Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (57 page)

Ahausarus refused to wake his mistress. Nor would he allow us to stay the night. (‘Impossible,’ he sniffed haughtily, as if hosting Sextus Roscius and his family were taint enough on the household.) Magnus might still be waiting in ambush outside the house; even worse, he might have sent Glaucia for reinforcements. The sooner we left the better. After some hurried negotiations (mostly I begged while the eunuch arched his eyebrows and stared at the ceiling), Ahausarus was quite happy to see us off with a team of yawning litter bearers to carry Tiro, along with some gladiators from his mistress’s personal bodyguard.

‘No more adventures!’ said Cicero sternly. ‘There’s no point in it. When she hears of it in the morning, Caecilia will be scandalized. Tiro’s injured himself. And there’s no telling what sort of repercussions might have come of it – spying on Chrysogonus in his own house, with Sulla in the very room! My own slave and a disreputable henchman – forgive me, Gordianus, but it’s true – caught wandering about a private home on the Palatine during a party to honour Sulla. It wouldn’t be hard to make that out as some sort of threat to the security of the state, would it? What if they’d caught you and dragged you before Chrysogonus? They could have called you assassins as easily as thieves. Do you want to see
my
head on a spike? And all for nothing – you didn’t learn anything new from the whole escapade, did you? Nothing of importance, as far as I can see. Your work is done, Gordianus. Give it up! Everything depends now on Rufus and me. Two more days – tomorrow, and the day after, and then the trial. Until then no more of these absurd adventures! Stay out of the way, and try to stay alive. In fact, I forbid you to leave this house.’

Some people are not at their best when roused from bed in the middle of the night. Cicero was snappish and rude from the moment he arrived in the vestibule, summoned by a slave to witness the bizarre nocturnal visitation of tramping bodyguards and a slave borne in a litter. His eyes were hollow with dark pockets beneath; I suppose in his dreams there was no friendly goddess handing out thunderbolts. Weary or not, Cicero talked constantly, mostly to deride me, while he hovered like a brooding hen near Tiro, who lay belly-down on a table as the household physician (who was also the head cook) examined his ankle, turning it this way and that. Tiro winced and bit his lip. The physician nodded gravely, his eyes red and puffy from interrupted sleep.

‘Not broken,’ he finally said, ‘only sprained. He’s lucky; otherwise he might have had a limp for the rest of his life. The best thing’s to give him plenty of wine – thins the clotted blood inside and keeps the muscles loose. Soak his ankle in cool water tonight, the cooler the better – keeps down the swelling. If you wish, I can send someone after fresh spring water. Wrap it up tight tomorrow and see that he stays off it until the pain’s completely gone. I’ll have the carpenter carve him a crutch in the morning.’

Cicero nodded, relieved. Suddenly his jaw began to tremble. His mouth quivered. His chin dimpled. He opened his mouth in a gasping yawn, trying to keep it shut. He blinked, already falling asleep. He gave me one last disparaging glare through heavy-lidded eyes, shook his head disapprovingly at Tiro, and then returned to his bed.

I slunk wearily to my room. Bethesda was sitting wide-awake in bed, waiting for me. Listening through the door, she had been able to make out only the bare bones of the night’s adventure. She asked question after question. I kept answering, long after my mumbled replies stopped making any sense at all.

At some point I began to dream.

In my dream I lay with my head in the lap of a goddess who stroked my brow. Her skin was like alabaster. Her lips were like cherries. Though my eyes were closed, I knew she smiled, because I could feel her smile like warm sunshine on my face.

A door opened and the room was filled with light. Apollo of Ephesus entered, like an actor stepping onto a stage, naked and golden and blindingly beautiful. He knelt beside me and put his mouth so close to my ear that his soft lips brushed my flesh. His breath was as warm as the goddess’s smile, and smelled of honeysuckle. He whispered words of sweet comfort, like a murmuring brook.

Invisible hands played an invisible lyre, while an unseen chorus sang the most beautiful song I had ever heard – verse after verse of love and praise, all in my honour. At some point a wild giant with a knife ran blindly through the room, his eyes clotted with blood from a wound in his head; but nothing else occurred to spoil the absolute perfection of that dream.

A cock crowed. I gave a start and bolted upright, imagining I was back in my house on the Esquiline and thinking I heard strangers prowling in the grey dawn. But the noise I heard was only the sound of Cicero’s slaves getting ready for the day ahead. Beside me Bethesda slept like a stone, her black hair spread like tendrils about the pillow. I lay back beside her, thinking I couldn’t possibly fall asleep again.

I was unconscious almost before I closed my eyes.

Sleep spread around me in all directions – featureless, dreamless, devoid of any landmarks. Such a sleep is like eternity; with nothing to measure the passage of time and no markings to show the volume of space, an instant is no different from an aeon and an atom is as large as the universe. All the diversity of life, pleasure and pain alike, dissolves into a primal oneness, absorbing even nothingness. Is this what death is like?

And then, all at once, I woke.

Bethesda sat in the corner of the room, stitching up the hem of the tunic I had worn the night before. At some point, perhaps when I jumped, I had ripped it. Beside her was a half-eaten piece of bread smeared with honey.

‘What hour?’ I said.

‘Noon, or thereabouts.’

I stretched. My arms were stiff and sore. I noticed a large purple bruise on my right shoulder.

I stood. My legs were as sore as my arms. From the atrium I heard the buzzing of bees and the sound of Cicero declaiming.

‘All done,’ Bethesda announced. She held up the tunic, looking pleased with herself. ‘I washed it this morning. Cicero’s laundress showed me a new way. Even the grass stains came out. The air is so parched, it’s already dry.’ She stood behind me and lifted the tunic over my head to dress me. I raised my arms, groaning from the stiffness.

‘Food, Master?’

I nodded. ‘I’ll take it in the peristyle at the back of the house,’ I said. ‘As far as possible from the sound of our host orating.’

The day was perfect for idleness. In the square of blue sky above the courtyard, puffy white clouds floated by one at a time, no more, no less, as if the gods had decreed a procession. The air was warm, but not as hot as on previous days. A cool, dry breeze rustled over the roof and wafted through the shaded porticoes. Cicero’s slaves moved quietly about the household, wearing expressions of suppressed excitement and determination, infected by the gravity of the events transpiring in their master’s study. Today and one day more, and then the trial.

Bethesda stayed close beside me, offering to fetch this or that, attending to whatever I desired – a scroll, a drink, a broad-brimmed hat. Her demeanour was uncharacteristically subdued. Though she said nothing about it, I could tell that the lingering signs of the night’s danger – the torn tunic, the bruise on my shoulder – weighed on her spirit, and she was glad to have me safe and close at hand. When she brought me a cup of cool water, I set down the scroll I was reading, looked her in the eye, and let my fingers brush against hers. Instead of returning my smile she seemed to shudder, and I thought I saw her lips tremble, as slightly as the leaves of the willow trembled in the faint wind. Then she withdrew her hand and stepped away as Old Tiro the doorkeeper came walking diagonally across the courtyard directly in front of me, oblivious of the rules of decorum that confined the slaves to pass quietly beneath the porticoes. He passed by and disappeared again into the house, all the while shaking his head and muttering to himself.

The old freedman was followed soon after by his grandson. Tiro came careening across the courtyard, leaning on a crude wooden crutch and holding his tightly wrapped ankle aloft, going faster than his skill allowed. He was smiling stupidly, as proud of his lameness as a soldier might be of his very first wound. Bethesda fetched a chair and helped him into it.

‘The first scars and injuries of manhood are like a badge of initiation,’ I said. ‘But with repetition they become tedious and then depressing. Youth proudly gives up its suppleness, strength, and beauty, like sacrifices on the altar of manhood, and only later regrets.’

The sentiment left him unmoved. Tiro wrinkled his brow, still smiling, and glanced at the scroll I’d laid aside, thinking I was quoting epigrams. ‘Who said that?’

‘Someone who was once young. Yes, as young as you are now, and just as resilient. You seem to be in good spirits.’

‘I suppose.’

‘No pain?’

‘Some, but why bother with it? Everything’s too exciting.’

‘Yes?’

‘With Cicero, I mean. All the papers that have to be got ready, all the people dropping by – friends of the defence, good men like Marcus Metellus and Publius Scipio. Not to mention finishing his speech, trying to anticipate the prosecution’s arguments – there’s not enough time for everything, really. It’s all a mad rush. Rufus says it’s always like that, even with an advocate as experienced as Hortensius.’

‘So you’ve seen Rufus today?’

‘Earlier, while you slept. Cicero chided him for storming out on Sulla at the party, said Rufus was too rash and thin-skinned – the same way he chided you last night.’

‘Except that I’m sure Cicero is secretly proud of what Rufus did, and they both know it. Whereas Cicero is genuinely disgusted with me. Where is Rufus now?’

‘Down at the Forum. Cicero sent him to arrange for some sort of writ to be served on Chrysogonus, requesting that he bring forwards the two slaves, Felix and Chrestus, to make depositions. Of course Chrysogonus won’t allow it, but that will look suspicious, you see, and Cicero can work that into his oration. That’s the part we’ve been going over all morning. He’s actually going to call Chrysogonus by name. It’s what they least expect, because they think everyone is too frightened to speak the truth. He’s even going to call Sulla to task. You should hear some of the things he wrote last night while we were out, about the free hand Sulla’s given to criminals, the way he’s encouraged corruption and outright murder. Of course Cicero can’t use all of it; that would be suicide. He’ll have to soften it into something milder, but even so, who else has the courage to stand up for truth in the Forum?’

He was smiling again, a different smile, not of boyish pride but in a kind of adoring rapture, giddy at the prospect of following Cicero into the Forum, flushed with excitement like a soldier in the train of a beloved general. Injury and danger only served to heighten the excitement and to make their cause more splendid. But just how far would Cicero really go to invoke Sulla’s wrath? I snorted to myself and was on the verge of taunting Tiro with doubts. But I checked my tongue. After all, the danger he might face with Cicero was no less real than the danger he had faced with me. He had leaped into space beside me. He had raced across the moonlit Palatine in pain and fear without a word of complaint.

Now he was racing back to his master. He pulled himself up by his crutch and steadied himself on one leg. Bethesda moved to help him, and he blushingly allowed her. ‘I have to go now. I can’t stay. Cicero will be needing me again. He never stops, you know, not when he’s in the thick of it. He’ll send Rufus on a dozen errands to the Forum, and the three of us will be up all night.’

‘While I catch up on my sleep. But why don’t you stay longer? Rest; you’ll need your strength tonight. Besides, who else is there for me to talk to?’

Tiro wobbled against his crutch. ‘No, I really have to go back now.’

‘I see. I suppose Cicero merely sent you to check up on me.’

Tiro shrugged as best he could, leaning against his crutch. He turned shifty-eyed, and his face coloured. ‘Actually, Cicero sent me with a message.’

‘A message? Why you, with a twisted ankle?’

‘I suppose he thought the other slaves . . . that is, I’m sure he could have come himself, only – he told me to remind you of what he said last night. You do remember?’

‘Remember what?’ I was suddenly in a taunting mood again.

‘He says you’re to stay in the house and not to leave. Whatever comforts Cicero can offer, please feel free to take advantage of them. Or if you need anything from outside, feel free to send one of the household slaves.’

‘I’m not accustomed to staying inside all day and night. Perhaps I’ll make a trip down to the Forum with Rufus.’

Tiro reddened. ‘Actually, Cicero gave certain instructions to the watchmen he hired to protect the house.’

‘Instructions?’

‘He told them not to allow you to leave. To keep you inside.’

I stared at him in quiet disbelief until Tiro lowered his eyes. ‘To keep me inside? The way the guards at Caecilia’s keep Sextus Roscius inside?’

‘Well, I suppose.’

‘I’m a Roman citizen, Tiro. How can Cicero dare to imprison another citizen in his house? What will these guards do if I leave?’

‘Actually, Cicero told them to use force if they have to. I don’t think they’d actually beat you. . . .’

I felt my face and ears turn as red as Tiro’s. I glanced at Bethesda and saw that she was smiling very slightly, looking relieved. Tiro took a deep breath and backed away from me, as if he had drawn a line with his crutch and stepped behind it.