Render Unto Caesar (14 page)

The young man stumbled over and caught hold of him like a frightened child. Hermogenes shook him loose. “We've got to get away,” he told him, in Greek.

“I
said
he would kill us!” quavered Menestor. “Oh, Isis, they've killed Phormion!”

“We will send someone to fetch Phormion's body in the morning!” Hermogenes snapped. “Now we must go.” He caught the boy's shoulder to keep his balance, then looked back at the woman.

She was standing watching him, the knife now thrust through her belt. She was, he thought, possibly the most frightening individual he had ever encountered—but she had saved him.

“I owe you a hundred denarii,” he told her. “I will pay you at the house of my friend Titus Fiducius, on the Via Tusculana, and add another fifty denarii if you take me there now.”

She grunted. “Agreed. It's quickest that way.” She pointed down a narrow side street on the left of the square.

It was black as the alley where the Rubrii had been taking him. He shuddered. “Is it safe?”

She grinned, her teeth white in the dimness. “It is if you're with me.”

 

The walk back to Crispus's house seemed endless. Hermogenes stumbled through it doggedly, one arm over Menestor's shoulders, leaning on the boy heavily and gritting his teeth every time his weight came down on his right ankle. The narrow back streets were uneven, often unpaved, full of potholes and littered with rubbish, so that he stumbled often. He kept listening for the sound of footsteps behind them, but the only ones he heard belonged to the woman, and she walked quietly, with a steady tread.

“Who were they?” she asked abruptly, after the first crossroads. “They weren't robbers.”

He gave a sobbing laugh. “They were from a man who owes me money.”

“Huh. So why do they want to question you?”

He didn't answer at once, and she persisted, “You said they wanted to question you. I saw how they wanted you alive. I want to know who I killed, rich man.”

“My name is Hermogenes.”

“What is that? Greek?”

“Yes. Those men … I have some documents which prove my right to collect a debt. They wanted to know where I put them. Once they knew, they would have killed me.”

“So you're a moneylender?” She sounded disappointed. “It's all a money matter?”

“Yes. My uncle was foolish enough to lend more than he could afford.” He hadn't said that before, but suddenly the rage at Nikomachos was overpowering. “He was stupid enough to give that barbarian almost the sum of all his assets, the sum! I would
never
have done that, no matter what he threatened me with!”

“What barbarian?” the woman asked suspiciously.

His foot slipped just then on a patch of something slimy and stinking, and his weight crashed down on his right foot. He gasped and stood clutching Menestor while the pain burned white hot. The young man's flesh was warm, damp with sweat, and he could feel tremors going through it, but whether they came from Menestor or from himself, he couldn't tell.

“What's wrong with your foot?” demanded the woman.

“I twisted my ankle when I jumped from the chair,” he told her, and began to limp grimly on.

“Huh,” said the woman, following. “Far to your friend's house?”

He gave another sobbing laugh. “I thought
you
knew the way!”

In fact, after another crossroads, they emerged onto the Via Tusculana only a couple of blocks from Crispus's house: when he looked up the road trying to get his bearings, he saw torches blazing in the iron dolphin holders, the only lights in the stretch of gray insulae which lined the road with dark and shuttered faces. He began hobbling eagerly toward those beacons.

“That your house?” asked the woman appreciatively. “That big one?”

“My friend's house,” he corrected her. “I am his guest.”

“You lend him money, too?”

“No!” he said distractedly. “He is a businessman. We have investments in some of the same shipping syndicates. We're guest-friends.”

This didn't seem to impress her. “Huh!” she said again.

He limped at last to the door and beat on it as though the attackers were running up the street after him.

The window in the lodge opened instantly, and Kyon's scarred face looked out. It creased, its expression rendered unintelligible by the burns, and then the door flew open. “Oh, sir!” cried Kyon, in what sounded almost like reproach, “Oh, sir, look at you! The master will be horrified!”

Hermogenes could think of no answer to that. He stumbled into the house, wanting only to get in out of the night. Kyon let him through, then moved to bar the passage of the woman following.

The woman drew herself up and declared fiercely, “Your guest owes me a hundred and fifty denarii!”

“I owe her my
life,
” Hermogenes told the doorkeeper. “Please. Let her in.”

Kyon stood aside to let her in, then closed and bolted the door behind her.

Titus Fiducius Crispus came running in through the atrium, alerted by the noise. He gave a cry of dismay. “My dear friend! Oh, gods and goddesses! What has he done to you?”

“Let me sit down,” Hermogenes begged him.

“Of course, of course. Stentor! Some wine. Oh, Jupiter, look at you!”

Hermogenes found himself escorted through into the dining room and deposited on a red-upholstered couch. His ankle was swollen, he noticed as he sat down, and there was blood over his leg from a scraped knee he had not even felt. He was filthy and bruised all over; his shoulder ached savagely where the attacker had wrenched it, and there was blood down his front. He touched his face and discovered that the stitches in his cheek had torn and that he had a nosebleed. Various members of the household crowded around, exclaiming in horror. He was aware of the red-haired woman standing silently at the side of the room, watching him as though she suspected he meant to slip away without paying her. In the bright lamplight he could see that she was about thirty, with a crooked nose, what looked like a sword-scar across one side of her face, and cold blue eyes. Her forearms were crisscrossed with knife cuts, and she was thin to the point of being gaunt. Her tunic was dirty, threadbare, and patched, and her heavy leather sandals had been repeatedly mended. She no longer had any resemblance to a goddess or a creature from the Underworld.

Hyakinthos hurried over and set a large cup of wine in his hands.

“Some for Menestor, too, please,” he said. “And for … for this woman here, whose name I do not know, but who saved my life.”

“Where's Phormion?” asked Hyakinthos anxiously.

At that name, Menestor burst into tears. Hyakinthos at once looked as though he might do the same. Hermogenes remembered Phormion playing ball with the boy only a few days before—remembered the bodyguard's evil grin as he made yet another goal, and the strength and vigor with which he ran and dodged. It seemed incredible that he was dead. He would still have been alive if it hadn't been for his master.

“Dead,” Hermogenes admitted painfully. “He tried to protect me, and they killed him.”

“Rufus tried to
kill
you?” exclaimed Titus. “In his own house?”

“It was on the way back,” Hermogenes informed him. He took a gulp of the wine. “I think his people told some lie to the bearers that persuaded them to betray me. I don't think it was just money. They tried to take me down into an alley where he had men waiting. It would have looked like robbers. Titus, I don't think he has the money. I think he spent it all on land, and then borrowed from somebody important to improve the land, and if he tries to pay me, his other creditor will guess how things stand with him and he's afraid of that. He means to kill me before I can expose him. I'm sorry.” He finished the cup of wine.

“He didn't sign?” Titus said in bewilderment.

“No. The real point of the meeting was the ambush on the way back. I am sorry, Titus. I never intended to involve you in something like this.” He rubbed a filthy hand over his hair distractedly. “I think my best option is to find his other creditor and arrange to consolidate the debt, then get out. I … I will go to an inn, of course, while I do that.” It cost him some effort to say that: the thought of leaving this haven of light and friendliness and going out into the dark and dirty streets was almost unbearable. He had known all along, though, that Titus would not back him against a consul. He could even see that he should not: Titus lived in Rome, and would have to go on living there when Hermogenes went back to distant Alexandria.

“How can you suggest such a thing?” Titus asked reproachfully. “Look at you! You can barely walk: how could I
possibly
turn you out of my house? A
Roman consul
, and he does such a thing to a respectable citizen! A debtor, and he does it to his creditor!”

“You said the man who owed you money was a barbarian!” interrupted the woman.

Titus cast her a glance that wondered who she was and what she was doing in his house.

“Figuratively speaking,” Hermogenes said unhappily. “Factually speaking, however, he is a consul. General Lucius Tarius Rufus.” He could afford to say it, here: on the streets he had been too afraid.

Strangely enough, the woman seemed pleased rather than alarmed. She grinned, showing uneven white teeth. “A fine enemy you have, Greek!”

“Not by my choice. I told you that my name is Hermogenes, not Greek. Yours I do not know.”

Her smile disappeared. “Cantabra.”

There had been a small war, or series of wars, with a tribe of barbarians who lived in the wild mountains of Iberia … yes, they were called Cantabrians, and they were supposed to be savage and warlike in the extreme, which certainly fit. “That is a nationality, not a name,” he told the woman mildly. “Like Greek.”

“Maybe I like it,” replied the Cantabrian woman. “You owe me a hundred and fifty denarii.”

“And I will pay it gladly. Titus, this woman, Cantabra, came to help me when I was attacked. If it had not been for her, I would have died.”
If it had not been for her,
he admitted silently,
I would be at the back of that alley now—and not dead, not for some time
. They had wanted to know where he had put the documents, and they wouldn't have killed him until he told them. They probably could not have broken him quickly or easily, but probably they could have done it.

Titus looked at the woman very dubiously, but said, “Then you are very welcome to my house.”

For the first time the barbarian seemed a bit unsure of herself. She looked down, straightened her ragged tunic, and adjusted the knife. Then she looked up again. “May I have some food, then?” she asked, her voice all at once hoarse and hesitant. “And a bed for the night? It's late to find a place to sleep.”

“You are welcome to both,” Titus told her stiffly. “Stentor! See that this … this
person
 … has what she needs.”

“My money first!” Cantabra insisted immediately, with a wary glance at Hermogenes.

She clearly expected him to try to cheat her. “By all means,” Hermogenes told her. “I will take it out of my strongbox now. Menestor, help me up.”

Menestor came over and helped him to his feet, and with the boy's support he hobbled slowly out of the dining room and along the colonnade to the Nile Rooms, closely followed by Titus and the barbarian woman, who were followed in turn by most of the household.

He knelt beside the trunk, with everyone watching him, pulled out his key, unlocked it, dug in the trunk for the strongbox, unlocked that, and counted out a hundred and fifty denarii. It was most of his supply of coin, but he did not grudge it in the least. “Have you anything to put this in?” he asked the woman.

She seemed completely speechless at being given what he had promised and she had earned. She fumbled at a small leather strip twisted around her belt, the sort that could be used to hold a few small coins at most. Hermogenes shook his head. He rummaged in the trunk, found a spare pen case, and tipped the pens out. He scooped the coins into it and handed it to the barbarian. “Take this, then, and thank you,” he told her formally: some things ought to be said. “Your courage and resolution saved me from a wretched and shameful death. I am deeply grateful, and I pray that the gods favor you.”

She blushed, the color showing very clearly in her pale skin, and bobbed her head. Muttering something incomprehensible, she backed out of the room. Stentor gestured to her and led her off into the house.

Hermogenes remained where he was, kneeling on the floor by the trunk. It seemed too much effort to move.

“My dear fellow!” said Titus gently, coming over to clasp his shoulder. “Shall I call my doctor again?”

Hermogenes shook his head weakly. “Don't send anyone out into the dark tonight. Tomorrow will be fine. Titus, I meant what I said about the inn. Tonight, I confess, I would be very glad to stay here, and I doubt very much that he'll do anything more until day comes, but tomorrow—”

“Please don't speak of it!” Titus told him in distress. “I'll have the slaves bring you water here so you can wash, shall I?” He turned to Menestor, who was leaning shivering against the wall. “And for you as well, dear boy! Dear lad, you stayed faithfully by your master's side through all of that horror, did you?”

Menestor wiped his eyes angrily with the back of his hand. “My master told me to run for help,” he whispered, “but I couldn't. I was too scared. I would've been lost all on my own, and I don't even speak Latin. I just couldn't.”

“You're a brave young man,” Titus said admiringly.

“No, I'm not,” whispered Menestor. “I was so scared. They killed Phormion. One of them put a knife at my throat, and I was afraid to move. They had my master down on the ground, and they were hitting him and twisting his arms, and he was screaming, but I didn't dare move. I was sure we were going to die.” He started to cry again. “I pissed myself, I was so scared. Herakles! I'm a
coward
!”