Render Unto Caesar (43 page)

“Pollio just wants to disgrace me,” said Rufus at once. “Probably the Egyptian is a thief, but the reason Pollio was looking for him was so that he could use him to injure me. He is the very last man who should be given charge of him.”

Taurus looked at him darkly, then turned to the centurion. “Tell the men to admit Publius Vedius Pollio.”

The centurion saluted and went out.

“No!” protested Rufus in horror.

“No?” repeated Taurus, turning back to him. “You say that probably this Greek
did
steal from Pollio, but you would deny Pollio the right even to question him about the theft? This, after you as good as admit that you intend to
kill
the man for no greater crime than that of being your creditor? You are going to have to do better than that if you want my help, Lucius.”

“You can't—” began Rufus, sweating, then stopped himself. He looked anxiously at his freedman.

“Lord,” said Macedo, “surely you cannot want to see a Roman consul summoned for debt by an Egyptian moneylender?”

“Of course I don't want to see anything so disgraceful!” replied Taurus forcefully. “If the Roman consul
paid
his debt, it would not happen! You have land, Lucius, that is worth a very great deal more than four hundred thousand sestertii: what is to prevent you from selling some of it?”

“I…” Rufus faltered—and then the guards admitted Pollio.

The old man was wearing a toga, its snowy folds loosely draped over a tunic that appeared to be made of gold. He waddled forward between the centurion and another soldier, his pointed teeth revealed in a smile. “Lucius!” he exclaimed, nodding at Rufus, and “Titus! Thank you for catching my thief. Hercules, doesn't he look a villain! Why have you had him gagged?”

“Because he would not be silent,” replied Taurus. “I will listen to no slanders—not until I have had a chance to learn the truth.”

Rufus was beginning to look sick, but Pollio merely smiled. Taurus snapped his fingers and gestured for the guards to pull out another chair from the side of the room.

Pollio settled into it gratefully and folded his hands on his stomach. “So, did you find my statue?” he asked.

“What statue is this?” asked Taurus, with a look of distaste.

“The one the fellow stole, of course. A gold-and-ivory statuette of Hermes, which he took from my dining room while a guest in my house, the rogue. I have had people searching all over the city for it and for him.”

“You brought no charges to any court,” said Taurus levelly. “Had you done so, I could have ordered my men to do your searching.”

Pollio shrugged. “I didn't want to trouble you, Titus. I know you've never had much time for me.”

“It is the duty of the prefect of the city to be troubled on such matters. Your people searched a private house, over the protests of the owner, one Titus Fiducius Crispus. He has complained of your conduct—which he was entitled to do, for it was completely illegal.”

“We did no harm to the house or its inhabitants,” replied Pollio easily. “I knew the thief had been staying there, and I had to be sure he wasn't there still.”

“You think that is an adequate explanation? You sent a force of twenty of your bandits, who threatened to set fire to the place if they were not allowed in, and who terrified the household by their search. The owner of the house, a respectable businessman, insists that your people were not searching for a statue at all but for a man—that man there. I will tell you, Pollio, that my friend Lucius agrees that this alleged theft was only a pretext. He has accused you of wanting to use the Alexandrian to disgrace him. I want a fuller account from you before I give you the man.”

Pollio was quiet a moment, then smiled viciously. “Has Lucius also explained
why
the Alexandrian is in a position to disgrace him?”

“Not adequately,” said Taurus. “However, let us continue with you before we turn to him. You found neither man nor statue in the house of Fiducius Crispus, so—still without bringing any charges before a magistrate!—you sent men out into the city. Yesterday three of them were involved in an assault on the prisoner in the Vicus Tuscus. There were several dozen witnesses, all of whom testify that your people came out of hiding and attacked the prisoner and his bodyguard with knives.”

“Those were not my men,” Pollio replied at once. “I dismissed them from my bodyguard some time ago. What they wanted with the prisoner, I do not know. Perhaps they were after the statue for themselves. It is an extremely valuable piece.”

“You received the survivor into your house yesterday,” Taurus said coldly, “when my men presented him to the guards at your gate. The same men received the bodies, and I have witnesses who can place one of the dead men, a former gladiator, as a member of your household only days ago.”

“Lies,” said Pollio with a shrug, and smiled.

“
Two
incidents,” insisted Taurus, “two
crimes
allegedly committed in pursuit of this statue, without any charges being brought or any evidence being offered that the piece ever existed or that the Alexandrian ever saw it. I am sure that if I have my men search the prisoner's lodgings, they will find no statue. If you had
your
men search, of course, things would be different—but they have done enough illegal searching. Someone could bring charges against you over this—and I remind you, Pollio, that
I
am entitled to judge the case.”

Pollio stopped smiling. “So is Lucius Rufus,” he said venomously.

Taurus looked at Rufus. “Lucius. He seems to think you might give him a more lenient judgment than I would. Why is that?”

Rufus's face was red and swollen. He said nothing.

“I would like to hear why this Alexandrian is in a position to disgrace my friend Lucius,” Taurus declared, turning back to Pollio. “And I would like to know why you wanted him so badly.”

The rich man hesitated a moment, then sneered. “Your friend Lucius owes him a large sum of money, and tried to have him murdered in preference to paying it. I thought I could use that to convince him to speak to the emperor for me. That's all.”

“Really. Lucius?”

Rufus nodded, not looking at him. “Yes. He offered to pay the debt for me. Titus, I know you hate him, but—”

“So you are claiming that Pollio himself did
not
lend you any money?”

Rufus's head jerked up. He cast a frightened look at his freedman.

Pollio laughed. “Did the Alexandrian tell you that?”

“Answer my question,
Lucius.
”

“I … I … I…”

“Lucius!” barked Taurus in a voice that shook the windows. “Did you borrow money from Pollio?”

“Yes,” admitted Rufus, in a whisper.

There was a long silence. Then Pollio laughed and slapped his thigh. “Well, so you found out! Four million, at five percent, isn't that easy to hide. And he can't pay it back, can you, Lucius? So you can see why the Alexandrian was so—”

“I've paid the interest!” snarled Rufus. “I could've gone on paying it, even with the consulship, if that filthy
Egyptian
hadn't—”

“What was the bargain, Lucius?” Taurus interrupted, his deep voice cracking across the room as it must have done across the battlefield. “The lamprey had his teeth in you
deep,
and if you try to tell me that he agreed to let go for nothing more than a promise to
speak
for him, I won't believe you. He would
never
let you off so easily.”

Pollio's forced glee had vanished as quickly as it arrived. “What lies has the Alexandrian been telling you?”

“Perhaps you should hear them yourself,” Taurus replied. “Centurion! Let the prisoner speak.”

The centurion stepped forward. At the same instant, Macedo leaped off the couch, whipping a tiny dagger from a concealed pocket on his tunic, and lunged toward Hermogenes.

The centurion yelled and began to draw his sword, but Taurus was even faster. He seized both arms of the chair and swung himself out, legs first, catching the freedman in midlunge. The two men crashed to the floor together at Hermogenes' feet; he watched numbly as Macedo rolled away and tried to get up.

Taurus was already on his knees, his eyes alight with joy and hatred. He clasped his hands together and brought them smashing upward into the point of the other man's jaw. Macedo's head flew backwards and he fell back onto the floor, his neck twisted. Taurus got to his feet and kicked the freedman in the stomach, once, then again. Macedo didn't move, and Hermogenes realized that his neck was broken. The freedman's eyes stared upward with an expression of amazement, and the knife was still clenched in his fist.

Taurus spat on the body, then turned to Rufus, who sat frozen, all the color finally drained from his face. “Why did your freedman try to kill my prisoner, Lucius?” he demanded. “Could it be that, clever fellow that he was, he finally realized that the Alexandrian speaks fluent Latin, and was in a position to
understand
a certain incautious remark you made when you saw him in Vedius Pollio's bathhouse?”

“What remark?” asked Pollio. His face had gone red in mottled blotches across the skin, and he was pressing both hands against his chest.

“‘
I can't kill Titus
,'” Taurus said, grinning savagely, “‘
but you know what will happen if we try to sell.
'”

Rufus covered his face. “I'm sorry!” he cried. “I wouldn't have
done
it, Titus, I wouldn't have actually
done
it! I only agreed to buy a little time!”

Pollio folded over, gulping for air and pressing his hands against his chest.

“Scum!” Taurus spat at the old man. “Filthy lecherous little thief! You hated me ever since I put a stop to that business of yours in Bithynia. I knew you'd kill me if you ever got the chance—but
you,
Lucius! If there were two men I trusted more than you, there weren't three.”

“I wouldn't have
done
it!” wailed Rufus.

“Oh, you wouldn't have done it—just in the same way that you
would
have repaid your debt. But if you can find better things to spend your money on than keeping your pledged word, why should I believe that you wouldn't have found better things to do with your fortune than sacrifice it for friendship? Do you know what the Alexandrian replied when I asked him what reward he wanted for saving my life? He asked that I honor the laws of Rome.” He kicked Macedo's body again. “A
Roman consul,
Lucius, and you have less respect for the laws of our glorious city than he does. Centurion! Free the prisoner. He is the only innocent man here.”

The centurion came over, sheathing his sword. He struggled a moment with the knot on the gag, then gave up and cut the cord with his dagger. Then he unlocked the manacles.

Hermogenes reached up and took the gag out of his mouth with trembling hands. He looked down at Macedo's body at his feet, then across at Pollio, still panting and gulping on the couch, his face now gray; then at Rufus, now sobbing bitterly, his face buried in his hands. He wished suddenly that he were in his own house in the harbor district, playing with his daughter—that he had written off the debt back in Alexandria, and never come to Rome.

“I had a concubine,” he said numbly, as though none of the rest had happened. “She was wounded when Pollio's men attacked me on the Vicus Tuscus. I do not know what happened to her.”

“If you mean Cantabra,” said Taurus, “she is in the military hospital at the Colina Gate.”

For a moment the words had no meaning at all, and he felt nothing. Then emotion began to seize him, shaking his body and bringing tears to his eyes while he still had no conscious awareness of any feeling at all. “She's alive?” he asked faintly.

“Yes.” Taurus turned away, frowning down at Lucius Tarius Rufus.

Hermogenes got slowly and unsteadily to his feet. “Am I free to go to her?” he whispered.

Taurus glanced back at him. The dark eyes narrowed for a moment, and then he said, “You may go to the hospital. Stay there until I give you permission to leave it, and tell the doctors they have orders to see to you as well as her. I will speak to you again later today. Centurion, find him a litter or a sedan chair, and give him an escort.”

The centurion saluted. Hermogenes limped slowly to the door, then turned back. “Lord Statilius Taurus,” he said, and the general glanced round at him again.

“I admit that I misjudged you,” he said levelly, “and I am glad to acknowledge that you are an honorable man.”

The general's lip curled in distaste, and he waved a hand to send his prisoner out.

The centurion led Hermogenes back across the landing and down the stairs. He followed the man dazedly. Part of his mind wondered whether Pollio would die of his gasping fit, and what Taurus would do about Rufus, but most of his awareness was taken up with the news that Maerica was alive. Like stars at sunrise, all other concerns faded next to the enormous need to be sure that that news was true.

In the large room where they'd brought him from the prison, several other guardsmen were waiting. The centurion detailed one of them to arrange the transport and the escort to the hospital, then turned to go back upstairs. In the doorway he turned back again. “Treat him gently,” he ordered his men. “He saved the general's life.”

They treated him, in fact, with enormous respect after that, though he was far too stunned to take any of it in. Someone found him a chair to sit down in; someone else offered him wine; someone else went off, and came back presently with the news that the litter was waiting for him. He let them help him up, out of the building, and down some stairs. He was, he realized numbly, at the northeast corner of the forum, only a few blocks from the place where he'd been attacked.