Rubicon rsr-7

by Steven Saylor

  All along, I had known it would come to this.

  In my mind, especially on sleepless nights, I had rehearsed this moment many times. I had come almost to look forward to it. The secret was heavy. I wanted to lay it down. The shame was bitter, like wormwood on the tongue. I wanted to be cleansed of it. But in my imagination the time and place of my confession had always been quiet and dignified, in some private council chamber with all ears pricked to hear me out, like Oedipus on the stage- never like this, in the heat of battle with death and darkness all around, and Pompey already furious and ready to strangle me.

  I was barely able to force the words past the hands around my throat. "I… killed… him."

  What happened was the opposite of what I expected. Pompey abruptly released his grip and drew back.

  "Why do you say such a thing, Finder? Why do you lie? Do you know who killed Numerius or not?"

  "I killed him," I whispered.

  I swallowed hard and rubbed the bruises on my throat. How peculiar, I thought: why bother to soothe the little irritations of a body that has no future beyond the next few moments?

  I had known when I stepped aboard Pompey's ship that I would die there, though I hadn't expected the end to come so quickly. I had known when I set out from Rome that I would never come back. From the start I had hoped somehow to trade myself for Davus, and so gain some value from my death beyond an end to my own shame.

  Scribonius ran the length of the ship, waving a sword over his head. "Starboard catapults, fire at will! All archers, fire to starboard!" We had sailed perilously close to the southern breakwater- so close that a fireball overshot and flew screaming over our heads, trailing streamers of smoke and a shower of sparks.

  "Why?" said Pompey, his madness turning to confusion. "If you did such a thing, why confess?"

  In the veils of smoke around us, I saw Numerius's bulging eyes and bloated, lifeless face. Above the roar of the battle, I heard his mother's tremulous voice and the sobs of Aemilia weeping for a child never to be born. "To be rid of the regret," I said. "The remorse. The guilt."

  Pompey shook his head skeptically, as if he had heard of such emotions but had no firsthand knowledge of them. "But why would you kill Numerius?" The question contained another, unspoken: had he overlooked something obvious, been made a fool of?

  "Numerius came to my house that morning to blackmail me."

  "Never! Numerius was mine. He worked only for me."

  "Numerius worked for himself! He was a schemer, a blackmailer. He had a document- evidence of a plot to kill Caesar, a pact signed by the conspirators. My son's was the first signature. The document was written in Meto's own hand. Even the grammar was his." I lowered my eyes.

  "Your son? Caesar's favorite?"

  "When and why Meto turned against Caesar, I don't know. Numerius said he had other incriminating documents, hidden somewhere. He demanded money, far more than I could pay. He refused to lower his price. He said he was about to leave Rome. Unless I paid, he would send the documents at once to Caesar. Caesar knows Meto's handwriting as well as I do! It would have been the end of him. I had only a moment to decide."

  Pompey curled his upper lip. "The garrote around his neck…"

  "A souvenir from a past investigation. Numerius waited in the garden. I went to fetch money from my study. But I brought back the garrote instead. He was standing at the foot of Minerva with his back to me, whistling at the sky. So arrogant! He was young, strong. I doubted my strength- but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

  Another fireball shrieked above our heads, so close I flinched. By its lurid glare I saw the growing rage on Pompey's face. "What happened to the document he showed you?"

  "I took it to my study. I burned it in the brazier. That was when Davus came into the garden and found the body."

  "Then Davus knew the truth? All along?"

  "No! I told him nothing of the blackmail, or the murder. I told no one, not even my wife or daughter. To protect them. If they'd known, and you suspected… but that wasn't the real reason. It was shame… guilt…"

  I had come full circle. How could I expect a man like Pompey to understand? To slaughter hundreds or thousands in battle was a glorious thing, pleasing to the gods. To kill a single man was murder, a crime against heaven.

  I had killed men before, but only in desperate self-defense, when the choice was no choice at all, my life or another's. Never from behind. Never in cold blood. When I killed Numerius, something in me died.

  I had always secretly imagined myself to be better than other men. Men like Pompey or Caesar or Cicero would doubtless look down at me and laugh at such a conceit, but I had always taken pride and comfort from knowing that while others might be richer or stronger or higher-born, still I was better. Gordianus freed slaves and adopted them. Gordianus stood aloof to the greed and grubby passions that drove "respectable" Romans into the law courts, where they tore at one another like vicious beasts. Gordianus did not cheat or steal, and seldom lied. Gordianus knew right from wrong by some infallible internal moral sense, yet had compassion for those who struggled with shades of gray. Gordianus would never murder. As Pompey had said, killing people was not his style.

  Yet Gordianus had done just that, strangling the life out of another man in his own garden.

  In doing so, I had forfeited the thing which set me apart from other men. I had lost the favor of the gods. I felt it the instant Numerius Pompeius crumpled lifeless at my feet. The sun withdrew behind a cloud. The world became colder and darker.

  That moment had brought me directly, inevitably, to this moment. I was prepared for whatever happened next. I resigned myself to the Fates.

  Davus was rescued. I had seen Meto alive and well. Bethesda and Diana and Eco and their children were all safe, or as safe as anyone could be in a broken world. If it was true that Numerius had other documents that compromised Meto hidden away somewhere, my only regret was that I had not been able to find them and destroy them, for Meto's sake.

  In my mind, along with my confession, I had also pictured what would follow. I had imagined Pompey summoning henchmen to dispose of me, out of his sight. I had never imagined him leaping on me like a wild beast, his hands tearing at my face. I covered my eyes. He seized me by the hair and knocked my head against the mast. My ears rang. I tasted blood in my mouth. He threw me to the deck. He screamed and kicked me wildly.

  I somehow scrambled to my feet. I ran blindly, stumbling and tripping over coils of rope, colliding with cold armor, cutting my cheeks and arms and shoulders on arrows and spears. Amid the smoke and sea spray, faces looked back at me aghast. They were frightened, not of me but of the madman behind me. Every man on the ship teetered on the sword's edge of Mars, poised between life and death. The sight of their commander reduced to an insane rage unnerved them.

  A fireball flew over the ship. It grazed the mainsail, tracing a fringe of flame along the top edge. Soldiers panicked. Scribonius cried out, "Cut it loose! Cut it loose!" Men scurried up the mast, daggers flashing between their teeth.

  Hands clutched my shoulders. I gave a start, then saw it was Tiro. "Gordianus, what have you done? What did you say to him?"

  By the light of the leaping flames above our heads, I saw Pompey no more than five paces distant. The look on his face turned my blood to water. In another instant he would be close enough for me to see my reflection in his eyes; it was a dead man I would see there.

  I broke from Tiro, turned and ran. Somehow I sprouted wings. How else can I explain the leap that took me over the heads of the men who stood in close formation along the ship's rail? For a moment I thought I would fall short and be impaled on their spears. A spearpoint did pierce my shin and rip through the flesh, scraping the bone. I screamed at the pain. An instant later I plunged face-first into water so cold it stopped my heart and froze the scream between my lips.

  A powerful current sucked me deep beneath the surface. This was the end. Neptune, not Mars, would claim me. My crime would be
purified by water, not fire.

  The cold was excruciating. The darkness was infinite. The current twisted me this way and that. It spun me about almost playfully, as if to prove I was powerless to resist. I lost all sense of direction. Suddenly I was startled to see brightly flickering spots ahead of me, like sheets of yellow flame. Had the current sucked me all the way down to the seabed, to a fissure that opened into Hades? That seemed impossible, for my senses told me that I was traveling upward, not down. The frigid current drew me closer and closer to the flames, until I felt the heat of the burning flotsam on my face.

  Done with me, the hand of Neptune expelled me from the water. I emerged into a scorching, airless void of flame. I sucked in a desperate, burning breath.

  I was to be purified by water and fire alike.

  PART THREE

  Dionysus

  XXIII

  Hunched forward in a chair pulled close to my bedside, Davus propped his chin on his hands and stared at me. I wondered what profound thought was crossing his mind.

  "Speak," I said.

  The single word exacted an excruciating price. Bubbles of molten lead seemed to burst in my throat. I felt an urge to cough and struggled against it. Coughing caused unspeakable agony. I swallowed instead. Swallowing was a torment, but bearable.

  Davus tilted his head and frowned. "I was only thinking, father-in-law, how much better you looked when you had eyebrows."

  During endless hours of drifting in and out of consciousness, I had noticed a little mirror of polished silver hung on one of the walls, the room's only ornament. I had not yet asked Davus to take it down so that I could have a look at myself. Perhaps it was just as well.

  I closed my eyes and drifted back into oblivion.

  When I opened my eyes, Davus was just as he had been before.

  I breathed in through my nose. My sinuses seemed to be lined with suppurating blisters. Still, it was less painful than breathing through my mouth. "How long-?"

  Davus cocked his head attentively.

  "… since I was last awake?" I managed to say. The pain of speaking brought tears to my eyes. Nonetheless, it seemed slightly less painful than before.

  "Yesterday," Davus said. "Yesterday, you woke up for a while. You said, 'Speak.' That's the most you've said since they pulled you out of the harbor."

  "When was that?"

  Davus counted on his fingers. "One… two… three days ago."

  Three days had passed, and I remembered nothing, not even dreams. Nothing! Except-

  Endless water, black and cold. Flames. Smoke. A floating plank. Fireballs careening overhead. The stench of singed hair and burning flesh. Men screaming. A sudden jolt. Jagged rocks beneath the water. Coming to rest, half in the water, half out. The sky above cold and black and endless, but mantled with stars, growing lighter each time I woke from fitful dozing- iron gray, then palest blue, then oyster pink. Voices. Arms lifting me aloft.

  Useless, someone said. Why bother? He's not one of ours.

  That big fellow knows him. And the big fellow's got silver in his pouch.

  Wrapped in linen. Laid in a wagon. Other bodies in the wagon- alive or dead? Davus leaning over me, looking down, his face almost unrecognizable; I had never seen him weep before. An endless journey of bumps and jolts, then finally coming to rest upon a bed unimaginably soft, in a cool, dim, quiet room. A woman's voice: If you need anything else- Another voice: I could use something to eat. That was Davus. I felt hungry, too, but was too weak to speak, and when the food came, the smell of charred flesh sickened me.

  What else could I remember? Pompey's face, contorted with rage. Tiro's face, alarmed and confused. I tried to push those images aside and see other faces. Bethesda… Diana…

  "Meto," I said.

  "No, it's me." Davus, misunderstanding, leaned over me and smiled.

  I shook my head. "But where-?"

  "Ah!" Davus understood. "He's with Caesar. On their way back to Rome."

  "When?"

  "They left the day after Pompey fled. Caesar made a speech in the town forum, thanked the citizens for their help, left a garrison in charge, and then headed north on the Appian Way. Meto went with him. That was three days ago."

  "You saw Meto?"

  "Oh, yes. Should I tell you about it? Are you up for listening?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, then. After I left you, not half an hour passed before I found Meto. Easy enough, since he was with Caesar. Hard to miss that red cape! I met them coming from the forum, on the same street we took with Pompey. Caesar's bodyguards might have killed me, but I did as you said and threw down my sword. Meto was glad to see me. I told him what you'd done, leaving with Pompey. Caesar was in a hurry to get to the port. I showed them how to avoid the traps. We got to the quay just as the last of Pompey's men were casting off."

  "From the end of the quay, I recognized Pompey's ship, just starting to sail out the harbor entrance. I pointed it out to Meto. He pointed it out to Caesar. We watched the ship run the gauntlet. For a while it looked like Pompey was in big trouble, veering toward the southern breakwater. I said a prayer to Neptune for you. It was hard to see much on account of the darkness and the smoke- but I could swear I saw someone jump overboard! Meto didn't see it. Neither did anybody else. They told me I imagined it, that no one could have seen such a thing at that distance. But I was sure. Would you like some water?"

  I nodded. Davus fetched a pitcher and poured water into a clay cup. I took it from him. There were cuts and burns on my hands, but nothing crippling. Swallowing was not as painful as I expected. My stomach growled.

  "Hungry," I said.

  Davus nodded. "I'll get the cook to make you something easy to eat, maybe some cold gruel. The food here is pretty good. Should be, for what we're paying. People say this is the best inn in Brundisium. Too much seafood for my taste."

  I gestured for him to get on with the story.

  "Where was I? Oh, yes: Pompey's ship. It got through all right, but just barely. You should have seen the look on Caesar's face, thinking he might have caught the Great One after all- like a cat staring at a bird. But in the end Pompey's ship squeezed out of the harbor, smooth as a dropping from a sheep's bottom. So did the rest, except for a couple of ships that ran afoul of the breakwater. Caesar sent little boats to board them and take the men prisoner. What a night that was- everything a mad scramble, and Meto always in the middle of things." Davus frowned. "He wasn't as upset as I thought he would be- about you sailing off with Pompey. He got that look on his face- you know, where you can't imagine what he's thinking, or at least I can't- and he said maybe it was all for the best, you running off with Pompey and Tiro."

  "He asked me if I intended to go back to Rome with him, because if I did, I'd have to keep my mouth shut. He didn't want Caesar or Antony to know that you'd gone with Pompey, not yet. I suppose he thought it would make him look bad, having his father sail off with the enemy. I showed him the money you gave me and told him I didn't need his help getting home. I think he was glad to be rid of me. That was that. The next day, after his speech in the forum, Caesar was off. Just as well. I wanted to stay around here for a while longer anyway."

  I took another sip of water. "Why?"

  "Because I was sure I saw somebody jump off Pompey's ship- or get pushed off."

  "And you thought it was me. Why?"

  "I just had a feeling. I can't explain it. I knew something wasn't right. The way you gave me all that money. The way you talked, as if you didn't expect to ever come back." He shook his head. "I had to make sure. The afternoon after Caesar and Meto left, I decided to walk all the way around the harbor, starting at the southern breakwater, since that was the end Pompey's ship sailed nearest to. Some of Caesar's men from the garrison were posted to watch for bodies washing up on shore, so there'd be no looting. Most of the men they found were dead. Some had arrows in them. Some were horribly burned. To tell you the truth… I never expected to find you alive. When I saw your face, and you opene
d your eyes-" His voice became husky. He lowered his eyes.

  I nodded. "Then Meto doesn't know."

  "No. He thinks you're with Pompey. Won't it be a surprise when we get back to Rome and he lays eyes on you! Maybe by then, your eyebrows will have grown back."

  The cold gruel from the kitchen was actually rather soothing to swallow. I was famished, but Davus was careful to keep me from eating too much, too quickly.

  Eventually I had the courage to ask him for the mirror.

  I was not horribly disfigured after all. My eyebrows had been singed off, and the effect was not flattering, but there were no serious scars or burns on my face. I had inhaled more seawater and smoke and fiery vapors than was good for a man, I was covered with nicks, burns, blisters, and bruises (especially around my neck, where Pompey had choked me), and there was a nasty, pus-filled wound at my shin, inflicted by the spearpoint I scraped against when I leaped off Pompey's boat. I had been feverish and delirious when Davus found me, but once the fever broke I recuperated swiftly.

  Some men in my position might have imagined that they had been saved by divine intervention, spared from oblivion for the sake of a special destiny. I saw myself instead as a minnow too small to be caught in Neptune's net, or a sodden twig thrown onto Hades's brazier that had sputtered but failed to catch fire.

  I was anxious to get back to Rome. I was even more anxious to see Meto again. In Caesar's camp, it had been impossible to speak to him candidly. There was much I wanted to tell him and to ask him.

  We eschewed Tiro's "shortcut" through the mountains and set out on the Appian Way, following in Caesar's wake. He traveled at a pace that seemed almost impossible, considering the size of his army. Press as I might, I soon realized that we couldn't possibly match his speed, much less catch up with him. I would have to wait until we reached Rome to see Meto again.

  At every town along the Appian Way, arriving a few days after Caesar, we found the people in the taverns and markets and stables talking of nothing else. Wherever he appeared, Caesar had been greeted with thanksgiving. Local magistrates pledged loyalty to his cause. If there were those who would have preferred to see Pompey triumphant, they kept their mouths shut.