Counting the Stars

by Helen Dunmore

  More and more people are gathering. He leaves Egnatius, and skirts the crowd, searching for friendly faces. He’s still looking when someone taps his arm.

  ‘I thought it was you. Have you heard?’

  It’s Calvus. He seems his usual self, neither excited nor fearful. He looks at Catullus searchingly.

  ‘You’re not fit to be out.’

  ‘That cretin Egnatius made me lose my temper, that’s all. He was hinting that Metellus Celer has been poisoned.’

  ‘He’s not the only one.’

  ‘I’ve got to see her.’

  ‘Wait.’ Calvus’ hand is on his arm. ‘Don’t rush in before you know what’s going on. Listen, Cicero went to the Clivus Victoriae this morning. According to him, he was admitted to Metellus Celer’s bedside. He came straight back here and gave one of those lethal little impromptu speeches of his, from the steps of the Curia. You only just missed him. He really pulled in the crowds. They were shouting and stamping by the end of it.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘You know what he’s like. All very formal and full of restrained feeling at first, and then a swell of emotion which he fights to master – but it’s no good, natural feeling will fight its way through – but on he goes, bravely, until the final drop into sorrowful silence. I suppose he might have some genuine feeling, but it all sounded pretty calculated to me.’

  Already, Catullus’ fears are lifting. This so-called poisoning will turn out to be yet another canard. Cicero’s making a meal of it – that’s a sure sign that the whole story is bogus. A political hare, started by one of those factions Catullus can never quite keep up with – Cicero has always been thick with Metellus Celer. A duck and a hare at once, in fact. He can’t help smiling.

  ‘You’re just jealous,’ he teases his friend. ‘You’ll never match old Chickpea in the law courts. He’s the king of advocates.’

  ‘And the king of character assassins. It works like a charm every time, that’s the problem. Why shouldn’t he go on sweeping the strings of his lyre until we’re all in tears? On and on about how his dear friend Metellus Celer was in the Senate only two days ago, radiant with health, in the flower of manhood, fulfilling his duty to the city he loved so well, and so on and so forth. And now he’s been struck down in his prime and he’s lying on what may be his deathbed, but still he thinks of nothing but Rome.’

  ‘You’re such a cynic, Calvus.’

  ‘Not at all. Just showing my appreciation of Cicero’s flourishes, as one orator to another. Where was I? Oh, yes, there was the poor old bosom friend of Cicero, barely able to speak above a whisper, but still thinking only of Rome and how he couldn’t bear to leave his beloved fatherland without his protection. You can imagine the break in Cicero’s voice on “fatherland”. Nothing vulgar or showy, of course, just a restrained stumble to indicate his unbearable emotion. What an actor that man is. And the worst of it is that he doesn’t even know he’s acting. He believes every word of it, while he’s speaking.’

  ‘Show some respect, please.’

  ‘If I could kick him into the Tiber and throw stones at his head while he bobbed about, uttering pitiful imprecations and with any luck not knowing how to swim very well, it would be the happiest day of my life. I hate the bastard. He’s got the gift of the gods and he flogs it to the cause that pays best. He’s power-mad as well. God knows which delusion he’s chasing now: Cicero, defender of the ancient virtues of the Republic; Cicero, the great wit; Cicero, guide and mentor to Crassus, if not Caesar himself; or Cicero, ally and confidant of Pompey – what a joke. He’s like a rabbit playing with wolves. All three of them are completely ruthless and at least twenty moves ahead of Cicero. Pompey’s raring to be Emperor of anywhere. Crassus would buy up hell if he thought he could make some money out of it. Caesar will fuck or fight anything that moves, up to and including that mare he rides so outstandingly, with his handsome head held high enough for the entire army to see it.’

  ‘He can’t help being tall,’ says Catullus.

  ‘He could crouch down a little, surely?’

  Catullus laughs, almost completely reassured. Calvus is bitching away as normal. Nothing serious can have happened. Tomorrow – or perhaps the day after – Clodia’s husband will be laying down the law in the courts again, Cicero will be preparing a speech on a completely different subject, and there’ll be another Forum drama on the boil. A touch of food poisoning, that’s all this will turn out to be.

  ‘Stop laughing,’ says Calvus, in an undertone. ‘People are looking at you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, don’t be so naive. Your name’s linked with his wife and you’re laughing your head off in public, on the day he’s said to be dying.’

  ‘Dying? What, really dying?’

  The wind was in his eyes, full of grit.

  ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

  It was really happening. Clodia was in the middle of it. Clodia might be hurt, in danger –

  ‘I thought you said Cicero was talking it up?’

  ‘Yes, he was, he was making capital out of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. There’ve been plenty of other reports confirming it. Be careful, my dear friend. Or if you can’t manage that, be just a little cautious. You’ve made enemies. People don’t like being mocked; they’d rather be hated.’

  ‘I can do both.’

  ‘Be serious, for fuck’s sake,’ says Calvus, grasping his elbow. ‘Can’t you see that this is their chance? Think how easy it’s going to be to make it look as if you’re in this up to your neck. And then think of all those pompous fuckwits you’ve skewered in your epigrams. They’ll be having orgasms at the chance of shitting on you.’

  ‘You’d rip me apart if I mixed a metaphor like that.’

  ‘It’s a physiological fact.’

  ‘I’ve got to see her.’

  ‘You’d be crazy to go there now. All the Metelli are gathering.’

  Someone jostles Catullus’ back. The crowd is thickening. Bad news brings everyone to the Forum. If Metellus Celer dies – if this is true and real –

  Calvus would never talk like this, unless it were true. Clodia will suffer. Whatever happens, she’s going to suffer. She’ll be weeping. It’s her husband she’s losing this time, not her sparrow.

  Will she grieve for him? His heart is thudding. He can’t picture it. Clodia, a widow.

  A man is dying. At this moment his hands may be losing their sense of touch. But yesterday he was walking and talking. He was a winner, he had everything. Dull and pompous, that was what I thought. Standing there like a pillar with his broad shoulders and thick legs. The kind of man my father approved.

  Clodia will be a widow, free, as I have always wanted her to be. But I never meant it to happen like this. Even in my most secret thoughts, I never asked for Metellus Celer’s life.

  ‘What else is Cicero saying?’ he asks Calvus.

  ‘He’s very clever, you have to grant him that. Plenty of orators can think on their feet, but only our Cicero can be inspired by breathing in the groans of a dying man. There was a lot about his dear friend banging on the wall.’

  ‘Banging on the wall?’

  ‘It’s all part of the image Cicero’s trying to create. You remember how Quintus Catulus used to live next door to Metellus? So, logically enough, poor dying Metellus Celer tries to summon up his old ally in the optimate faction. You know how it is with Cicero’s speeches. Everything is in them for a reason. He wants to link the way Metellus called for Catulus, saviour of conservative values, with the way he sent for Cicero. Putting them on the same footing, you see?

  ‘It’s always the same with Cicero, he can’t resist self-aggrandizement, even when a man he calls “one of his dearest friends” is dying. Can’t you just picture it? Cicero, Catulus and Metellus, brothers-in-arms against all the dross and riffraff who are just itching to take over and destroy the traditions of Rome. What a joke. Cicero wouldn’t last five minutes against Pre
tty Boy Clodius. He goes around boasting that his evidence destroyed Pretty Boy’s reputation at the blasphemy trial – but what he seems to forget is that Pretty Boy got off. His transvestite gate-crashing enterprise earned him no penalty at all. But our Pretty Boy most certainly hasn’t forgotten one word of Chickpea’s speech for the prosecution. Cicero has no idea how much a truly vicious man can enjoy the wait for his revenge.’

  ‘Was he saying that Clodius might have something to do with Metellus’ illness?’

  ‘It was more subtle than that. You know how Cicero plumes himself on his implications. Very stupidly, in this case, but the man is a mass of vanity. He’s completely missed the fact that our Pretty Boy is going to get him one of these days, implications and all.

  ‘The Metelli are another matter. They don’t waste time pluming. They’re men of action, and they look after their own. So that’s why you’ve got to be careful. Remember your role in all this, my friend.’

  ‘I’m about as political as a – as a sparrow.’

  ‘No one’s above politics at a time like this, O composer of exceptionally indiscreet and adulterous hendecasyllables addressed to the wife of the dying hero. The word in the marketplace is that Pretty Boy is in this up to his neck, and his sister, too.’

  ‘That’s impossible. She would never –’

  Calvus’ face gleams. ‘How someone who writes such outrageous poems can remain as innocent as you is one of the eternal mysteries.’

  Even Calvus is caught up in the drama of it. How terrible that the dying of a man brings such a glow to the faces of those who knew him. They’ve dined at his house, enjoying his ample and rather impersonal hospitality. They’ve curried favour with him, pretending to remember every word of his Senate speeches. His front-runner toadies will be up at the Clivus Victoriae already, and soon the whole pack will follow.

  Catullus has a sudden, sickening memory of the mosaic. The lead hounds make ready to leap, while the more timid circle the man they called master and will soon call meat. Clients, dependants, the dozens and dozens of professional friends that any rich, influential man gathers around him. They’ll be crowding the entrance hall, ‘making inquiries’ while they ensure that the slave sends in their names correctly. Terrified, some of them, or distraught, or swiftly planning ahead, deciding what to do if he lives, and what to do if he dies. Getting themselves into position, like charioteers calculating how they’ll shave a few seconds off at the turn.

  Metellus Celer has given a fine feast to his friends this morning. Even his enemies can count on their share. This is a table where the host has no power, and can exclude no one.

  Calvus is probably right. It’s best to keep away from the house on the Palatine. But all the same, he’s got to go.

  The wind seems to be growing stronger. It whisks more dust into his eyes, and they blur with tears. He grasps Calvus.

  ‘Have you ever thought what it must be like, the moment after you realize that you’ve swallowed poison?’

  ‘I ate some mushrooms once, without bothering to check them properly. A foul taste gushed into my mouth, like the pus from a rotten tooth. I broke out in a sweat. I remember looking for a knife. I thought I’d rather slit my wrists than die on the floor, frothing like a dog. But it was all right. I wasn’t important enough for anyone to poison me.’

  ‘But he is.’

  ‘Yes. Take my advice for once. Stay unimportant. Keep out of it. We can’t afford to lose you. But if you’re still pig-headed enough to go looking for trouble, then let me come with you.’

  Calvus is a head shorter than him, but strong and compact. A man no one could easily overturn. A friend who won’t run, who’ll fight back to back with you if he has to. But I’m going on my own, thinks Catullus, because I’ve got to see her alone.

  Scavengers, well-wishers, messengers from fellow senators, clients and every shade of what the word ‘friend’ might mean: the whole ragbag of Rome seems to be heading for Metellus Celer’s house. The big entrance hall is so crowded that some spill out into the street while others are still trying to force their way in.

  How to get through the crowds? He’s standing irresolute, flanked by his slaves, not wanting to push into all that flesh, when someone hails him. He turns, and it’s Dr Philoctetes, moving forward with the quiet authority of a grain-laden ship coming into harbour.

  ‘Let me pass now – quickly, please – let me pass. How are you, my dear young friend? But I need not ask on an occasion so oppressive – nay, overwhelming to the spirits – Stand aside there, my good fellows! Let us pass now – quickly –’

  ‘You’re his doctor? I didn’t know that,’ says Catullus.

  Dr Philoctetes allows a small smile to escape him as he glances back over his shoulder. ‘In a case of urgency such as this, you understand, nothing can be thought of but obtaining the best advice. Established practice goes for nothing, and rightly so, given the need for swift, decisive, authoritative intervention by the most astute and robust of medical skills – But I must leave you, my dear young friend, since duty calls, delightful as it would be to me to prolong our present encounter. Stand here, against this pillar, and you will not be discommoded by the antics of the vulgar mob.’

  Catullus leans against cold marble, catching his breath. Philoctetes has already disappeared. At the far end of the hall a line of heavily built men blocks the way into the main house. He doesn’t recognize them as slaves of the household. And there’s Aemilia, not three yards away, shouting at a ragged fellow who’s dared to arrive with a petition at this inauspicious moment, and at the slave who for some reason has allowed him in.

  ‘Don’t you know what’s going on here? I’ll have you flogged for your impudence, and you as well, Stephanicus, how much did he give you to let him in?’

  The ragged man doesn’t take a blind bit of notice. He’s here to deliver his petition and deliver it he will. He begins to chant it out in a high-pitched wail: ‘And so if my lord wants to know what’s being done in his name, that is to say, the agent’s crooked, time and again we’ve begged him to see to the drains and now the sewer’s backed up and overflowing all over the floor, and there’s six of us in the room, what with the new baby as well, only the women say it’s not likely to be long for this world, poor little mite, and the smell of it is something awful, especially with my wife not being equal to scrubbing the floor given her situation –’

  ‘Drains!’ shrieks Aemilia. ‘I’ll give you drains. Wait until you’re put out on to the streets for not paying your rent. You can whistle for all the drains you’ll find there. Drains! Trying to get out of paying the rent more like. Well, it won’t wash with me.’ Her face flares. Metellus Celer and the grief of the house is forgotten. She couldn’t feel it more keenly if she owned the wretched tenement herself. ‘You don’t know how fucking lucky you are!’ she screams into the petitioner’s face. The slave, Stephanicus, knuckles his forehead and watches sullenly.

  Catullus would never have thought that the quiet, inflexible orderliness of Metellus Celer’s house could break down inside a few hours. This uproar must be loud enough to reach the dying man’s ears.

  ‘Aemilia,’ he calls, and she turns to him, plunges forward and grabs his arm as if he’s about to run away. Her face is pallid, swollen.

  ‘Have you come to see my lady?’

  ‘I’m here to inquire after the health of Metellus Celer, like all these people.’

  She sniffs with contempt. ‘You think that’s what they’re here for? Vultures, more like. They come flapping over from the Esquiline Hill at the first whiff of sickness.’

  But vultures don’t attend sickness: they feast on death. A slip of the tongue, maybe. When tongues slip, the thoughts behind them show.

  ‘He’s very ill, then?’ he asks in an undertone which will carry less than a whisper.

  She glances around quickly. ‘Come with me,’ she says. ‘Leave your slaves here, the fewer in this house the better, the way things stand with us.’

  He t
ells his slaves to wait for him, and follows Aemilia as her big solid body barges forward. He doesn’t greet any of the half-familiar faces that sharpen as they see him. They watch his back as Aemilia leads him away, and he feels the heat of their curious gazes.

  – I didn’t expect him to show up.

  – Wonder what he’s here for?

  – Can’t you guess?

  Aemilia speaks to the men guarding the inner entrance. They are heavily muscled, with the hard, set faces of centurions or gladiators. No one’s even attempting to get past them. They let Aemilia and Catullus through, and as he glances back they close ranks into a solid wall of flesh. He’s trapped. But there’s another way out, he calms himself. There’s always another way out.

  ‘Who were they?’ he asks Aemilia as they cross the atrium and pass the doorways of the formal rooms.

  ‘Trainee gladiators,’ she says with satisfaction. ‘You can hire them by the day. They’re glad of the money. It was my lady thought of it.’

  Not quite so prostrated with grief that she can’t think straight, then. She knew there might be trouble.

  He tries to think straight, too. Her husband is sick, maybe dying. All their stratagems and secrets are suddenly meaningless. What if Clodia is beside herself with grief, as she was for her sparrow? He will have nothing to say to her.

  They go through the courtyard gardens, past the fountain, to the little reception room where the Moorish boy tumbled, on the day of the sparrow’s death.

  Eleven

  There is no one in the room. It’s bare and blank, but it feels as if something’s happened there only a second before. The air seems to quiver with shock. There’s a slap of feet, running away.

  ‘Come back here this moment!’ yells Aemilia, and the feet stop. A frightened slave puts his head around the door. ‘Where’s my lady?’ Aemilia demands.