Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (139 page)

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ Lucius smiled wanly, and I could see that he was growing tired. ‘This is good, Gordianus – to sit and ponder with you like this. It reminds me of the affair which first brought us together; that, too, involved a will, and what appeared to be a resurrection from the dead. And here we are again, come full circle, and alpha meets omega.’

I frowned. ‘Alpha is the beginning, and omega is the end. What are you implying, Lucius Claudius?’

He sighed. ‘We are all getting older, Gordianus. I know I am.’ He looked at me plaintively.

‘Nonsense! You’ll live to be a hundred!’ I invested the words with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, but even to my ears they rang false.

A hoax? A poison? Or something else?

As I mused on the problem of Lucullus and his strange belief, my suspicions increasingly centred on the three A’s.

It was the poet Archias who had first mentioned Varius at the supper, causing a shadow to cross Lucullus’ face. Did Archias refer to Varius merely by chance, or did he know of his patron’s belief regarding the gardener, and wished deliberately to disconcert him? Was it possible that Archias had suggested the idea to Lucullus in the first place? Poets could induce an idea in a listener by using words that carried meanings beyond the obvious.

It was Antiochus the philosopher who had convinced Lucullus of the existence of some organ of perception which could discern truth from falsehood without resorting to accepted methods of logic and deduction. Such a belief reinforced Lucullus’ tenacious insistence that Motho was Varius, despite the evidence of his own eyes and his own memory. Did the philosopher have some other, more direct connection to Lucullus’ delusion?

And what of the artist Arcesislaus? While the rest of the company had engaged in spirited conversation, he had kept quiet and watched, wearing an enigmatic expression. His smug silence and lack of sociability aroused my suspicion.

Lucullus had given me permission to wander his estate and to talk to any of his guests or slaves. The next day, I took a stroll through his gardens, delighting in the scent of roses. I came upon Motho, who was on his hands and knees mulching one of the bushes. He lifted his head at the sound of my footsteps; because his empty, scarred eye socket was towards me, he had to turn his face to an awkward angle to get a glimpse of me. The posture was grotesque; he looked like a hunchback or some other malformed unfortunate. I felt a stab of pity, and yet, at the same time, I seemed to detect something almost sinister about the man. Had Lucullus experienced the same reaction – a natural shiver of distaste for another’s misfortune – and allowed it to become an obsession, crowding out all reason? Or had Lucullus genuinely detected some menace in the presence of Motho? We seldom sense danger by means of reason; the realization comes to us more swiftly than that, and with indisputable conviction. What if Lucullus was right? What if Motho was, by whatever dark magic could make such a thing possible, the same man as Marcus Varius? To embrace such an idea was to relinquish the bonds of reason. That way lay madness, surely . . .

I gazed down into the one good eye of Motho, and came to my senses. He was nothing more than he appeared: a clever, hardworking man who had suffered the misfortune of being born into slavery, and then the further misfortune of losing an eye, and who now faced the ultimate misfortune of dying a horrible death to satisfy another man’s deluded whim. It was to Motho that I owed the truth, even more than I owed it to Lucullus in exchange for the fee he had agreed to pay me. Silently, I vowed that I would not fail him.

I turned away and strode towards the house. On another of the garden paths, glimpsed through leafy foliage, I saw Lucullus’ brother, Marcus, strolling beside Archias. They passed a little statue of the rampant god Priapus. ‘Out of scale, isn’t he?’ said Marcus. ‘Too small to fit that space?’

‘Godhead is known from deeds, not size or shape,’ the poet uttered in his usual declamatory singsong. Did he always speak in epigrams?

I drew near to the house. Through an open window I was able to see into the main room of Lucullus’ library, which was almost as talked about in Rome as the gardens or the Apollo Room. Lucullus had assembled the largest collection of scrolls this side of Alexandria; scholars and bibliophiles came from distant lands for the privilege of reading his books. Through the window I saw row upon row of upright bookcases, their pigeon holes stuffed with scrolls. Pacing back and forth before the window was Cicero, who moved his lips slightly as he pored over a tattered scroll; occasionally he lowered the scroll, gazed into the middle distance, and uttered disconnected phrases – ‘Sons of Romulus, I beseech you!’ and ‘I come not to challenge a rival, but to save Rome from a scoundrel!’ and so on. I gathered he was studying some treatise on oratory and cribbing rhetorical flourishes to use in his campaign against Catilina.

At the far end of the room, Cato and Antiochus stood in a doorway, talking in whispers. Cato uttered an exclamation and tapped a rolled scroll against Antiochus’ chest for emphasis. Antiochus threw back his head and laughed. Cicero stopped his pacing and shushed them loudly.

I followed the pathway that circled the house. A short flight of steps brought me to the terrace outside the Apollo Room. The doors were open. I stepped inside. The sunlight on the terrace had dazzled me, so that the room appeared dark; for a long moment I thought I was alone, until I realized otherwise.

‘Do you mind? You’re blocking my light.’

It was Arcesislaus the artist who spoke, looking at me over his shoulder with a petulant expression. He stood before the long wall that boasted the painting of Apollo and his gifts to mankind. I smelled the singular odour of encaustic wax and saw that Arcesislaus was working with a thin blade and a palette of pigments, applying a new layer of coloured wax over the existing one.

‘And you’re blocking
my
view,’ said a feminine voice. I turned about and saw Servilia, who reclined on a couch near the door to the terrace. Apparently, I had wandered into her line of sight and was blocking her view of the artist’s handiwork – or was it her view of the artist himself ?

I stepped to one side. ‘You’re reworking part of the painting?’

Arcesislaus made a face that indicated that he did not care to explain himself, but finally sighed and gave me a curt nod. ‘Yes; Lucullus wants cherries. He’s decided that cherries must have been created by Apollo – “Greatest of all the god’s gifts!” he says – and so cherries must appear in this painting.’

‘Where is Lucullus, by the way?’ I said.

Servilia answered. ‘My husband is out in the orchard now, eating more cherries. He’s mad for them; cherry-mad!’ She laughed – rather unpleasantly, I thought.

Arcesislaus stared at the painting, arms crossed, brooding. ‘ “Here, in this corner,” he told me. “A cherry tree, if you please.” Never mind that it completely unbalances the composition. I’ll have to add some new element to that other corner, as well. More work for me!’

‘But isn’t that what you artists live for – to work?’

He snorted. ‘That’s a misconception commonly held by those who possess no talent. Like any sane man, I prefer leisure – and pleasure – to working.’ Did he steal a look at Servilia, or simply look beyond me? ‘I sculpt and I paint because Lucullus pays me to do so, and very handsomely.’

‘Money matters a great deal to you?’

He gave me a withering glance. ‘I’m no different from any other man! Except for my ability to do
this
.’ He scraped the blade against a daub of red wax on the palette, touched the blade to the painting, and as if by magic a cherry appeared, so glossy and plump that it made my mouth water.

‘Remarkable!’ I said.

He smiled begrudgingly, pleased by the compliment. ‘There’s a trick to it – painting cherries. I could paint cherries all day long.’ He laughed, as if at some private joke. Servilia laughed as well.

A chill ran up my spine. I looked from the face of Arcesislaus to the face of Apollo – his self-portrait, there could be no doubt, for man and god shared the same sardonic smile. I thought of how merciless, selfish, and cruel the god could be, in spite of his beauty.

I looked at the palette of pigmented wax. Not all paints were so thick. Other techniques called for paints that were quite thin, hardly more than coloured water. With a thin liquid and a tiny horsehair brush, one could
paint
cherries – or paint
cherries
. . .

I backed out of the Apollo Room, on to the terrace, then turned and ran to the cherry orchard.

Lucullus was where I expected to find him, seated on a folding chair beneath the tree that bore the cherries called Most-Precious-of-All. As I approached, I saw him reach up, pluck a cherry, gaze at it admiringly, and then lower it towards his open mouth.

‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t eat it!’

He turned his head, but continued to lower the cherry towards his lips – until I knocked it from his hand.

‘Gordianus! What in Hades do you think you’re doing?’

‘Saving your life, quite possibly. Or perhaps just your sanity.’

‘What are you talking about? This is outrageous!’

‘What was it you said to me about these cherries? So fragile they can be eaten only beneath the tree – which gives them a more practical advantage, that they can’t have been poisoned.’

‘Yes; they’re the only things I ever eat without having a taster test them first.’

‘And yet, they could be poisoned, here on the tree.’

‘But how? No one could soak them, or cut them open, or . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t call on your services for the purpose of finding a poisoner, Gordianus. I require of you one single task, and that regards—’

‘They could be
painted,’
I said. ‘What if someone diluted a poison, and with a brush applied the solution to the cherries while they yet hang on the branch? You might consume only a little at a time, but eventually, considering how many of these cherries you’ve eaten—’

‘But Gordianus, I have suffered no ill effects. My digestion is fine; my lungs are clear; my eyes are bright.’

But your mind is deranged
, I wanted to say – but how could one say such a thing to a man like Lucullus? I would have to find another way; I would have to go round about, perhaps approach Marcus and win him over, make him see that his older brother needed looking after. Yes, I thought, that was the answer, considering how famously close was the bond between the two brothers. A very public family tragedy had struck them early in life; sometimes such an event drives a wedge between siblings, but quite the opposite had occurred with the brothers Lucullus. Their father’s self-destructive behaviour had very nearly ruined them, but together they had regained the city’s respect and made a name for themselves that exceeded anything their ancestors had achieved. One might even say that Lucullus owed his success to the failure of his father – that he owed everything to his father . . .

Then I saw, in a flash, that cherries had nothing to do with Lucullus’ dilemma. The will, yes – but not the cherries . . .

A slave, hearing his master’s voice raised, appeared and stood at a respectful distance, a quizzical look on his face.

‘Go find your master’s brother. Ask him to come here,’ I said.

The slave looked to Lucullus, who peered at me for a long moment, then nodded. ‘Do as this man requests. Bring Marcus only – no one else.’

While we waited, neither of us spoke. Lucullus moved his eyes here and there, never meeting my gaze.

Marcus appeared. ‘What’s this? The slave told me he heard raised voices, an argument, and then Gordianus asked for me.’

‘He seems to think that my beloved cherries have been poisoned somehow,’ muttered Lucullus.

‘Yes, but that was a false notion,’ I said. ‘And realizing that it was false, I gave it up. If only you could do the same, Lucullus.’

‘This is about Motho, isn’t it?’ said Marcus, regarding his brother with a pained look.

‘Call him by his true name – Varius!’ cried Lucullus.

‘Why did you recently decide to write a will?’ I said. The two brothers both looked at me sharply, taken aback at the change of subject.

‘What a peculiar question to ask!’ said Lucullus.

‘For many years you had no will. You were far from Rome, fighting battles, accumulating a vast fortune and repeatedly putting your life at risk. Yet you saw no cause to write a will then.’

‘Because I thought I’d live forever! Men cling to the illusion of immortality for as long as they can,’ said Lucullus. ‘I think Archias once wrote a poem on the subject. Shall I summon him to deliver an epigram?’

‘ “The closer I cut to the bone, the more he laughs, denying all danger,” ’ I said, quoting Ennius. ‘How’s that for a suitable epigram?’

‘What are you talking about?’ snapped Marcus. But the tremor in his voice gave him away; he was beginning to see the train of my thoughts.

‘You
encouraged him to write a will. Didn’t you?’

Marcus stared at me for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. ‘Yes. The time had come.’

‘Because of a change in Lucullus’ health? Because of some other threat to his life?’