Render Unto Caesar (10 page)

“He
hit
you?” asked Crispus in horror.

“Hit me, spat on me, called me Egyptian scum. He has, however, agreed to pay what he owes.” Something of the heat of that triumph warmed him again.

Menestor and Phormion came into the dayroom carrying jugs and a basin; they hesitated at the sight of Crispus. The businessman moved aside, and Menestor slipped past him and set the basin down on the floor beside the bed. Phormion passed in the jugs, and Crispus watched Menestor pour hot water into the basin, then top it with cold.

“Stentor put vinegar in this, sir,” Menestor said in a low voice, “and some salt. It may sting. Can you sit up?”

Hermogenes sat up, and Menestor began to clean the cut with a sponge. It did sting. He became uncomfortably aware of Crispus's eyes on his body, and pulled the sheet across his lap.

“What did you do to offend him?” Crispus resumed in a strained voice.

Hermogenes sighed. “My great offense was to ask him to pay his debt. But he's afraid that if he doesn't pay, I'll go to his enemies, and that they will help me in order to embarrass him. I implied that that might happen. Titus, I understand that you don't want any trouble to touch your household. If you like, I'll leave here and find an inn.”

“You're blackmailing him?” Crispus's voice was shrill. “You're going to his enemies? He's a
friend of the emperor
!”

“I said that he was afraid I would, not that I would do it,” Hermogenes told him soothingly. “I don't want to involve myself with Roman factions—though, as to that, you're probably mistaken if you think Rufus's enemies aren't also friends of the emperor. Still, I don't want to get caught in Roman politics, and won't, unless my life depends upon it. I would certainly leave this house before I did. But this is beside the point. He has agreed to pay.”

“You said you were going to ask quietly and peacefully!”

“I said, as quietly and peacefully
as I could
. That was how I wanted to do it and that was how I tried to do it. I think now, though, that the only way Rufus would have
received
me quietly and peacefully would have been if I'd agreed to write off the debt—and I'm sorry, Titus, but that is something I will not do.”

“My master was very polite, sir,” Menestor put in tentatively. “Even after the Roman hit him.” He squeezed out the sponge and applied it again, tenderly mopping the half-dried blood off his master's shoulder.

“Hermogenes…” Crispus said uneasily. “You said you inherited all your uncle's debts. Are you facing ruin if you don't recover this money?”

Hermogenes laughed, then winced at the effect on his face. “No,” he said. “No, I wouldn't be ruined. Nikomachos was very imprudent, though, and dug himself into a deep hole in his attempts to save himself, and even the sale of his estate didn't cover his debts. To meet his obligations in full, I'd have to call in some of my money, and that would cause problems for those who borrowed from me or accepted my investments. Why should I cause hardship to people who have behaved honestly and honorably in all their dealings with me, when there is Lucius Tarius Rufus—who ruined my uncle and occasioned my father's death—sitting in a palace on the Esquiline? He can pay, and he will.” He acknowledged, with another thrill of triumph, that he wouldn't have dared admit that burning desire to claim his rights if it hadn't been for the fact that Rufus had agreed to pay.

Crispus stood staring at him with an expression of deep misgiving.

“I think this needs stitches, sir,” Menestor commented, studying the cut.

Crispus took a couple of steps forward and bent over to have a look for himself, bracing himself with a hand on Menestor's shoulder.

“He was wearing rings,” Hermogenes explained, turning his face to be inspected. “Titus, as I said, if you are concerned that this may harm your business or your household, I will take myself off to an inn. I do believe, though, that it is essentially over. He has agreed to pay. He asked for three days for his secretary to study the documents—the copies, that is; obviously I didn't give him the originals—and he agreed that if his secretary was satisfied, he would pay. I'm sure he hopes to find some kind of defect in either the contract itself or in my title to it, but there isn't one. I am going to accept ten percent now, give him a contract scheduling repayment of the rest, and go home to Alexandria.”

“I don't think Tarius Rufus was really as angry as he pretended to be,” Menestor volunteered suddenly, looking up sideways at Crispus. “Not at first, anyway. That is, he
was
angry, but he also thought that if he flew into a rage, my master would be so frightened by it that he'd back off. When he saw that my master
wasn't
frightened, he didn't know what to do.”

Hermogenes looked at him curiously.

“That other man who was with him,” Menestor explained. “Not the secretary who took the papers, the other one. The thin one in the red tunic. When Rufus jumped up and hit you, he smiled and nodded, like he was saying, yes, that's the way. Then when you'd been knocked down and you
still
asked Rufus when he was going to pay you, he looked … he looked like something had gone very wrong. Rufus didn't know what to make of it, either. The way he was angry was different, after that. At first it was like a master—like
some
masters, I mean—shouting at a slave to scare him, but after that it was quieter and more real. And the other man was angry, too, after that, even though he hadn't been before.”

Hermogenes realized, with chagrin, that he hadn't really noticed anybody in that room except the consul.

“You're an observant boy,” Crispus commented appreciatively, and squeezed Menestor's shoulder. He straightened with a grunt, gazed down at his guest for another moment, then said resolutely, “I can't possibly turn you out of my house, not after all the times you and your father received me in Alexandria, and that time I … well, you remember. Besides, I've been telling my friends about Alexandria for
years,
and now I've introduced some of them to you. What would they think of me if I admitted that you'd left my house for an
inn
?”

Hermogenes was both touched and surprised. “I don't want to bring trouble down on your house, Titus.”

“You said you thought it was essentially over,” Crispus said, with growing confidence. “No, no, my friend. You stay here. I think your lad's right, and that cut needs stitching. I'll send for my doctor.” He smiled broadly and went off.

The doctor came, stitched the cut, and provided a dose of hellebore for the headache, which had not diminished. He advised rest and a low and cooling diet. Hermogenes spent the rest of the day in bed.

He woke in the small hours of the morning. The headache was better, but had left in its place a black shadow of acute anxiety. He remembered the scene with the consul in tiny, crystalline detail, from the first genial smile to the final furious dismissal. He remembered, too, the way the consul's attendants had whispered in his ear. He was filled with a panicky certainty that Rufus was going to have him murdered.

He sat up, then leaned his hot cheek against the cool wall and tried to reason with himself. If Rufus was going to have him killed, he would have done it then and there. It would have been easier than sending men to break into Crispus's house and slaughter him in his bed. To be sure, there were plenty of people who had known that Hermogenes was at the consul's house—but who would bring charges against a consul, a friend of the emperor? Crispus certainly wouldn't. Rufus could have had him killed, but Rufus hadn't, so therefore Rufus wasn't willing to go that far over a debt which he could easily afford to pay.

It didn't satisfy him. Rufus might have delayed only because he wanted to investigate the situation first. He might want to get his hands on the documents that proved his debt and his default before he took action.

Hermogenes got up and went through to the dayroom, silent on bare feet. He fumbled around on the lampstand until he found the lighter, then struck it repeatedly, the spark brilliant in the dark room.

Menestor's sleepy voice from behind him said “Sir?”

“Go back to sleep,” Hermogenes told him. “I just want to write a letter.” The tinder caught, and he lit one of the little crocodile lamps and moved it over to the writing table. The gold light showed him Menestor sitting up on his pallet, his eyes wide and black in the dimness.

“Just go back to sleep,” Hermogenes told him.

The boy lay down again, but remained awake, watching as his master took out the writing things and sat down.

MARCUS AELIUS HERMOGENES TO PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO: GREETINGS.

 

My lord, you do not know me, but your reputation for nobility makes me bold to approach you. L. Tarius Rufus, who supplanted you in the consulship, owes me a debt of over four hundred thousand sestertii, and I fear that he may have me murdered rather than repay it. If you receive this, it is because I am dead.

If you wish to bring Rufus to the disgrace he deserves, take the enclosed token to the Tabularium. The documents deposited there in FIII will prove that Rufus borrowed the money from my uncle and defaulted, and that I inherited the debt, an offense for which I have paid dearly.

If this information is useful to you, my lord, I beg you to ensure that my daughter receives the money for which I died.

He read it over, then pulled out the little leather bag with the token, which now hung about his neck next to the trunk key. He folded the sheet of papyrus, rolled it up, and stuffed it into the bag with the token. He drew the drawstrings tight, then melted some wax onto them and marked it with his seal.

“What are you doing?” asked Menestor, not sleepy now at all.

Hermogenes took another sheet of papyrus and wrote on it,
To be delivered to the consular, P. Cornelius Scipio, on the first of July, unless it is first reclaimed by me, M. Aelius Hermogenes.
“I want to ensure that Rufus sees no advantage in killing me,” he said in a low voice. “If he knows that this will go to his enemies unless I reclaim it, he has nothing to gain from my death.” He frowned. “The question is, who to leave it with?”

“You think he might kill us?”

“Yes. No. I don't know. It seems to me that paying would be by far the most reasonable thing for him to do. He can afford it, and murdering a Roman citizen must be a risky undertaking, even for a man as powerful as he is. Even if no one charged him, the rumor of it could hurt his reputation, and he seems to care for that. He seemed very indignant, though, at the prospect of paying, and he also seemed very arrogant, accustomed to thinking himself above the law. He might do it. This should ensure that he doesn't—if I can find someone to leave it with.”

“So why…” began Menestor, who then paused and licked his lips.

“So why?”

“So why are you doing this?” Menestor burst out. “I was so scared when he hit you. I thought he was going to kill you, and then … I don't know, kill me and Phormion, or cut out our tongues and send us to the mines or something. You said that even at the worst this wouldn't ruin you, and I bet you could fix it so that it didn't ruin anybody else, either. So why are you setting yourself up against a consul of Rome?”

Hermogenes looked at him for a long moment, then turned away and began to attach the direction to the drawstring of the little leather bag. “When Rufus was commanding the left wing at Actium,” he said slowly, “I was your age. I grew up under the queen, Menestor. I know my family never supported Cleopatra—she was a cruel, incompetent tyrant!—but at least she was
Greek.
I grew up in an independent nation.” He dribbled some more wax onto the tag, and pressed his seal into it again. “She was the last Greek to rule a kingdom, the last of the heirs of world-conquering Alexander. After she died, sovereignty abandoned the Greeks altogether, and passed entirely to Rome.”

He looked Menestor in the eye. “Rufus called me ‘Greekling' and ‘Egyptian' and spat on me. He thinks that the fact that he defeated us in war gives him the right to take what he wants from us, even now, after fourteen years of peace. My citizenship he regards as a fraud. While he was only a proconsul he felt bound to make payments on his debt, but as soon as he grew powerful enough, he thought it beneath him. To him, no Greek is any better than a slave.

“You said last night that anyone would prefer freedom to slavery. You are a slave, and you would be willing to prostitute your body to obtain your freedom. Well, I am a free man, and I would be willing to
die
rather than submit to the iniquity of Tarius Rufus. He borrowed the money, and he
will
repay it.”

“What about Myrrhine?” asked Menestor.

It was the most potent argument he could have found. Hermogenes had to look away, down at the sealed bag between his hands. He remembered again how his daughter had clung to him before he set out. “I hope I will not die,” he said at last. “I am doing everything I can to ensure that I don't.” He touched the little bag. “He has agreed to pay. I must find someone to leave this with—as a precaution.”

The boy was silent for a moment. “You don't think Titus Fiducius…”

“No,” Hermogenes said firmly. “If I were dead and he were threatened, he would give it to Rufus immediately. He is a well-meaning man, but he is not strong.” He frowned again. “Not the record office again: I doubt I could persuade them to send it on. Perhaps a temple. I will ask in the morning.” He glanced back at the young man, ironically now. “Go to sleep, Menestor, and I will try to do the same.”

In the morning his face had swollen and it was impossible to open his left eye. When he borrowed a mirror it showed him the stitched gash sitting like a red caterpillar on a livid black-and-purple bruise. He sighed and resolved to spend as much of the day as he could resting quietly in the house. First, however, he had to find someone to take charge of the bag with the token. In the light of day the possibility that he would be murdered appeared far less real, but the precaution still seemed worth taking. He could not, however, ask his host's advice on where to leave the token. Crispus would undoubtedly offer to take charge of it himself, and a refusal would insult him.