A Gladiator Dies Only Once (32 page)

I gazed down into the one good eye of Motho, and came to my senses. He was nothing more than he appeared: a clever, hardworking man who had suffered the misfortune of being born into slavery, and then the further misfortune of losing an eye, and who now faced the ultimate misfortune of dying a horrible death to satisfy another man’s deluded whim. It was to Motho that I owed the truth, even more than I owed it to Lucullus in exchange for the fee he had agreed to pay me. Silently, I vowed that I would not fail him.

I turned away and strode toward the house. On another of the garden paths, glimpsed through leafy foliage, I saw Lucullus’s brother, Marcus, strolling beside Archias. They passed a little statue of the rampant god Priapus. “Out of scale, isn’t he?” said Marcus. “Too small to fit that space?”

“Godhead is known from deeds, not size or shape,” the poet uttered in his usual declamatory singsong. Did he always speak in epigrams?

I drew near to the house. Through an open window I was able to see into the main room of Lucullus’s library, which was almost as talked about in Rome as the gardens or the Apollo Room. Lucullus had assembled the largest collection of scrolls this side of Alexandria; scholars and bibliophiles came from distant lands for the privilege of reading his books. Through the window I saw row upon row of upright bookcases, their pigeon holes stuffed with scrolls. Pacing back and forth before the window was Cicero, who moved his lips slightly as he pored over a tattered scroll; occasionally he lowered the scroll, gazed into the middle distance, and uttered disconnected phrases—”Sons of Romulus, I beseech you!” and “I come not to challenge a rival, but to save Rome from a scoundrel!” and so on. I gathered he was studying some treatise on oratory and cribbing rhetorical flourishes to use in his campaign against Catilina.

At the far end of the room, Cato and Antiochus stood in a doorway, talking in whispers. Cato uttered an exclamation and tapped a rolled scroll against Antiochus’s chest for emphasis. Antiochus threw back his head and laughed. Cicero stopped his pacing and shushed them loudly.

I followed the pathway that circled the house. A short flight of steps brought me to the terrace outside the Apollo Room. The doors were open. I stepped inside. The sunlight on the terrace had dazzled me, so that the room appeared dark; for a long moment I thought I was alone, until I realized otherwise.

“Do you mind? You’re blocking my light.”

It was Arcesislaus the artist who spoke, looking at me over his shoulder with a petulant expression. He stood before the long wall that boasted the painting of Apollo and his gifts to mankind. I smelled the singular odor of encaustic wax and saw that Arcesislaus was working with a thin blade and a palette of pigments, applying a new layer of colored wax over the existing one.

“And you’re blocking
my
view,” said a feminine voice. I turned about and saw Servilia, who reclined on a couch near the door to the terrace. Apparently, I had wandered into her line of sight and was blocking her view of the artist’s handiwork—or was it her view of the artist himself?

I stepped to one side. “You’re reworking part of the painting?”

Arcesislaus made a face that indicated that he did not care to explain himself, but finally sighed and gave me a curt nod. “Yes; Lucullus wants cherries. He’s decided that cherries must have been created by Apollo—’Greatest of all the god’s gifts!’ he says—and so cherries must appear in this painting.”

“Where is Lucullus, by the way?” I said.

Servilia answered. “My husband is out in the orchard now, eating more cherries. He’s mad for them; cherry-mad!” She laughed—rather unpleasantly, I thought.

Arcesislaus stared at the painting, arms crossed, brooding. “ ‘Here, in this corner,’ he told me. ‘A cherry tree, if you please.’ Never mind that it completely unbalances the composition. I’ll have to add some new element to that other corner, as well. More work for me!”

“But isn’t that what you artists live for—to work?”

He snorted. “That’s a misconception commonly held by those who possess no talent. Like any sane man, I prefer leisure—and pleasure—to working.” Did he steal a look at Servilia, or simply look beyond me? “I sculpt and I paint because Lucullus pays me to do so, and very handsomely.”

“Money matters a great deal to you?”

He gave me a withering glance. “I’m no different from any other man! Except for my ability to do
this.”
He scraped the blade against a daub of red wax on the palette, touched the blade to the painting, and as if by magic a cherry appeared, so glossy and plump that it made my mouth water.

“Remarkable!” I said.

He smiled begmdgingly, pleased by the compliment. “There’s a trick to it—painting cherries. I could paint cherries all day long.” He laughed, as if at some private joke. Servilia laughed as well.

A chill ran up my spine. I looked from the face of Arcesislaus to the face of Apollo—his self-portrait, there could be no doubt, for man and god shared the same sardonic smile. I thought of how merciless, selfish, and cruel the god could be, in spite of his beauty.

I looked at the palette of pigmented wax. Not all paints were so thick. Other techniques called for paints that were quite thin, hardly more than colored water. With a thin liquid and a tiny horsehair brush, one could
paint
cherries—or paint
cherries . . .

I backed out of the Apollo Room, onto the terrace, then turned and ran to the cherry orchard.

Lucullus was where I expected to find him, seated on a folding chair beneath the tree that bore the cherries called Most-Precious-of-All. As I approached, I saw him reach up, pluck a cherry, gaze at it admiringly, and then lower it toward his open mouth.

“No!” I shouted. “Don’t eat it!”

He turned his head, but continued to lower the cherry toward his lips—until I knocked it from his hand.

“Gordianus! What in Hades do you think you’re doing?”

“Saving your life, quite possibly. Or perhaps just your sanity.”

“What are you talking about? This is outrageous!”

“What was it you said to me about these cherries? So fragile they can be eaten only beneath the tree—which gives them a more practical advantage, that they can’t have been poisoned.”

“Yes; they’re the only things I ever eat without having a taster test them first.”

“And yet, they could be poisoned, here on the tree.”

“But how? No one could soak them, or cut them open, or . . .” He shook his head. “I didn’t call on your services for the purpose of finding a poisoner, Gordianus. I require of you one single task, and that regards—”

“They could be
painted,”
I said. “What if someone diluted a poison, and with a brush applied the solution to the cherries while they yet hang on the branch? You might consume only a little at a time, but eventually, considering how many of these cherries you’ve eaten—”

“But Gordianus, I have suffered no ill effects. My digestion is fine; my lungs are clear; my eyes are bright.”

But your mind is deranged,
I wanted to say—but how could one say such a thing to a man like Lucullus? I would have to find another way; I would have to go roundabout, perhaps approach Marcus and win him over, make him see that his older brother needed looking after. Yes, I thought, that was the answer, considering how famously close was the bond between the two brothers. A very public family tragedy had struck them early in life; sometimes such an event drives a wedge between siblings, but quite the opposite had occurred with the brothers Lucullus. Their father’s self-destructive behavior had very nearly ruined them, but together they had regained the city’s respect and made a name for themselves that exceeded anything their ancestors had achieved. One might even say that Lucullus owed his success to the failure of his father—that he owed everything to his father. . .

Then I saw, in a flash, that cherries had nothing to do with Lucullus’s dilemma. The will, yes—but not the cherries. . .

A slave, hearing his master’s voice raised, appeared and stood at a respectful distance, a quizzical look on his face.

“Go find your master’s brother. Ask him to come here,” I said.

The slave looked to Lucullus, who peered at me for a long moment, then nodded. “Do as this man requests. Bring Marcus only—no one else.”

While we waited, neither of us spoke. Lucullus moved his eyes here and there, never meeting my gaze.

Marcus appeared. “What’s this? The slave told me he heard raised voices, an argument, and then Gordianus asked for me.”

“He seems to think that my beloved cherries have been poisoned somehow,” muttered Lucullus.

“Yes, but that was a false notion,” I said. “And realizing that it was false, I gave it up. If only you could do the same, Lucullus.”

“This is about Motho, isn’t it?” said Marcus, regarding his brother with a pained look.

“Call him by his true name—Varius!” cried Lucullus.

“Why did you recently decide to write a will?” I said. The two brothers both looked at me sharply, taken aback at the change of subject.

“What a peculiar question to ask!” said Lucullus.

“For many years you had no will. You were far from Rome, fighting battles, accumulating a vast fortune and repeatedly putting your life at risk. Yet you saw no cause to write a will then.”

“Because I thought I’d live forever! Men cling to the illusion of immortality for as long as they can,” said Lucullus. “I think Archias once wrote a poem on the subject. Shall I summon him to deliver an epigram?”

“The closer I cut to the bone, the more he laughs, denying all danger,’” I said, quoting Ennius. “How’s that for a suitable epigram?”

“What are you talking about?” snapped Marcus. But the tremor in his voice gave him away; he was beginning to see the train of my thoughts.

“You
encouraged him to write a will. Didn’t you?”

Marcus stared at me for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. “Yes. The time had come.”

“Because of a change in Lucullus’s health? Because of some other threat to his life?”

“Not exactly.” Marcus sighed. “Dear brother, he knows. There’s no use hiding the truth from him.”

“He knows nothing. There is nothing to know!” said Lucullus. “I have employed Gordianus for a single purpose: to prove to the world, and to
you,
Marcus, that I am not mistaken in what I know about Varius, or Motho, or whatever we should call him. I know what I know, and the world must be made to know it, too!”

“Did your father say things like that, after he was recalled from Sicily and made to stand trial?” I said, as gently as I could.

Marcus drew a deep breath. “Similar things, yes. He had strange notions; he fixated upon impossible ideas that no one could talk him out of. His emotions became inappropriate, his logic inexplicable, his behavior unpredictable. It began in a small way, but grew, until toward the end there was almost nothing left of the man we had known. There was only the slightest hint of the change before he left to take up the command in Sicily—so slight, no one really noticed it at the time, but only in retrospect. By the time he returned to Rome and stood trial, the change was obvious to those closest to him—our mother, our uncles. My brother and I were mere children, of course; we had no way of understanding. It was a very difficult time for everyone. We spoke of it only within the family. It became a source of shame to us, greater than the shame of my father’s conviction and exile.”

“A family secret,” I said. “Had such a thing happened before, in earlier generations?”

“Don’t answer, Marcus!” said Lucullus. “He has no right to ask such a question.”

Unheeding, Marcus nodded. “Something similar befell our father’s father. An early dotage, a softening of the wits; we think it must be a kind of a malady that passes from father to son, a coiled serpent in the mind that waits to strike until a man is at the peak of his powers.”

“All supposition!” snapped Lucullus. “Just as likely, it was the harassment of his enemies that drove our father to distraction, not some affliction from within.”

“As you see, Gordianus, my brother has always preferred to deny the truth of this matter,” said Marcus. “He denied it concerning our father. He denies it now, when it begins to concern himself.”

“And yet,” I said, “he acceded to writing a will when you urged him to—now, rather than later, when his faculties may have eroded to a greater degree. That indicates to me that at some level, Lucullus knows the truth of what’s happening to him, even if he continues outwardly to deny it. Is that not so, Lucullus?”

He gazed at me angrily, then his features gradually softened. His eyes glistened. A tear ran down one cheek. “I have led an honorable life. I have served Rome to the very best of my ability. I have been generous to my friends, forgiving to my enemies. I love life dearly. At last, I am about to have a child! Why must this shameful fate befall me? If the child is a son, will it befall him as well? My body is still strong; I may live many years yet. What’s to become of me in the time I have left, if I lose my senses? Have the gods no mercy?”

I looked upon Lucullus and shivered. I saw a man surrounded by opulence beyond measure, at the summit of his career, adored by the multitude, beloved by his friends—yet utterly alone. Lucullus possessed everything and nothing, because he had no future.

“The gods have much to answer for,” I said quietly. “But while you still can, you must struggle against your delusions, especially those which pose a danger to others. Renounce this idea you have about Motho, Lucullus. Say it aloud, so that Marcus can hear.”

His face became a tragedy mask. The struggle within him was so great that he trembled. Marcus, weeping more openly than his brother, gripped his arm to steady him.

“Motho . . . is
not
Varius. There, I’ve said it! Though every fiber of my being tells me it’s a lie, I’ll say it again: Motho is not Varius.”

“Say that you won’t harm him,” I whispered.

Lucullus shut his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. “I shall not harm him!”

I turned and left the brothers alone, to find what comfort they could beneath the branches of the cherry tree called Most-Precious-of-All.