The King's Gambit (24 page)

"Decius, have you heard?" he said. "A special session of the Senate has been scheduled for tonight." The ban on public business expired at sunset.

"I hadn't," I admitted. "Is it about Lucullus?"

"What else?" said one of the Senators, a man I didn't know. "I suspect that we'll vote on a recall for Lucullus."

"I doubt that," Caesar said. "It would mean handing Pompey the eastern command, and his party is not strong enough to force that through. What we'll see tonight is a senatorial decree ordering Lucullus not to invade Armenia." He spoke as if he were already a Senator, which he would not be until he finished his quaestorship. In later years he would not express his opinions so freely in casual conversation, at least until the time when there was no man left to gainsay him. At this time, though, he was as extravagant with his speech as with his debts.

"I suppose I'll hear about it in the morning," I said, "like the rest of the citizenry."

Caesar took his leave of the others and began to stroll with me, his hand on my shoulder, head down, a signal to all that we were engaged in private conversation.

"Have you had any luck in your murder investigation?" he asked.

"Luck was scarcely involved, except perhaps for my own survival. I have it all now, except for the identity of the actual murderer of Sinistrus and Paulus." It was reckless to speak thus to Caesar, who I thought was probably involved in the conspiracy, at least peripherally.

He looked at me sharply. " 'All'?"

"Eggs to apples," I assured him cheerfully. I had just discovered that I no longer cared whom he talked to. "All that remains is to find the killer, and I shall make my report to the Senate, all names included. On that basis I shall subpoena certain papers deposited in the Temple of Vesta for extra-legal purposes."

Caesar was thunderstruck. "That would call for a special instruction to the Senate from the
Pontifex Maximus
."

"I think he will give that instruction when he understands that a genuine danger to the state exists." The holder of the high priesthood at that time was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who besides his religious office was a famous jurisconsult. He had trained Cicero in constitutional law. I was speaking with a great deal of bluff and bravado, but I saw no other way to precipitate events, having reached a blind alley in my investigation.

"Decius," he said in a low voice, "if I were you, since it seems you are bent on self-destruction, I would stay in my house during the hours of darkness. This city is no longer a safe place for you. It is possible, if you are very discreet, that you may get out of this merely exiled instead of dead. I speak as a friend."

I shook off his hand. "I speak as an official of Rome. I will pursue this until the murderers are brought to justice." I walked away, followed by many curious eyes.Was Caesar trying to be my friend? Even now I cannot say. Caesar was everyone's friend when he was on his way up. It is the politician's art. But he was a complex creature, and I cannot say that he utterly lacked a desire for the friendship of others, especially those who possessed a probity totally absent in his own character. I can only state that, in later years, he more than once spared me when we were enemies and the power, as usual, was all his.

I was not in the Forum long before I noticed that many men, especially Senators, were avoiding me, fading into the crowd if I seemed to be moving in their direction. There was also muttering behind my back. While no one actually pelted me with unpleasant substances, the atmosphere was ugly enough for it. The strangest thing was that scarcely one in fifty of those gathered in the Forum could have known why I was a pariah so suddenly.

I think that, through the years of dictatorships and proscriptions and civil war, the Roman populace had acquired a faculty of mind or spirit that told them when a man was out of favor with the great men of the state, and they would turn on such a man like dogs upon a crippled member of the pack. It signified to me more than anything else how far down the path Romans had gone toward an Oriental slavery of the populace. My spirits have never been lower than they were on that long walk home from the Forum.

When I arrived at my home the light was dimming. I had not been attacked, a matter of some astonishment to me. Cato opened my door, wearing the scandalized look that had grown almost perpetual these past few days,

"Sir, this fellow arrived an hour ago. He insisted he'd wait here until you got home."

I walked past Cato and found none other than Titus Milo lounging in my atrium, munching from a bag of parched nuts and peas. He flashed me his grin as I entered.

"Still alive, eh? Word is out on the street that anyone who comes to your defense proclaims himself an enemy of Claudius and his mob."

"Word is out in higher quarters that anyone who socializes with me risks disfavor from our Consuls."

"The hazards of power," he said. "I have something for you." He held out a scroll and I took it.

"Let's go into my reading-room. Cato, bring lamps."

When I had light, I opened the scroll. It was a certificate of manumission for one Sinistrus, a slave of H. Ager. The date was only a few days from the man's purchase from the school of Statilius Taurus. The ceremony of manumission had been witnessed by the praetor Quin-tus Hortensius Hortalus.

"How did you get this?" I asked, excited despite my despondency.

"A small bribe to a slave in the Archives."

"The archives in Baiae?" I asked.

"No, the big ohe here in Rome." He grinned again, loving the role of the man with the answers.

"We've already established that I probably do not have long to live. I would like to hear the end of this before I die. If he was bought for a farm near Baiae, why was his manumission filed here in Rome?"

Milo sat and propped his feet on my desk. "It's complicated, that's why it took so long. Macro's people in Baiae located the estate and questioned the manager. His name is Hostilius Ager and he's in debt to Macro's colleague in those parts--something about a tendency to bet on blue at the races--and so it wasn't too difficult to get answers out of him."

"And the content of these answers?" I asked.

"First, the farm is owned by the family of Claudius

Pulcher. At present it forms a part of the dowry of Publius's sister, Claudia, but Publius has the legal control of it until she marries."

I felt a cold chill washing over me. "And what were the circumstances of this man's purchase of Sinistrus?"

"Very simple. He came up to Rome to give his annual accounting to the master and was sent to the Statilian school to buy this Gallic brute. He says he was terrified that he might have to take the animal back to Baiae and find work for him, but instead he was told to wait in Rome for a few days more. One morning he took Sinistrus to a praetor and freed him and was on his way home the same afternoon.

"That was when the slave rebellion was at its height It was difficult to free a slave, and it was absolutely forbidden to manumit a gladiator. Transferring ownership of Sinistrus took a special dispensation from a praetor, and his manumission took an extra-legal act by a praetor. Knowing that, the rest was easy. Since the manumission ceremony took place in Rome, the record was in the Archives. And Macro didn't have to think long to figure out who the crookedest praetor of that year was. I was sent to the Archives to look over manumission re-cords from the praetorship of Hortalus. Since there were so few that year, I found it within an hour. Getting it out of the Archives cost four sesterces."

"You shall be reimbursed," I said. "Of course, Hortalus never thought to hide this." I hefted the manumission record. "It was nothing; just a favor to the Claudians, helping them acquire a bullyboy in a year when that was difficult. He had no idea that Sinistrus would attract anyone's attention."

"Does it make your case any easier?" Milo asked.

Disgustedly, I tossed the thing on my table. "No. It's just more evidence. I no longer think that any amount of evidence will allow me to prosecute the people responsible. But now I would just like to
know.'"
I slapped the unoffending table, rattling the old bronze dagger. I

stared at Milo. "I have to have that damned amulet. It must be the key to all this."

Milo shrugged. "Well, you know where it is, don't you?"

"The house of Publius Claudius, if it hasn't been destroyed already. But there is no legal process for searching a citizen's home."

Milo stared at me as if at some rare new form of idiot. "Surely you don't expect to go about this legally?"

"Well," I began, tapering off uncertainly, "I suppose

; this juncture that would be rather futile."

He leaned forward. "Look, Decius, here in Rome we have some of the best burglars in the world. In fact, in some quarters there is resentment that this Asian boy is prowling all over Rome as if he had a perfect right here. I know some good lads. They'll be in that house and toss it from top to bottom, get your amulet and be out by daylight, and nobody will know they were ever there."

I was astonished. "They are that good?"

"The best," he assured me. "The guild's entrance standards are very high."

I was horrified. I was also exhilarated. I, Decius Cae-cilius Metellus, was contemplating having the house of a citizen burglarized. The prospect of an early and obscure grave made that seem of less account than in better days.

"All right," I said. "Let's do it. Can they find something so small in that great house?"

He spoke as if to a small, naive boy. "The valuable things are always small. No burglar goes in through a window and comes out with a life-size bronze by Praxiteles. These lads know exactly where to look for small, valuable objects. They can steal the jewelry off a sleeping woman without waking her."

"Send them," I said. "Can they be back by morning? I have little time now."

"If it's still there and not at the bottom of the Tiber or cast into a new lamp, I'll have it for you at first light."

"Go," I said.

When he was gone, I prepared papyrus and ink, and

I tried to make out my will. It was appalling how little I had to leave to anybody. Technically, I couldn't own property myself, since my father was still alive, but
patria potestas
was a legal fiction by that time. I made out manumission documents for Cato and Cassandra, and left them the house. I needed very little time to dispose of the rest of my belongings, dividing them among my clients. My field armor I left to Burrus. I knew that he had a son who was about to join his old legion. My farmer I left a small olive grove adjacent to his land. My other possessions I left to various friends. At least, I assumed they were still my friends.

I jerked awake. Sometime during the night, I had nodded off over my table. Someone had thrown a cloak over my shoulders. A dim light just outlined my window and I wondered what had awakened me. Then I heard the scratching at my front door.

I went to my chest and took out my short sword. With drawn steel in my hand, I went to the front door and opened it. Outside stood Milo, grinning as usual. At arm's length, before my eyes, he held something dangling from a ribbon. It was an amulet in the form of a camel's head.

I snatched it from him and turned it over. In the growing light of morning I read the words cut into the flat back side.