Steven Saylor - Arms of Nemesis

I returned to the front door and passed through the entry hall. In the darkness the waxen faces of Lucius Licinius's ancestors gazed down on me, looking grim but satisfied. I walked through the atrium, where the odour of incense had at last covered the lingering smell of putrefaction. Moonlight poured through the open roof like a great column of liquid opal. Holding my lamp aloft, I studied the letters SPARTA on the floor. Under the wavering lamplight and moonlight the crude scratches shone gold and silver, as if some passing god, and not a mere murderous mortal, had drawn them with his fingertip.

There was no guard outside the library. The door stood open. Crassus did not turn or look up when I entered, but indicated that I should sit in the chair to his left. After a moment he pushed the scrolls away, pinched the bridge of his nose, and produced a second silver cup, which he filled to the brim from a clay bottle.

'I'm not thirsty, thank you, Marcus Crassus.'

'Drink,' he said, in a tone that allowed no rebuttal. I obediendy put the cup to my Lips. The wine was dark and rich, and spread a warm glow through my chest.

'Falernian,' said Crassus. 'From the last year of Sulla's dictatorship. An exceptional vintage; it was Lucius's favourite. There was only one bottle left in the cellar. Now there are none.' He filled his own cup again, then poured the last drops into mine.

I sipped, breathing in the bouquet. The wine was as bemusing as the moonlight. 'No one sleeps tonight,' I said quietly. 'Time seems to have stopped altogether.'

'Time never stops,' said Crassus with a bitter edge to his voice.

'You are not pleased with me, Marcus Crassus. And yet I only did what I was hired to do. Anything less would have shown contempt for the generous fee you promised me.'

He looked at me sidelong. His expression was unreadable. 'Don't worry,' he said at last, 'you'll get your fee. I didn't become the richest man in Rome by swindling petty hirelings.'

I nodded and sipped the Falernian.

'Do you know,' said Crassus, 'for a moment, out there in the arena today, when you were rolling your eyes and making your passionate speech, I actually thought — can you believe it? — I thought that you were going to accuse me of killing Lucius.'

'Imagine that,' I said.

'Yes. If you had dared such impudence, I think I might have ordered one of the guards to put a spear through your heart then and there. No one would have questioned such an act. I would have called it self-defence; you had a knife concealed on your person, you looked like a madman, and you were ranting like Cicero on a bad day.'

'You would never have done such a thing, Marcus Crassus. Had you killed me immediately after I made such a public accusation, you would only have planted a seed of doubt in everyone who was there.'

'You think so, Gordianus?'

I shrugged. 'Besides, the point is hypothetical. I never made such an accusation.'

'And you never intended to?'

I sipped the Falernian. 'It seems useless to dwell on such a question, since what you describe never occurred and the true murderer was identified — just in time to avoid a terrible miscarriage of justice, I might add, though I know you find that to be a minor point.'

Crassus made a low noise in his throat, rather like a growl. It had not been easy for him to cancel the slaughter after arousing the curiosity and whetting the blood lust of the crowd. Even after the revelation of Fabius's guilt, he might have gone on with the massacre had it not been for the intervention of Gelina. Meek, mild Gelina had at last put her foot down. Armed with the truth, she was transformed before our eyes. Her jaw set, her eyes hard and glittering like glass, she had demanded that Crassus cancel his farce. Mummius, blustering and outraged, had joined her. Assaulted from both sides, Crassus had acquiesced. He had ordered his guards to escort Fabius and himself back to the villa, currty charged Mummius with closing the games, and then had made an abrupt and unceremonious exit.

'Did you stay for the end of the games?' Crassus asked.

'No. I left only moments after you did.' Why bother to explain that Alexandros and I had carried Eco back to the villa, fearing for his life? Crassus had hardly noticed Eco's collapse, and probably did not even remember it.

'Mummius tells me that all went smoothly, but he's lying, of course. I must be the laughing stock of the whole Cup tonight.'

'I seriously doubt that, Marcus Crassus. You are not the sort of man at whom people would ever dare to laugh, even behind your back.'

'Still, to have the slaves rounded up and herded from the ring as unceremoniously as they were herded into it, with no explanation — I could hear the murmurs of disappointment and confusion even from outside the arena walls. For a climax, Mummius tells me he hastily assembled all the surviving gladiators and forced them to fight again in simultaneous matches; not exactly an original idea, was it? Imagine what a farce that became, with the gladiators already weary and some of them wounded, hacking away at each other like clumsy amateurs. When I pressed him about it, Mummius admitted that the lower tiers quickly emptied out. The connoisseurs know a bad spectacle when they see it, and the status seekers saw no point in remaining when I was no longer there to smile back at them.'

We sat in silence for a moment, sipping the wine.

'Where is Faustus Fabius tonight?' I asked.

'Here in the villa, as before. Except that tonight I've placed guards outside his room and had him stripped of any weapons, poisons, or potions, lest he do some harm to himself before I decide what I shall do with him.'

'Will you bring charges against him? Will there be a trial in Rome?'

Crassus again put on the face of a disappointed tutor. 'What? Go to so much trouble on account of the murder of a nobody like Lucius? Alienate the Fabii, expose an unspeakable scandal in which my own cousin was involved, embarrass myself in the process — they were using my ship and my resources to carry out their schemes, after all — do all this on the eve of the great crisis, when I stand ready to take the command against Spartacus and begin my campaign for the consulship next year? No, Gordianus, there will be no public accusation; there will be no trial.'

'Then Faustus Fabius will go unpunished?'

'I never said that. There are many ways for a man to die during wartime, Gordianus. Even a high-ranking officer can be struck down by a spear accidentally cast from behind him, or receive a fatal blow which cannot afterwards be accounted for. And I never said that, either.'

'Did he confess everything to you?'

'Everything. It was just as you thought; he and Lucius had hatched their smuggling scheme together during my visit to Baiae last spring. Faustus comes from a very old, very distinguished patrician family. His branch of the Fabii retain a vestige of their old prestige, but they lost their fortune long ago. Such a man can become very bitter, especially when he serves under another man of a lower social rank whose wealth and power tar exceed his own and always will. Still, to have betrayed Rome for the sake ofhis own aggrandizement, to have sacrificed the honour of the Fabii, to have given succour to an army of murderous slaves — these crimes are unforgivable and beneath contempt.'

Crassus sighed. 'The crimes of my cousin Lucius are even more painful to me. He was a weak man, too weak to make his own way in the world, neither wise enough nor patient enough to trust my generosity. I consider it a personal affront that he should have used my own organization and embezzled my own funds to engage in such a disgusting criminal enterprise. I always gave him more than he deserved, and this was how he repaid me! I'm only sorry that he died as quickly and painlessly as he did; he deserved an even crueller death.'