Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (10 page)

We followed him around the central atrium and up a flight of marble steps. The announcer pulled back a hanging curtain, and I followed Cicero into a chamber that would not have looked too out of place in a high-priced Alexandrian brothel.

We seemed to have stepped into a large and overdecorated tent, plush and pillow-strewn, with carpets and hangings everywhere. Brass lamps hung from standing braziers in the corners and exhaled trickles of smoke. It was from this room that the smell of incense permeated the house. I could hardly breathe. The various spices were being burned without the least sensitivity to their individual proportions and properties. The crude concentrations of sandalwood and myrrh were nauseating. Any Egyptian housewife would have known better.

‘Mistress,’ the eunuch whispered in a high voice. ‘The esteemed Marcus Tullius Cicero, advocate.’ He quickly withdrew.

At the far end of the room was our hostess, sprawled face down amid cushions on the floor. Two female slaves attended her, kneeling on either side. The slaves were dark-skinned and dressed in Egyptian style, wearing diaphanous gowns and heavily made-up. Above them, dominating the room, was the object before which Caecilia prostrated herself.

I had never seen anything quite like it. It was clearly an incarnation of one of the Oriental earth goddesses, Cybele or Astarte or Isis, though I had never before seen this particular permutation. The statue stood eight feet tall, so tall that the top of its head grazed the ceiling. The thing had a stern, almost manly face and wore a crown made of serpents. At first glance I assumed that the pendulous objects adorning her torso were breasts, scores and scores of them. A closer look at the curious way in which the orbs were grouped made me realize they must be testicles. In one hand the goddess held a scythe, the blade of which had been painted bright red.

‘What?’ A muffled voice rose from the cushions. Caecilia floundered for a moment. The slave girls each took an arm and helped her up. She spun around and looked at us in alarm.

‘No, no!’ she shrieked. ‘That stupid eunuch! Out, out of the room, Cicero! You weren’t to come inside, you were to wait outside the curtain. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? No men are allowed into the sanctum of the Goddess. Oh, dear, it’s happened again. Well, by rights you should all three be sacrificed as a punishment, or at least flogged, but I suppose that’s out of the question. Of course, one of you could take the place of the others – but no, I won’t even ask it, I know how fond you are of young Tiro. Perhaps this other slave—’ She glanced at my iron ring, the mark of a common citizen, and seeing I was no one’s slave threw up her hands in disappointment. Her nails were unusually long and stained red with henna, in the Egyptian fashion.

‘Oh, dear. I suppose this means I’ll have to flog one of the poor slave girls in your place, just as I did when that eunuch made the same stupid mistake last week with Rufus. Oh, dear, and they’re so delicate. The Goddess will be very angry. . . .’

‘I don’t see how he could make the same mistake twice. Do you think he does it on purpose?’ We were seated in Caecilia’s reception room, a high, long hall with skylights above and open doors at either end to admit the breeze. The walls were painted in the realist fashion to reproduce a garden – green grass, trees, peacocks, and flowers on the walls, blue sky above. The floor was green tile. The ceiling was draped with blue cloth.

‘No, don’t answer that. I know what you’d say, Cicero. But Ahausarus is far too valuable to be got rid of, and too delicate to punish. If only he weren’t so scatterbrained.’

There were four of us seated around a small silver table set with cool water and pomegranates – Cicero, myself, Caecilia, and the young Rufus, who had arrived ahead of us but had known better than to enter Metella’s sanctum, preferring to wait in the garden instead. Tiro stood a short distance behind his master’s chair.

Metella was a large, florid woman. Despite her age she appeared quite robust. Whatever colour her hair might originally have been, it was now fiery red, and probably white beneath the henna. She wore it piled high on her head, wound in a tapering coil held in place by a long silver pin. The pointed tip poked through on one side; the needle’s head was decorated with carnelian. She wore an expensive-looking stola and much jewellery. Her face was covered with paint and rouge. Her hair and clothing reeked of incense. In one hand she held a fan and beat the air with it, as if she were trying to disperse her scent about the table.

Rufus was also redheaded, with brown eyes, flushed cheeks, and a freckled nose. He was as young as Cicero had indicated. Indeed, he could have been no more than sixteen, for he still wore the gown that all minors wear, whether male or female – white wool fitted with long sleeves to deflect the eyes of the lustful. In a few months he would put on the toga of manhood, but for now he was still a boy by law. It was obvious that he idolized Cicero, and equally obvious that Cicero enjoyed being idolized.

Neither of the nobles showed any discomfort in accepting me at their table. Of course, they were seeking my help in a problem with which neither of them had any experience. They showed me the same deference a senator may show to a bricklayer, if the senator happens to have an archway about to collapse in his bedroom. Tiro they ignored.

Cicero cleared his throat. ‘Caecilia, the day is very hot. If we have dwelt long enough on our unfortunate intrusion into your sanctuary, perhaps we can move on to more earthly matters.’

‘Of course, Cicero. You’ve come about poor young Sextus.’

‘Yes. Gordianus here may be of some help to us in unravelling the circumstances as I prepare his defence.’

‘The defence. Oh, yes. Oh, dear. I suppose they’re still out there, aren’t they, those awful guards. You must have noticed them.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘It’s such an embarrassment. The day they arrived I told them flatly I wouldn’t stand for it. Of course it didn’t do any good. Orders from the court, they said. If Sextus Roscius was to abide here, it would have to be under house arrest, with soldiers at every door, day and night. “Arrest?” I said. “As if he were in a prison, like a captured soldier or a runaway slave? I know the law very well, and there is no law that allows you to hold a Roman citizen in his own home, or the home of his patroness.” It’s always been that way; a citizen accused of a crime always has the option to make his escape if he doesn’t want to face trial and he’s willing to leave his property behind.

‘So they sent for a deputy from the court who explained it all very smoothly – it couldn’t have been smoother if it had come from your own lips, Cicero. “Right you are,” he says, “except in certain cases. Certain capital cases.” And what did he mean by that, I wanted to know. “Capital,” he said, “as in decapitation – cases involving the removal of the head, or other vital organs, resulting in death.” ’

Caecilia Metella sat back and fanned herself. Her eyes became narrow and misted. Rufus leaned forwards and tenderly laid his hand upon her elbow.

‘Only then did I realize how terrible it all was. Poor young Sextus, my dear friend’s only surviving son, having lost his father, might now have to lose his head as well. But even worse than that! This underling, this person, this deputy, went on to explain exactly what the word
capital
meant in a conviction for parricide. Oh! I would never have believed it if you hadn’t confirmed it yourself, Cicero, word for word. Too terrible, too terrible for words!’

Caecilia fanned herself furiously. Her eyelids, heavy with Egyptian kohl, flickered like moth’s wings. She seemed about to faint.

Rufus reached for a cup of water. She waved it away. ‘I don’t pretend to know the young man; it was his father whom I loved and cherished as a dear, dear friend. But he is the son of Sextus Roscius, and I have offered him sanctuary in my home. And surely, what that man, that deputy, that odious person described should never happen to any but the most wretched, the most foul and debased of murderers.’

She batted her eyes and reached out blindly. Rufus fumbled for a moment, then found the cup and put it in her hand. She took a sip and handed it back.

‘So I asked this creature, this deputy, very reasonably, I thought, if it would be too much trouble to have these soldiers at least stand somewhere away from the house instead of hovering right by the door. It’s humiliating! I have neighbours, and how they love to talk. I have dependents and clients arriving every morning looking for favours – the soldiers scare them off. I have nieces and nephews afraid to come to the house. Oh, those soldiers know how to hold their tongues, but you should see the looks they give a young girl! Can’t you do something about it, Rufus?’

‘Me?’

‘Of course, you. You must carry some weight with . . . with Sulla. It’s Sulla who set up the courts. And he
is
married to your sister Valeria.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean . . .’ Rufus blushed a deep red.

‘Oh, come now.’ Caecilia’s voice became conspiratorial. ‘You’re a handsome enough young boy, as pretty as Valeria any day. And we all know that Sulla casts his net on both sides of the stream.’

‘Caecilia!’ Cicero’s eyes flashed, but he kept his voice steady.

‘I’m not suggesting anything improper. Charm, Cicero. A gesture, a look. Rufus needn’t actually
do
anything, of course. Why, Sulla’s old enough to be his grandfather. All the more reason he could condescend to do a small favour for a such a charming boy.’

‘Sulla doesn’t find me charming,’ said Rufus.

‘And why not? He married Valeria for her looks, didn’t he? And you look enough like her to be her brother.’

There was an odd sputtering noise. It was Tiro, standing behind his master’s chair, pressing his lips together to keep from laughing. Cicero covered the noise by loudly clearing his throat.

‘If we could go back to something that was mentioned a moment ago,’ I said. Three pairs of eyes converged on me. Cicero looked relieved, Tiro attentive, Caecilia confused. Rufus stared at the floor, still blushing.

‘You mentioned the penalty for the crime of parricide. I’m not familiar with it. Perhaps you could explain it for my benefit, Cicero.’

The mood was suddenly sombre, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. Caecilia turned aside and hid behind her fan. Rufus exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Tiro.

Cicero filled his cup and took a long draught of water. ‘It’s not surprising that you shouldn’t be familiar with the subject, Gordianus. Parricide is such a rare crime among the Romans. The last conviction, as well as I could ascertain, took place when my grandfather was a young man.

‘Traditionally, of course, the penalty of death is carried out by decapitation, or for a slave, crucifixion. In the case of parricide the penalty is very ancient and very severe, laid down long ago by priests, not lawmakers, to express the wrath of father Jupiter against any son who would dare to strike down the carrier of the seed that made him.’

‘Please, Cicero.’ Caecilia looked over her fan and batted her makeup-laden eyelashes. ‘To have heard it once is enough. It gives me nightmares.’

‘But Gordianus should know. To know that a man’s life is at stake is one thing; to know the way in which he might die is something more. This is what the law decrees: that the condemned parricide, immediately following his conviction, shall be taken outside the city walls to the Field of Mars, close by the Tiber. Horns shall be blown and cymbals sounded, calling the populace to witness.

‘When the people are assembled, the parricide shall be stripped naked, as on the day of his birth. Two pedestals, knee-high, shall be placed several feet apart. The parricide shall mount them, one foot on each pedestal, squatting down with his hands chained behind his back. In this fashion, every part of his naked body is made accessible to his tormentors, who are charged by the law to lash him with knotted whips until the blood pours like water from his flesh. If he falls from his perch, he is made to mount it again. The whips are to fall on every part of him, even to the bottoms of his feet and the nether regions between his legs. The blood that drips from his body is the same as the blood that ran through his father’s veins and gave him life. Watching it spill from his wounds, he may contemplate the waste.’

Cicero stared vaguely into the distance as he spoke. Caecilia stared at him, her eyes narrow and intense above her fan.

‘A sack shall be prepared, large enough to hold a man, made of hides so tightly sewn as to be sealed against water and air. When the whipmasters have completed their work – that is, when every part of the parricide is so covered with blood that one can no longer tell where the blood ends and raw flesh begins – the condemned man shall be made to crawl into the sack. The sack shall be placed some distance from the pedestals, so that the assembled people may watch his progress and be given the opportunity to pelt him with dung and offal and to publicly curse him.

‘When he reaches the sack, he shall be induced to crawl inside. If he resists, he shall be dragged back to the pedestals and the punishment begun again.

‘Within the sack, the parricide is returned to the womb, unborn, unbirthed. To be born, the philosophers tell us, is an agony. To be unborn is greater agony. Into the sack, crammed against the parricide’s torn, bleeding flesh, the tormentors shall push four living animals. First, a dog, the most slavish and contemptuous of beasts, and a rooster, with its beak and claws especially sharpened. These symbols are very ancient: the dog and the cock, the watcher and the waker, guardians of the hearth; having failed to protect father from son, they take their place with the murderer. Along with them goes a snake, the male principle which may kill even as it gives life; and a monkey, the gods’ cruellest parody of mankind.’