Catilina's Riddle (17 page)

"It was posed in this fashion: 'I see two bodies. One is thin and wasted, but has a great head. The other body is big and strong—
but has
no head at all!' "

Catilina did not respond immediately. From the shifting shadows on his brow and around his mouth I thought I saw him frowning. "Caelius told you this riddle?"

"Yes. Contemplating it has caused me considerable distress." I spoke only the truth.

"Strange that Caelius should have repeated it to you."

"Why? Is the riddle a secret?" I thought of clandestine meetings, messages sent in code, oaths sworn and sealed by drinking from a cup of blood.

"Not exactly. But riddles have their proper time and place, and the time to pose that riddle has not yet arrived. Strange . . ." He rose from bis couch. "I'm suddenly weary, Gordianus. The journey has caught up with me, and I think I must have eaten too much of Congrio's cooking."

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I roused myself, intending to show him the way, but he was already leaving the courtyard. "Don't worry about waking me in the morning,"

he said over his shoulder. "I'm an early riser. I shall be up even before the slaves."

Only moments after he left, the last of the lamps sputtered and went out. I reclined on my couch in the darkness, wondering why Catilina would not supply the answer to his own riddle.

Later that night I woke up in my bed beside Bethesda. Nature called.

I rose to my feet. I didn't bother to reach for a cloak to cover myself.

The night was warm.

I stepped into the hallway and headed for the privy; Lucius Claudius, never one to stint himself of luxury, had blessed the house with indoor plumbing, just like a city house in Rome. The hallway ran alongside one wall of the courtyard. Through one of the little windows I glimpsed a dark shape on one of the couches and gave a start.

It was a body. Of that I was instantly certain, though in the dim starlight I could tell little about it. I stared at the stiff, unmoving shape.

I felt a tremor of fear, and then a hot flush of anger that I should feel such fear in my own home.

Then the body stirred. It was a living man.

He turned his head slightly, and in the dim starlight I discerned the profile of Catilina. He lay upon the couch with his hands folded on his stomach, not making a sound. I would have thought he was asleep, except that his eyes were open. He appeared to be lost in thought.

I watched him for a long moment, then silently continued on my way. I stepped into the privy and did my business as quietly as possible.

On the way back to my bedroom I stopped and watched him again. He had not moved.

Suddenly he sprang up from the couch. I thought he must have seen or heard me, but he took no notice of me. He began to pace slowly around the small courtyard, circling the pool, his arms crossed and his head bowed. After a while he fell back onto the couch and covered his face with one hand, dropping his other arm limply to the floor. His posture suggested deep exhaustion or despair, but from his lips came neither snoring nor weeping, not even a sigh, only the steady breathing of a wakeful man. Catilina brooded.

I returned to my room and pressed myself beside Bethesda, who stirred but did not wake. I feared that I would brood and fret like Catilina, but Morpheus came quickly and pulled me deep into the black recesses of forgetful sleep.

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C H A P T E R E L E V E N

arose the next morning expecting to find Catilina still abed, despite his claim to be up early, but when I looked into the room he shared with Tongilius I saw two vacant couches with their coverlets neatly folded. When had he slept—or had I he slept at all?

Perhaps, I thought with a glimmer of hope, he had grown restless and departed altogether. But one of the kitchen slaves informed me that he and Tongilius had eaten an early breakfast of bread and dates and then had gone out, taking their horses from the stable and leaving word that they would return before noon.

Very well, I thought, the less I have to entertain him, and the less he disrupts the routine of the farm, the better. At least he possessed good manners, as a true patrician should. As a house guest, he could have been much worse.

I took Aratus and Meto and went down to the stream to continue our calculations for building the water mill. For a while, engaged in the work, I forgot about Catilina completely, but then I began to have new misgivings. He had gone out with Tongilius, he had said, but to where and for what purpose? As my guest he was free to wander wherever he liked on the farm, but the two of them had taken their horses with them, and the kitchen slave thought she had seen them headed in the direction of the Cassian Way. Catilina had said he would be back by noon, and therefore could not have gone far; what sort of business could he have nearby, and with whom? I did not like the idea of his using my home as a base for whatever dealings he might have in the vicinity. Nothing of the sort had been mentioned by Marcus Caelius, who had promised that Catilina would visit me only to retire from the city or to rest on his way

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north. I considered confronting Catilina with my displeasure. It seemed a reasonable thing to do, except that I kept remembering Nemo.

I tried to push such thoughts from my mind and to concentrate on the work at hand, but I was distracted and grew more and more irritated.

Meto's obvious disinterest did not help. I had hoped that the water mill would spark his enthusiasm, and one of the reasons I wanted to pursue the project was to give him a practical lesson in building, but he had no head for figures or geometry and grew bored and restless at being asked to hold pieces of string and take a few steps in one direction or the other.

Later in the morning he asked to be excused to return to the house, saying the heat was making him dizzy, and I let him, though I suspected he was more bored than faint.

I myself was clumsy with the siting instruments and kept giving Aratus the wrong figures to write down, then correcting myself. Each time he erased the wax tablet with the back of his hand, the gesture grew more curt. I was about to reprimand him, but then he shut his eyes and used the other side of his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow.

The sun was directly overhead. Perhaps it was only the heat that was setting our nerves on edge.

"We'll stop now, until it's cooler," I told him. Aratus nodded and hurriedly gathered up the instruments, then departed for the house.

Clearly, he was as tired of my manner as I was of his, and glad to have a break from me. I sighed, wondering if any farmer could succeed on such bad terms with his foreman. For an instant I wondered if I should replace Aratus, but the thought was too much to take on. I fetched my battered tin cup and went down to the stream to scoop up a drink of cool water. I drank it down slowly, then scooped up another cup and splashed it on my face. The day was going to be intolerably hot.

I heard a noise, and turned to see Meto stepping from behind an oak tree. From the smile on his face, the respite from geometry had lifted his spirits considerably. Then I saw the man who followed him. I gave a start, thinking another stranger had appeared on the farm. I stared, puzzled, then realized what had changed.

"Your beard, Catilina!"

He reached up and stroked his naked jaw, laughing softly. "Would you share your cup? Just walking here from the stable has given me a thirst."

I handed him the cup. While he knelt beside the flowing water, I sat down on a broad, flat rock in the shade. He drank his fill, then joined me on the rock. Meto slipped off his sandals and went wading in the shallow water to cool his feet

"Tongilius did it for me this morning," Catilina said, stroking his jaw again. "Not a bad job, considering the poor light."

"He shaved you before you went out?"

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He nodded. When had he slept?

"But the look was so distinctive, Catilina." I meant the words to be ironic, considering that I had seen the same beard on every recent visitor from the city.

"The first to adopt a certain fashion should be the first to abandon it," said Catilina glibly.

"The voters will think you are changeable and frivolous."

"The voters who know me will know better. The voters who despise me would like to think I could be changed, and thus should be comforted, or at least disarmed. And I don't worry that anyone in Rome, whether friend or enemy, considers me frivolous." He frowned for a moment, then turned up his chin and squinted at the bright leafy canopy above.

"It was this foray into the countryside that did it. Like a plunge into cold water. New surroundings give a man inspiration to put on a new face. I feel ten years younger, and a thousand miles away from Rome.

You should try it, Gordianus."

"Moving a thousand miles from Rome?"

"No," he laughed, "shaving your beard." Meto, wading in the stream, was paying no attention to our conversation. Even so, Catilina leaned toward me and lowered his voice. "Women like it when a man first grows a beard, or when he shaves one. It's the change that's exciting, you understand. Imagine Bethesda's reaction if you should suddenly appear in her bed with a naked face. There, you see, you're smiling. You know I'm right."

I did smile, and even laughed a little, for the first time that day. I was suddenly at ease, as I realized with surprise. The change in my mood was because of the cool shade and flowing water, the respite from Aratus's scowl and from the sight of Meto's delight in the stream, I told myself.

It had nothing to do with Catilina's smile.

Meto emerged from the stream and joined us. He stood first on one leg and then on the other, drying his feet and slipping on his sandals.

With the stream behind him and the sunlight glinting on the hair that hung over his face, he looked like one of those statues of unself-conscious youth that the Greeks so admire. Impossible, I thought, that he was almost a man. He was still too pretty, too boyish. Having grown up myself without the benefit of beauty, I was never quite sure whether his good looks were an advantage or not. Certainly men, like Pompey, not to mention Catilina, had used their looks to further their careers; Marcus Caelius was of the same mold. On the other hand, Cicero was proof that plainness was no disadvantage. And for a man of no great means or ambition, as for a woman of the same station, beauty could be as much a disadvantage as a boon, attracting the wrong sorts of patrons and leading a young man to rely too much on his charm. I only wished that Meto had a more serious side to his nature, and a bit more common sense.

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Meto finished fastening his sandals and sat down beside me. His smile was so open and honest that I felt foolish for worrying over him.

The sunlight, where it pierced through the leafy canopy, was warm on my flesh. A breeze gently strummed the high grass alongside the stream.

The world was silent except for the splashing of water, the singing of birds, and the faint, distant bleating of a goat which echoed off the hillside. Meto was as well equipped to find his way in the world as I had been, if not more so. What doors could
I
have opened with his looks and his charm, and what did it matter if he had no head for adding figures? I sighed. Was there nothing so simple that
I
could not find an excuse to brood over it?

"Well?" Meto said, looking at me expectantly.

"Well, what?"

Catilina drew back a little, pursing his lips. "I suspect your son thinks we've been discussing another matter. You see, I told him at the stable that if you had no objection—"

"The mine, Papa, that abandoned silver mine up on Mount Argentum," said Meto, suddenly excited.

"What are you talking about?" I looked from one to the other.

Catilina cleared his throat. "Yesterday, as we rode up the Cassian Way, I happened to notice the trail on the mountainside to the east.

Later I asked your foreman about it. Aratus told me that the mountain belongs to your neighbor and that the trail leads up to an old silver mine.

This morning Tongilius and I rode over to have a look. I have a friend in the city, you see, who believes he's found ways to extract ore even from mines that others have deemed exhausted. One is always looking for such opportunities."

"And did you see the place?"

"Only the goatherds' house, which is not far from the road. We spent a pleasant hour talking to the chief goatherd, who appears to be in charge of the place. He was perfectly agreeable about showing us the mine, but he asked us to come back later in the day, after the worst of the heat. Apparently the way is quite arduous. Tongilius and
I
were talking about it when we returned our horses to the stable, and Meto overheard. He asked to come with us; it wasn't my idea. I told him he would have to ask for your permission."

"May I, Papa?" said Meto.

"Meto, you know how things stand between Gnaeus Claudius and myself. It's out of the question that you should go exploring on his property."

"Ah, yes, Gnaeus Claudius, the owner of the estate," said Catilina.

"But there's no problem there, as Gnaeus is away. The goatherd says he's ridden up north to have a look at another property, a place more suitable for farming. It seems he's quite willing to rent or sell his property here,

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as he believes the mine to be worthless and he has no taste for goatherding. It's a farm he wants, and so the mountain is available. Thus the goatherd is quite happy to show it to me. I'm sure there would be no objection if Meto came along."

"And does the goatherd know who you are?"

Catilina raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly. I introduced Tongilius, and myself I introduced as Lucius Sergius. There are quite a few Lucius Sergii around, after all—"

"Though not many with the cognomen Catilina at the end."

"I daresay not."

"And only one with the name Catilina who also wears a chin-strap beard."

"Not even one of those anymore," said Catilina, stroking his chin.

"Very well, Gordianus, I was not completely forthright with the man, but he's only a slave, after all. If I wish to be incognito here in the country, surely that doesn't surprise you. Didn't Marcus Caelius tell you that I would prefer anonymity while I'm here? I should think you'd prefer it that way yourself."