Counting the Stars

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘The pain must have been severe.’

  ‘Sextus assured me that his tears flowed like rain, not like a man’s tears. My father could barely speak, but he complained of numbness and tingling in his hands and feet. His breathing grew worse and he became very cold. He died just before dawn on the second day of his illness, after great suffering. On the first night, the doctor asked to see the dishes my father had eaten from. He must have been suspicious of poison from the outset. But all the dishes had been scrubbed, the copper cooking pots scoured with sand, and the kitchens swept clean. Not a particle of food remained from the dinner. Besides, all the slaves swore that my father, my stepmother and all the guests had eaten from the same dish.’

  ‘What was that dish?’

  ‘Roast partridge, stuffed with chestnut mushrooms, served with oyster sauce. My father loved oyster sauce.’

  ‘And everybody ate from the same dish?’

  ‘Everybody.’

  ‘What about the sauce?’

  ‘Of course I questioned them about the sauce, that was obvious. But it was poured from the same jug for everyone at the table.’

  He has indeed checked all these facts. It wasn’t difficult. Kitchen slaves will talk to kitchen slaves, and he paid well for the information about the last dinner eaten by Metellus Celer. Clodia’s husband always took oyster sauce with roast meat. His tastes were simple, and he didn’t like new dishes. Naturally he provided all the expected hors d’oeuvres, savouries and sweetmeats for his guests, but he could be relied on to eat only the one main course himself. He insisted on the very best meat and game. The partridges (perhaps his favourite bird) must be plump and perfectly cooked so that their succulence retained a gamey hint of blood.

  Catullus knows exactly what was on Metellus Celer’s plate at his last dinner. Two whole partridges, stuffed with mushrooms, coated with oyster sauce. The man’s appetites were large, as well as simple. Did Clodia’s glance stray to her husband’s plate, checking that all was as it should be?

  Suddenly he remembers the first time he was invited to dine at her house on the Palatine. It seems a hundred years ago. He can remember feeling a little bored at the prospect of an evening with Metellus Celer and all the other bigwigs who were bound to be there – and reminding himself that he could always slip away early and go to Ipsitilla’s –

  It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Clodia, but that night she burned herself on to his mind like a vision sent by the gods. How gladly he’d surrendered. He was where he had always longed to be, inside the fire.

  He’d borrowed Sappho’s poem to describe it:

  a subtle flame

  burns beneath my skin,

  my blood thunders

  my ears ring

  night covers my eyes

  His heart clenches. That’s how it was. If he could forget all that, he could survive anything. It’s the way she keeps reminding him of her former self that tears him apart. She can be cold, calculating, treacherous, until he’s almost free to hate her, and then suddenly she is his girl again, incomparable. She turns to him, as if for the very first time.

  That first time. He made her laugh, she said. He laughed at everything and he was afraid of no one. He had come to Rome to make his name, and already his lines were caught up and repeated almost as soon as he’d finished writing them. His epigrams were famous. He exposed pretension, deceit, opportunism, folly. But he could be tender, too, with an intimacy that took your breath away and stripped words to the bone. She knew all these things about him before she knew him. They met once or twice, in crowded parties where there was no time to talk. Her attention was quickened, her pulses ready to beat faster. She would invite him to the next dinner at her house on the Palatine. She said to her husband:

  – Rather a coup, we’ve got Catullus coming tonight.

  – Really? Is the family visiting from Verona? Her husband spoke absently. He knew everyone’s genealogy, and where they belonged.

  – No, he’s living in Rome now. His poetry is making a tremendous stir.

  – Can’t say I’ve heard of the poetry. But he comes of a good family.

  She’d smiled at her husband. Of course he hadn’t heard of Catullus’ poetry. He relied on Clodia to keep him ‘abreast of cultural trends’ as he phrased it. She always knew what was what: she knew what would bring distinction to their house.

  The dinner came. Dull at first, Catullus thought. A small, select gathering. Dutiful conversation about poetry, so crass that it made his eyes narrow like a cat’s. Keen, knowledgeable talk about the relationship between Pompey and Caesar. Catullus could not concentrate. He watched the mouths, the lips moving, the slaves moving in their intricate dance of service. Suddenly he felt himself come to life. He told a story about a thief at the Baths, and now everyone was laughing. Clodia’s mouth opened, showing her small white teeth.

  He saw her; really saw her. The laughter died away. Clodia’s pupils dilated as if someone had poured a drop of antimony into each of her eyes. They recognized each other. It was sharp as a stab but he still doesn’t know whether what he recognized was her power to make him love her, or her power to make him suffer. But he wasn’t alone; not then. Clodia was caught, too. They were both harnessed and they could do nothing but bend their heads to the yoke as it dropped over them.

  His girl, his bright-shining goddess. If it’s possible that she could watch her husband shake out his napkin, watch him try the flesh of the partridge with his knife and then nod with grave approval, watch him dip a chunk of meat into oyster sauce, and then turn to talk and laugh with another guest; if these things are possible then anything is possible.

  Oyster sauce is strongly flavoured with garum. You would not be able to detect mushrooms in it if they were pounded to a paste. Sometimes he’s amazed that all his tormented thoughts can be held inside one skull. He puts his hand to his forehead and expects to feel a vibration like the fury of trapped bees.

  If she can do that, then nothing and no one can be trusted.

  ‘But you still suspect that he was poisoned,’ says Gorgo lightly, as if such a suspicion were the most natural thing in the world.

  He can’t answer. He doesn’t trust himself. The death of a man by poison: you can’t get away from that. He meant his story to shadow the truth, but it is becoming the truth.

  No. It will happen only if you believe it. His girl, who broke her heart over a sparrow, she couldn’t plan a death like that. She wasn’t capable of watching calmly as her husband was dragged to the grave. And such a death. Such a degradation hour after hour until he must have longed to die, as a man broken by torturers doesn’t even notice the reek of shit when he’s thrown into the Cloaca Maxima. No woman could act her way through such horrors. She must be innocent.

  But he can’t leave it. Doubt is alive in him, clutching, killing him.

  ‘Your father was previously strong and healthy?’

  He nods. She turns on her couch and lamplight ripples over her clothes.

  ‘Did the slaves mention the smell of your father’s breath? The same smell would have been on his skin, and in his sweat and urine.’

  He is back in the bedroom, with Metellus Celer. There is the smell of shit and vomit, so strong that it overwhelms every other smell at first. But as he comes closer to the bed, he smells something different. A familiar smell, but in the wrong place. The smell of brown, rotted apples lying in the long grass under the trees. Their skin is stippled with white spots of decay, and when you stamp on them they give off a sharp smell of fermentation.

  ‘There was a smell of rotten fruit. Of apples.’

  She swings her legs off the side of the couch and sits upright. ‘Stomach pains, difficulty in breathing, sweats – did you mention sweats? Excessive salivation and uncontrolled weeping.’ She ticks off the symptoms on her fingers. ‘And, finally, the smell of rotting apples. Your father was unlucky. Either he suffered from a rare, sudden disease which mimicked exactly the effects of eating certain mushrooms, or he ate
those mushrooms and died from their effect.’

  ‘But that’s not possible. The slaves swear that everyone was served from the same dish. Even the sauces were poured from a common jug.’

  ‘Then there are only three possibilities,’ says Gorgo. Her light, bewitching eyes shine like barbarian seas in the far north. Amusement plays on her face without settling into anything as definite as a smile. ‘Either you’re mistaken in your suspicions, and your father died a natural death; or the slaves are lying about the dish; or we must find a third explanation. Nothing is impossible. It only seems so because we haven’t yet uncovered the explanation.’

  She springs off the couch in a sudden, supple movement, and claps her hands above her head. Immediately, another slave enters. This time it’s a boy, dark and slender. She speaks to him in a language Catullus doesn’t know. It’s not Greek.

  ‘I have ordered him to fetch us some cakes, to sweeten our discussion,’ she says. ‘He will bring more tea, too. I hear that your slaves are refusing to eat or drink in my house. You should train them better.’

  Almost instantly, it seems, the boy is back with another silver tray, this time one with a high border. The cakes are no bigger than his thumb, lying in a blue dish, glistening with sweetness. There are two little plates, and two embroidered linen napkins.

  ‘The cakes are a speciality of the house, made from honey, almonds and cardamom,’ says Gorgo. ‘Serve yourself.’

  He chooses three cakes, and puts them on his plate. They are still warm from the oven.

  ‘There’s a syrup of rose water and honey to go with them.’ She indicates the jug that the boy is holding. It’s the same blue as the plates, with an image of a leaping hare on its side. ‘Some people like the flavour of rose water, others prefer the cakes as they are.’

  ‘I’ll try the syrup,’ he says. The boy pours a thin stream over his cakes. The jug is so close to him that Catullus notices a tiny chip on the rim. The boy passes behind him, goes around to his mistress and pours out syrup for her before placing the jug on the tray. She lifts a little cake, dripping with syrup, and bites into it. Her teeth are small and white. She smiles.

  ‘Delicious. Why don’t you try one? They’re not so good once you let them grow cold.’

  He is no slave, but even so he’s glad to see her taste the cake before he eats his own. He lifts the sticky, syrupy morsel. A golden drop falls on to the plate. His mouth waters. At that instant she leans forward and strikes like a snake. The cake flies from his hand and splatters on the tiles.

  ‘I’m afraid they may have used the wrong kind of rose water in the syrup,’ she says calmly. ‘It may not be wise to eat your cakes.’

  ‘But you’ve already eaten yours.’

  She laughs softly, and says a few words in the foreign language to the boy. He smiles like a clever child, glances shyly at Catullus and then back to his mistress.

  ‘He will show you,’ says Gorgo. With a slight flourish, the boy brings out the jug from behind his back. But it can’t be the same jug he used to pour the syrup. That jug is still on the tray.

  Of course, there are two. They are identical, with the same distinctive blue glaze, the same leaping hare, even the same tiny chip on the rim.

  ‘Yes, there are two,’ says Gorgo. ‘He has a pocket in his tunic. He holds one jug, like this, and serves you. There is just enough syrup in it for one person; a special syrup. He goes behind you, puts the used jug in his pocket, takes out the second jug and serves me. It takes some skill, of course, and a certain amount of practice. It is important not to spill any of the syrup. But it is not a difficult trick.’

  She smiles at the boy, and says something to him. He opens his mouth. She pops a cake from her own plate into it, and dismisses him.

  ‘You’ve proved your point,’ says Catullus, ‘but I’m still hungry. Is it safe to eat my cakes?’

  ‘You may do as you wish.’

  He watches her for a moment. Her fingers are relaxed. She’s intent, but not afraid. Not expecting trouble, then, and with four of his slaves downstairs and his whole household told where he’s going, there would certainly be trouble. Deliberately, he picks up a cake, puts it in his mouth, and bites.

  ‘Delicious,’ he says.

  It is not a difficult trick. Metellus Celer always asked for oyster sauce with his roast meat.

  He doesn’t want to know any more. A healthy man can be struck down between one day and the next. A fever can seize him, or an inflammation of the brain. Philoctetes is a good doctor, but he can make a mistake. Rome is a stew of rumours, and there isn’t a great man in the city who doesn’t have enemies attached to his heels like shadows. So, if a man like Metellus Celer dies suddenly, everyone cries murder.

  Clodia has no motive. She had nothing to gain by it. Freedom? She was free already. She did what she wanted. It’s true that her brother and her husband are political enemies – but no one, not even Pretty Boy, would expect that of a sister –

  The pale blue eyes are watching him.

  ‘You are not in the timber business,’ she says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘I’m a poet.’

  She nods. ‘You wanted to know what had happened,’ she says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to know what will happen?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘I have some gift for it,’ she says, ‘or perhaps you don’t believe?’ He’s been to half the fortune-tellers in Rome in his time.

  – Fortunes told with peacock feathers! Get your fortune told here, my handsome, with authentic, guaranteed feathers from the shrine of Holy Aphrodite at Kos!

  – Over here, gorgeous! The amazing Rufa will trace your future on the one-and-only chart of divination, brought from the walls of a Pharaoh’s tomb in Egyptland!

  Ipsitilla says it’s all vanity. ‘You just like the way they concentrate on you, darling, I don’t think you care tuppence what they actually say.’ But there’s such a thing as second-sight. You shiver, and the hairs rise on the back of your neck. You mustn’t cross a seer. She has the power to bring down light or darkness into your life.

  He stretches out his hand. Gorgo puts one hand beneath his, lightly supporting it. Her other hand sweeps over his palm, barely touching it, as if wiping away everything that might hide what she wants to see.

  ‘Now look at me,’ she says.

  His hand seems to tingle slightly as she passes hers over it again.

  ‘I see a long journey,’ she says. Her accent is more pronounced now. ‘They have already seasoned the timber to build the ship in which you will sail. Keep still. I am feeling for the thread of your life.’

  Her fingers flutter, then settle.

  ‘You will live long,’ she says, her voice thickening. There is a film of sweat on her forehead. ‘No hand I have seen possesses a longer lifeline. But there’s more –’

  She pauses, sweeping his palm again and again. The veins in her forehead bulge. Lines deepen in her face, her nose grows sharp and her lips thin. She looks like a ravaged old woman as she draws in her breath harshly and says in a rapid monotone, ‘You have two lives. You hate and you love. You see and you remain in darkness. You live and you die. You die without children but your offspring carry your name for ever. Take your hand away.’

  He takes back his hand.

  Seventeen

  Gorgo leans against her cushions.

  ‘Wait,’ she mutters.

  Sweat prickles the palms of his hands. Gorgo has crawled inside his life like a thief. But she can’t really know his future, or his past. No one has the power to cancel the work of time. Without time, you have nothing. It’s the one thing that’s sure. A door opens and you come into the world; it closes and you go out of the world. Otherwise, life would be unbearable. He’s always hated the thought of immortality. No wonder the gods have such cold, hard smiles.

  He stares at Gorgo. She looks as if she’ll live for ever, preparing poisons for Rome’s convenient mur
ders.

  It’s Clodia he needs. His girl, his Clodia. Every day another tiny smudge of a line around her wonderful eyes, a new softness to the skin inside her elbow. They’re dying together, holding hands as they move through time. That poem he wrote about Clodia’s sparrow, hopping into the blackness: it was about the two of them, him and Clodia, already on the dark path and always knowing where it ends for them. But not caring, because they’ve got what they wanted from time and death.

  His girl.

  ‘You don’t look well,’ says Gorgo. ‘Does your chest always make that sound when you breathe?’

  Gorgo is sapping his life. He can’t breathe right. This room is stifling. Why doesn’t she open the windows?

  He breathes out slowly, and drops his shoulders to relax, as Dr Philoctetes has taught him.

  ‘If you were my patient, I would be able to help you,’ says Gorgo.

  ‘I have a doctor already.’

  She shrugs. ‘Anyone can call himself a doctor. Most of them are quacks. Give me your hand again. Let me feel your skin. All I need is a hair from your head, a drop of your sweat; perhaps some urine. The rest is a matter of observation. I learned this art of diagnosis in Egypt, and I studied six years for it.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to be diagnosed.’

  ‘You prefer to take your chance,’ says Gorgo. She yawns, stretching her arms so the silk of her tunic moulds against her body. She looks tired now, and older. He’s just the same when he’s written for too long, written himself out. Empty, ready for any piece of folly his friends want to think up, wanting escape at all costs.

  You prefer to take your chance.

  I do. You live and you die. Who doesn’t that apply to? You hate and you love. That one hit home. She might have read the words out of his mind. Odi et amo. He feels exposed, as if Gorgo has penetrated the part of him where his poems are made.