The Triumph of Caesar (7 page)

"Oh, I know!" she said. "It was the Scapegoat."

"Scapegoat?"

"The Massilian. You know—Hieronymus. He's the one who told us the rumor of Gordianus's demise. He seemed quite upset. He hardly ate or drank a thing that night."

"Ah, yes . . . Hieronymus . . ." Antony nodded. "An odd character, that one. I thought he was another of your actor friends, my dear, until you explained where he came from. Claims to be a friend of yours, Gordianus."

"Hieronymus," I whispered. "So you knew him?"
What a stroke of fortune, that they should be the first to mention him, not I.

"Oh, yes, the Scapegoat is one of Cytheris's pets." Antony did not sound entirely pleased.

"Come, Antony, Hieronymus never fails to make you laugh. Admit it! Such a naughty tongue that fellow has."

"Actually, I'm afraid I have some bad news about Hieronymus." I tried to make my face and voice register the emotion one feels when confronted, suddenly and unexpectedly, with the task of delivering sad news. I glanced at Rupa. His muteness made him a good companion for this investigation; he would never blurt out anything to give me away.

"Hieronymus is dead," I said bluntly.

"Oh, no!" Cytheris's surprise seemed genuine. Of course, she was a trained actress.

Antony was harder to read. He furrowed his forehead and narrowed his eyes. "When did this happen?"

"Two nights ago."

"Where? How?"

"He was stabbed, in an alley on the Palatine." This was true, if deliberately vague.

"By whom?" asked Antony. He had once been charged with keeping order in Rome; news of a crime seemed to pique his interest.

"I don't know. It happened at night. There seem to have been no witnesses."

"How distressing!" said Cytheris. "Who would have wanted to kill poor, harmless Hieronymus? Was it a thief? I thought the days of robbery and murder in the streets were over."

I shrugged and shook my head.

"We must send a garland for the bier," said Cytheris. "The body . . . ?"

"Hieronymus lies in my vestibule."

"Yes, beloved, send a garland," said Antony. "I'll let you take care of that." He squinted and shielded his eyes from the sunlight. "You'll have to excuse me now. Suddenly my head is pounding. No need to get up, Cytheris. Stay here in the garden with your guests."

But she was already on her feet, gazing at him sympathetically and reaching out to gently stroke his temples. I saw it was time to go.

"Thank you for the wine and the hospitality. I should return to my house now, in case anyone comes to pay his respects to Hieronymus."

Antony nodded. "Let me know if you discover anything else about his death."

"If you wish. I realize how busy you must be, with Caesar's triumphs approaching. I believe the first, to celebrate his conquest of Gaul, is the day after tomorrow. I know from Meto what an important role you played in that war."

Antony scowled. "Be that as it may, I shall
not
be taking part in the Gallic Triumph."

"No? But you were a cavalry commander at Alesia, weren't you? When Vercingetorix led a night attack against the Roman besiegers, it was only your swift response that saved the situation."

Antony grunted. "Your son told you about that, did he?"

"Caesar himself says so, in those memoirs of his. Surely you'll be riding in a place of honor, the first mounted officer behind Caesar's chariot? And I should think you would be among the privileged few to witness the execution of Vercingetorix in the Tullianum."

"I'm sure they can manage to strangle the wretched Gaul without me. Do you know, Cytheris, I think we'll hold the auction that day, right here in the street outside the house. Let's see if we can lure any of the revelers away from the parade route to come gawk at Pompey's pinky rings and bedroom slippers."

"But surely Caesar himself will insist that you take part," I said.

"Caesar is a selfish, ungrateful—" Antony caught himself. "For months, after Pharsalus, I was left on my own, in charge of this unruly city, without any instructions from Caesar."

"To be fair, Caesar was trapped inside the royal compound at Alexandria, with no way to send word," I said.

"For part of that time, yes. But once he'd broken out, and defeated Ptolemy, did he hurry back to Rome? No, he took a leisurely trip up the Nile with Cleopatra. While he was sightseeing and doing who knows what else with the queen, I was facing an angry mob here in Rome, not even knowing whether Caesar was alive or dead! The situation was quite precarious, let me tell you! And Dolabella deliberately made it worse. It wasn't enough that the boy was sleeping with my wife—from whom I am now divorced, thank the gods. Oh, no! Dolabella insisted on promising wholesale debt relief to the poor, saying it was just what Caesar would have wanted. He raised the hopes of the rabble, whipped them to a frenzy, and pitted them against me. Do you know what he called that gathering he organized in the Forum? A demonstration. I called it a riot. If I hadn't ordered my men to restore the peace, there would have been a complete breakdown of order in this city, utter chaos, with looting and murders everywhere. I did what I had to do. But when Caesar finally returned, and heard all the complaints, did he thank me? Did he praise me, reward me? No! He scolded me in public—humiliated me!—and embraced Dolabella, saying what a good, clever boy he was to show such sensitivity to the needs of the poor."

This was just the kind of spontaneous response I was hoping for. How might I goad him to further candor? I frowned and feigned surprise at his vehemence. I clucked my tongue. "Dolabella, that naughty fellow, sleeping with your Antonia! Presumably he did so behind the back of his own dear wife?"

"The pathetic Tullia, Cicero's whelp? Dolabella divorced her—after finally getting her pregnant. But don't trick me into saying that cursed name again."

"What name?" I ventured.

Antony narrowed his eyes and glared at me, suspicious now that I was deliberately taunting him.

"Ah, you mean Cicero," I said. "I realize that the two of you have been bitter enemies for a long time. But Caesar saw fit to pardon Cicero, did he not?"

Antony gritted his teeth. "Yet another example of Caesar's outrageous—" He caught himself. He pinched the bridge of nose, grimaced, turned around, and left without another word.

"Oh, dear," said Cytheris. "I'm afraid you set him off."

"I hadn't realized the situation between Antony and Caesar was so delicate."

"It's not as bad as it sounds, truly." She shook her head. "These headaches he's suffering—they worry me. It's not what you think. It isn't the drinking that causes them. It's the pressure he's under."

"A man like Antony must have much on his mind."

"Not enough, these days. That's the problem! These headaches never plague him when he's in the thick of things, having to contain a riot or lead a cavalry charge. It's the idleness afterward that brings them on. It's as if he's still releasing the pressure, after all those months of stress, running the city as Caesar's surrogate, facing one crisis after another, not knowing if Caesar would ever come back. It took a toll on him. Who can blame Antony if all he wants now is to throw parties and drink and sleep until noon?"

"Who can blame him, indeed?" I said.

V

As Rupa and I departed from the House of the Beaks and made our way back to the Palatine, I experienced a distinct sensation of being followed.

Over the years I have learned to trust this sensation; it never misleads me. Unfortunately, my skill at spotting a stealthy pursuer has diminished over the years, even as my skill at sensing one has grown more acute. At one point, I asked Rupa to lag behind a bit, to see if we could outstalk my stalker, but the ruse didn't work. I arrived home safely but with the disturbing sensation of having been followed and no idea who had done so or why.

I retired to the garden, found a shady spot, and resumed my reading of Hieronymus's reports and his private journal. There was little in them to hint at any danger that Antony might pose to Caesar; mostly Hieronymus listed in great detail who attended the parties at the House of the Beaks; what they wore, ate, and drank; and what they gossiped about. After my single interview with them, I could have done a better job of reporting on Antony's state of mind and speculating on any dangerous motivations that might be attributed to Cytheris.

Hieronymus had uncovered something dangerous enough to get himself killed. It would appear he harbored no particular suspicions of Antony, and yet that very fact raised an alarm. How had Hieronymus put it? "The menace to Caesar will come at a time and from a direction we did not anticipate." To judge by his reports, Hieronymus had not anticipated any menace from Antony and Cytheris—or had he grown suspicious only when it was too late to save himself?

I scribbled a few of my own notes toward assembling a report to Calpurnia, then skimmed more of the material. Which of Hieronymus's paths should I retrace next?

I decided to talk to Vercingetorix as soon as possible. In two days, the man would be dead.

Since his defeat and capture at Alesia six years ago, the former leader of the Gauls had been kept a prisoner. Had the civil war not intervened, Caesar would long ago have staged his Gallic Triumph, and Vercingetorix would be dead. Thus it had been since the earliest days of the Republic: when a victorious Roman general celebrates a triumph, his most prominent captives are paraded in fetters; and at the conclusion of the procession, they are taken to the dungeon chamber called the Tullianum and strangled to death, to the delight of the gods and the glory of Rome.

Now the time had come for Caesar's triumph, and for Vercingetorix to face his destiny.

It was hard to see how the captured leader of the Gauls could pose any threat to Caesar—surely he was kept under strict guard—yet Calpurnia had arranged for Hieronymus to see him, so she must have considered him a possible menace. Looking through Hieronymus's notes on their single meeting, I saw references to the Gaul's appearance and state of mind, but the most important question was not addressed: Had Vercingetorix been allowed any contact at all with friends and family? If he had been kept in complete seclusion, as I suspected, then he could not be plotting against Caesar, nor have any knowledge of a plot. On the other hand, even during the most controlled visits from the outside he might have exchanged information in code or might simply have given inspiration to his visitors by a show of fortitude. Caesar had done his best to undermine any remaining Gallic resistance, partly by rewarding those who cooperated, but there must be many Gauls who hated him fiercely and wished him dead.

Hieronymus had not remarked on the question of outside contacts with Vercingetorix, perhaps because Calpurnia already had that information. Mostly he ruminated on the special attributes he possessed for winning the captive's trust:

The two of us have something in common, after all. As the Scapegoat in Massilia, impending doom hung over me every day, every hour. I tasted the torment that V. faces as his final day draws near. Because I escaped the Fates, he may deduce that I received special dispensation from the gods. For a man in his circumstances, it will be natural to draw close to me, hoping that some of that favor might rub off on him.

"Hieronymus, Hieronymus!" I whispered, shaking my head. "You cheated the Fates for a time, but no man escapes them forever. The doomed Gaul still lives, while you lie on a bier in my vestibule. Did he have anything to do with your death?"

"Papa?"

Diana stepped into the garden. The sunlight sparkled and glimmered upon her dark hair. I was struck anew by her beauty—inherited entirely from her mother—but her face was grave.

"What is it, daughter?"

"There's a visitor who's come to pay respects to Hieronymus."

"So soon?" Word of his death had already begun to spread, then, faster than I expected. The official entry had been registered by the undertakers, of course, and there are gossip vultures who follow those lists daily. Or had someone in Calpurnia's household spread the news? "Who is it?" I asked.

"Fulvia. She says she'd like to speak to you."

"Of course. Would you show her to the garden yourself, Diana? Have the boys bring refreshment."

My association with Fulvia went back many years. It was safe to say that she was the most ambitious woman in Rome. But what had she gained by her ambitions except a widow's garments? First she married the rabble-rouser Clodius, whose mobs terrorized the city; but when Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way, Fulvia, as a woman, could do nothing with the tremendous political power her husband had harnessed. Then she married Curio, one of Caesar's most promising young lieutenants. When the civil war began, Curio captured Sicily and pressed on to Africa—where King Juba of Numidia made Fulvia a widow again and took Curio's head for a trophy. When I last saw her, before my departure for Alexandria, she was still beautiful, but bitter and brooding, lacking the one thing a woman in Rome needed to exercise power: an equally ambitious husband. In Alexandria, a woman like Cleopatra may exercise power alone, but Romans are not Egyptians. We may revert to having a king, but we have never submitted to the rule of a queen.

So far as I had seen, Fulvia did not figure in any of Hieronymus's reports to Calpurnia. Her ambitions thwarted, she had become irrelevant. But if Hieronymus had not visited her, why was she coming to pay her respects? Even as I recalled Hieronymus's reference to a threat "from a direction we did not anticipate," Fulvia stepped into my garden.

Appropriately for such a visit, she was dressed in a dark stola, with a black mantle over her head. But she had been similarly dressed when I last saw her, in mourning for Curio. Perhaps she had never put off her widow's garments. She was now in her late thirties; her face was beginning to show the strain and suffering she had endured over the years, but the fire in her eyes had not gone out.

Fulvia spoke first, as if she were the hostess and I the guest. That was like her, to take the initiative. "It's good to see you, Gordianus, even if the occasion is a sad one. I had heard—"