Steven Saylor - The House Of The Vestals

"You remember-the tale your Hebrew father passed on to you, about his ancestor called Moses, who encountered a bush which spoke aloud to him when it burned. The leaves of your bush, neighbor, not only spoke but cast powerful visions."

"Yet why did I see what I saw?"

"You saw that which you feared the most-the vengeful spirits of those you killed fighting for Sulla."

"But the slaves saw what I saw! And so did you.'"

"We saw what you suggested, just as you began to see a burning bush when I said the words."

He shook his head. "It was never so powerful before. Last night was more terrible than ever!"

"Probably because, in the past, you happened to burn only a few of the yellow leaves at a time, and the cold wind carried away much of the smoke; the visions came upon some but not all of the household, and in varying degrees. But last night you happened to burn a great many of the yellow leaves at once. The smoke filled the garden and spread through your house.

Everyone who breathed it was intoxicated and stricken with a temporary madness. Once we escaped the smoke, the madness passed, like a fever burning itself out."

"Then the lemures never existed?"

"I think not."

"And if I uproot that accursed bush and cast it in the Tiber, I will never see the lemures again?"

"Perhaps not." Though you may always see them in your nightmares, I thought.

"So, it was just as I told you," said Bethesda that afternoon, bringing a moist cloth to cool my forehead. Flashes of pain still coursed through my temples from time to time, and whenever I closed my eyes alarming visions loomed in the blackness.

"Just as you told me? Nonsense!" I said. "You thought that Titus was pushed from his balcony-and that his wife Cornelia did it!"

"A woman pretending to be a lemur drove him to jump- which is almost the same," she insisted.

"And you said the soldier's old slave was lying about having seen the lemures himself, when in fact he was telling the Tilth."

"What I said was that the dead cannot go walking about unless they have been properly mummified, and I was absolutely right. And it was I who once told you about the burning bush which speaks, remember? Without that, you would never have figured the cause."

"Fair enough," I admitted, deciding it was impossible to win the argument.

"This quaint Roman idea about lemures haunting the living is completely absurd," she went on.

"About that I am not so sure."

"But with your own eyes you have seen the truth! By your own wits you have proved in not one but two instances that what everyone thought to be lemures were not lemures at all, only a vengeful pretense in one case, intoxicating smoke in the other- and at the root of both cases, a guilty conscience!"

"You miss the point, Bethesda."

"What do you mean?"

"Lemures do exist-perhaps not as visitors perceptible to the senses, but in another way. The dead do have power to spread misery among the living. The spirit of a man can carry on and cause untold havoc from beyond the grave. The more powerful the man, the more terrible his legacy." I shivered-not at lurid visions remembered from the soldier's garden, but at the naked truth, which was infinitely more awful. "Rome is a haunted city. The lemur of the dictator Sulla haunts us all. Dead he may be, but not departed. His wickedness lingers on, bringing despair and suffering upon his friends and foes alike."

To this Bethesda had no answer. I closed my eyes and saw no more monsters, but slept a dreamless sleep until dawn of the following day.

"Well met, Gordianus! Tell me, have you heard what they're saying down in the Forum about Marius's young nephew, Julius Caesar?"

It was my good friend Lucius Claudius who called to me on the steps of the Senian Baths. He appeared to be on his way out, while I was on my way in.

"If you mean that old story about pretty young Caesar playing queen to King Nicomedes while he was in Bithynia, I've heard it all before-from you, I believe, more than once, and with increasingly more graphic details each time."

"No, no, that bit of gossip is ancient history now. I'm talking about this tale of pirates, ransom, revenge-crucifixions!"

I looked at him blankly.

Lucius grinned, which caused his two chins to meld into one. His chubby cheeks were pink from the heat of the baths and his frizzled orange curls were still damp. The twinkle in his eyes held that special joy of being the first to relate an especially juicy bit of gossip.

I confessed to him that my curiosity was piqued. However, as it appeared that Lucius was leaving the baths, while I had only just arrived, and as I was especially looking forward to the hot plunge, given the slight nip that lingered in the spring air-alas, the story would have to wait.

"What, and let someone else tell it to you, and get the details all confused? I think not, Gordianus.' No, I'll accompany you." He gestured to his entourage to turn around. The dresser, the barber, the manicurist, the masseur and the bodyguards all looked a bit confused but followed us compliantly back into the baths.

This turned out to be a stroke of luck for me, as I was in need of a bit of pampering. Bethesda did her best at cutting my hair, and as a masseuse her touch was golden, but Lucius Claudius was wealthy enough to afford the very best in body servants. There is something to be said for having occasional access to the services of a rich man's slaves. As my fingernails and toenails were carefully clipped and filed and buffed, my hair expertly trimmed, and my beard painlessly shorn, Lucius kept trying to begin his tale and I kept putting him off, wanting to make sure I received the full treatment.

It was not until our second visit to the hot plunge that I allowed him to begin in earnest. Amid clouds of steam, with our heads bobbing on the water like little islands in the mist, he related his nautical tale.

"As you know, Gordianus, in recent years the problem of piracy has grown increasingly severe."

"Blame it on Sulla and Marius and the civil war," I said. "Wars mean refugees, and refugees mean more bandits on the highways and more pirates on the sea."

"Yes, well, whatever the cause, we all see the results. Ships seized and looted, cities sacked, Roman citizens taken hostage."

"While the Senate vacillates, as usual."

"What can they do? Would you have them grant a special naval command to some power-mad general, who can then use the forces we give him to attack his political rivals and set off another civil war?"

I shook my head. "Trapped between warlords and brigands, with the Roman Senate to lead us-sometimes I despair for our republic."

"As do all thinking men," agreed Lucius. We shared a moment of silent contemplation on the crisis of the Roman state, then he eagerly launched into his tale again.

"Anyway, when I say that the pirates have grown so bold as to kidnap Roman citizens, I don't simply mean some merchant they happened to pluck from a trading vessel. I mean citizens of distinction, noble Romans whom even ignorant pirates should know better than to molest. I mean young Julius Caesar himself."

"When was this?"

"Just as winter was setting in. Caesar had spent the summer on the island of Rhodes, studying rhetoric under Apollonius Molo. He was due to serve as an attache to the governor of Cilicia, but he lingered on Rhodes as long as he could, and set out at the very close of the sailing season. Just off the island of Pharmacusa his ship was given chase and captured by pirates. Caesar and his whole entourage were taken prisoner!"

Lucius raised an eyebrow, which prompted a curious pattern of wrinkles across his fleshy brow. "Now keep in mind that Caesar is only twenty-two, which may explain how he could be so recklessly bold. Remember also that his good looks, wealth and connections have pretty much always gotten him whatever he wants. Imagine, he finds himself in the clutches of Cilician pirates, the most bloodthirsty people on earth. Does he cringe beneath their threats? Bow his head? Make himself humble and meek? Far from it. Exactly the opposite! He taunted his captors from the very beginning. They told him they were planning to demand a ransom of half a million sesterces. Caesar laughed in their faces! For a captive such as himself, he told them, they were fools not to demand at least a million-which they did!"