Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (66 page)

That evening a small celebration was held in the home of Caecilia Metella. Rufus was there, glowing and triumphant and drinking a bit too much wine. So were those who had sat with Cicero at the bench of the accused, Marcus Metellus and Publius Scipio, along with a handful of others who had assisted the defence behind the scenes in some way. Sextus Roscius was given a couch at his hostess’s right hand; his wife and eldest daughter sat demurely in chairs behind him. Tiro was allowed to sit behind his master so that he could take part in the celebration. Even I was invited and given my own couch to recline upon and assigned my own slave to fetch dainties from the table.

Roscius may have been the guest of honour, but all conversation revolved around Cicero. His fellow advocates cited the finer points of his oration with gushing praise; they picked at Erucius’s performance with devastating sarcasm and laughed out loud recalling the look on his face when Cicero first dared to utter the name of the Golden-Born. Cicero accepted their praise with genial modesty. He consented to drink a modicum of wine; it took very little to bring a flush to his cheeks. Throwing aside his usual caution and no doubt famished from fasting and exertion, he ate like a horse. Caecilia praised his appetite and said it was a good thing he had made a victory party possible, or else all the delicacies she had ordered her staff to prepare in advance – sea nettles and scallops, thrushes on asparagus, purple fish in murex, figpeckers in fruit compote, stewed sow’s udders, fattened fowls in pastry, duck, boar, and oysters
ad nauseam —
would have ended up being dumped in a Subura alley for the poor.

I began to wonder, as I sent my slave after a third helping of Bithynian mushrooms, if the celebration was not a little premature. Sextus Roscius had won his life, to be sure, but he still remained in limbo, his property in the hands of his enemies, his rights as a citizen cancelled by proscription, his father’s murder unavenged. He had eluded destruction, but what were his chances of reclaiming a decent life? His advocates were in no mood to worry about the future. I kept my mouth shut, except to laugh at their jokes or to stuff it with more mushrooms.

All night Rufus gazed at Cicero with a passionate longing that seemed invisible to everyone but me; after witnessing Cicero’s performance that day, how could I belittle Rufus’s unrequited ardour? Tiro seemed quite content, laughing at every joke and even making bold to add a few of his own, but every now and then he glanced towards Roscia with pain in his eyes. Roscia steadfastly refused to look back. She sat in her chair, stiff and miserable, ate nothing, and finally begged her father and her hostess to excuse her. As she hurried from the room she began to weep. Her mother rose and ran after her.

Roscia’s exit set off a peculiar contagion of weeping. First it struck Caecilia, who was drinking faster than anyone else. All night she had been vivacious and full of laughter. Roscia’s exit plunged her into a sudden funk. ‘I know,’ she said, as we listened to Roscia sobbing from the hallway, ‘I know why that girl weeps. Yes, I do.’ She nodded tipsily. ‘She misses her dear, dear old grandfather. Oh, my, what a sweet man he was. We must never forget what really brings us together here on this night – the untimely death of my dearest, dearest Sextus. Beloved Sextus. Who knows, had I not been barren all these years. . .’ She reached up and blindly fussed with her hair, pricking her finger on the silver needle. A bead of blood welled up on her fingertip. She stared at the wound with a shudder and began to cry.

Rufus was instantly at her side, comforting her, keeping her from saying something that might embarrass her later.

Then Sextus Roscius began to weep. He struggled against it, biting his knuckles and contorting his face, but the tears would not be stopped. They ran down his face onto his chin and dripped onto the sea nettles on his plate. He sucked in a halting breath and expelled it in a long, shuddering moan. He covered his face with his hands and was convulsed with weeping. He knocked his plate to the floor; a slave retrieved it. His sobs were loud and choking, like a donkey’s braying. It took many repetitions before I recognized the word he cried out again and again: ‘Father, Father, Father . . .’

He had been his usual self for most of the night – quiet and glum, only occasionally consenting to smile when the rest of us roared at some clever joke against Erucius or Chrysogonus. Even when the verdict was announced, so Rufus told me, he had remained oddly impassive. Having lived so long in dread, he held his relief in check until it came bursting out. That was why he wept.

Or so I thought.

It seemed a good time to leave.

Publius Scipio and Marcus Metellus and their noble friends bade us good night and went their separate ways; Rufus stayed behind with Caecilia. I was anxious to sleep in my own bed, but Bethesda was still at Cicero’s and the way to the Subura was long. In the good-natured flush of his success, Cicero insisted that I spend a final night beneath his roof.

Had I not gone with him, this story would have its ending here, amid half-truths and false surmises. Instead I walked beside Cicero, flanked by his torchbearers and bodyguards, through the moonlit Forum and up the spur of the Capitoline until we came to his house.

Thus I came face to face at last with the most fortunate man alive. Thus I learned the truth, which until then I had only dimly suspected.

Cicero and I were chatting amiably about nothing in particular – the long hot spell, the austere beauty of Rome beneath a full moon, the smells that filled the city at night. We rounded the corner and stepped into the street where he lived. It was Tiro who first noticed the retinue encamped like a small army about the entrance to Cicero’s house. He clutched his master’s toga and pointed open-mouthed.

We saw the company before they saw us – the empty litter and the litter bearers who leaned against it with folded arms, the torchbearers who slouched against the wall and held their flames at lazy angles. Beneath the flickering light some menials played trigon on the curb, while a few secretaries squinted and scribbled on parchments. There were also a number of armed guards. It was one of these who spotted us standing stock-still at the end of the street and nudged an expensively dressed slave who was busy wagering on the trigon players. The slave drew himself up and came striding haughtily towards us.

‘You are the orator Cicero, the master of this house?’

‘I am.’

‘At last! You’ll excuse the entourage camped on your doorstep – there seemed to be nowhere else to put everybody. And of course you’ll excuse my master for paying a visit at such a late hour; actually we’ve been here a rather long time, since just after sunset, awaiting your return.’

‘I see,’ Cicero said dully. ‘And where is your master?’

‘He waits within. I convinced your doorkeeper that there was no point in keeping Lucius Sulla standing on the doorstep, even if his host was not home to greet him. Come, please.’ The slave stepped back and gestured for us to follow. ‘My master has been waiting for a long time. He is a very busy man. You can leave your torchbearers and bodyguards here,’ he added sternly.

Beside me Cicero took deep, even breaths, like a man preparing to plunge into icy water. I imagined I could hear his heartbeat in the stillness of the night, until I realized it was my own. Tiro still clutched his master’s toga. He bit his lip. ‘You don’t think, master – he wouldn’t dare, not in your own home—’

Cicero silenced him by raising his forefinger to his lips. He stepped forward, motioning for the bodyguards to stay behind. Tiro and I followed.

As we made our way to the doorstep, the members of Sulla’s retinue went about their business, giving us only quick, sullen glances, as if we were to blame for their boredom. Tiro stepped ahead to open the door. He peered inside as if he expected a thicket of drawn daggers.

But there was no one in the vestibule except Old Tiro, who came shuffling up to Cicero in a panic. ‘Master—’

Cicero quieted him with a nod and a touch on the shoulder and walked on.

I had expected to see more of Sulla’s retinue within – more bodyguards, more clerks, more flatterers and sycophants. But the house was populated only by Cicero’s regular staff, all of whom were skirting the walls and trying to pretend invisibility.

We found him sitting alone in the study beneath a lit lamp, with a half-empty bowl of wheat pudding on the table beside him and a scroll in his lap. He looked up as we entered. He appeared neither impatient nor startled, only vaguely bored. He put the scroll aside and raised one eyebrow.

‘You are a man of considerable erudition and passably good taste, Marcus Tullius Cicero. While I find far too many dull, dry works on grammar and rhetoric in this room, I am heartened to see such a fine collection of plays, especially by the Greeks. And while you appear to have intentionally collected the very worst of the Latin poets, that may be forgiven for your discernment in selecting this exceedingly fine copy of Euripides – from the workshop of Epicles in Athens, I see. When I was young I often entertained the fantasy of becoming an actor. I always thought I would have made a very poignant Pentheus. Or do you imagine I would have made a better Dionysus? Do you know
The Bacchae
well?’

Cicero swallowed hard. ‘Lucius Cornelius Sulla, I am honoured that you should visit my home—’

‘Enough of that nonsense!’ Sulla snapped, pursing his lips. It was impossible to tell whether he was irritated or amused. ‘There’s no one else here. Don’t waste your breath and my patience on meaningless formalities. The fact is that you’re deeply distressed to find me here and you wish that I’d leave as quickly as possible.’

Cicero parted his lips and made half a nod, unsure whether to answer or not.

Sulla made the same face again – half-amused, half-irritated. He waved impatiently about the room. ‘I think there are enough chairs for all. Sit.’

Tiro nervously fetched a chair for Cicero and another for me and then stood at his master’s right hand, watching Sulla as if he were an exotic and very deadly reptile.

I had never seen Sulla from so close. The lamplight from above cast stark shadows across his face, lining his mouth with wrinkles and making his eyes glitter. His great leonine mane, once famous for its lustre, had grown coarse and dull. His skin was splotched and discoloured, dotted with blemishes and etched all over with red veins as fine as bee’s hair. His lips were dry and cracked. A tuft of dark hairs poked out of one nostril.

He was simply an old general, an aging debauchee, a tired politician. His eyes had seen everything and feared nothing. They had witnessed every extreme of beauty and horror and could no longer be impressed. Yet there was still a hunger in them, something that seemed almost to leap out and grasp at my throat when he turned his gaze on me.

‘You must be Gordianus, the one they call the Finder. Good, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to have a look at you as well.’

He looked lazily from Cicero to me and back again, laughing at us behind his eyes, testing our patience. ‘You can guess why I’ve come,’ he finally said. ‘A certain trivial legal affair that came up earlier today at the Rostra. I was hardly aware of the matter until it was rather rudely brought to my attention while I was taking my lunch. A slave of my dear freedman Chrysogonus came running in all flustered and alarmed, raving about a catastrophe in the Forum. I was busy at the moment devouring a very spicy pheasant’s breast; the news gave me a wicked case of indigestion. This porridge your kitchen maid brought me isn’t bad – bland but soothing, just as my physicians recommend. Of course it might have been poisoned, but then you were hardly expecting me, were you? Anyway, I’ve always found it best to plunge into peril without giving it too much thought. I never called myself Sulla the Wise, only Sulla the Fortunate, which to my belief is much better.’

He dabbled his forefinger in the porridge for a moment, then suddenly swept his arm across the table and sent bowl and porridge crashing to the floor. A slave came running from the hallway. She saw Cicero’s wide-eyed, blanching face and quickly disappeared.

Sulla popped his finger into his mouth and pulled it out clean, then went on in a calm, melodious voice. ‘What a struggle it seems to have been for both of you, rooting and digging and sniffing for the truth about these disgustingly petty Roscii and their disgustingly petty crimes against one another. I’m told you’ve spent hour upon hour, day after day grappling for the facts; that you went all the way to godforsaken Ameria and back, Gordianus, that you put your very life in danger more than once, all for a few meagre scraps of the truth. And you still haven’t got the full story – like a play with whole scenes missing. Isn’t it funny? I had never even heard the name Sextus Roscius until today, and it took me only a matter of hours – minutes, really – to find out everything worth knowing about the case. I simply summoned certain parties before me and demanded the full story. Sometimes I think justice must have been so much simpler and easier in the days of King Numa.’

Sulla paused for a moment and toyed with the scroll in his lap. He caressed the stitches that bound the sheets and dabbled his fingers over the smooth parchment, then suddenly seized it in a crushing grasp and sent it flying across the room. It landed atop a table of scrolls and knocked them to the floor. Sulla went on unperturbed.

‘Tell me, Marcus Tullius Cicero, what was your intention when you took it upon yourself to plead this wretched man’s case in court today? Were you the willing agent of my enemies, or did they dupe you into it? Are you cunningly clever, or absurdly stupid?’