I woke up and immediately wished I hadn't. Not only were my wounds screaming at me, but the night before, I had sought to promote sleep by draining a good-sized pitcher of cheap wine. I was now suffering the effects of both.
"Serves you right," Hermes said. "Leaving me there like that, holding your toga while you ran like a mountain goat up those stairs."
"You should have seen me on the flats," I croaked. "Faster than a racehorse then. Silverwing on his best day couldn't have touched me."
"Those men might have killed me!" he said indignantly. Slaves like Hermes take things so seriously.
"Why would they have done that?" I said. "It was me they were after. I'm just glad that none of them thought to snatch my toga and you didn't think to sell it."
"You certainly have a low opinion of me!" he huffed.
"Yes, I know I'm probably wronging you, but just now I am not a friend to humanity. I feel like going out and upending a chamberpot all over a Vestal." I got some breakfast in me and felt a tiny bit better. My morning calls went by in a fog, and I was about to leave for Celer's when a new man arrived. It was the gap-toothed Gaul I had seen at the warehouse with Milo.
"The chief wants to see you at the baths, Senator," the man said without preamble.
"The baths? At this hour?" I said.
"He doesn't keep most people's hours," the Gaul said.
When I thought of it, a long, hot soak sounded like a good idea. I told Hermes to get my bath things and followed the Gaul through the streets. Celer was a busy man and probably wouldn't even notice that I was absent. The bathhouse we went to was a modest one, but it adjoined the building that served as Milo's home and headquarters.
Leaving Hermes to watch my belongings, I followed the Gaul into a steam room, where Milo sat with a group of his cronies. He looked up and grinned when I walked in.
"It's true!" he crowed. "All Rome says you fought a pitched battle with Clodius and his men and ended up right in front of Octavius while he was holding court!" He laughed his huge, infectious laugh. I would have joined in, but it would have hurt too much.
"Come back from the army without a scratch," Milo went on, "then cut to ribbons in the streets of Rome! What irony!"
"Oh," I said, sitting down stiffly, "one expects the occasional scar when in service to Senate and People." Indeed, in this company it was easy to be modest about a few little scars. Some of the men were arena veterans with more scar tissue than skin showing when they were stripped. One of them leaned forward and studied my shoulder.
"Neat bit of stitching there. Asklepiodes, eh?" I confirmed that he was correct.
"Seems unmanly to me, all this Greek seamstress work," said another veteran. He gestured to a hideous trough of puckered flesh that slanted from his right shoulder to his left hip. "A red-hot searing-iron, that's the way to stop a cut bleeding. Atlas gave me this one, a left-handed Samnite."
"Got to watch out for those lefties," said a companion.
Milo turned to me, and the others turned away from him. They were a well-drilled band, and we might as well have been alone.
"How did it go with Fausta?" he asked bluntly.
"Extremely well," I assured him. "I conversed with her for some time, and she seems most sympathetic to your suit. She is bored with the men of her own class, as well she might be, and finds you exciting and interesting. I think that if you call on her, she will welcome you most warmly."
"Very good," he said.
"Always glad to be of service," I told him.
"And I'll be of service to you as well. I've passed the word that any assault against you by any of Clodius's men earns instant death. My people will watch out for you in the streets. As long as you stay in plain view, that is. When you go sneaking around, as you have a habit of doing, I can't guarantee your safety."
"I can take care of myself," I said, slightly miffed.
He leaned close. "Are those teeth marks on your face? I thought you fancied yourself a swordsman, not a bestiarius."
"I do appreciate your help, Titus. My real problem now is that I am at a loss to understand what is going on. With each new bit of evidence that comes my way, I think I have the key that will make all else fit, but it never does."
"Bring me up to date," Milo said. I told him of the various oddments of information I had picked up. He raised an eyebrow slightly when I spoke of Julia, and frowned when I mentioned Fausta's words.
"I do not like the idea that she is involved," he said ominously. Keeping the sundry women out of the matter was getting difficult.
"Oddly, I think that both she and Julia are speaking the truth. How this can be so I can't say yet."
"Then here is another bit of information for you to exercise upon: The day after the sacrilege, Crassus posted surety for all of Caesar's greatest debts. He is free to leave Rome now. All that keeps him here now is Pompey's upcoming triumph."
"This is significant," I said. "But why should he hang around for the triumph, other than that it is sure to be a fine show? I would think that the only triumph that could interest Caesar would be his own, and the very prospect of that is laughable."
"That's another little question for you to ponder, isn't it?"
"How does this happen, Titus?" I said, a little of my long-held disgust coming to the surface. "Here in Rome we've built the only viable Republic in history, and now it's falling to the shadowy machinations of shadowy men like these. I mean, it all worked so well. We had the popular assemblies, the Centuriate Assembly, the Senate and the Consuls. No kings. We could have the occasional Dictator when the times called for one, but only on a time-limited basis, the power to be handed back to Senate and People as soon as the emergency was over. Now it's all falling to military adventurers like Pompey, plutocrats like Crassus and demagogues like Clodius. Why?"
He stretched and leaned his head back against his folded arms. "Because the times have changed irrevocably, Decius. What you describe is a system that was perfect for a little city-state that had recently thrown off its foreign kings. It even worked well enough for a rather powerful city-state that dominated much of Italy. But the city-state days are over. Rome governs an empire that extends from the Pillars of Hercules to Asia. Spain, large chunks of Gaul, Greece, the islands, most of the southern Mediterranean lands: Africa, Numidia, Carthage, Mauretania. And what governs all this? The Senate!" He loosed his huge laugh again.
"The greatest governing body known to man," I said with great dignity. I was, after all, a new-minted Senator myself.
"Nonsense," Milo said without rancor. "They are, for the most part, a pack of time-serving nobodies. They've won office because their forefathers won the same offices. Decius, these men have been handed an empire to govern, and what is their qualification? That their great-great-great-grandfathers were wealthy farmers! At least these schemers you detest have worked and fought and, yes, schemed to get what they want."
"Can Rome be handed over to the likes of Clodius?" I said.
"No, but not for constitutional reasons. I plan to kill him first. But you, what is your protection from him? Besides my friendship, I mean."
"There are still plenty of people in Rome who have no use for his sort of demagoguery. My neighbors in the Subura will keep his men from my door."
"Forgive me, Decius, but you hold their esteem as much by your colorful, brawling habits as by your Republican rectitude. How long do you think you will keep their loyalty if Clodius should succeed in transferring to the plebs and gets elected tribune, as surely he will? He promises every Roman citizen a perpetual grain dole. That is a powerful inducement, my friend."
"It is not worthy of a free people," I said grudgingly, knowing that I sounded like my father.
"They may be free in the technical sense, but they're poor, and that's a sort of slavery. The day of the freeholder is past, Decius, and it won't come back. They've become a mob, and politically they will act like a mob."
"And you intend to control Rome as a mob leader," I said. I wasn't asking a question.
"Better me than Clodius."
"I won't argue that." There seemed to be no more to say on the subject. I studied the austere but tasteful bathhouse. "This is convenient, having a place like this so handy."
"I own it," Milo reported. "I own the whole block now, and all the buildings on the facing streets."
"That's better than convenient," I commended, "it's tactically sound."
"I try to look ahead. When you're through soaking here, why don't you let my masseur work you over?" He pointed to a low doorway. "The table room's through there."
I winced at the very thought. "The last thing I want is someone pounding my body."
"Try him anyway," Milo said. "Handling wounded men is his specialty."
Mile could be a hard man to refuse, so I tried his masseur. To my amazement, the man was exactly what I needed. He was a huge Cretan, and in his way his knowledge was as profound as that of Asklepiodes. His powerful hands were brutal where the flesh was merely bruised and contused, gentle where I was cut. By the time he was finished, I actually felt not far from normal. My muscles and joints flexed with their usual ease, and only the areas around my wounds were painfully tight. I was almost ready to take on another fight, as long as it was not too strenuous.
There was still a question left unanswered but answerable, and I went to resolve it. The walk from Milo's citadel to the Aventine let me loosen my newly massaged muscles, and I was pleasantly winded at the end of the brief climb.
I stood on the steps of the lovely Temple of Ceres. It overlooked the open end of the Circus Maximus and commanded one of Rome's more breathtaking views, and Rome is a city of numerous splendid views. Aside from its religious function, serving the all-important goddess of grain, the temple was the ancient headquarters of the aediles. It was the special province of the plebeian aediles, since they were the judges of the grain market, but the curule aediles, though higher ranking, also had their offices here.
There was a great, rushing deal of coming and going as I climbed the steps, for the early plowing and planting ceremonies were about to commence. Wellborn Roman women were everywhere in evidence, since this was overwhelmingly a woman's temple. Children by the hundreds, dressed in spotless white tunics, were practicing their roles in the upcoming ceremonies. Despite my deadly serious mission, I paused to watch the little ones as they solemnly went through the intricacies of their part in the devotions to the goddess.
Despite Milo's cynical words, which I knew in my heart to be substantially true, I still felt myself to be at the heart of Roman life at such times and such places. Seeing these ladies and their children preparing for the ancient rites so innocently and with such perfect benevolence, I found it hard to believe that men of evil intent were using the equally ancient and honorable institutions of the Senate and the legions to bring about their own selfish gains.
In the warren of basements and outbuildings, I located the cramped quarters of the curule aediles. In a room full of tablets, old papyruses, decayed money-sacks and rancid rushlights, I found the aedile Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. He glanced up from his pile of tiresome ledgers when I entered, and hastily rose and took my arm.
"I cannot tell you how relieved I am. Anything that gets me away from these stacks of bills and records. I was about to send a man around to your house. Just today I found out about the woman who was murdered."
"Splendid!" I said. "Who was she?"
"She was from an estate not far from the city, born a slave but manumitted six years ago."
"Whose estate?" I asked. "Who manumitted her?"
"Caius Julius Caesar," he said.
Somehow, I was not surprised. It always came back to Caesar. Caesar's house, Caesar's debts, Caesar's ambitions. Now, Caesar's freedwoman. One might as well throw in Caesar's unfortunate wife, who must be above suspicion. Her husband was not. I had been so distracted by Pompey and Clodius that I had not given Caius Julius the attention he deserved. And, I confess, I had been reluctant to make him a primary suspect because of his connection to Julia.
It was not that I was besotted with Julia, as once I had been with Clodia, but I sensed in her one who shared my peculiar leanings. I also sensed a goodness and decency of a sort growing rare among Roman women, at least among the intelligent ones. Caesar's seeming proposal of a match had distracted me from my duties. There was no excuse for exempting anyone involved from suspicion save evidence of innocence. My personal wishes and feelings should play no part in it.
So much for the idealized, iron-willed servant of the Republic. What I was stuck with was Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, a man whose susceptibility to feminine charms was all but legendary. And Julia had mentioned that her uncle took a more-than-passing interest in me and my activities.
As I walked from the Temple of Ceres, my head ached. Why did all this have to be so complicated? Worse yet, I seemed to have reached a blind alley in my investigation. I had questioned everyone except Pompey himself, and he was one man I was not about to annoy. Then I remembered that there was one person involved with whom I had yet to speak. And this one was hardly in a position to cause me any grief, which suited my mood. I was not up to any major challenges. I began to walk toward the house of Lucullus.
The majordomo came up to me as I entered the atrium.
"May I help you, Senator? The master and mistress are not at home just now."
"No matter. I've been commissioned to investigate the late unpleasantness at the house of the Pontifex Maximus."
"Yes, sir, the master has informed us and instructed us to cooperate in any way you desire." That was helpful of Lucullus.
"Excellent. I have been informed that among your staff you have a slave woman who plays the harp, and that this woman actually discovered the interloper. I would like to question this woman."
"I shall fetch her at once, Senator." The majordomo showed me to a small waiting room off the garden and hurried off. It seemed odd to me that so lofty a personage as the majordomo of a great house would attend to such a task personally, rather than employ one of the legion of slaves who lounged about with far too little to do. When he returned I understood. He was accompanied by not one but two women. One was a lovely young Greek in a simple shift. The other was a middle-aged woman in a rich gown, whose facial features resembled those of Lucullus.
"I am Licinia," said the older woman, "eldest sister of General Lucullus. My brother has instructed that you are to receive all the aid we can give, but I must attend this interrogation to ensure that this girl does not reveal anything forbidden."
"I fully understand, my lady," I said. What a way to conduct an investigation, I thought. I sat in one of the chairs and the two women sat on a bench facing me. The Greek girl looked nervous, as slaves usually do when then are being questioned by someone in authority.
"Now, my dear, I want you to have no apprehension whatsoever. I merely wish to establish the exact sequence of events as they occurred that night. No one suspects you of any sort of wrongdoing. Now, first, your name?"
"Phyllis, sir." She smiled shyly.
"And you are a musician?"
"Yes, sir, a harpist."
"And you were employed in that capacity on the night of the rites of Bona Dea? These questions may seem simple-minded, but this is how they would be asked at a trial."
"I understand, sir. Yes, I was there to play the harp."
"Good. And just when did you make the discovery that a man had intruded upon the rites?"
"It was when-" She glanced at the older woman, who gave her a sharp look. "Well, it was at a time when we musicians were not playing. I glanced at a hallway entrance and I saw the herb-woman and the one with her. The herb-woman hung back in the hall, but the other came into the atrium. The herb-woman reached out and took his arm, as if to stop him, but he pulled loose and walked into the atrium. That was when I recognized him."
"I see. I've heard from others that he was veiled. Was the light sufficient for you to see that it was a man's face?"
"No, sir. It was more the way he walked. You see, I have seen Clodius many times in this house, when he has come to visit his sister, my mistress Claudia. I felt sure it was him; then I recognized a ring on his hand and I yelled that a man was in the room. The mother of the Pontifex Maximus rushed over and tore off the veil. There was a great deal of screaming after that."
"I should imagine. And I understand that they had just arrived?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no, sir. They must have been there for quite some time. I saw them arrive early in the evening, when most of the other ladies were arriving."
"What? Are you certain?"
"Oh, absolutely, sir. This was the third year that I've played my harp at the rites, and I knew the herb-woman from that purple dress she wore."
I tried to keep a self-condemning curse behind my teeth. This was what came of giving too much credence to secondhand information. Somebody makes a mistaken assumption, and for lack of contradiction it gains the stature of fact. If I had come to question this girl first, I would have got my facts straight and perhaps the herb-woman would be alive. It struck me that the purple dress was her professional trademark, since her name was Purpurea. Then something else struck me.
"You recognized the herb-woman from her dress, not her face?"
"She also wore a veil, Senator."
"There seem to have been a number of veils that night. Clodius, naturally enough, now Purpurea. I've also heard that Fausta was veiled."
"Then you heard wrong, Senator," said Licinia. "The lady Fausta"-she gave the little sniff that highborn women perform when they mention their scandalous sis-ters-"was here in the home of Lucullus that night."
"I see," I said. "And you did not attend the rites?"
"I was unwell that night. As for Fausta, she has no respect for religion and did not wish to attend the preliminary ceremonies, as unmarried women should."
So now the argument as to Fausta's presence stood at one for, two against. But the vote for was Julia's, and I was still reluctant to discount her words. I rose.
"Thank you. I think that this will prove useful to my investigation."
"Good," said Licinia. "There must be a trial. What will become of Rome if we allow our sacred rituals to be violated? The gods will take a terrible vengeance."
"We certainly can't have that," I said. I no longer had the slightest interest in the sacrilege. I was burning to find out what else had been going on that night. I was about to leave, but I turned back. "Phyllis?"
"Yes, sir?"
"You've said that Clodius and the herb-woman were standing in a hallway entrance. Do you know where that hall leads?"
"It's one of the ones that lead to the rear of the house, Senator."
"Where the unmarried women retire at a certain stage of the rites?"
The girl thought for a moment. "No, that is on the other side of the house. The hall where I saw the two of them leads back to the living quarters of the Pontifex Maximus. Some years, we slaves were sent to wait there when we were not needed."
"But not this year," I said.
"No, Senator."
I thanked the two women and left the house. I was still thoroughly mystified, but now I was excited as well. I felt sure that I now had the crucial piece of evidence that would resolve the puzzle of what had happened on that very odd evening, if I could just figure out where it fit. There had been too many anomalous women present, and too damned many veils.
Hermes was waiting outside the gate. He had taken the opportunity to return my bath gear to my house. He fell in beside me, and after a few minutes of walking I noticed that he was imitating me, walking along with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back. I stopped.
"Are you mocking me?" I demanded.
"Who, me?" His eyes went wide with innocence. "They say that slaves always come to look like their masters, sir. That must be what it is."
"That had better be the case," I warned him. "I will not be treated with disrespect."
"Certainly not, sir!" he cried. We resumed walking. "But I was wondering, sir. All this questioning and people trying to kill you and all-what's it all about?"
"That is exactly the sort of thing that I am famed for detecting," I said.
"And have you figured it out?"
"No, but I expect to have everything sorted out soon. A little time for peaceful reflection is all it takes."
"I don't know about you, sir," he said with heavy insinuation, "but I never think my best on an empty stomach."
"Now that you mention it, it's been a while since breakfast. Let's see what the district offers." Luckily, you never have to go far in Rome to find someone selling food. Before long, we had acquired bread, sausages, pickled fish, olives and a jug of wine and retired to a public garden to restore the mental faculties. We sat on a bench and watched the passing show for a while as we attacked the food and drained the jug. The streets were unusually crowded and many vendors were setting up, although it was an odd hour for it.
"Jupiter!" I said. "Tomorrow is Pompey's triumph! I'd all but forgotten. They're setting up now to have good spots in the morning."
"I hear it's going to be a great show," Hermes said, munching and nodding eagerly.
"It ought to be," I said. "He's robbed half the world to finance it."
"That's what the world's for, isn't it? To make things good for Romans?" He did not say this bitterly, as a foreign-born slave might. Like most native domestics, he expected to be manumitted and made a citizen someday. We are far more easygoing about such things than most nations.
"I'm not sure that was the original intention of the gods, but that is how things turned out," I said.
"Then it ought to be a good show," he maintained. "I mean, who cares about a bunch of barbarians?"
"Spoken like a true Roman," I said. "You have real citizen material in you, Hermes, even if you were given a Greek name."
Men in blue tunics were running down the streets with paint pots and brushes in their hands, posting the schedule of events, writing with incredible speed upon walls already thick with such writings. Other graffitists had been through earlier in the day, whitewashing patches on the walls to carry the glorious news. I called a painter over and tossed him a coin.
"What's the lineup?" I asked.
"The games will go on for days, Senator," he said. "Just now, we're posting the schedule for tomorrow. We'll be posting each day for the following day's entertainments. The big munera won't be for three days. That's what everybody's waiting for."
"What's on for tomorrow?" I asked him.
"To begin with, there'll be plays. Italian mime in the two old wooden theaters, but a full-dress Greek drama with masks in Pompey's new theater on the Campus Martius. The theater's still under construction, but there's enough finished to hold the highest classes."
"That's unfortunate," I said. "I'd prefer the mimes to Greek drama, but I suppose the Senate will have to go to Pompey's theater. What's the play?"
" Trojan Women, sir."
"Sophocles, isn't it?" I said. "Or was it Aeschylus?"
"Euripides, Senator," he said, with a slightly pitying expression.
"I knew it was one of those Greeks. May we hope for something more lively later in the day?"
"After the plays there will be lusiones. All the men to fight in the great munera will be fighting demonstration bouts with mock weapons."
"That's better," I said. "Not as exciting as the real death-fights, but fine swordplay is always a joy to watch. When will the great triumphal procession be?"
"The day after tomorrow, Senator, and it will be a ceremony of unsurpassed magnificence. Leading off will be the beasts General Pompey has collected in his travels, all to fight in the morning shows before the gladiators. Besides the usual lions, bears and bulls, he has collected leopards, Hyrcanian tigers, the biggest wild boar ever seen, a white bear from the far north:"
"It all sounds inspiring," I said. "There's nothing like a triumph to stir the blood and remind people what Rome is all about. And what embodies Rome these days better than Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus himself?"
"Quite right, Senator," said the sign painter a little hesitantly. He left and went back to his task.
"Uh, master, maybe you'd better be more careful how you talk, right out in public." Hermes looked around, distinctly ill at ease.
"Why?" I demanded. "Have we reached such a pass that a Roman citizen-a Senator, no less-can't publicly express his opinion of the likes of jumped-up would-be monarchs like Pompey and Crassus and even Julius Caesar?"
"I take no more than a slave's interest in political matters," the boy said, "but as I understand it, we've reached exactly such a pass."
"It's intolerable!" I said, out-Catoing Cato. "I tried to behead Clodius right in front of the senior praetor and I'll probably have to pay a fine for it. But say the wrong thing in public about a lowbred military adventurer, and I'm supposed to worry that he will try to kill me."
"Maybe he already has," Hermes said. "Tried to, I mean."
"What's that?" I said.
"Well, somebody tried to poison you. Haven't you had run-ins with Pompey before?"
"Yes, I have." Somehow, I had neglected to suspect Pompey of that particular crime, perhaps because of the relative abundance of other suspects. "To be brutally honest, I never believed I was important enough to attract his hostility. Some rather important men have told me exactly that, in fact."
"Master, I may be only a slave, while Pompey's the greatest conqueror since Alexander, but even I know that there's no such thing as an enemy who's too small to kill."
"This will bear some thinking," I said. "You may turn out to be not such a burden after all, Hermes. Keep thinking like this. After he tried to poison me, you saw Nero go to the house of Celer. I'd thought only of Clodia, since she's the sister of Clodius and has tried to do away with me before, but she's acted as cat's-paw for Pompey in the past. But he has those lethal Etruscans with him. Why not send one of them?"
We thought about that for a while, passing the jug back and forth.
"How about this?" Hermes said. "Maybe he didn't want people to think you'd been murdered at all. You can't always tell with poison. People die all the time from bad food or simply unknown causes."
"Right. I was just back in Rome. I might have picked up some horrid disease in Gaul. And since he was already having poor old Capito murdered that night, perhaps he didn't want to overdo it."
"So you think he had Capito done away with?" Hermes was enjoying this talk of murder far too much.
"He certainly had reason to." I told him about Capito's interference with Pompey's land settlements. The boy gave a low whistle.
"And I thought Clodius and Milo were dangerous men to deal with! These leaders of the Republic are even worse!"
I nodded. "Very true. Clodius and Milo are small-scale gangsters, with purely urban ambitions. These men are criminals of world stature. Do try to moderate your admiration."
"Well, what do you propose to do about it? Clodius you can always fight. Milo is your friend and his gang is as big and as powerful as Clodius's. You can't fight Pompey, if the whole aristocratic party in the Senate can't do anything about him."
For a slave, the boy was learning political nuance quickly. Suddenly, the family farm at Beneventum seemed like a good place to be.
"I think you'd better make your peace with him, master," Hermes advised.
"The problem is, I don't even what I've done to offend him, if he truly is the one who tried to have me poisoned. I could never prove anything against him in the past. Why should he care about me now?"
"You have a reputation for finding things out about people, don't you? Things they'd rather keep hidden? Well, maybe he's done something, or plans to do something, that he'd just as soon nobody found out about."
"Hermes, you amaze me," I said. "That is very astute."
"I told you I thought better on a full stomach."
There are stages in the investigation of a crime, conspiracy or other mystery that involves many people acting from many motives. At first, all is confusion. Then, as you gather evidence, things get even more complicated and confusing. But eventually there comes a point when each new fact unearthed fits into place with a satisfying click and things become simpler instead of more complex. Things begin to make sense. I now felt that things had reached that stage. It seemed to me that my guardian genius, my ferret-muse, hovered near and was aiding me to untie this knot of murder and intrigue. Or perhaps it was just the wine.