The Catiline Conspiracy (5 page)

"Nothing of any real use as evidence, then," said Octavius. "Not as if the blade were engraved 'Death to the enemies of King Phraates of Parthia' or something of the sort."

"That would be convenient, but my experience of life has taught me that things are seldom ordered for our convenience." I tossed the dagger in the air and caught it again.

"Why, Decius, you've become a philosopher! Will you be growing a beard and opening a school?"

"Spare me, Octavius. Do keep me informed about this, will you? I almost feel that the poor fellow was my client, since I presided over the first part of his funeral rites." He promised to do so and we parted in the Forum.

It was a clear, cool day, one of those brilliantly lucid mornings such as one only encounters in Italy during the fall. The oppressive heat of summer was past and the chill and rains of winter had not yet begun. It made me have second thoughts about seeking an appointment that would take me out of Rome. I knew that winter would cure that. I would start thinking about the Greek islands, Africa, perhaps even an embassy to Alexandria, which I had always heard was a deliciously wicked city.

The day passed like all the others, save for the brief excitement of the morning. I found the staff waiting impatiently for me to unlock the treasury and I soothed them with a lurid account of the murder. I signed for yet another consignment of silver to the legions. I walked away when the tedious task of weighing a shipment of gold from Spain began.

I left the musty interior of the temple with its reek of old incense and older sacrifices and went out into the clean air of the city. Relatively clean, at any rate. The wind wasn't off the fish market or the slaughter yards or, worst of all, the open burial pits. It blew clean from the north, off the Alps. It was a pleasant waste of time, but it had to end and I turned toward my duties. Just within the entrance, I stopped. Something seemed to be wrong or out of place. I looked about me carefully. The statue of Saturn was as always. The pigeons nesting in the rafters cooed as usual. The temple was one of the most ancient, much of it still made of wood. There seemed to be nothing different about the various alcoves and doorways. My gaze stopped at the low doorway to the right of the entrance. It was the one old Minicius the state freedman had said led only to some disused storerooms. I walked over to it to see what was wrong.

There were fresh footprints in the dust, a great many of them. Had another train of slaves taken the wrong turn and gone in there? The question might not have concerned me had I not been so bored. Or perhaps it was because my mind was on mysterious matters such as, why had the murderer of Manius Oppius not stolen those rings, which were valuable enough to keep a poor family comfortable for two or three years? Or it might have been my
genius
whispering in my ear.
Genii
are supposed to be guardian spirits, but mine always gets me in trouble.

For the second time that day, I squatted to examine the evidence. There were prints of sandals and of bare feet. The bare feet probably belonged to slaves. I could see that at least two pairs of sandals had made prints, but little more than that. I straightened and looked around to see if anyone was observing me. I felt foolish, like a boy out climbing trees when he should be at his studies. Quietly, I went to a wall niche and took a lamp from it. Then I went back to the doorway.

The footprints were on a small landing, from which steep stairs slanted downward to the right. I descended the steps slowly, allowing my eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. By the time I reached the bottom, the illumination provided by the lamp's smoky wick was perfectly adequate. The stairs ended at another tiny landing, with barely enough room for a man to stand and turn around. Three doorways opened off the landing, one to each side and one straight ahead. The last of the steps and these three rooms were actually below the foundations of the temple, carved directly into the bedrock. It felt far older than the treasury rooms. It was a strange sensation, standing on a spot where Romulus might have stood.

I decided to try the room before me first. Ducking below the lintel, I went through and found myself in a small, cramped chamber. Its walls were decorated with faded paintings of gods and demons in the Etruscan style. On one wall, a blindfolded man was being savaged by a dog or wolf held on a leash by a figure with the long nose and ears of a death-demon. On another, two naked men were locked in mortal combat while men and women in priestly raiment looked on. One combatant grasped his opponent around the neck and thrust his sword through his body while the other's sword pierced the victor's thigh. Blood gushed profusely from both wounds. On the third wall, a warrior in antique armor grasped the hair of a bound prisoner seated on the ground before him and drew his sword across the; victim's throat.

I like to think that I am not superstitious, but these ancient paintings filled me with horror. Were these long-forgotten rites of worship once demanded by Saturn? Were they scenes from the dedication of the temple? It was not the mere bloodshed,, which was a common enough sight. It was the ritual, religious nature of it. We were fond of our gods as patrons of agriculture or craft or war, but we had little liking for the blood-drinking gods of the underworld. Our ancestors had not been so squeamish.

I would have to bring Cato down here, I thought. He would probably petition the Senate for a return to human sacrifice, since it had been the custom of our ancestors.

There was a heap of something on the floor, covered by a large piece of cloth. Behind me, next to the doorway, I found a lamp-niche and placed my lamp in it. Then I stooped and drew the cloth back. The flame glittered off a great deal of metal. It was a heap of weapons. The majority were swords and short spears. I saw the stout
gladius
of the legions in many styles, some recent, others dating back as far as Scipio and the Punic wars. There was the long
spatha
of the cavalry and the many shapes of sword used in the amphitheater. Some of the spears were hunting weapons such as broad-bladed boar spears. Others were military, the light javelin and the heavy
pilum
of the legions. Once again, these last were mostly of older design.

It was a strange armory, obviously gathered from many sources, but brought here for what purpose? I recovered the heap of arms and looked into the other rooms. One was empty. In the other was a small stack of shields, not the great, body-covering
scutum
of the regular legions, but the small, round or oval ones carried by light-armed auxiliaries.

I went back up the steps. At the landing, I looked to see if there was anyone about who might see me leaving the basement stair. The great shrine was vacant for the moment and I slipped out, replacing the lamp in its niche. When I returned to the treasury, Minicius looked up from beneath his white brows.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. He was only a freedman, but as one of the most important freedmen in Rome, he did not have to be humble. He sat at his table, his pen racing across a scroll of papyrus.

"I had to run over the public bath and use the jakes," I said. "It must have been something I ate this morning."

"More likely something you drank last night. Here, I've a stack of things for you to sign."

I looked them over, but I really had no idea what I was signing. Only a man who works with numbers all his life can make any sense of columns of figures. I had to trust Minicius. Since every treasury
quaestor
for the last forty years or so had done the same without coming to harm, I felt fairly safe.

I said nothing to him or anybody else about what I had found. It was the sort of thing requiring a great deal of deep, serious thought. After locking the treasury in the afternoon, I did exactly that. I went to one of the smaller baths, where I was not likely to encounter anyone I would be obliged to talk to. There I sat in the
caldarium
, stewed in the hot water, and thought.

Somebody had cached arms in the Temple of Saturn. It was clearly not part of an attempt to steal the treasury. Thieves avoid fighting at all costs. On the other hand, someone planning a coup would naturally wish to seize the treasury as one of his first acts.

But who might it be? The times had been tranquil for almost twenty years, since the dictatorship of Sulla. All the wars had been on foreign soil except for the slave rebellion led by Spartacus. Was one of our generals planning a march on Rome and preparing for it by arming cohorts within the city? It would not be the first time.

Something did not fit that theory, though. I worried at it until I saw what was not consistent: it was the haphazardness of the weaponry. Surely a general would have supplied his confederates with arms of a uniform nature, if for no other reason than a military sense of tidiness. Whoever had done this had picked up weapons wherever he could find them, probably buying them a few at a time at widely separated places to avoid suspicion.

Of course, not all of our generals were as well fixed as Pompey. Italy was full of the veterans of a dozen wars, paid off, disbanded and settled in smallholdings up and down the length of the peninsula. Every one of them had his helmet and shield, his sword and armor hanging by the hearth, waiting for his old general to call him back to the eagles. These veterans formed one of the most unstabilizing aspects of Roman life, always a potential hotbed of rebellion. Almost any one of the highest men in political life, feeling himself cheated or insulted or thwarted in some way, might remember that he was a soldier before he was a public servant, and that he had many other soldiers ready to follow him. Such a one might very well buy up old arms to equip an urban cohort.

I tried to think who I might approach about this. The problem was that almost any of the men in high office could be the instigator of this plot, or one of his adherents. Many of the men in high office were my relatives, but I could not count on that to save my neck if one of them should turn out to be a part of a conspiracy against the state.

I could see that this matter was going to call for subtlety as well as for boldness and quite possibly for violence. I decided to pay a call upon the man who was a master of all three. I went to see Titus Annius Milo.

Milo was the best representative of a type of man who had come to prominence in Rome during the last century: the political criminal. Such men, besides their usual criminal activities, performed strong-arm tasks for politicians. They broke up rivals' rallies, made sure that the voters in their districts voted properly, provided bodyguards and rioters, and so forth. In return, their highly placed patrons provided them with protection in the courts. Clodius was another such man. But I detested Clodius, while I counted Milo as a good friend. Clodius and Milo, needless to relate, were deadly enemies.

From the bath, I walked to Milo's house, which was not far from my own, near the base of the Viminal, in a district of raucous shops that were beginning to quiet down as late afternoon sapped the vigor that had been so boundless earlier in the day. Milo had once been assistant to Macro, who had been a very distinguished gang leader. Now he ran Macro's gang and lived in the house that had belonged to Macro. Macro had died rather suddenly and Milo had produced a will that looked authentic.

A tall, gangling lout leaned against the doorpost, favoring me with a gap-toothed grin. He was a Gaul, but he must have arrived in the city very young, because he spoke without any accent. The inevitable bulge of a
sica
handle showed through his tunic beneath the armpit.

"Greeting,
Quaestor
, we haven't seen you in too long."

"No, I haven't been hanging about the criminal courts, Berbix, or we would have seen a lot of each other."

"Now, sir," he said, still grinning, "you know I'm as innocent as a little lamb. And speaking of innocence, you wouldn't be meaning my patron any harm with that sticker you've got under your tunic, would you? I know you and him is friends, but friendship only goes so far, if you take my meaning. I'm shocked, sir, you being a public official and all."

I had all but forgotten about the dagger. I had wrapped it in a scrap of cloth and tucked it beneath my tunic. He had sharp eyes to spot it through tunic and toga both.

"When did a little dagger do anyone any good against Milo?" I said.

"I won't argue with that. Come on in, I'll announce you."

The house was a fine one, which Milo had remodeled so that he had both a large courtyard and an assembly room, where he could hold mass meetings with his associates in good weather or bad. The thick, wooden door was reinforced with iron strapping and had heavy locking bars. The place was built like a fort, to withstand attack by rioting mobs led by rivals. Three streets bounded his house, and he had clearly sited the door on the narrowest street, so that enemies would have no running space to use a ram against it.

The Gaul left me in a small anteroom and sent a serving girl to search for the master, then he resumed his post by the door. It was sign of the relative tranquility of the times that Milo thought one man on the door was enough. Milo had ambitions to become a Tribune of the People, an office that had been the death of more than one Roman. Clodius likewise was angling for that office, and the inevitable collision of these two was anticipated with great glee by the idlers of the Forum. Clodius cultivated the rising fortunes of Caesar while Milo had formed an odd alliance with Cicero.

Milo arrived, his face decorated with a tremendous smile, and I took his hand. It had not grown soft despite the passage of years since he had earned his living as a rower. He was a huge man, still young, with so much energy and ambition that it made me tired just to be in his presence.

"Decius! Why have you not come to see me in so long? You look pale. That's what comes of spending your days counting money under the watchful eye of Saturn. How does it feel, being in charge of all the gold in Rome?"

"Whatever pleasure is to be had in watching it flow by is mine," I told him. "I assure you, that is very little pleasure indeed."