Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'I'll be sixteen this month,' said Meto, wanting to remind us he was almost a man.

'There, you see,' said Catilina. 'Really, you're too protective, Gordianus. Well, them first, the Vestal is stripped of her diadem and her linen mantle. Then she is whipped by the Pontifex Maximus, to whom, as head of the state religion, all the Vestals are directly accountable. After being whipped, the condemned Vestal is dressed like a corpse, laid in a closed litter, and carried through the Forum attended by her weeping kinfolk in a hideous parody of her own funeral. She-is carried to a place just inside the Colline Gate, where a small vault is prepared underground, containing a couch, a lamp, and a table with a little food. An executioner guides her down the ladder into the cell, but he does not harm her, as her person is still sacred to the goddess Vesta and she cannot be killed outright. The ladder is drawn up, the vault sealed, the ground levelled. No man bears direct responsibility for taking her life, you see; the goddess Vesta claims her.'

‘You mean she's buried alive?' said Meto.

'Exactly! In theory, if the court has been mistaken and the Vestal is innocent, the goddess Vesta will refuse to take her life, and she'll remain alive in her tomb indefinitely. But since the vault is sealed, the opportunity to redeem herself is merely a technicality. And surely Vesta would eventually take pity on the girl and snuff out her life whether she was innocent or not, rather than let her live through eternity in a cold vault, alone and miserable.' Meto contemplated this idea with awed repulsion. 'Fortunately,' said Catilina, 'that is not what happened to the lovely Fabia. She is very much alive and still a Vestal, though I haven't spoken to her in years. We can thank your father for her salvation. Really, Gordianus, you never told this tale to your son? It's not bragging to simply tell the truth. But if Gordianus is too modest, I will tell it for him.

'Where was I? Ah, yes, in the House of the Vestals, in the middle of the night, alone with Fabia and a fresh corpse. The Virgo Maxima, who found us, was already implicated in a scandal herself and desperate to avoid another. She sent for help to Fabia's brother-in-law, a rising young advocate famed for his cleverness — Marcus Tullius Cicero. Yes, the consul himself, though who then could have foreseen his destiny? Cicero in turn sent for Gordianus. And it was Gordianus who discovered the murderer still lurking in the House of the Vestals when no one else could find him. It turned out that the assassin had miscalculated his opportunity to escape and was trapped in the courtyard when the gates were shut He was hiding — can you believe it? — in the pool among the lily pads, breathing through a hollow reed. It was your father who noticed that the reed had moved from one place to another. Gordianus strode into the pool and pulled the man sputtering from the water. The assassin swung a knife. I leaped upon him. A moment later the man was impaled on his own blade. But before he died he confessed all — namely that my enemy Clodius had put him up to everything: sending the false note, luring me to the House of the Vestals, following me inside, and killing his confederate, so that I would be found not only in a dubious position but with blood on my hands in a sacred place.'

'But there was a trial?' said Meto.

'Of sorts. The assassin was dead, so nothing could be proved against Clodius. Even so, with the biggest prude in Rome to defend her honour — I mean young Marcus Cato, of course — Fabia was found innocent, and so was I. Clodius was so disgraced he fled to Baiae to wait for the scandal to blow over. He didn't have long to wait That was the year the gladiator Spartacus began the great slave uprising, and the little matter of the Vestals was quickly forgotten in the wake of more momentous events.

'Alas, Meto, I fear I've disappointed you. The scandal was no scandal. at all, you see, only a contrivance designed by my enemies to have me dishonoured at best and at worst put to death. I cannot claim to be the man who deflowered a Vestal and lived to tell about it, for I never did such a thing. I merely prevailed over a trumped-up charge, thanks to the help of clever lawyers and an even cleverer man who called himself the Finder. Ironic, is it not, Gordianus, that it was Cicero who called on you to unravel the mystery? Of course it was his wife's half-sister Fabia whom he wished to save from ruin, not me. Even so, in those days Cicero and I were not yet enemies.'

There followed a long silence. Tongilius was beginning to nod. So was Meto, despite his enthusiasm for the tale.

'Younger men require more sleep than their elders,' said Catilina.

'Yes, off to bed with you, Meto.'

He made no complaint, but rose and nodded respectfully to our guests before leaving. Tongilius followed him shortly thereafter, retiring to the room he was to share with Catilina.

The two of us sat in silence for a long moment. The night was warm and still. The lamps were beginning to sputter and sink. The sky above us was moonless and pierced by bright stars.

'Well, Gordianus, did I do justice to the tale and to your part in it?'

I paused for a long moment before I spoke. I stared up at the stars, not at Catilina. 'I would say that you put the facts plainly enough.' 'You sound dissatisfied.'

'I suppose I still have my doubts about the matter.' 'Doubts? Please, Gordianus, be frank.'

'It always seemed odd to me that a man should spend so much time and effort courting a young woman sworn to chastity, unless he had some ulterior motive.'

'Misunderstood again — it is a curse that the gods have put upon me, that the face the world sees is seldom my true face, but often the very opposite. When my motives are purest, other men doubt me, and yet when my intentions slip from the path of virtue I find that other men flock to me with praise.'

'And then, how did Clodius know that you would respond to that forged note from Fabia, unless he had evidence that the two of you were more than friends?'

'Another irony — quite often one's enemies are the best and truest judges of one's character. Clodius knew my sentimental heart and adventurous spirit. He devised the most forbidden lure he could imagine and then tempted me with it. Had I truly been Fabia's lover I would have sensed that the note was false.'

'And again, I recall that in Cato's speech in Fabia's defence, he dwelt heavily upon the fact that when the Virgo Maxima rushed into the Vestal's room, the two of you were discovered completely dressed—'

'And don't forget that the assassin said likewise before he expired. Before killing his companion so as to leave a corpse, he had instructions from Clodius to wait until Fabia and myself were undressed so that we would be found that way. But as he himself declared, "they would not take off their clothes!" He said it more than once, do you remember?'

'I do, and it caused me to wonder, for why did Clodius think you would take oft your clothes in the first place, and in the second, it occurred to me that for a man and a woman to have intercourse, they need not take off’ their clothes, but merely rearrange them.' I looked from the stars to Catilina, but the lamps had burned so low that his eyes were in shadow and I could not read his face. His lips seemed to curve into a smile, but perhaps I only imagined it.

'Really, Gordianus, you are as devious as any advocate. I'm glad it was that idiot Clodius who spoke against me at the trial, and not you, or else my defence would have been utterly demolished.' He sighed. 'Anyway, all of that is ancient history now, as dead as Spartacus, just a slightly lurid tale to quicken the pulse of a young man like your son.'