Render Unto Caesar (36 page)

“No.” He met the prefect's indignant eyes. “However, if I had reason, and if I was certain that no one was spying on me, I could arrange a postponement.”

Taurus's jaw worked again. “And suppose I said that if you want my help you must give me the letter—and the documents?”

“I would refuse,” Hermogenes answered at once. “You have given me no reason to trust you. Even as it is, I think it very unlikely that you will help me.”

“Even though by your reckoning you have
saved my life
?”

“I think you hold the same opinion as your friend: that a debt to a Greek is a debt that can be ignored.”

The Roman's face darkened. “You are mistaken.”

Hermogenes shrugged. “When you
prove
your good faith, Roman, I will be very happy to admit that I misjudged you, and I will gladly acknowledge you to be an honorable man. Until then, I reserve judgment. Am I free to go?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Am I a prisoner, then?”

“No!” said the prefect impatiently. “You are a man who is required to wait quietly while I try to think what to do.”

Hermogenes leaned back against the wall and put his bad foot up on the bench. He noticed Cantabra standing silently on the other side of the room, the cloak he'd loaned her once more draped like a shawl. Her face was very pale, making the scar on her cheek stand out sharply, and she looked enormously shaken. He moved up along the bench and indicated the place beside him. She hesitated, then shook her head.

After another long silence, Taurus said slowly, “You suggested that I devise a test of my friend's intentions. I think the best test would be to offer him you.”

He took his foot off the bench and straightened slowly. He was surprised at how calm he felt. “This is how an honorable Roman repays debts, is it?” he asked.

Taurus raised a hand forbiddingly. “I said ‘
offer,
' Greek. I did not say ‘give.' He knows that the affair of the house on the Via Tusculana has brought you to my attention. I could tell him that I had apprehended you for questioning, and that you had on you some documents relating to a debt owed by him. If he thought himself secure, he might inform on Pollio.”

“He would want me dead and the documents destroyed before he felt ‘secure,'” Hermogenes stated in disgust. “And even then, he would never admit that he had agreed to kill you.”

“I could arrange that Pollio also knew that I had you.” Taurus began to smile. “You said neither of them knew that you'd heard my name. I could let Rufus know that Pollio wanted you. He would talk if he feared that I'd let Pollio get hold of you again. Even if everything you say is true, I don't believe he
wants
to kill me.” His eyes began to glint. “Perhaps I could
also
offer you to Pollio, and see what he has to say for himself. Yes.” He slapped the desk and stood up. “I will need you to cooperate with this, Greek. They will have to
see
that I have you, and fear what you might say or what use might be made of you.”

“I have told you, I will
not
give you the documents!” Hermogenes declared angrily.

“Then don't!” snapped Taurus. “All this requires of you is that you present yourself at my house on the day I appoint, and play the role of prisoner in front of Rufus and Pollio.”

“Prisoner,” repeated Hermogenes warily. “Why would I be a prisoner?”

“Because you are a suspicious person who has been causing trouble in the city,” replied the general. “Because Pollio has accused you of theft, but not brought charges. Because I questioned you, and was not satisfied with your account of yourself. Ha! That would worry them both. They would both start talking.”

“Start
lying
!” Hermogenes objected.

“They would say enough truth that I would know where they're guilty,” Taurus declared confidently, baring his teeth. “And Lucius cannot lie to me. I raised him from the ranks and promoted him, and we have fought side by side. If you're unwilling to do this, Greek, I will conclude that
you're
the one who's lying.”

Hermogenes was silent a moment. The notion of taking on the role of prisoner filled him with dismay: it seemed only too likely that it wouldn't be a role at all. On the other hand, if Taurus wanted to take him prisoner, he was quite capable of doing so on the spot. He had turned to this man. That now seemed a mistake, but it was too late to correct it. He had to see it through. “I am willing to do it,” he said in a low voice. “When do you want it done?”

The prefect regarded him a moment, then nodded. “Three days' time. That will give me time to make some other investigations into the matter. But … yes, I think I will want to have you arrested the day before. Publicly, and somewhere that Pollio's spies would see it. That would be the best way for him to learn that I have you.”

“At my bank, then,” Hermogenes suggested resignedly, “or attempting to visit Gaius Maecenas. Pollio will have men watching every bank where I could conceivably use an Alexandrian letter of credit within two days, if he doesn't have them there already, and he probably had watchers posted outside Maecenas's house yesterday.”

“At your bank,” Taurus decreed. “I would prefer to leave Maecenas out of this. An intervention by him would complicate matters and make them more difficult to settle.”

“Very well, then. At the Bank of Gabinius, at the third hour, the day after tomorrow. I do ask that you have plenty of people in place in good time. I think Pollio would prefer to recapture me, if he could, but he will certainly have given his men orders to kill me rather than let me fall into your hands.”

Taurus smiled. “You're a cunning fox, aren't you, Greek? Not one to be caught in a trap. What is your price?”

“I am not a slave,” he declared proudly.

Taurus made another gesture of concession. “What do you expect to gain from this, if it turns out that you are telling the truth, and that you've saved my life?”

“I want to go home safely,” Hermogenes replied at once, “and I want Rufus to pay his debt.”

“If you are telling the truth, both things will happen in the natural working of events. What do you want from
me
?”

“Nothing.”

Taurus leaned back in his seat. “You like money. That's clear from the risks you've taken to get it.”

“This has never been about the money, Roman. This has been about whether Roman officials can rob, cheat, and murder with impunity.”

There was a silence. “You are a strange man,” said Taurus.

Hermogenes laughed: he couldn't help it. “So I have been told.”

“Do you have a safe hiding place until the day after tomorrow?”

“I believe so,” he replied cautiously.

Taurus snorted. “Your bodyguard was carrying money,” he remarked. “You had none—only letters of credit allowing you up to … ten thousand sestertii, if I recall correctly?… which you cannot use while you believe the banks are a trap. Was your bodyguard keeping your funds as well as your letters, or do you need money?”

“Not from you,” Hermogenes replied proudly.

Taurus regarded him a moment impassively. “You will borrow from your bodyguard?”

“If I survive I will repay her,” he answered. “If you give me to Rufus, I hope you will repay her yourself—if you are, as you claim and she believes, a man of honor.”

“You are one of the most arrogant and self-righteous men I have ever met!” exclaimed Taurus, his face darkening. “I will not give you to Rufus: you have my word on it. If you really have saved my life, I will reward you.”

Hermogenes got to his feet. “I want nothing from you, Statilius Taurus—only that you honor the law of Rome, and see that it gives me my rights. If you do that, I will be more than content. Am I free to go?”

Taurus, still dark with indignation, grunted and gestured at the door. “The Bank of Gabinius,” he said warningly. “The day after tomorrow, at the third hour.”

“I will be there.” Hermogenes picked up his cloak, tossed it around himself quickly, then went to the desk and picked up the pen case. “The letter to my daughter!” he reminded the prefect.

Taurus, looking thunderous, glanced round, found it, and gave it to him. Hermogenes slipped it into the pen case, which he handed to Cantabra, and limped proudly out of the room.

There was a different group of men jogging and sparring in the exercise yard. They, too, paused with surprised exclamations of “Cantabra!” until the Savage, who had followed the visitors from the office, flicked his whip at the nearest and ordered them to get on with it.

The lanista followed them all the way to the gate. While the Pimp was unlocking the bolt to let them out, the Savage said to Cantabra, “This is a real prizewinning employer you've got yourself, girl. Do they chain him up at the full moon?”

The barbarian rounded on him. “If you're so wise, Naevius Saevus, why don't you have ten thousand in a bank? And if you're so brave, let's chain you to the post and hear what
you
say!”

“That wasn't brave,” said the Savage, shaking his head. “That was stupid.” He gave Hermogenes a last slit-eyed look, then moved aside to let them go.

Hermogenes walked blindly away from the gladiatorial school, paying no attention to where he was going. He stopped only when he reached the Tiber. It ran between steep embankments, low in this summer season, with grass growing on the mud banks, and it stank of sewage. The day had grown overcast and muggy, and the river swarmed with gnats and blowflies. A low wall separated it from the street.

He leaned against that wall, then sat down on it and bent over, cradling the arm Taurus had injured. What had just happened was like a huge, unwieldy bundle which he had somehow managed to carry through the crisis itself, but which now seemed far too heavy to pick up again. The rage that had supported him was gone, and the fear that had waited behind it shook him.

“Are you hurt?” Cantabra asked anxiously.

“He hit me under the arm,” he told her. “When I cursed Romans.”

She caught the arm and began chafing it. “I could hear … most of it. But I couldn't see.”

“I shouldn't have cursed Romans,” he admitted. “It was, as the Savage said, stupid.”

She looked up earnestly into his face. “He believed you. You've almost won.”

He considered that. She didn't, of course, mean that the Savage believed what he'd said about Romans but that Taurus believed what he'd said about Rufus. “I think probably he knew enough to recognize that it was true,” he said slowly. “He probably already knew that his friend had problems with money, and he knows Pollio and was expecting him to try something. Yes. He believed that I was telling the truth about Rufus the moment I accused him.” He tried to laugh. “And Myrrhine's letter convinced him that I wasn't acting as Pollio's agent. He still had no right to look at it, though.”

Cantabra gently brushed his hair out of his face.

“As to whether I've almost won … oh, Zeus! I
don't
like it that I've agreed to let him make me a prisoner; I don't like that at all. You know him better than I do. Can I trust him?”

“He is honest,” she told him. “If he promises, he will keep the promise. And he promised that he would not give you to Rufus, and that he would reward you for saving his life.”

He spat. “I want
nothing
from that maker of gladiators. His money has blood on it. I only hope that he doesn't let Pollio get me, or give me to Rufus.”

“I am so sorry,” she said humbly. “I know you only went there because I insisted, and … and…” Her hand tightened on his sore arm, the grip painfully strong, and suddenly she was almost in tears. “Och, oh, when he ordered them to chain you to the post, I thought I would lose my mind.”

“Cantabra!” he exclaimed, astonished and touched.

She wiped at her eyes. “And they put me in the punishment cell again,” she said in a choked voice. “I thought that was one place I would never have to endure again, but they put me in, and I thought I would have to listen while they whipped you, and
I
was the one who made you come. I thought I would lose my mind.” She let go of his arm. “And then you
won
, you forced him to back down, and they let us out! Do you
know
how wonderful you are?”

“Me?” he asked in amazement.

She gave him a radiant, tremulous smile, and kissed him. He was so surprised that he was unable to move, and he sat frozen in amazement at the wet warmth of her mouth and the strong suppleness of the body pressed against his.

“I am sorry,” she said, pulling away hastily. Her face had gone red. “I shouldn't have done that. I know you think I am an ugly red-haired heifer. But I—”

“I don't think that!” he protested. “That wasn't me! That was Pollio!”

She frowned. “You don't think that?”

“I…” He faltered, aware of a gulf opening up on either side of him. He tried to find a way carefully across the middle of it. “I … if I said I found you desirable, would you be offended and … how was it you put it? Rip my balls off?”

“Of course not,” she said impatiently. “I would never do anything to a man just for what he
said.
”

“Ah. Good. Well, I do. Definitely. Very much so. However, I … you made it very plain that I could not expect anything, and I accepted that. The offer to take you to Alexandria was not … was … that is, I am not going to try to force you or blackmail you or buy you, please believe that, and I would have made the same offer to a man who had done for me what you have. It was, and is, an honest offer.”

She was still frowning. “You
want
me?”