiro.

  XI

  "A rather good view of the Capitoline," Tiro noted, gazing out the window. "I wonder how much an apartment like this lets for on the open market?"

  After stepping inside and patting a startled Androcles on the head, Tiro had made a leisurely circuit of the room, noting the emptied trunk and stepping over the mattress and pillows strewn on the floor, and came to rest at the window.

  "Tiro, what are you doing here?"

  He lowered his gaze. "That boy down there, staring up at me as if I were a gorgon- isn't he one of yours, Gordianus?"

  I walked to the window and waved to Mopsus to show that all was well. Visibly relieved, he pantomimed coming up to join us, but I shook my head and signaled that he should continue keeping watch.

  "Androcles," I said, "go back to the head of the stairs and stand guard, as you did before. Perhaps we can avoid being surprised a second time."

  "But, Master," Androcles protested, "isn't this the assassin you had us follow for you the other day?"

  Tiro raised an eyebrow.

  "I never told them any such thing. The boys have more imagination than common sense. Go, Androcles."

  "But, Master-"

  "I shall be perfectly safe. At least, I think I will be." It was my turn to raise an eyebrow at Tiro. Once Androcles was out of the room, I repeated the question I had asked him before. "What are you doing here?"

  He tapped his nose. "The same thing you are, I imagine. Following my nose."

  "Following me, you mean."

  "Perhaps."

  "Do you make a habit of trailing after me every time I leave the house?"

  "No more often than you follow me, I imagine."

  "Why today, then?"

  "Because yesterday Numerius's young lover paid you a visit."

  "How do you know they were lovers?"

  "I know all sorts of things."