Catilina's Riddle (5 page)

"Whatever it is, I won't like it."

"Perhaps not, but would you refuse an opportunity to serve the state?"

"Please, Caelius, no empty calls to patriotism."

"The call is not empty." His face became serious. "The threat is very real. Oh, I understand your cynicism, Gordianus. I may have lived only half as long as you, but I've seen my share of treachery and corruption in the Forum, enough for ten lifetimes!"

Considering his political education at the side of men like Crassus and Cicero, he was probably speaking the truth. Cicero himself had trained him in oratory, and the pupil did his master proud; the words that poured from his lips were polished like precious stones. He might have been an actor or a singer. I found myself listening to him in spite of myself.

"The state stands poised on the brink of a terrible catastrophe, Gordianus. If it steps over that brink—or is pushed, against the will of every decent citizen—the descent will be more abrupt and harrowing than anything we've known before. Certain parties are determined to destroy the Republic once and for all. Imagine the Senate awash in blood.

Imagine a return of the dictator Sulla's proscriptions, when any citizen could be named an enemy of the state for no reason at all—you must remember gangs running through the streets, carrying severed heads to

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the Forum to receive their bounty from Sulla's coffers. Only this time the anarchy will spread unceasingly, like waves from a great stone cast into a pond. This time the enemies of the state are determined not to reform it, at whatever bloody cost, but to smash it altogether. You own a farm now, Gordianus; do you want to see it taken from you by force?

It will happen, most certainly; because in the new order everything already established will be usurped and thrown down, ground into the dust. The fact that you no longer live in Rome will provide no protection to you or your family. Bury your head in a haystack if you wish, but don't be surprised when someone comes up behind you and cuts it clean off."

I sat for a long moment in silence, unblinking. At last I managed to shake my head and suck in a breath. "Well done, Marcus Caelius!" I said. "For a moment there, you had me entirely under your spell! Cicero has taught you exceedingly well. Such rhetoric could make any man's hair stand on end!"

He raised his eyebrows, then his lids grew heavy. "Cicero said you would be unreasonable. I told him he should have sent that slave of his, Tiro. Tiro you know and trust—"

"Tiro I sincerely like and respect, because he is such a kind and openhearted man, but I would have beaten him back with words at every turn, which is no doubt precisely why Cicero did not send him. No, he did very well to send you as his agent, Marcus Caelius, but he did not count on the depth of my disgust with Roman politics, or the strength of my resolve to steer clear of any involvement with his consulship."

"Then what I've said so far means nothing to you?"

"Only that you've mastered the skill of making insanely exaggerated statements as if you sincerely believed them."

"But every word is true. I exaggerate nothing."

"Caelius, please! You're a Roman politician in the making. You are not allowed to speak the truth, and you are absolutely required to exaggerate everything."

He sat back, momentarily rebuffed but regrouping, as I could see from the glimmer in his eyes. He stroked his narrow beard. "Very well, you care nothing for the Republic. But surely you at least retain some vestige of your personal honor as a Roman."

"You are in my house, Caelius. Do not insult me."

"Very well, I won't. I will argue with you no longer. I will simply remind you of a favor you owe to Marcus Tullius Cicero, and request on his behalf that you pay back that favor now. Having faith in your honor as a Roman, I know you won't refuse."

I shifted in my seat uneasily. I glanced over my shoulder, through the doorway into the herb garden, where a wasp was buzzing among the leaves. I sighed, already sensing defeat. "I assume you refer to the case that Cicero argued on my behalf last summer?"

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"I do. You inherited this estate from the late Lucius Claudius. His family, quite reasonably, contested the will. The Claudii are a very old and distinguished patrician clan, whereas you are a plebeian with no ancestry at all, a dubious career, and a most irregular family. You might very well have lost your case, and with it any claim to this farm where you have so comfortably retired from the city you claim to loathe so much. For that you can thank Cicero, and don't deny it—I was in the court that day and I heard his arguments myself. I have seldom witnessed such eloquence—excuse me, untruths and exaggerations, if you prefer.

It was you who asked Cicero to speak for you. He might well have declined. He had just finished a grueling political campaign, and as consul-elect he was pressed on all sides with obligations and requests.

Yet he took time to prepare your case and to present it himself. Afterward, Cicero asked no payment for his service to you; he spoke on your behalf to honor you, acknowledging the many occasions on which you have assisted him since the trial of Sextus Roscius, seventeen years ago. *

Cicero doesn't forget his friends. Does Gordianus?"

I looked out at the herb garden, avoiding his gaze. I watched the wasp, envying its freedom. "Oh, Cicero trained you well indeed!" I said under my breath.

"He did," Caelius acknowledged quietly, with a crooked smile of triumph on his lips.

"What does Cicero want from me?" I growled.

"Only a small favor."

I pursed my lips. "You try my patience, Marcus Caelius."

He laughed good-naturedly, as if to say: Very well, I've bested you and will toy with you no longer. "Cicero wishes that you should play host to a certain senator. He asks you to open your house to this senator whenever he wishes and provide a haven for him, a safe retreat from the city. You should understand the need for that."

"Who is this senator? A friend of Cicero's, or someone to whom he owes a favor?"

"Not exactly."

"Then who?"

"Catilina."

"What!"

"Lucius Sergius Catilina."

"Cicero wishes me to provide a safe haven for his worst enemy?

What sort of plot is this?"

"The plot is Catilina's. The point is to stop it."

I vigorously shook my head. "I want no part of this!"

"Your honor, Gordianus—"

Roman
Blood
(St. Martin's Press, 1991)

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"To Hades with you!" I rose from my chair so abruptly that I knocked it to the floor. I stepped out the door and crossed the herb garden, waving the wasp out of my way, and strode through the gate without looking back. I turned toward the front of the house, then remembered that Caelius's bodyguards were loitering there. The sight of them would only make me more furious. I spun around and circled toward the rear of the house. An instant later I glimpsed a figure crouching beneath the library window. Aratus, I thought, spying on me again!

I opened my mouth, but the curse died stillborn in my throat. The figure turned toward me—and it was Meto, not Aratus, who looked me square in the face. He put a finger to his lips and backed cautiously away from the window, then scurried to my side, looking not the least bit guilty for eavesdropping on his own father.

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C H A P T E R T H R E E

son should not spy on his father," I said, trying to be stern.

"There are some Roman fathers who would beat their sons A for such a crime, or even have them strangled."

Up on the ridge, Meto and I sat side by side on the stumps and looked down on the farm. In front of the house, Caelius's bodyguards sat beneath the shade of a yew tree.

Caelius himself had stepped into the herb garden and was peering toward the stream with one hand shading his brow from the westering sun. He had no idea where I was.

"I wasn't exactly spying," Meto said, chagrined.

"No? Spying is the only word for it."

"Well, I learned it from you. I suppose it's in the blood."

This last was absurd, since Meto was the son of slaves and had not a drop of my blood in his veins, but I was touched by his fantasy. I couldn't resist reaching out to muss his hair, and none too gently. "I suppose you blame your willfulness on me, as well?"

"I give you credit for all my outstanding qualities, Papa." He smiled crookedly. The clever, charming little boy I had adopted had grown into a handsome and soft-spoken youth. His face became pensive. "Papa, who is Catilina? And why do you bear such a grudge against Cicero? I thought he was your friend."

I sighed. "These matters are very complex. Or not complex at all if a man does the sensible thing and turns his back on them for good."

"But is that possible? Marcus Caelius says you owe a personal favor to Cicero."

"True enough."

"Without Cicero, we wouldn't have the farm."

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"Might not have the farm," I corrected him—but the guilelessness in his soft brown eyes compelled me to acknowledge the truth. "Very well, without Cicero there would be no farm. Without him to represent me, the Claudii and their lawyers would have eaten me alive in court.

I owe him a great favor, like it or not. But what use is this farm if I must pay for it by allowing men like Caelius to bring Rome to my very doorstep?"

"Is Rome truly so awful? I like the farm, Papa, but sometimes I miss the city." His eyes lit up. "Do you know what I miss most? The festivals, when they have plays and chariot races! Especially the races."

Of course you miss them, I thought. You're young, and youth craves distraction. I shook my head, feeling old and sour.

"The festivals are only another form of corruption, Meto. Who pays for festivals? The various magistrates elected each year. And why?

They will tell you they do it to honor the gods and the traditions of our ancestors, but in truth they do it to impress the crowd, for their own personal aggrandizement. The crowd gives its support to the man who can put on the most splendid games and spectacles. Absurd! The spectacles are only a means to an end. They impress the voters, who in turn give a man power. It's the power which ultimately counts—power over the fates and property of men, over the life and death of nations. Time and again I see the people, impressed by games and shows, give their votes to a man who then proceeds to legislate against their interest. Sheer stupidity! Point out this betrayal to the citizen in the street and he will answer: But, oh, what a splendid spectacle the man put on for us! Never mind that he emasculated the people's representation in the Forum or passed some invidious property law—he brought white tigers from Libya to the Circus Maximus and hosted a great feast to inaugurate the Temple of Hercules! Who's more to blame for such wickedness—the cynical politician without a shred of principle, or the Roman citizens who allow themselves to be so easily duped?"

I shook my head. "You see how it affects me to speak of it, Meto?

My heart begins to race and my face turns hot. Once I accepted the madness of the city without question; such was life and there was nothing particularly wrong with it—there is a fascination, after all, in the dealings of men, no matter how vile and corrupt. More importantly, there was nothing I could do about it, and so I merely accepted it. My livelihood took me deep within the councils of powerful men, and showed me more of the truth than most men ever see. I was growing wise in the ways of the world, I thought proudly, but what good is such wisdom if it only leads to a knowledge of how helpless one is to change this world? Now, as I grow older, Meto, I grow less and less able to tolerate the stupidity of the people and the wickedness of their rulers. I have seen too much suffering created by ambitious men who care only for themselves. Unable

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to affect the course of events, I turn my back on them! Now Cicero would force me into the arena again, like a gladiator pressed to fight against his will."

Meto considered this in silence for a moment. "Is Cicero a bad man, Papa?"

"Better than most. Worse than some."

"And Catilina?"

I remembered my recent conversation with Claudia, whom I had cut off when she began to talk of Catilina's bid for the consulship. "Our neighbor on the far side of the ridge calls him a wild-eyed madman."

"Is he?"

"Cicero would say so."

"But what do
you
think, Papa?" He frowned. "Or should I not press you to talk about it?"

I sighed. "No, Meto, press on. Since I manumitted you and made you my son, you are a Roman citizen, no more or less than any other Roman, and soon you will put on the manly toga. Who else should educate a boy in the ways of Roman politics except his father, even if I must bite my tongue to do it?"

I paused for breath and looked down on the farm. Caelius's men were still idle, while Caelius himself had withdrawn from the heat of the herb garden back into the cool of the library; he was probably looking through the few modest volumes I had acquired over the years, many of them from Cicero as gifts to sweeten his payment for my services. The slaves were busy at their labors; the beasts were drowsing in their pens.

I could stay on the ridge all afternoon, but eventually the sun would set and Bethesda would send Diana to fetch us for dinner. I would be compelled to offer hospitality to Marcus Caelius. He would press me again to honor my debt to Cicero, and how could I refuse?

"I've often thought, Meto, that the death of my friend Lucius Claudius was somehow providential. Oh, I'm not so vain as to think that the gods would strike down a good man merely to make my life more bearable, but in many odd ways the Fates sift out the details of our lives to unseen ends and, if we're fortunate, to happy coincidence. Just when I felt that I could no longer stand living in the city another year, the dream of a retreat from the city became real. The election campaign last summer was the last straw. Consular campaigns as a rule are crude, vicious affairs, but an uglier campaign I've never witnessed.

"Candidates all run against each other," I explained, "and the two who garner the most votes become joint consuls for the year. If the two consuls are of the same political persuasion, they can reinforce one another and have a very effective year in office. If they're of different stripes, the Senate quickly learns which is the more dominant of the two and which the more easily led. In some years rivals are elected, and