The Catiline Conspiracy (19 page)

Valgius rubbed his bearded jaw ruefully. "If that flunky of Clodius's had kicked a little harder, I'd not be speaking until next
Saturnalia
. Marcus and I"--he nodded toward the bandaged Thorius--"have been untiring in our work among the young men of senatorial families. All of those who have spurned our Consul in the past, those who have sought to prosecute him and those who are sure to resist us when the uprising begins, have been marked out. Their sons will kill them in their beds as soon as they hear the trumpets sound."

Catilina caught my expression. "Oh, don't worry, Decius. We won't make you kill old Cut-Nose. He's never offended me and he'll come around as soon as he sees how the wind is blowing."

"That's a relief," I said to cover my confusion. "We have our differences, but things between us haven't deteriorated to that point yet."

"But then," said Cethegus, "you really must kill someone, Decius."

"I must?"

"Oh, but of course." Cethegus's tone was as sarcastic and insinuating as ever. "All of us have."

"It's a sort of initiation," Laeca said. "Rather like joining one of the mystery cults. Each of us proves his sincerity and loyalty to our cause by killing someone."

"You have to admit it's an effective and unquestionable display of solidarity." Still with that hint of inner amusement.

"I see. Anyone in particular?" I inquired.

"That's the easy and agreeable part," Catilina said. "You recall that once before, several of us discussed how we were all but ruined by the moneylenders?"

"I recall it," I said.

"Well, then, there you are. What can be more pleasant than to kill a creditor? You mentioned that you have had to borrow heavily to support your current office and against your future aedileship. To whom are you so deeply in debt?" He sat back, smiling.

I lifted my cup and drank slowly, frowning into the depths of the excellent Massic. It swirled red as blood in the lamplight reflected from the silver bottom. I was pretending to be pondering my answer. Actually, I was frantically trying to find a way out of this. If I couldn't come up with a credible answer, I might not walk from this place alive. Actually, it was almost pleasant not to have Aurelia on my mind.

Then inspiration struck. It was one of those moments of blinding insight that are sometimes granted by our guardian
genii
. Of course, there are philosophers who insist that each of us has two
genii
, one good and one evil, and it was from the latter that I had most of my near-suicidal inspirations, but they all seemed brilliant at the time. In any case, I was in no position to discriminate. I lowered my cup.

"Asklepiodes, the Greek physician," I said.

Everyone looked puzzled. "The doctor to the gladiators?" Curius said.

"Do you think that's all he is?" I said. "That's just for surgery. For medicine, he doctors the rich, like all Greek physicians. Why, people come from as far away as Antioch and Alexandria for his treatment." I looked around at them, as if we were all men of the world and understood these things. "Discreetly, of course. He specializes in those condition people prefer not to talk about. Lisas the Egyptian alone keeps him on a retainer of a million
sesterces
a year just to treat him for those diseases he's always picking up from his incessant perversions."

"I never would have guessed it," Umbrenus said.

"And," I said, leaning forward and speaking conspiratorially, an excellent way to speak in such a gathering, "do you think that being physician and surgeon to the gladiators is not a way to grow rich?" I paused and drank, letting the implications sink in. "He knows who is in top form and who isn't. And who better than their own physician to make sure that a champion isn't quite up to his next fight? That's the time to make the long-odds bets, my friends. And he doesn't give that information away, he sells it, or passes it along in return for favors."

"So that's why you win so often at the fights," Bestia said.

"It seems almost a shame to waste a resource like that," Laeca added.

"But I'm up to here in debt to the wretched Greek-ling," I said, raising a hand level with my bandaged scalp. "He only gives me tips in hope that I'll be able to pay him back a little of what I owe him."

"Yes," Catilina said, "let's not cheat Decius Caecilius out of his just revenge. A true Roman shouldn't bet on the
munera
anyway. They are supposed to be funeral games, after all. Races are the proper contests for gambling." He turned to me and smiled. "Very well, it's settled, then. Decius, you can kill Asklepiodes. But we have little time, so you must act soon--within two days. Is that agreeable?"

"Oh, decidedly," I assured him. "The sooner the better."

"Excellent. Now, Valgius, what about the fires?"

"Our teams have been assigned their sites," said the bearded one. "On the appointed night, the fires will begin all over the city. The authorities will have a busy time of it, I assure you all."

He resumed his seat and I drank, deeply this time. It was far worse than I had thought. Thus far, they had plotted treason, murder and parricide, serious crimes but not exactly uncommon. This was arson. Fire-raising was the most hated and feared crime in Roman law.

Arsonists taken in the act had reason to envy men who were merely crucified.

And yet, horrible as it all was, I had difficulty in crediting any of what I was hearing. I knew with certainty that these men had committed murder, I had seen the evidence. But revolution? This was like boys playing at war, naming themselves general, each pretending to be a cohort or century. Surely, this pack of strutting posers and babbling loons could not possibly hope to overthrow the majesty of the Roman government? And yet I had witnessed the effectiveness of some of their acts. It left me with one conviction: there was somebody else behind all this, somebody who was not about to appear personally before these lunatics.

I had questions to ask, but I wanted to ask them of Catilina, not these madmen. He was not without his own strain of insanity, but most of the great men of that day were mad to some extent or other. He was far more intelligent than the others, I was sure, although I had my suspicions about Bestia. But I was sure that Catilina was not going to risk everything with only the support of such as these.

A few others tendered their reports, each of them as vaporous and self-deceiving as the others. It was like a dream, except that I knew they were shedding real blood in their ramblings, the blood of citizens.

And I have never taken kindly to the murder of citizens, nor even of resident foreigners under Rome's protection. Some of the victims may not have been particularly savory, but others had been upright members of the community. At any rate, people who do not die in the natural course of things have a right to die by their own hand, or else be put to death only after the proper deliberations of state. That is why we have crosses and arenas. They should not die violently at the hands of malefactors and I have never been able to tolerate such criminal behavior.

If ambitious men wanted to kill one another in the pursuit of power, they had my full blessing to do so. Every such demise made the world a better place. But in doing so they had no right to kill ordinary citizens guilty of no more than going about their everyday lives. If their armies wished to follow their generals and slaughter one another in furthering the ambitions of those men, I was satisfied. I yield to none in my admiration of the Roman legionary, but soldiers are men who bear arms, kill and die as a profession. That does not constitute a right to victimize those who merely go about their lawful occupations.

The truth was that I was not a man of greatness as that age, which now seems almost as remote as the days of Homer, judged such things. I had no ambition to lead armies, to conquer new provinces, to come home a
triumphator
. I was a Roman in the old sense of the word. I was a citizen of a hill town on the Tiber that had, through an astonishing set of circumstances, found itself to be master of the world. I wanted to live with my neighbors, govern over them as my birth and education gave me competence, and, when necessity dictated, fight in their defense to the extent that my less than heroic capabilities allowed.

I enjoyed parties at the Egyptian embassy where the mighty of the world gorged and connived, but I also enjoyed the celebrations of Subura workmen where a whole guild had to pool their dues to buy an amphora of decent Falernian and the loaves were the only white bread those men ate all year. The corner temple of Jupiter near my house, where I attended sacrifices on most mornings, had only five priests. One of these was free-born, two were freedmen and two were slaves. That was the Rome I loved, not the imperial fantasy that the likes of Crassus and Pompey and so many other fought over. It was men like these who had destroyed the old Rome. Now Catilina wanted to be one of them.

And yet, for all his foolishness and brutality, I could not help liking Catilina, in a grudging sort of way. He was like an importunate puppy, or a rambunctious boy who insists upon barging in on the debates and solemnities of his elders, waving his wooden sword and shouting his shrill battle cries, annoying everybody and impossible to ignore. He had
hubris
in plenty, as the Greeks define such things, but he had little meanness and even less pretentiousness. I sincerely hoped that, after all his murders and treasons, he would be given a quick, easy and dignified death.

The drinking went on for some time after the serious talk was over. We walked out into the street and made our farewells as personal slaves were released from the rear of the house to accompany their masters home. Thorius, bandaged head and all, crawled into a litter borne by a matched team of Nubians, which I assumed must be borrowed. Since he had come by his wounds in my ostensible defense, I felt it incumbent upon me to be solicitous.

"Fine rig, Thorius," I said, winking. "Who is she? Rich man's wife?"

He managed to smile, despite what was probably a broken jaw. "Not this time. Bought the litter and the slaves myself." Then he sagged back into the cushions and was carried away. I noticed other such anomalies. Bestia walked away with a new toga, its hem not merely dyed with the murex purple, but embroidered in the Scythian fashion with interlacing animal and vegetative designs. Granted, he had been promised a curule position, worthy of the toga
praetexta
when Catilina should come to power, but a purple stripe was all that was necessary. That toga was worth the loot of a medium-sized municipality. These things, I was sure, were the gifts of Catilina, a notably penurious man. Where was he getting the money?

As we saw them off, Lucius kept a hand on my shoulder, a plain sign that he wished me to remain behind. I was nothing loath, for more than one reason. When they were all departed, we returned to the
atrium
and were given wine by the slaves. We sipped and sat in silence for a while.

"Go ahead, Decius Caecilius," Catilina said after a while. "Ask the questions that have been burning you all evening."

"Not just this evening, Lucius," I said. "But for a long time, at least since the dinner at Sempronia's house."

He sat back in his chair, in that disarming manner he had. "Let me see, what questions might you have? Could it be this: Why is Sergius Catilina involved with this pack of half-baked imbeciles? How does he think that he stands a chance of snatching power when his followers are such trash?" He slid his eyes sideways, arching his brows and fixing me with his gaze. "Confess it. Isn't that what you were thinking?"

I knew what a sacrificial ox feels like when the
flamen's
assistant brings the hammer down between its brows. Still, we Metelli have always been quick on our feet.

"I saw what nonentities they were when I came in, such of them as I had not already dismissed on earlier acquaintance. I take it that you are using them for whatever service they may render."

He leaned forward and laced his fingers before him. "Exactly. Decius, you are a man of experience, descended from one of the greatest of the Roman families. You are obviously not going to be taken in by those buffoons we saw tonight. May I be candid with you?"

I leaned forward likewise. "Please do." I wondered how many of the others had been offered this heart-to-heart. Had the bearded Valgius been flattered thus, told he was honored above the others by the master's confidence?

He leaned back. So did I. "But tell me," he said. "What is missing? What struck you wrong? I would like to know how perceptive you are." This is an excellent way for a man to pretend to omniscience in a puzzling situation, causing another to reveal unseen ramifications while giving away nothing himself. I have used it myself on a number of occasions.

"Lucius," I said, "nobody does a thing like this without the connivance of highly placed men. Who is it? Who backs you? There are no more than ten men who could be working with us." Nice bit of phrasing, that, I thought. "Who are they?"

Catilina smiled smugly. It was the look of a man who is sure of his position. At least, it was the look of a man who wanted to give that impression.

"There are a good many," he said, "all of them well fixed, but all of them cautious. You don't get to be great and rich without being cautious." He paused for effect. "Lucullus is one of them."

I frowned deliberately. "He has retired from public life. He has riches and glory enough already. What has he to gain from an adventure like this?"

"He hates Pompey. You will find that to be true of all our supporters, Decius. They all hate Pompey and they fear, rightly, that the man wants to make himself king of Rome."

This, for once, had great credibility. Pompey had robbed many worthier men of their rightfully won glory. Throughout his career he had specialized in letting others do most of the fighting and then bullying the Senate into giving him their commands so that his men were only in on the kill. The anti-Pompeian faction in the Senate might well contemplate desperate action to forestall a coup by Pompey. Everyone remembered Sulla's infamous proscription lists.