Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

Wine and curiosity had cooled my anger. I decided to listen for a while, bide my time and hear him out. It was the last time I would ever do so. Once I'd said what I'd come to say, there would never again be words between us of any sort. "How will you do it, Cicero? How will you seduce the jurors?"

"Well, I can't go through the whole speech for you right now; there isn't time." He smiled crookedly. "Besides, you might yet be a spy for the enemy, Gordianus. Have you come to ferret out my puns and double meanings before they're ready? I won't have my metaphors and historical allusions anticipated and headed off by the prosecutors! But I'll give you a general outline. Perhaps it will give you some ideas of how you might help me."

"Help you?"

"Perhaps there's a weak point in the prosecution that I've missed, something you know of that I don't; some point they intend to emphasize that I haven't foreseen. You've probably been privy to information which even my spies have missed. All that lolling about in Clodia's litter, making camp with Antony-you're a valuable man to know, Gordianus! I've always said so. And I've never turned my back on you, no matter how wrongheaded you've been from time to time. I can't tell you how glad I was when the doorkeeper came to say that you were here. I can think of no one I had rather see on this night. Gordianus the Finder, always full of surprises. 'He shall help me add the final crowning touches to my masterpiece' — I said those very words, did I not, Tiro?"

"You did indeed." Tiro looked very weary. With his delicate constitution, he should have been in bed, I thought. Or did he blink and lower his eyes to avoid looking at me? Had Tiro been part of the plot against me? The idea sickened me, but Tiro's loyalty to Cicero had always eclipsed everything else in his life.

"The main thrust of my argument," Cicero went on, full of excitement, "will be that it was Clodius who planned an ambush on Milo, and that Milo had no choice but to defend himself. It was justifiable homicide!"

"And what about the facts, Cicero?" I said..

"Oh, I shall remind the jury of certain facts — such as the fact that Clodius had a long history of criminal behaviour against the gods and the state. And the fact that even as he was setting out on the Appian Way, he had legislation in the works to reorganize the voting system so as to give himself and his rabble of freedmen even greater power. And I certainly shall not let anyone forget the fact that Clodius was one of the most lecherous and debauched men ever to plague this city."

"But Clodius did not ambush Milo. Must I say it more slowly? Clodius… did not… ambush Milo."

Cicero paused. "This matter of an ambush, who plotted against whom, who was lying in wait — it's all academic in a way, don't you see? Consider it a literary device. My young friend Marcus Brutus says that I should argue from the assumption that Milo assassinated Clodius intentionally, knowingly and with foresight, and declare that the homicide was justifiable on the grounds that Milo acted to save the state from a dangerous man. Well, Brutus might get away with that argument, but not me. It would only remind the listeners of my own handling of Catilina and his supporters. Milo must not suffer for the controversies of my own consulship. So that line of defence is closed to us. On the other hand, I might argue that neither Milo nor his men were ultimately responsible for Clodius's death, at least not technically. That may well be the case, as I'm sure you discovered for yourself in your investigations — "

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't be coy with me, Gordianus. It's much too late for that. However, to argue for Milo's outright innocence, I would have to introduce some rather arcane reasoning, and besides, that approach would fail to make any thematic sense; it would neglect the most persuasive argument of all, that Clodius was an immediate danger to Milo and a perennial danger to the state. No, I shall use the argument of an ambush-"

"Cicero, there was no ambush, by either side."

"Yes, but how do you know that, Gordianus?"

"Because I went there. I saw the place. I spoke to the witnesses."

"Ah, you went, you saw, you spoke — but the jurors will have done none of these things. It is up to me to shape their perceptions."

"But the jurors have already heard the witnesses."

"Yes, and that's unfortunate. These innovations of Pompey! The traditional sequence is for the advocates to make their arguments first, and shape the juror's opinions before they ever hear a witness. But never mind. Do you think the jurors will still be thinking about that whore of a priestess and her pathetic brother, or that incredibly common woman from the inn, after they've heard me plead Milo's case for three hours? I think not." He saw the look of consternation on my face and smiled. "You fail to understand, I see. You doubt that any speech could be so persuasive. But believe me, this is my best speech, by far the finest piece of oratory I've ever devised. You can't imagine the labour that's gone into it."

"The guile, you mean."

"Gordianus!" He shook his head,not in disgust — he was too ebullient for that-but in dismay. "Very well, then, guile. Composition, craft, guile, call it what you will! Where did you ever come by this naive, overweening reverence for the absolute and utter truth? This peculiar obsession — where has it ever got you? If simple truth alone could send armies into battle and sway jurors, if men could be made to respond as they should by telling them the truth, do you think I would use any other tool? It would all be so easy, then. But truth is not enough; often it's the very worst thing for a man with a cause! And so we have oratory. The beauty, the power of words! Thank the gods for the gift of oratory, and thank the gods for men who are clever enough, and wise enough, to bend the truth a bit every once in a while in order to keep the state free and in one piece. The important thing about tomorrow's hearing is not to determine who did what to whom on the Appian Way. The important thing, the absolutely vital thing, is that at the end of the day, Milo must go free. If the truth hinders that objective, then it must be dispensed with. It serves no purpose. Can't you see that, Gordianus? It's such an elementary matter."

I had heard enough. "And my captivity? Was that an elementary matter?"

Cicero's face went blank. "What do you mean?"

"While I was trapped in that stinking pit, someone wrote an anonymous note to my wife, telling her not to worry. I found another bit of writing — an old, old inscription in a scroll — that matched the handwriting of that note exactly. You wrote the note, Cicero. Do you deny it?"

He clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace. He glanced at Tiro, who watched him expectantly with furrowed brows. "I wrote the note to your wife, yes."

"What was your part? Did you know from the beginning? Did you plan the attack on me?"

He made a face, like a man who must step into something soft and smelly. "When we learned that you had set out for Bovillae, Milo became convinced that you had become a danger to him. It was all he talked about for days. Who knew what you would find out? For whom were you really working? I tried to dissuade him, but Milo is a stubborn man. He became determined to remove you — "

"To kill me, you mean?"

"To prevent you from returning to Rome. Yes, his first intention was to have you killed. I forbade it. Do you hear me, Gordianus? I forbade him to kill you and your son. I reminded him of the men he was keeping locked up at his villa in Lanuvium, the witnesses his men had captured on the Appian Way. If he could hold those men prisoner, then why not you and your son? I insisted that you be spared, do you understand? Milo compromised, and agreed merely to detain you, and only until the crisis was over. Then you and Eco would be released unharmed."