SPQR III: the sacrilege (24 page)

I loitered about the Forum for several hours, until I heard a great commotion from inside. Clodius came running out of the house, stripped almost naked and pursued by a mob of women, screaming like furies. I threw my toga over him and we ducked down an alley and ran back to his house. All the way, Clodius was laughing like a madman, with tears of glee streaming from his eyes.

At the house he called for wine and began to drink heavily, without watering the wine. Soon he was quite drunk and boasting so loudly that I dismissed the household staff, lest they overhear. He said that now all his ambitions would be realized, and I asked him to explain, still under the impression that the night's doings had been no more than a prank.

He said that the three men who were to rule Rome had met at the house of Caesar and had determined upon the future course of the empire and that he, Clodius, had arranged all this. The two most powerful, Pompey and Crassus, could never work together and their rivalry would plunge the empire into civil war. Clodius believed that Caesar was greater than the other two, and had urged him to agree to this meeting, where their rivalries could be hammered out to the profit of all.

This seemed fantastic to me, and I asked him what he meant by it. He replied that he, Clodius, had perceived that Crassus and Pompey were too unimaginative to settle their differences save through battle; that Caesar, while brilliant and masterful, was too lazy to set a reconciliation in motion, and that all three were too bound by traditional forms to do as Sulla did, and set aside the constitution.

At the meeting in Caesar's house, Clodius said, the
Pontifex Maximus
bound them all by the most solemn oaths to abide by the conditions of their covenant, and the agreement they made was this:]

"Now we get to the heart of the matter," I said.

"Stop commenting and read!" Julia said, obviously in a state of considerable agitation, which I humored.

[To begin, since Caesar must be away in Spain for his pro-praetorship, and would not be in Rome to moderate between the other two, they were to comport themselves as friendly colleagues in his absence. Upon his return, their three-man coalition would begin to work in earnest to further the ambitions of all three. In token of his support, Crassus was to stand surety for Caesar's debts so that Caesar could leave Rome to assume his magistracy. Pompey required, apparently in fulfillment of an earlier, less formal agreement, that the other two be seen prominently in his triumph so that all might know that he enjoyed their wholehearted support.

Caesar's reward was to be a Consulship upon his return from Spain, and following it an extraordinary magistracy over all of Gaul. All would work to secure Crassus the war with Parthia that he desires. Pompey was to have whatever command he desires aside from Gaul and Parthia.

Since these projects would require that all three be absent from Rome for extended periods, Clodius was to be their representative in the city. They would support his suit for transferral to plebeian status, and thereafter support his campaign for the tribuneship. As tribune, he would introduce laws in furtherance of their own ambitions. As popular leader, he would reign as virtual uncrowned king of the city, and they would protect him from action by the Senate. Pompey, regarding himself as the greatest of the three, insisted that Faustus Sulla act as the colleague of Clodius to assure that Pompey's interests were properly looked after in his absence. Although reluctant, Clodius assented. With these agreements made, the meeting broke up.

As they were leaving, Clodius went into the main part of the house to spy on the Mysteries, although Pompey tried to restrain him. When he was detected, the others made their way out amid the ensuing uproar.

Clodius related all this in highest humor, apparently expecting that I would admire his cunning. Horrified, I asked him, What of the constitution? What of the Senate? Scornfully, he said that the Senate was an outdated pack of nonentities and the constitution was what the strongest man said it was.

Understanding that I was involved in a treasonous conspiracy to overthrow the state, I fled the house of Clodius. I found lodgings in a small tavern and spent all the next day and all of this fearing that, sober, Clodius will understand that he said far too much to me and will seek me out. All his men know me by sight, and I dare do nothing until after dark. I have written this letter, which I propose to affix to the door of your house. Then I shall flee Rome and never return. It is now dark, and I shall leave my lodgings as soon as I seal the message tube. Do with these words as you see fit. The Senate must take action. Long live Rome.]

"That poor boy!" Julia said when I had finished reading.

"Yes," I agreed, "he was guilty of no more than bad company and owning a wretched prose style. But he has given me exactly what I need."

"How will you use this?" she asked.

"With this," I said, holding the letter aloft, "I can bring them all down. First, it will hold them all up to ridicule, as undoubtedly Clodius intended when he concocted this bizarre plan. Can you imagine it? The great conqueror, he richest man in the world and the very
Pontifex Maximus
all skulking about the city dressed as women! They could never survive the ridicule! Even more important, though, is the fact that Pompey was there at all."

"What do you mean?" Julia asked.

"He entered the city, crossing the
pomerium
. At that instant he laid down his imperium and forfeited his right to celebrate a triumph!"

"I don't understand," Julia said. "The Senate had already granted him permission for his triumph."

"It makes no difference. They could have given him permission a year ago, when he was still in Asia. No Roman with imperium may enter the city save as
triumphator
on the day of his triumph. This will be a humiliation he cannot endure."

"I don't believe it!" Julia said, jumping to her feet. "Caius Julius is not a traitor, and he would have no part in such a loathsome conspiracy!"

"Julia," I said, holding the scroll before her face, "do you really think that naive boy made all this up?"

"No, of course not," she said, relenting a little. "But Clodius might have. We all know what a villain he is. Pompey and Crassus, of course, but Clodius may have added Caesar's name to make his scheme sound greater than it is."

"Julia, I
know
that Caesar was not in Celer's house that night, and all Rome knows that Clodius was discovered in the house of Caesar. He was there."

She wrung her hands, seeking any way she could to extricate her uncle from treasonous charges. "But even Clodius said that he enjoined the other two to do nothing while he is away from Rome. Perhaps he just meant to keep them from committing civil mischief in his absence."

"Perhaps you are right," I said, knowing that she was not. Because it had come to me, while reading the letter, that every bit of this scheme was Caesar's doing. Oh, maybe the business of dressing as women had been Clodius's, it was the sort of madcap whimsy that would appeal to him, but the rest was Caesar's. Tricking Pompey into crossing the
pomerium
before his triumph put him, the most powerful of the three, firmly into the grasp of the other conspirators. That was Caesar's brand of subtlety. Getting Crassus to stand surety for his debts neatly accomplished a number of his ends at one stroke, another favorite technique of his.

Most of all, though, Caesar had tied the two most powerful men in the world to him, had solved his own debt problems, assured that Rome would be tranquil in his absence, secured a Consulship upon his return and a rich province to govern afterward and even his co-conspirators' patronage for his flunky Clodius. And he had accomplished all this while providing
absolutely nothing
of his own. This was another quality of Caesar's with which I was familiar. He could persuade men to give him what he wanted as if he were doing them a favor. It seemed that now he wanted to be given the world, just for being Caesar.

For I had no doubt of what this signified. These three men (Clodius and Faustus did not count) had met in conspiracy to divide the world among them. And over bullheaded, overgrown juvenile thugs like Pompey and Crassus, Caesar would rule, shining like a god. Caesar was an actor, and this was the ultimate actor's role. If the Senate allowed this to happen, the Senate would deserve whatever might befall it.

"I shall make this public," I vowed. "I shall take this before the Senate and People, and I shall bring them down."

"Excuse me, master," Hermes said, "but do you really expect to live that long?"

Chapter XIII

It was a long wait until nightfall. Several times I went out on my roof and crawled on my belly to peer over the parapet. The deserted street before my house made it easy to spot the shadows lurking in nearby doorways. At least two were visible each time: men in long brown Etruscan robes, with pointed beards.

"Still out there," I said after the last scout. "But people are coming back from the festivities now. We'll have crowded, darkening streets soon, and then I can make my move. Hermes, I want you to go to Milo's house."

"Through those streets?" he squealed.

"Of course not. What Roman boy needs streets when there are perfectly good rooftops? Choose your route carefully, and you can get from here to Milo's without your feet touching ground. There aren't three streets in Rome too wide to jump across. I want you to tell Milo that I need a strong bodyguard to escort me across the city and the lady Julia to her home. This is most serious and there are armed murderers after us. Now, be off with you." Pale-faced, he went up the stairs to do my bidding. For a wretched corpse-robber of a slave, the boy had promise.

Julia sat shaking her head, the picture of despondency. It grieved me to see her so, but my duty to the Senate and People outweighed her loyalty to her uncle.

"Oh, don't feel so bad, Julia," I said. "If I know Caius Julius, he'll get out of this as he does everything else. It's Pompey whose hide I want to nail to the Curia door."

"And what of Crassus?" she said dully.

"He'll buy off his jury. Remember, they haven't really
done
anything yet. The laws concerning conspiracy, even the treasonous sort, are notoriously vague. Only Cicero could bring a strong prosecution against them, and he won't dare, since he faces exile over his handling of the Catilinarians.

"No, for Caesar and Crassus, the best I can hope for is public ridicule. The picture of them meeting in women's dress will catch the public's fancy like nothing else in history. The comic playwrights will put the scene on every stage in Italy for years to come. But Pompey tried to have me poisoned, and I want him."

"Not to mention his plotting against the state," she said dryly.

I shrugged. "He hasn't a chance. For whatever reason, he's already forgone the opportunity to make himself Dictator by force of arms, when he could easily have done so as recently as last year. Now he wants to play politics, and I must agree with Cicero that he's too stupid and inept politically to accomplish anything that way. If he survives at all, it could only be with Caesar's expertise and Crassus's wealth. Without his army, he couldn't even carry out one trifling little assassination."

"And to what do you attribute your extraordinary good fortune?" she asked.

"Conspirators like to keep their own hands clean by entrusting their dirty work to subordinates. Unworthy or inept subordinates can ruin almost any conspiracy. Pompey wanted me out of the way because he knew that I was the one man in Rome most likely to uncover and expose what he and the others were up to. He wanted to make it look natural, so he opted for poison. He gave the job to Clodius, but among infamous crimes, poisoning is second only to arson, so Clodius farmed it out to Nero. That was no task for an amateur, and Nero bungled it.

"When Clodius came to his senses after his sacrilege, he knew that Nero would try to warn me, so he sent his Etruscan assassins to keep an eye on my house. When Nero showed up, they killed him."

"Why didn't they find the message-tube?" she asked.

"It was the inept-subordinate problem again. Clodius, like the others, is a conspirator of long experience. Such men know that the first rule of conspiracy is never to put anything in writing. It never occurred to him that the little twit would bring me a letter instead of delivering his message personally. He told his goons to kill the boy, but not to search him for an incriminating document."

"And the herb-woman?"

"A bit of track-covering. She knew about the poison; she knew that her dress had been borrowed so that someone could take her place at the Mysteries. That was too much for her to know with an investigation going on, so she was eliminated."

Julia shuddered. "Such ruthless people."

"I assure you, this is a small-scale naughtiness by these men's standards. They routinely depopulate countries to further their aims. Not that I mind kicking the barbarians around a bit when the good of Rome calls for it, but it's not right to make war on people just to give one man's career a boost."

During this time, I had been going over my weapons. My
gladius
was legionary size, a bit large for concealed carry, but I was no longer concerned with niceties. I assured myself that its edge would still slice a straw without effort and belted it on. I tucked my dagger into its usual place, and this time, just in case, I concealed
both caesti
instead of my usual one.

"Stay away from the river," Julia warned. "If you should fall in, you're sure to drown, carrying all that metal."

"Thank you for your concern," I said, distracted by my own thoughts.

"I would like to remind you," Julia said, red spots appearing on her cheeks most fetchingly, "that I came here for the express purpose of warning you that your life was in danger, at no little peril to myself. I might add that I am doing my reputation no good by coming, unescorted, to the house of an unmarried man, and staying here until who knows what hour, under the eyes of spies. If I should get back to my uncle's house alive, my grandmother will undoubtedly be waiting like a dragon. She will undoubtedly order me flogged, and believe me,
she
knows where the family whip is. After that, I shall be exiled to one of those barren little islands in the Aegean to atone for bringing dishonor upon the family name, something that, apparently, no man can do."

"Oh. I do apologize, and I cannot adequately express how grateful I am, and I shall surely set things straight with your father..." This woman had the unerring capacity to make me babble.

"My
father
?" she all but shrieked. "You are going to talk to my father? It will amaze me if you are still drawing breath by the time you reach the end of the street out there!"

I just knew she was going to burst into tears.

"Oh, never fear. With a few of Milo's bullies behind me, I'm not worried about a few contemptible Etruscans with their little sticking-knives and hammers."

"You idiot!" she yelled, sounding very much like my father. "Clodius knows Milo is your friend. He'll have his whole mob out looking for you. He'll get reinforcements from Pompey if he has to! You are doomed and so am I!" Then she did cry.

"Please try not to get too emotional about this," I pleaded. Then she fell into my arms, bawling. I shall draw the veil of well-bred decency over the events of the next little while, except to say that we lacked the opportunity to get down to anything really serious.

"Master," said Cato a little while later. "Your friend is here."

We went out to find my atrium crowded. Milo was there, big as a house and backed by twenty others just as big and far, far uglier. I made introductions, and he looked Julia over with his usual frankness.

"I've never admired your taste in women before, Decius," he said. "I'm glad to see that you improve with age." Julia stiffened, but he smiled his huge, infectious smile and she joined him. No one could resist Milo when he turned on the charm.

"Come with me, Titus," I said. "We need to talk."

I took him into my study and gave him an abbreviated account of what had transpired and what I had learned. He listened with his usual intense concentration and he read Nero's letter when I got to that part. He had that odd trick of being able to read without speaking the words aloud, something I was never able to master. When he finished he handed the letter back to me, smiling once more.

"You see? I told you she could not be involved."

"And I rejoice with you that the lady Fausta is innocent of wrongdoing. But there is still the little matter of treason."

"Oh, that. Decius, the Senate can look out for itself. But this might be a good opportunity to get rid of Clodius."

"Believe me, I will not stand in your way. I need to accomplish two things: I have to get Julia back to Caesar's house, and I need to present my findings to the Senate."

"The Senate exists as a body only when a meeting is summoned," he pointed out. "The rest of the time, there are about five hundred Senators scattered all over Rome and the empire. There won't be another session called until well after the triumph."

"That's true," I said. "But tomorrow evening, after the great procession, there will be a banquet of the entire Senate in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. I will get up before them and present my case. I intend to see Pompey stripped of his triumphal regalia and disgraced right in front of the statue of Jupiter!"

He shook his head in wonderment. "Decius, if you can accomplish all that with a lot of talk and an unsigned letter from an obscure boy, you'll be the greatest Roman who ever lived. But I'll back you, whatever you want to do."

"That's all I ask," I said.

"Where do we start?" he asked.

"We take Julia home."

Rarely has a patrician lady been escorted home in quite the way Julia was that night. She and I strolled hand in hand down the middle of some of Rome's most disreputable thoroughfares. The moonlight was bright and sounds of revelry came from all around as Rome celebrated a triumphal holiday. There were other sounds as well. We were closely surrounded by a tight-packed crowd of Milo's thugs, and from its periphery came strangled yells, the sound of blows, the clink of metal striking metal and the unmistakable wood-cracking sound of Milo's bronzelike palms slapping somebody. Sometimes the cobbles we walked over were a little slippery, but we made it to the Forum and the house of the
Pontifex Maximus
.

I told the
janitor
to fetch the master and he went off.

The person who appeared was not Caius Julius, though. It was his mother. She glared with astonishment, first at Julia, then at the men with her. Milo and I were among Rome's more presentable young men, but the same could not be said of his feral-looking followers.

"My son, the distinguished
Pontifex Maximus
, is at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, preparing the triumphal rites. I am his mother."

I bowed. "All Rome knows the august patrician matron Aurelia."

"I do not know you, but you have the look of
gens
Caecilia. Since you are wellborn and a Senator, I will allow you the opportunity to explain how you happen to be with my granddaughter, who has been missing from this house most of the day."

"The lady has assisted me with certain services on behalf of the Republic which have unavoidably detained her. As you can see, I have been careful to provide the lady with a proper escort." The thugs grinned and nodded, a sight to frighten demons. "Please inform Caius Julius that these matters involve not only his august self but the glorious Pompey and the wealthy Crassus. I am sure he will inform you that he fully approves of his niece's actions today."