Steven Saylor - Arms of Nemesis

'In Rome. He purchased the aconitum from some vendor in the Subura the night before we set out. Even then he realized he might have to kill Lucius, and he hoped to be able to do it in a more subtle, more secretive fashion than bashing in his skull. The poison was brought for Lucius, but it was used to silence Dionysius. I found more of the stuff in Fabius's room, and confiscated it to keep him from using it on himself. I don't intend to let him off that easily.'

'And last night, on my way to Cumae, Fabius attempted to murder me.'

'Not Fabius, but his agents. During your altercation in front of the stables he glimpsed the bloodstained cloak hidden under your own. He thought he had tossed it into the sea on the night of the murder; that was the first time he knew that the cloak had been found.'

'Yes,' I said, 'I remember the odd look on his face.'

'Had you bothered to show the cloak to me — had you trusted me from the outset with all the evidence, Gordianus — I would have recognized it immediately, and all manner of wheels would have begun to turn. But alas! Fabius could only hope that you had withheld it from me, either on purpose or through neglect, and that I hadn't yet seen it, as was the case. He had no choice but to kill you and recover the cloak and destroy it as quickly as possible.

'It was Fabius whom I had charged to obtain gladiators and organize the funeral games; usually I would have assigned Mummius, but given his weakness for the Greek slave and his distaste for the spectacle I was planning, he was unreliable. Fabius had already determined to eliminate you, one way or another. He had brought two gladiators up from the camp at Lake Lucrinus, just in case he needed them, and so had them ready to send after you immediately when you departed for Cumae. Fabius asked you where you were headed, do you remember? You made the grave error of telling him. Fabius sent the gladiators to follow you and the boy, assassinate you both, and bring him the cloak.'

I nodded. 'And when our bodies were found, the murders would have been blamed again on Alexandros, hiding in the woods!'

'Exactly. But you would have been no safer here at the villa. His other plan, had you spent the night here, was to steal into your room and pour a draft of hyoscyamus oil into your ear. Do you know its effects?'

A chill crept up my spine. 'Pig-bean oil; I've heard of it.'

'It was another poison he had purchased and brought from Rome, another option for eliminating Lucius, short of murdering him; given its effects, it would have taken care of you quite nicely. They say that if one pours an adequate dose into the ear of a sleeping man, he will wake up the next morning raving and incoherent, completely deranged. You see, Gordianus, had you spent last night here in your room, you might be a babbling idiot now.'

'And had Eco not shouted a warning outside the arena today, a spear would have pierced me from neck to navel.'

'Another gift from Fabius. When only one of his assassins returned to him last night with news that you had escaped with the cloak, he ordered the gladiator to act as his private watchman, to hide above the entrance to my box and watch for your arrival. Without my knowledge, Fabius discharged the guards who should have been standing before the entrance, so there would be no witnesses. It was his last desperate gambit; had the assassin succeeded in spearing you, he would have informed Fabius and you would have been carted off to rot with the dead gladiators, an anonymous and unlamented corpse.'

'And tonight Faustus Fabius would be free of all suspicion.'

'Yes,' Crassus sighed, 'and the people of the Cup would be spreading tales of the unique and glorious spectacle staged by Marcus Licinius Crassus, stories that would reverberate all the way up to Rome and down to Spartacus's camp at Thurii.'

'And ninety-nine innocent slaves would be dead.'

Crassus looked at me in silence, then smiled thinly. 'But instead, the opposite of each of these things has happened. I think, Gordianus, that you are indeed an arm of Nemesis. Your work here has merely fulfilled the will of the gods. How else could it be, except as a jest of the gods, that tonight I should be sitting here drinking the last of my cousin's excellent Falernian wine with the only man in the world who thinks the lives of ninety-nine slaves are more important than the ambitions of the richest man in Rome?'

'What will you do with them?'

'With whom?'

'The one hundred.'

He swirled the last of the wine in his cup and stared into the red vortex. 'They're useless to me now. Certainly they can't be returned to this house, or to any of my properties; I could never trust any of them again, after what's happened. I considered selling them here at Puteoli, but I don't care to have them spreading their story all over the Cup. I shall ship them off to the markets at Alexandria.'

'The Thracian slave, Alexandros-'

'Iaia has already approached me, asking to buy him as a gift for Olympias.' He sipped his wine. 'Completely out of the question, of course.'

'But why?'

'Because it is just possible that someone might decide to bring a murder charge against Faustus Fabius and force a trial; I've told you that I have no desire for such a public spectacle. Any prosecutor would of course call on Alexandros to testify, but a slave cannot testify without his master's permission. Now, so long as I own Alexandros I will never allow him to speak of the matter again. He must be put out of reach. He's young and strong; probably I shall make him a galley slave or a mine worker, or send him to a slave market so far away that he will quietly vanish forever.'

'But why not let Olympias have him?'

'Because if murder charges are ever brought against Faustus Fabius, she might allow him to testify.'

'A slave can't testify except under torture; Olympias would never permit that.'

'She might manumit him; in fact, she probably would, and a freedman can testify to his heart's content, and to my eternal embarrassment.'

'You could extract a pledge-'

'No! I cannot permit the slave to stay anywhere in the region of the Cup, don't you see? So long as he's about, people will keep talking about the affair of Lucius Licinius, and wasn't Alexandros the slave everyone accused of the murder, and didn't it actually turn out that some patrician did it, or so the gossips say — you see, he simply has to vanish from the Cup, one way or another. My way is more merciful than simply killing him, don't you see?'

I clenched my jaw. The wine was suddenly bitter. 'And the slave Apollonius?'

'Mummius wants to buy him, as you must already know. Again, out of the question.'

'But Apollonius knows nothing!'

'Nonsense! You yourself sent him diving for the weapons that Faustus Fabius tossed into the water.' 'Even so-'

'And his presence among the other ninety-nine this afternoon ruins him for any further service in any proximity to me. Mummius is my right-hand man; I can't have a slave I almost put to death living in Mummius's home, serving me wine when I come to visit and turning down my bed for me at night, slipping an asp between the coverlets. No, like Alexandros, Apollonius must vanish. I expect it won't be difficult to find a buyer for him, considering his beauty and his talents. There are agents in Alexandria who buy slaves for rich Parthians; that would be best, to sell him to a rich master beyond the edge of the world.'

'You'll make an enemy of Marcus Mummius.'

'Don't be absurd. Mummius is a soldier, not a sensualist. He's a Roman! His ties to me and his sense of honour far outweigh any fleeting attraction he may feel for a pretty youth.'

'I think you're wrong.'

Crassus shrugged. Behind the mask of hard logic on his face, I saw his smug satisfaction. How could such a great and powerful man take pleasure in exacting such petty revenge on those who had foiled him? I closed my weary eyes for a moment.