Directly across the road from Cicero's house, amid the shrubbery where Mopsus and Androcles had hidden themselves, Tiro pulled back a branch covered with little red berries and appeared to step into empty space.
"Mind that the branch doesn't fly back and hit you," he cautioned. "And watch your step on the trail. It's steeper than it looks."
That hardly seemed possible. The trail was hardly a trail at all, just a descending series of little cleared spots large enough for a man to place his foot amid the gnarled trees and thorny bushes sprouting out of the western face of the Palatine Hill. Directly below us was the congested warehouse district.
"Tiro, where are you taking me? If we're heading down, why not take the Ramp?"
"Too much risk of being recognized."
"But you don't avoid the Ramp. I've seen you on it twice myself."
"Oh, I'm not worried about being recognized. But you would be. And then someone would start to wonder, 'Who was that swarthy bearded fellow I saw with Gordianus the Finder today?' "
"Then why not talk privately inside Cicero's house?"
"The guards, for one thing. They tend to hear things they shouldn't. Then they talk."
That was true enough.
"And also…" Tiro hesitated, deliberating where next to put his foot. "To be candid, Cicero doesn't want people coming and going in the house while he's not there."
"You think I might snoop?"
"I didn't say that, Gordianus. But it's Cicero's house. While he's away, I'll obey his wishes."
A loose stone slipped from under my foot and skittered down the hillside. I gripped the branch of a cypress tree for balance, caught my breath, and cautiously sought the next foothold.
At last we reached the lower slopes of the Palatine, where the path gradually flattened and meandered amid trash heaps piled behind the warehouses. Tiro led me this way and that, undaunted by the maze of narrow alleys stinking of urine. At length we turned a corner and I saw ahead of us a familiar sign- an upright post surmounted by an erect marble phallus.
"Not the Salacious Tavern!"
"We ran into each other here after Milo's trial," said Tiro. "Remember? That was the last time I saw you- over two years ago."
"I remember the hangover," I said, but I was thinking of my last visit to the tavern, and the host's account of a swarthy, bearded foreigner…
Tiro laughed. "You were getting over a hangover the very first time we met. Do you remember that?"
"A bright-eyed young slave came to my house on the Esquiline Hill and asked if I'd help his ambitious young master defend an accused parricide."
"Yes, but before I could speak, you demonstrated a cure for your hangover."
"Did I? What was it?"
"Concentrated thought, so as to flush the brain with fresh blood. It was quite remarkable."
"You were hardly more than a boy, Tiro. You were easily impressed."
"But it was amazing! You deduced who'd sent me and why, without my saying a word."
"Did I? A pity I can no longer concentrate my mind so keenly. I can't begin to imagine, for instance, why Cicero's right-hand freedman is wandering about Rome incognito."
Tiro looked at me shrewdly. "You haven't grown less keen, Gordianus, just craftier. You could work it out, if you cared to, but you'd rather draw it out of me."
Over the door of the tavern, the hanging phallus-shaped lamp cast a faint glow to brighten the chilly, overcast afternoon. "A waste of oil," I remarked to Tiro, "considering the shortages in the city."
"Words like 'shortage' have no meaning at the Salacious Tavern," said Tiro, knocking on the door. "Have you been here in the last year or so?"
I shrugged. "Once, I think."
"The place is under new management," he went on. "But nothing's changed. Same girls, same smells, same foul wine- but the taste improves after the second cup."
The peephole opened, then the door. "Soscarides!" the eunuch practically shrieked, gripping Tiro's hands. He failed, as yet, to notice me. "My favorite customer, who also happens to be my favorite philosopher!"
"You've never read a word I've written, you dog. You told me so the first day I came here, two months ago," said Tiro.
"But I keep meaning to," insisted the eunuch. "I placed an order with a book dealer down in the Forum. Really, I did! Or I tried to. The fellow claimed he'd never heard of Soscarides the Alexandrian. Practically laughed at me. The idiot! Now all the book dealers have closed their shops and left town. I shall have to remain ignorant of your wisdom."
"Sometimes ignorance is the truest wisdom," quipped Tiro.
"Oh! Is that one of your famous sayings, Soscarides? I like having philosophers in the tavern. Cleaner than poets, quieter than politicians. Is your friend a famous philosopher, too?" The eunuch finally looked at me. His face fell.
"As much a philosopher as I am," said Tiro, "and even more famous. That's why we're here, to seek some peace and quiet."
The eunuch was nonplused for a moment, then recovered. He acted as if he had never seen me before. "Will a corner in the public room do? The private rooms upstairs are all taken by gambling parties."
"We'll take that corner bench over there," said Tiro, indicating a region so dark I could only conjecture the existence of a corner, let alone a bench. "And two cups of wine. Your best."
Tiro set out for the corner. I followed close behind him. "I didn't realize there was more than one quality of wine offered in this establishment," I said.
"Of course there is. For the best, you pay a bit more."
"And what do you get?"
"The same wine, but poured through a strainer. No nasty surprises floating in the cup."
I grunted as I bumped into something that grunted back. I apologized to a murky, growling shape and moved on, glad when we at last reached the far side of the room. The corner bench was built into the wall. I leaned back and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. Our wine arrived. It was as foul as I remembered. The Salacious Tavern seemed unusually crowded, considering that the sun was still up. With all normal activities in the city at a standstill, what better way to pass the time on a cloudy afternoon than to indulge in a bit of vice? Amid the murmur I heard laughter and cursing and the rattle of dice.
"The die is cast!" shouted one of the players. A round of drunken laughter followed. It took me a moment to catch the joke. Caesar had uttered the same words to his men when he crossed the Rubicon.
"They've immortalized him with a throw, as well," remarked Tiro.
"A throw?"
"Of the dice. The Venus Throw is the highest combination and beats all else. The gamblers are all calling it the Caesar Throw nowadays, and shouting 'Gaius Julius' when they cast the dice. I don't think it means they've taken Caesar's side, necessarily. They're just superstitious. Caesar claims to be partly divine, descended from Venus. So the Venus Throw becomes the Caesar Throw."
"Which beats all else. Is there such a thing as the Pompey Throw?"
Tiro snorted. "I think that must be when the dice skip off the table."
"Is Pompey's position as bad as that?"
"Do you know what Cicero says? 'When he was in the wrong, Pompey always got his way. Now that he's in the right, he fails completely.' Caesar took them all by surprise. Not even his supporters believed that he'd dare to cross into Italy with his troops. You saw the panic that resulted. Pompey led the stampede! Ever since, he's been struggling to get a grip on the situation, day by day. In the morning he's elated and full of bluster. Come afternoon, he falls into a funk and orders his troops to retreat farther south."
I looked at him wryly. "You seem to be awfully well informed for a man who's been lying in a sickbed in Greece since November."
He smiled. "Tiro is still in that sickbed, and will be for some time yet. I'm Soscarides, an Alexandrian philosopher thrown out of work and cast adrift by the crisis."
"What's the point of this elaborate deception?"
"Cicero and I concocted the scheme together, on the trip back from Cilicia. At every stage of the journey, the news from Rome was more and more disturbing- Caesar mocking the constitution, refusing to give up his troops in Gaul, demanding to be allowed to stand for the consulship without coming back to Rome. Pompey likewise digging in his heels, refusing more concessions to Caesar, brooding outside the city gates and clinging to his own legions in Spain. And the Senate- our pathetic, confused, cowardly, grasping, greedy collection of the so-called best men in Rome- breaking down into acrimonious debates on the verge of open violence. You didn't have to be Cassandra to see that the situation was drawing to a crisis. Cicero decided it would be prudent if I were to arrive in Rome ahead of him; there was no one else he could trust to send back accurate reports."
"But why incognito?"
"So as to gather information without drawing attention to Cicero. The disguise is simple. A beard, a change of coloring; that's all."
"But you're slender again, as thin as when I first met you. It changes the shape of your face."
"As it happened, I did fall ill on the way back from Cilicia, early on, and lost quite a bit of weight. I decided to keep myself slim as part of the charade. No more sesame and honey cakes for me, I'm afraid! Altogether, the changes hardly constitute a disguise, but the combined effect suffices. No one seems to recognize me at a distance, or if they do, they decide they must be mistaken, because Cicero made a point of letting everyone know that his beloved Tiro is suffering a prolonged illness back in Greece. People put more faith in what they 'know' than in what they see. Except for you, Gordianus. I should have known you'd be the one to find me out."
"Since you got back, have you spent the whole time here in the city?"
"By Hercules, no! I've been all over Italy, visiting Caesar's garrisons, scouting Antony's movements, checking on Domitius's situation in Corfinium, relaying messages between Cicero and Pompey…"
"You've become Cicero's secret agent."
Tiro shrugged. "I rehearsed for the role during his term as governor of Cilicia. No one would talk to Tiro, the governor's secretary. Soscarides the Alexandrian, on the other hand, was everyone's friend."
I gazed at him over my wine cup. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Having made up your mind you'd seen me back in Rome, you'd have figured it out for yourself, sooner or later. And you might have jumped to some wrong conclusions."
"You could have refused to see me today."
"While you shouted my name in the street, and set those two little boys to dog my every step? No, Gordianus, I know how tenacious you can be, like a hound who can't remember where he buried a bone. Better to point you straight to it than have you digging holes all over the place. Holes are dangerous. They can hurt innocent people. So can jumping to wrong conclusions."
Our host brought more wine. The second cup was better than the first, but only by a little. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. In the orange haze of the smoky lamps I could make out faces, but only vaguely. The noise would keep anyone from overhearing us.
I thought of something. "The guards told me that Cicero writes letters to you all the time, back in Greece."
"So he does. Our host in Patrae, who supposedly is nursing me back to health, is in on the scheme. As soon as he receives the letters, he posts back false ones, bearing my name."
"So Cicero's letters to you are blank?"
"Hardly! They're full of gossip, quotations from plays, exhortations to get better. You see, he always has the letters done in duplicate. Nothing unusual about that, except that he posts both copies. One goes by regular messenger all the way back to Patrae, to keep up the deception. The other is sent by secret messenger to me, wherever I actually happen to be."
"But if the messages are identical, Cicero is merely sending you gossip and get-well wishes."
"On the surface, yes. Safer that way." He smiled, seemed to mull something over, then produced a pouch from his tunic. From the pouch he pulled out a folded piece of parchment. He called for one of the serving girls to unhook a hanging lamp and bring it to our table. By its sputtering glow, I read the letter. It was dated the first day of the month, some fifteen days previous.
AT FORMIAE, ON THE KALENDS OF FEBRUARIUS.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, to Marcus Tullius Tiro at Patrae:
I remain very anxious about your health. The news that your complaint is not dangerous consoles me, but its lingering nature worries me. The absence of my skillful secretary vexes me, but more vexing is the absence of one dear to me. Yet though I long to see you, I urge you not to stir until you are fully recovered, especially as long as harsh weather prevails. Even in snug houses it is difficult to escape the cold, to say nothing of enduring wet, windy weather at sea. As Euripides says, "Cold to tender skin is deadliest foe."
Caesar continues to make pretense of negotiating with Pompey even as he plays invader. Like Hannibal sending diplomats ahead of his elephants! He says now that he will give up Gaul to Domitius and come to Rome to stand for the consulship in person, as the law requires- but only if Pompey will disband all the loyalist forces recently levied in Italy and depart at once to Spain. Caesar says nothing of giving up the garrisons seized since he crossed the Rubicon.
Our hope is that the Gauls among Caesar's troops may desert him, for they certainly have reason to hate him after all the pain he inflicted in conquering Gaul. To the north he would have a rebellious Gaul; to the west, Pompey's six legions in Spain; and to the east, the provinces which Pompey pacified long ago and where the Great One is still held in high esteem. If only the center can hold long enough to keep Caesar from sacking Rome!
Terentia asks, are you wearing the yellow scarf she gave you when we left for Cilicia? Do all you can to ward off the chill!
I looked up from the letter. "His hope that the Gauls will desert Caesar seems far-fetched to me. My son Meto tells me they cling to Caesar with the fervor of religious converts. Otherwise, the letter seems straightforward enough."
"Yes, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean."
"Words can carry more than one meaning."
I frowned and scrutinized the text under the flickering light. "Are you saying that the letter is in some sort of code?" It was Tiro, during Cicero's consulship, who had invented and introduced the use of an abbreviated writing system for recording debates in the Senate. But this was not Tironian shorthand; nor was it ciphered.
Tiro smiled. "We all know what the word 'blue' means, for instance. But if I say to you ahead of time, 'Use blue to mean a legion and red to mean a cohort,' and later you write to me about a blue scarf, then only the two us know what you truly mean."
"I see. And if Cicero quotes a line from Euripides…"
"It might mean something very different than if he had cited Ennius. The actual content of the quotation is irrelevant. If he mentions sea travel, it might mean that Pompey has a head cold. 'Snug houses' might refer to a particular senator who bears watching. Even the mention of elephants might have a secret meaning."
I shook my head. "You and Cicero make quite a team. What need for swords, when you have words for weapons?"
"We've been together a long time, Gordianus. I helped Cicero write every speech he's ever given. I've transcribed his treatises, edited all his commentaries. I often know what he'll say next even before he knows. It wasn't hard for the two of us to concoct an invisible language to use between ourselves. Everyone can see the words. No one but us can see the meaning."
I gazed into the dim corners of the room. "I wonder if Meto and Caesar were ever that close?"
He seemed not to notice the rueful tone in my voice. He tapped his forehead. "Perhaps. Great men like Cicero- even Caesar, I suppose- need more than one head to store their intellects."
"Freedom hasn't changed you, Tiro. You still underestimate yourself and overestimate your former master."
"We shall see."
As he refolded the letter and slipped it back into his pouch, I had a sudden realization. "It was Cicero, wasn't it?"
"What do you mean, Gordianus?"
"It was Cicero who wrote that confidential report for Pompey, about me and my family."
Tiro hesitated. "What report?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
"Do I?"
"Tiro, you can hide behind words, but you can't hide behind your face, not with me. You do know what I'm talking about."
"Perhaps."
"It all makes sense. If Pompey wanted an intelligence report on various men in Rome, and needed it on short notice, and from someone he trusts- who better than Cicero, who's been seeing phantoms under beds ever since he sniffed out the so-called conspiracy of Catilina. Cicero's probably kept a dossier on me for years! That remark about my lack of 'Roman values,' the dig at me about adopting slaves out of habit- oh, yes, that's Cicero, looking down his nose at me, as usual. And who better to help Cicero transcribe his confidential report into ciphered code than you, Tiro- his trusted secretary, the inventor of shorthand, the other half of his brain? You were in town that day, weren't you- the day Numerius died? I caught a glimpse of you in the street, after I left Cicero's house. Was that Numerius's last errand for the Great One, to pick up Cicero's secret loyalty report?"
Tiro looked at me shrewdly. "If there ever was such a report… the copy Cicero gave Numerius went missing. Pompey was never able to find it, even though he turned Numerius's clothing inside out and tore open the stitches. He assumed that whoever murdered Numerius must have absconded with it. How did you come to know about it, Gordianus?"
"I read it. The part about myself, anyway. I found it on Numerius's body, inside a hidden compartment in the heel of his shoe."
"His shoe!" Tiro laughed. "That's something new. But what did you do with the report? Do you still have it?"
"I burned it."
"But you said you read only the part about yourself. You burned it without having read it all? The cipher wasn't that complicated."
"Pompey arrived at the house unexpectedly. I had no time to replace it in Numerius's shoe. If Pompey found it in my study…"
"I see. Well, there's a riddle solved. Cicero and I have been wondering where that report ended up."
"When you write to him about this meeting- as I presume you will- I suppose you'll have to mention the 'rosy-colored dawn,' or whatever passed between the two of you for 'secret report went up in flames.' "
"That would be a particular quotation from Sophocles, actually. Do you think Numerius was murdered because someone knew he was carrying Cicero's 'loyalty list,' as you call it?"
I hesitated. "There may have been other reasons that someone wanted him dead."
"Such as?"
"His mother seems to think he had a secret livelihood. Working as a paid spy, perhaps."
Tiro frowned. "For someone other than Pompey?"
"Yes. She's ashamed of the possibility, but she told me her suspicions nonetheless. The poor woman is desperate to know the truth about her son's death."
Tiro nodded. "I met Maecia once. An extraordinary woman. Did she hire you to look into Numerius's murder?"
"No, Pompey did. Or rather, the Great One ordered me to investigate."
"Ordered you? He's not our dictator, yet."
"Nonetheless, he was very persuasive. He forced my son-in-law into his service, against Davus's will but following the letter of the law. Pompey was explicit: he won't return Davus to us unless and until I'm able to name his kinsman's killer. My daughter is distraught. Davus could end up in Greece, or Spain, or even Egypt. And if Pompey loses patience with me…" I shook my head. "Generals assign dangerous duties to men they don't like. Davus is at his mercy."
Tiro looked pensively into his wine cup, which was made of cheap yellow earthenware. He ran his finger over the chipped rim. "You've been very candid with me, Gordianus."
"And you've been candid with me, Tiro."
"The two of us have never been enemies."
"We never shall be, I hope."
"I'm going to tell you a secret, Gordianus. Something I probably shouldn't." He lowered his voice. I had to strain my ears to hear him above the bursts of laughter and the clatter of thrown dice. "Only a few days before his death, I met with Numerius Pompeius. We had messages to exchange, between Pompey and Cicero. We met here in the Salacious Tavern- in this very corner, as a matter of fact. His corner, he called it. I got the impression he transacted quite a bit of business from the very spot where you're sitting."
I shivered at the thought of the dead man's lemur sitting beside me. "What sort of business?"
Tiro hesitated. "So far as I know, Numerius was loyal to Pompey. I never had reason to believe otherwise. But the last time I met with him, he claimed to know some interesting things. Dangerous things."
"Go on, Tiro. You have my attention."
"Numerius drank more than he should have. That loosened his tongue. And he was very excited."
"About what?"
"About some documents he'd acquired. 'I'm sitting on something enormous,' he told me, smiling like a fox. 'Something so big it could get me killed if you breathe a word of this to anyone.' "
"What was it, Tiro?"
"Something to do with a plot to kill Caesar."
I managed a grim laugh. "Concocted by Pompey?"
"No! A conspiracy inside Caesar's own camp, involving men close to him. How Numerius could know of such a plot, and what sort of documents he had obtained, I don't know. But that's what he told me."
"When was this assassination supposed to take place?"
"It was supposed to have happened when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the moment he invaded the motherland and showed his true intentions. For some reason it didn't come off. But this was the thing: Numerius seemed to think it still had a chance of happening."
"Wishful thinking!" I scoffed.
"Maybe. But he claimed to have proof of the plot in the form of documents." Tiro leaned closer to me. "You wouldn't know about that, would you, Gordianus?"
"What do you mean?"
"You say you found Cicero's report to Pompey in Numerius's shoe. What else did you find there? Be honest with me, Gordianus. I've been honest with you."
I took a deep breath. "I found exactly five pieces of parchment, all of the same color and quality, all written in the same hand and the same sort of cipher."
Tiro nodded. "That would have been Cicero's entire report; there were five pages in all. And you found nothing else?"
"That was all I found in Numerius's shoe."
Tiro sat back. After a moment he raised his cup and called for more wine. "And a decent cup as well, with a smooth lip!" he added, in a tone harsh enough to cause the eunuch's grin to vanish. I suddenly realized why he had been so generous with his information. He had hoped I would give him information in return, about the conspiracy documents. I had disappointed him.
We waited for our wine, then drank in silence. Across the room someone shouted, "Gaius Julius!" Dice clattered, and the gambler jumped from his seat. "The Caesar Throw! The Caesar Throw beats all!" The man did a victory dance and scooped up his winnings.
"Not a gracious winner," I muttered.
"I wonder if Caesar will be," Tiro muttered back.
"This talk you had with Numerius here in the tavern, about a plot to kill Caesar- that was a few days before he died."
"Yes."
"But on the day he died, it was the documents from Cicero he was carrying. And wasn't there…" I had to tread carefully. "Wasn't there some sort of altercation that day, between Cicero and Numerius, just before he left Cicero's house and came to mine?"
"Altercation?"
"Shouting, loud enough to be heard in the street."
"Those damned guards! Did they tell you that?"
"I hate to get them in trouble…"
Tiro shrugged. "Cicero may have raised his voice to Numerius that day."
"Raised his voice? He was practically screaming, according to the guards. Something about a debt owed to Caesar. Was it Numerius who owed money to Caesar… or was it Cicero?"
Tiro's face told me I had touched on something sensitive. "Lots of people owe money to Caesar. That hardly compromises their loyalty to Pompey or the Senate."
I nodded. "It's only… I got the impression from his mother that Numerius might have been blackmailing someone."
Tiro shifted in his seat. "I think I've had enough of this wretched wine. After a certain point it gets worse, not better. And this damned cup has more chips than the last!"
"You were in Rome that day, Tiro, the day Numerius died. Did you happen to… follow him… after he left Cicero's house?"
"I don't think I like the tone of your voice, Gordianus."
Did he think I suspected him of the murder? "I only wondered, if you did happen to follow Numerius, whether you might have seen anything significant. Someone besides yourself following him, for instance. Or someone to whom he might have passed documents before he entered my house…"
Tiro looked at me squarely. "Yes, I followed Numerius. Cicero was curious to know where he was headed next. So I followed him along the rim road to your house. I waited so long for him to leave that I finally assumed he'd given me the slip. How was I to know that he was dead inside? And no, I didn't see him pass anything to anyone, nor did I notice anyone else following him. And before you ask, no, I didn't see anyone climb over the roof into your garden, either- though I could hardly have seen all four sides of your house at once, could I?"
I smiled.
"And don't even think of asking if I climbed over the roof and into your garden!" He tried to inject some levity into his voice. "You saw how carefully I had to climb down that rickety ladder at Cicero's house!"
"Yes. Still, you do manage to climb up and down that ladder, don't you?" I likewise tried to keep my tone light.
I excused myself to go to the privy, which was out the back door and across an alley in a little lean-to. There were several holes in the paved floor, but the drunken patrons of the Salacious Tavern were poor marksmen and the place stank of standing urine. It occurred to me that the Cloaca Maxima, the central sewer line into the Tiber, was probably located just beneath my feet.
When I returned to the corner bench, Tiro had vanished. I stayed and drank another cup of wine, in no hurry to go home. The interview had yielded more than I expected. Where were the documents of which Numerius had boasted to Tiro only days before his death? Who else knew about them? Like poor Numerius, I felt I was sitting on something enormous, if only I could lay my hands on it.