Whatever recriminations had passed between us in former days seemed to have been forgotten by Cicero. I waited in the foyer for only a moment before he came to greet me. I received his embrace stiffly, startled by his warmth. I wondered if he had been drinking, but I smelled no wine on his breath. When he drew back I took a hard look at him.
I had braced myself to encounter Cicero in one of his less pleasant moods- the self-righteous, self-made man, smug friend of the powerful, peevish settler of old scores, priggish arbiter of virtue. I saw instead a man with jowls and receding hair and watery eyes, who looked as if he had just received the worst news of his life.
He gestured for me to follow him. The mood in his house matched the mood of the city- a panic barely contained by purposeful activity, as slaves hurried back and forth and spoke in hushed voices. Cicero led me first to his study, but the room was like a beehive, with slaves packing scrolls into boxes.
"This won't do," he said apologetically. "Come, there's a little room off the garden where we can talk quietly."
The little room was an exquisitely appointed chamber with a sumptuous Greek rug underfoot. A brazier on a tripod in the middle of the room illuminated walls painted with pastoral landscapes. Herdsmen dozed amid sheep, and satyrs peeked from behind little roadside temples.
"I've never seen this room before," I said.
"No? It was one of the first rooms Terentia decorated when we came back and rebuilt, after Clodius and his gang burned down the house and sent me into exile." He smiled ruefully. "Now Clodius is dust, but I'm still here- and so are you, Gordianus. But for what? To see it all come to this…"
Cicero paced nervously in a circle around the brazier, casting deep shadows across the walls. Abruptly he stopped his pacing and shot me a quizzical look. "Can it really have been thirty years since we first met, Gordianus?"
"Thirty-one, actually."
"The trial of Sextus Roscius." He shook his head. "We were all so young then! And brave, the way young men are, because they don't know any better. I, Marcus Tullius Cicero, took on the dictator Sulla in the courts- and bested him! I think back now and wonder how I could ever have been so mad. But it wasn't madness. It was bravery. I saw a terrible wrong and a way to redress it. I knew the danger and went ahead anyway, because I was young and thought I could change the world. Now… now I wonder if I can be that brave again. I fear I'm too old, Gordianus. I've seen too much… suffered too much…"
In my own recollections, Cicero's motives had never been quite as pure as he was painting them, colored as they were by shrewd ambition. Was he brave? Certainly he had taken risks- and been rewarded with fame, honor, and wealth. True, Fortune had not always smiled on him; he had suffered defeats and humiliations, especially in recent years. But he had caused others to suffer much worse. Men had been put to death without trial when he was consul, in the name of preserving the state.
Could any man advance as far in politics as Cicero had, and keep his hands entirely clean? Perhaps not. What rankled me was his insistence in presenting himself as the untarnished champion of virtue and reason. It was not a pose; it was the picture he had of himself. His unflagging self-justification had often exasperated, even infuriated, me. But now, in the darkness that had fallen on Rome, with the choice narrowed between one military leader and another, Cicero began to seem like not such a bad fellow after all.
He shook his head. "Can you believe it? That it's happening again? That we must go through the same madness all over again? Our lives began with civil war, and now they shall end with it. A generation passes, and people forget. But do they really not remember how it was, in the war between Sulla and his enemies? Rome itself besieged and taken! And the horrors that followed, when Sulla set himself up as dictator! You remember, Gordianus. You were here. You saw the gaping heads mounted on bloody pikes in the Forum- decent, respectable men, hunted down and murdered by bounty hunters, their property seized and auctioned off to Sulla's favorites, their families impoverished and disgraced. Sulla got rid of his enemies- cleansing the state, he called it- made a few reforms, then stepped down and put the Senate back in charge. From that day until this, I have spent every hour of every day doing everything I could to fend off another such catastrophe. And yet- here we are. The Republic is about to come crashing down around us. Was this inevitable? Was there no way this could have been avoided?"
My mouth was dry. I wished that he would offer me some wine. "Pompey and Caesar may yet patch up their differences."
"No!" He shook his head and gestured wildly. "Caesar may send messages of peace and pretend that he's willing to parlay, but that's just for show, so that he can say later on, 'I did my best to keep the peace.' The moment he crossed the Rubicon, any hopes for a peaceful settlement vanished. On the far side of the river, he was a legally commissioned promagistrate in command of Roman legions. Once he crossed the bridge into Italy with armed men, he became an outlaw at the head of an invading army. There's no way to answer him now except with another army."
"Some people," I said, speaking slowly and carefully, "would say that the hope for peace vanished a few days before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, on the day the Senate passed the Ultimate Decree and drove Caesar's friend Marc Antony out of the city. That was as good as declaring Caesar an enemy of the state. You did the same to Catilina, when you were consul. We know how Catilina ended. Can you blame Caesar for mustering his troops and making the first move?"
Cicero looked at me darkly. The old antagonism between us began to stir. "Spoken like a true Caesarian, Gordianus. Is that the side you've chosen?"
I walked to the brazier and warmed my hands. It was time to speak of something else. "I was sorry to learn of Tiro's illness. I understand he's still in Greece. Have you heard from him lately? Is he better?"
Cicero seemed disconcerted by the change of subject. "Tiro? Why-? But of course, you and Tiro have always remained friends, even when you and I have not. Yes, I think he may be somewhat better."
"What is his malady?"
"Recurring fever, poor digestion, weakness. He can't leave his bed, much less travel."
"I'm sorry to hear it. You must miss him terribly, under these circumstances."
"There's no man in the world I trust more than Tiro." A silence ensued, finally broken by Cicero. "Is that why you came tonight, Gordianus? To ask after Tiro?"
"No."
"Why, then? Surely it wasn't concern for your old friend and patron Cicero that drew you out alone on such a night, without even that hulking son-in-law of yours to look after you."
"Yes, without even my son-in-law," I said quietly, seeing in my mind the look on Diana's face, and Davus looking over his shoulder as Pompey's men dragged him off. "I understand that Pompey came to visit you earlier today. And before that, Pompey's kinsman, Numerius."
Cicero scowled. "Those damned guards at the door! Their jaws are always flapping."
"It wasn't the guards who told me. It was Pompey himself. After he left you, he came to my house. So did Numerius, earlier in the day. Numerius came to see you, and then to see me."
"What of it?"
"Numerius never left my house alive. He was murdered in my garden."
Cicero looked aghast. His reaction seemed almost too extreme. I reminded myself that he was an orator used to performing to the farthest person in a crowd, and was prone to overact by force of habit. "But this is terrible! Murdered, you say. But how?"
"Strangled."
"By whom?"
"That's what Pompey would like to know."
Cicero tilted his head back and raised his eyebrows. "I see. The old hound has been put to the scent again."
"The first place the scent leads is back to this house."
"If you think there's any connection between Numerius's visit here and… what happened to him later, that's preposterous."
"Still, you were one of the last people he spoke to. One of the last… besides myself… to see him alive. Did you know him well?"
"Numerius? Well enough."
"From the tone of your voice, I take it you didn't care for him."
Cicero shrugged. Once again, the gesture seemed too broad. What was Cicero really thinking? "He was likable enough. A charming young fellow, most people would say. The apple of Pompey's eye."
"Why did he come to visit you this morning?"
"He brought news from Pompey. 'The Great One is vacating Rome, heading south. The Great One says that any true friend of the Republic will do the same at once.' That was his message for me."
"It sounds almost like a threat," I said. "An ultimatum."
Cicero looked at me warily but said nothing.
"And then Numerius left?"
"Not immediately. We… talked a bit, about the state of the city and such. Pompey hasn't called on all his allies to leave immediately. The consuls and some of the magistrates will stay on, a sort of skeleton government, enough to keep the city from falling entirely into chaos. Even so, the treasury will be closed, the bankers will flee, everything will come to a standstill…" He shook his head. "We talked a bit… and then Numerius left."
"Was anyone with him?"
"He came alone and he left alone."
"Odd, that he should go abroad in the city on Pompey's business without even a bodyguard."
"You've just done the same, Gordianus, and after dark. I suppose Numerius wished to moved as quickly and freely as he could. There must have been plenty of other senators he had to call on, all over the city."
I nodded. "There were no harsh words between you, then?"
Cicero glared at me. "I may have raised my voice. Those damned guards! Did they tell you they heard me shouting?"
"No. Did you shout at Numerius that loudly? What was the altercation about?"
He swallowed hard. The knob in his throat bobbed up and down. "How do you think I felt, when Numerius told me to leave the city by daybreak? I've been away from Rome for a year and a half governing a miserable province, and now that I'm back I hardly catch a breath before I'm told to pack up and flee like a refugee. If I raised my voice, if I shouted a bit, what of it?"
"You're raising your voice now, Cicero."
He pressed a hand against his chest and took several deep breaths. I had never seen him so overwrought; it unnerved me. Whatever their flaws, Pompey and Cicero represented models of Roman self-assurance and self-discipline, the military giant and the political genius. Both had known setbacks, but always triumphed in the long run. Now something was different, and both seemed to sense it. Born the same year, they were a few years younger than I, yet I felt like the child who sees his parents in a panic: if they have lost control, then all must be chaos.
He went on at a lower pitch. "It's a mistake for Pompey to flee. If Caesar is allowed to enter the city without opposition, he'll break into the treasury and squander the wealth of our ancestors to bribe the street gangs. He'll call together whatever's left of the Senate- debtors, discontents, rabble-rousers- and claim it's the legitimate government. Then it will be Pompey and those who fled who are outlaws."
"Have you said as much to Pompey?"
"Yes. Do you know what he replied? 'Sulla could do it, why not I?' It always comes back to Sulla!"
"I don't understand."
"Sulla abandoned the city to his enemies and then retook it, with Pompey as one of his generals. Thirty years later, Pompey thinks he can do the same if the need arises. Can you imagine the city under siege? Disease, hunger, fires spreading out of control- and then the horror of the conquest…"
He stared into the flames of the brazier and again tried to calm himself. "For a long time now, Pompey's mind has been set on playing Sulla. Once Caesar is defeated, Pompey will do what Sulla did. He'll make himself dictator and purge the Senate. He'll draw up a list of enemies. Confiscations, heads on stakes in the Forum…"
"But surely not your head, Cicero." I tried to make light of his fear, but the look he shot back at me was ghastly.
"Why not? If I'm still in Rome tomorrow, Pompey will call me his enemy."
"Follow him, then."
"And make myself Caesar's enemy? What if Caesar wins? I shall never be able to return. I was exiled from Rome once. Never again!" He circled the brazier until he stood opposite me. His eyes flashed, catching the light. The flickering flames and shadows transformed his face into a grim mask. "We must all choose sides, Gordianus. No more argument, no more procrastination. This side, or that. But toward what end? No matter who wins, we shall end up with a tyrant. What a choice- beheaded if I pick the wrong side, a slave if I pick the right one!"
I stared back at him across the flames. "You sound as if you have yet to make up your mind between Caesar and Pompey."
He lowered his eyes. "In the next hour… I keep telling myself, before another hour passes, I shall cast the dice, and let Fortune choose for me!"
He stared at the floor with his hands tightly clasped before him, his brow rigid, his mouth turned down. He raised his eyes at a sound from the doorway. A female slave stole into the room and whispered in his ear.
"My wife calls me, Gordianus. Poor Terentia! Shall I leave her here, in charge of the household, or take her with me? And what of my daughter? While I was off in Cilicia, behind my back Tullia married that wastrel Dolabella! The young fool has both feet firmly in Caesar's camp. He'll do his best to drag her along with him. And now she's expecting his baby! What a world for my grandchild to be born into. And my son! Marcus turns sixteen this year. When the day comes for him to put on his toga of manhood, will we be in Rome for the ceremony? By Hercules, will we even be in Italy?"
On that abrupt note, Cicero left the room and the slave hurried after him.
I was left alone.
I took a deep breath. I warmed myself at the fire. I studied the images on the walls. The face of one shepherd in particular fascinated me; he reminded me of my old bodyguard, Belbo. I looked up at the ceiling, where firelight and shadow flickered across the black spot made by the smoke. I turned my eyes down and traced my toe over the geometric pattern of the carpet.
Alone and forgotten in another man's house, surrounded by silence, I felt overcome by a curious paralysis, unable to depart. It was the only moment of peace I had experienced all day. I was reluctant to give it up. To be abandoned and forgotten by the world, to be left alone, truly alone, without fears or obligations- for a few brief moments in that quiet room I indulged in a fantasy of what that would be like, and savored it, sank into it like a man into dark, deep, soothing water.
I pondered Cicero's dilemma. Pompey and Caesar were not only tearing apart the state; they were tearing apart families. Rome was not easily split into two factions. Rome was a hopelessly tangled skein of blood ties overlaid and interlinked with ties of politics, marriage, honor, and debt. How could such a complex web of mutual obligations be severed down the middle without being destroyed altogether? How many households in Rome that night mirrored Cicero's house, with the occupants rushing about in an agony of indecision? Without eyes to see the future, how could any man be sure of his choice?
In the end it came down to this: that a man might have a willful daughter who chose her own husband against her father's better judgment, and that fellow, intruding from the outside, might have a link- Dolabella to Caesar, Davus to Pompey- that might in the end prove the whole household's undoing. Cicero's Tullia and my Diana: we created them, and now they were out of our control, showing what vanity it was that any man should think to plot his destiny.
At last I forced myself to leave the peaceful room. I passed a few scurrying slaves as I made my way through the house, but none took notice of me. In the vestibule, the slave on duty lifted the bar and opened the door for me.
There was more activity in the street than there had been when I arrived. Handcarts and litters, messengers and torchbearers hurried back and forth. The Palatine Hill was home to many of Rome's richest and most powerful men, those who had the most to lose, or gain, in the event of civil war. Pompey's decision to abandon the city had stirred up the neighborhood like a stick poked into an anthill.
The same two guards were stationed in front of Cicero's house. They had moved to one side, where the trunk of a great yew tree shielded them from the hubbub of the street. I considered asking one of them to walk me home- a common courtesy Cicero would surely have approved- but I decided against it. However unwittingly, I had got them into enough trouble already, arousing their master's suspicion against them.
But if they were as loose with their tongues as Cicero seemed to think, it seemed foolish not to ask them a few questions.
"A wild night," I commented.
"Inside and out," noted the older one.
"Inside? In the house, you mean?"
"It's crazy in there. Has been all day. Glad I'm out here, never mind the cold."
"I understand there was shouting earlier."
"Well…"
"Your master himself told me so."
This freed the man's tongue. "It was him who did most of the shouting."
"This was when that fellow Numerius was here, Pompey's kinsman?"
"Yes."
"Did Numerius come often to see your master?"
The guard shrugged. "A few times since the Master got back to Rome."
"So they had quite a shouting match, did they? For you to hear them all the way out here, I mean."
He ducked his head a bit and lowered his voice. "Funny thing, how the sound from the courtyard in the middle of the house seems to carry over the roof and land right here in front of the door. Acoustics, they call that. This spot by the yew tree is like the last row of seats in Pompey's theater. You may be too far away to see the stage, but you can hear every word!"
"Every word?"
"Well, maybe not quite. Every other word."
"Words like…?"
The older guard frowned and drew back a bit, realizing that I was fishing, but the younger one now seemed eager to speak up. "Words like 'traitor,' " he said. "And 'secret'… and 'liar'… and 'the money you owe to Caesar'… and 'what if I tell Pompey?' "
"Was this Cicero speaking, or Numerius?"
"Hard to tell, the way they were talking on top of each other. Though I'd say the Master's voice carried better, probably on account of his training."
Poor Cicero, betrayed by his oratorical expertise. "But which of them said what? Who said the word 'traitor'? Who owes a debt to-?"
The older guard stepped forward, brusquely elbowing his companion aside. "That's enough questions."
I smiled. "But I was only curious to know-"
"If you've got more to ask, you can ask the Master. Do you want to be announced again?"
"I've already taken up enough of Cicero's time."
"Well, then." He crossed his arms. His bristling beard grazed my chin as he backed me into the street.
"Just one more question," I said. "Numerius came to this house alone and left alone- so your master told me. But did he come alone? Was there no one loitering in the street while he visited Cicero? And when he left, did you notice anyone who joined up with him- or who might have been following him?"
The guard said nothing. His companion now joined him in backing me farther into the street, almost into the path of a careening handcart pushed by two reckless slaves. The handcart swerved and almost struck a team of litter-bearers. The litter lurched and almost ejected its passenger, a fat, bald merchant who appeared to be wearing every jewel and bauble he possessed, fleeing the city and loath to leave behind anything of value.
The string of near collisions momentarily distracted the guards. They backed away, then moved toward me again. I stood my ground and looked from one to the other. The situation suddenly seemed comic, like a pantomime in the theater. The menace the guards projected was all for show. They were overgrown boys compared to the brute Pompey had stationed in my house.
I took a deep breath and smiled, which seemed to confound them. As I turned to walk away, I saw the older guard cuff the younger against the back of the neck. "Loudmouth!" he muttered. His companion cringed and accepted the rebuke in silence.