Steven Saylor - Rubicon

Aemilia stepped toward me, her face lowered. Her bodyguards advanced with her, swords drawn, eying me warily.

"Forgive me," she whispered. "I never meant…"

I nodded.

"I'll go now. I don't know why I came. I only thought… I hoped you might… I don't know." She turned away. Her bodyguards withdrew with her, the hindmost walking backward and keeping his eyes on Cicatrix and me.

"Wait!" I said.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. I stepped toward her, getting as close as I dared. It was too close for Cicatrix, who gripped my arm to hold me back.

"Aemilia, you said something about a secret meeting place."

Her face, already flushed, grew even redder. "Yes."

"Did this place belong to Numerius?"

"It belonged to his family. They own a lot of property in the Carinae district."

"And this place- where is it?"

She stepped toward me and motioned for her bodyguards to stand back. I gestured for Cicatrix to move away.

"It was a tenement building," said Aemilia, keeping her voice low. "An awful, smelly place. But there was a vacant apartment on the uppermost floor. From the window you could see a bit of the Capitoline Hill…" She gazed into space, her eyes glittering with tears.

"And only you and Numerius knew about this meeting place?"

"I don't know. I think he inherited the building from his father, but his uncle Maecius had a say in running it."

"But the room- it was Numerius's secret place?"

"Yes. He kept a few things there. A lamp, some clothing… some poems I gave him."

"Poems?"

"Greek love poems I copied out for him. We used to read them to one another…"

I nodded. "So this was a place where he might have kept… other secret things?"

"I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Some documents may be there."

She shook her head. "I don't think so. There was no scroll cabinet. Not even a chest for keeping papers. He had to keep my poems beneath the bed."

"Even so, I need to see this place."

She bit her lip, then shook her head.

"Please, Aemilia. It may be very important. I may find the documents that were responsible for Numerius's death."

She looked at Minerva, then at me. Her gaze was steady. "The building is at the corner of the Street of the Basketmakers and a little alley that runs off it to the north. It's covered in a red wash, but the red is starting to wear off to show a yellow wash beneath. The room is on the fourth floor, in the southwest corner. The door has a lock, but the key is under a loose floorboard with a deep scratch across it, three paces up the hall."

I nodded. "I'll find it."

She touched my arm. "If you go there, you'll find the love poems. I'd be grateful if you could-"

"Of course. I'll find some way to return them to you."

She shook her head. "No, I could never have them in the house. But I can't bear to think of anyone else reading them. Burn them." She turned and rejoined her bodyguards.

I followed them through the house. Just before we reached the foyer, little Aulus appeared from nowhere and went stamping across the atrium, laughing and clapping his hands, directly in front of Aemilia. Mopsus and Androcles came running after him, but not before Aemilia gave a shudder and fled weeping through the foyer and out of the house, her guards trailing after her.

That night I tossed and turned. At last Bethesda rolled toward me. "Can't you sleep, husband?"

The moonlight picked out glints of silver in her undone hair but left her eyes in shadow. "I'm thinking about the girl who came to visit me today." I had told her Aemilia's story over dinner.

"Very sad," said Bethesda.

"Yes. I was wondering… I don't know much about how it's done."

"What?"

"How a baby is gotten rid of."

Bethesda sighed in the darkness. "It's one of those things most men don't care to know much about. There are several ways. Sometimes a willow wand…"

"Willow?"

"With the bark stripped off. It needs to be thin and flexible to reach into the uterus."

I nodded.

"Or the girl may take poison."

"Poison?"

"Something strong enough to kill the child and expel it from her body. You brew a strong tea, using roots and herbs and fungi. Rue, nightshade, ergot…"

"But isn't that likely to kill the mother as well?"

"Sometimes that happens. I saw the girl on her way out. She looked rather frail to me." Bethesda sighed wearily and rolled away.

I stared at the ceiling. Aemilia believed that the killer of Numerius was equally responsible for the destruction of her unborn child. If Aemilia died, aborting the baby, would Numerius's killer then be responsible for three deaths?

I wondered, did men like Caesar in the cold, dark hours of the night ever ponder such chains of responsibility? To kill a man on the battlefield Caesar would consider an honorable act. But what of the man's widow and child left to starve, or the parents who die of grief, or the lover who kills himself in despair, or the whole villages that perish to famine and disease in the wake of war? How many such chains of suffering and death radiated from every battlefield in Gaul? How many such casualties would there be in Italy now that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon?

I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

The next day, taking Mopsus and Androcles with me, I made my way to the Carinae district. I had forgotten exactly where the Street of the Basketmakers was located. Mopsus thought he knew. So did Androcles. To the right, said Mopsus. To the left, said Androcles. While they squabbled, I asked directions of a slave who passed by carrying an armload of baskets. He pointed straight ahead. I followed and was nearly around a bend when the boys noticed and came running after me.

The narrow, curving street was lined with shops, all with doors flung open and wares on display. Baskets spilled out onto little tripod tables. More baskets hung suspended from ropes that crisscrossed overhead. Many were local products, but the best and most expensive came from Egypt, made of Nile reeds, with dyed strands woven into the fabric to make intricate patterns and repeating pictures. I made the mistake of pausing to look at a curious specimen decorated with a circular band of Nile river-horses. The shop owner descended on me at once.

"Those are called hippopotami," he said.

"Yes, I know. I lived in Egypt for a while when I was young."

"Then you'll want the basket as a souvenir. It was made for you!"

I smiled, shook my head and hurried on. The man followed me down the street, badgering me and waving the basket. When I refused to bargain, he threw down the basket with a curse. Times were hard on the Street of the Basketmakers.

It was not hard to locate the mottled red and yellow tenement Aemilia had described. It had a seedy, run-down appearance, with chipped plaster and broken shutters hanging from the windows. Someone was stewing cabbage inside. A baby was crying. The sound made me think of Aemilia.

Some tenement landlords post a slave at the front door to keep out thieves and troublemakers, but there was no slave at the entrance, and when I tested the door I found it had no lock, either. It was hard to imagine anything inside such a building to tempt a burglar.

"Mopsus," I said, "I want you to stand across the street while Androcles and I go inside. Try not to look like a runaway slave up to no good."

"I'll stand watch!" said Mopsus eagerly. "If anybody dangerous-looking goes in after you, I'll run up and tell you."

I shook my head. "No, Mopsus. I imagine any number of dangerous-looking men, and women for that matter, are likely to live in this building; this is a dangerous neighborhood. But tenement dwellers must come and go. How could you possibly know who has legitimate business in this building and who does not?"