Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'But the body,' Eco said, pressing on. 'You're sure it was a message, then, from one side or the other?'

'That much seems clear. Catilina's riddle — a head without a body or a headless body, so Caelius said, and if I would submit to his wishes I was to send a message: "The body without a head." I hesitated — and then the very thing appears in my stable! That was only five days after Caelius returned to Rome. Not much time before he began to strong-arm me, was it?'

'Unless, as you say, the message came from a different quarter.'

'But the message means the same thing, no matter which side sent it. I am to do as I was told, to welcome Catilina into my house. I postponed giving an answer, and in return I was intimidated, my daughter frightened, my household turned upside down.'

'You think it was Catilina who did this?'

'I can't believe that Cicero would stoop to such a tactic.'

'Caelius might have done it without Cicero's knowledge.'

'What does it matter who did it? Someone has gone to considerable lengths to show me that I'm at his mercy.'

'So you acquiesced and had me send your reply to Caelius.'

'I saw no choice. I sent it through you because I knew I could trust you, and because an indirect approach seemed wise — and yes, perhaps because in my heart I wanted you to come so that I could confide in you. I didn't count on my message to Caelius being delayed on account of your absence from Rome. Strange, that there have been no further repercussions. Barely five days passed after Caelius's visit before the body appeared. Now twice that much time has passed; you sent my message on to Caelius only yesterday, and yet there has been no further incident in the interval.'

'The consular election approaches. The politicians and their cohorts are in a mad rush, canvassing the voters. Perhaps they've just forgotten you for the moment.'

'If only they'd forget about me for good!'

'Or else…'

‘Yes, Eco?'

'Perhaps the message — the body — came from another quarter altogether.'

I nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I've considered that. From the Claudii, you mean.'

'From what you say, they're already conspiring against you, and they have no scruples. What was it that Gnaeus Claudius said about assassins?'

‘Somethingabout hiring men from Rome to come and 'leave a bit of blood on the ground", or so it was reported to me. But like most hotheaded young men, he's more talk than action, I imagine.'

'And if he's not? He sounds like just the sort who'd leave a corpse in the stable to frighten you.'

'But why a headless corpse? No, the coincidence would be too great. And if he wanted to murder someone to make his point, why Nemo, whom I can't even identify? Why not one of my slaves, or even me? No, I've considered the possibility that one or more of the Claudii might be behind the incident, but there's simply no evidence.'

Eco was thoughtful for a moment, 'You questioned your slaves?'

'Indirectly. I don't want them to know about Nemo if I can help it. Disastrous for discipline.'

'Why are you so discreet? Most men wouldn't care if the slaves knew. Most men would have every slave on the farm tortured until the truth came out,'

'Then perhaps most men could afford to replace a whole farm of slaves; I can't. Besides, terror is not my way to the truth. You know that. I asked what I needed to ask. Not one of them had seen or heard anything that I could connect with the body's appearance.'

'How could that be? To put the body in the stable without anyone seeing, one would have to know when and where the slaves would be sleeping or working, and to know that would in itself require some collusion on the part of one of your slaves, or so I should think. Have you been betrayed?'

I shrugged. 'I've told you about my quarrels with Aratus.'

Eco shook his head. 'You've sat through more trials than I have, Papa. Imagine Cicero making shreds of your suspicions of Aratus. They're groundless. You simply don't like him.'

'I don't accuse him,' I said. 'I accuse none of the slaves. Roman slaves do not turn on their masters, not since Spartacus was put down.'

We sat in silence for a while and passed the wineskin between us. Eco finally hardened his jaw and pulled his eyebrows together, a gesture which I knew presaged a decision.

'I don't like it, Papa. I think you should leave the farm and come to the city. You're in danger here.'

'Ha! Leave the countryside and go to Rome for safety's sake? Would you advise a swimmer to leave the backwater for the rapids?'

'There can be dangerous undercurrents in the backwater.'

'And sharp rocks hidden in the rapids. And eddies that suck you down into darkness and whirl you around and around.'

'I'm serious, Papa.'

I looked down at the farm. The sun was sinking rapidly, casting an orange haze across the fields. The slaves were driving the goats into their pen. Diana and Meto emerged from the deep green shadows of the trees along the stream bank, heading towards the house. 'But summer is a busy time on the farm. I have plans to build a water mill—'

'Aratus can run the farm, Papa. Isn't that what he's for? Oh, I know you dislike him, but nothing you've told me has given you any true cause to distrust him. Bring Bethesda and the children to the city. Stay with me.'

'In the house on the Esquiline? Hardly big enough for all of us.' 'There's plenty of room.'

'Not for Bethesda and Menenia to run separate households.'! 'Papa—'

'No. It's election time, as you just reminded me, and I have no stomach to be in Rome while the candidates and their retinues swarm through the markets, and every ignorant fishmonger spouts his opinion on the state of the Republic. No, thank you. Besides, the month of Quinctilis is far too hot in the city. When you're my age you'll understand — your bones learn to hate the cold and your heart can't tolerate the heat.'

'Papa—'

I raised my hand and put on a stem face to silence him, then let my countenance soften and put my hand on his knee. 'You're a good son, Eco, to have come all this way out of concern for me. And you are a dutiful son, to offer me lodging in the house I gave you. But I will not go to Rome. Not to worry — it seems inevitable that Rome will come to me.'

We made our way down the hillside to rouse Belbo and take the horses to the stable. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me. I told myself it was the wine, which makes a lighter load in the belly than in a skin, but in truth the feeling of lightness and relief came from having unburdened myself to the one person who could understand what I felt. Perhaps I should have taken Eco's advice; who can say what other path the Fates might have woven had I chosen to spend that summer and autumn in Rome instead of Etruria? But I am not a man prone to mulling over what might or might not have been, especially in what turned out to have been a small choice amid the far greater choices and the graver puzzles that were yet to come.

Eco's arrival was greeted with great happiness in the household; I had not realized how severe had been the tension that followed in Nemo's wake until Eco came to relieve it. Diana sat happily on his lap, and he obliged her by bouncing her up and down. (With a twinge of mixed feelings I realized that at twenty-seven he was quite old enough to have a daughter Diana's age himself, and now, with Menenia, might announce the advent of my first grandchild at any time. Meto exhibited the mixture of curiosity, deference, and envy of a youth in the presence of a brother more than ten years his senior, especially when one is still a boy and the other is most definitely a man; despite the difference in their ages and their origins they had always got along very well. Bethesda complimented Eco's stylish haircut and beard and doted on him shamelessly.