Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

The path was littered with small rock slides and broken branches, but these were minor impediments. A greater handicap for me was the aching in my legs. After climbing the mountain, my knees had turned to rusty hinges and my shins to splintered wood. When I was a boy, my father told me that it was a joke of the gods that going downhill was more painful than going uphill. I had not understood him then. Now, looking at the younger men around me who had ridden from Rome, had had a desultory sleep in a dank mine, and were now tramping down the path with smiles on their faces, I understood him only too well. Each step sent a little thunderbolt quivering through my knees.

I dreaded the crossing of the swollen stream. As I had feared, it was more turbulent than before, or at least looked that way in the light of dawn, which picked out every scudding eddy and treacherous hole. But the task was made easy by our numbers. By linking arms, clasping hands to wrists, we formed a chain stronger than the rushing waters. The young men of Catilina's company seemed exhilarated by the plunge into icy water up to their thighs. I bore it as best I could and laughed along with them, if only to still the chattering of my teeth.

At the place where the path diverged, leading one way to Gnaeus's

house and the other way down the disused, steep descent to the Cassian Way, I pulled Catilina aside. 'Which path do we follow here?' I said.

He raised an eyebrow. 'We go down the way we came, of course.' His men waited for him at the head of the narrow trail. He waved for them to proceed without him. 'Otherwise we should end up stealing on tiptoe by the house of that awful neighbour of yours, with all those howling dogs. Surely you remember—'

'I do. But there are other things I remember as well.'

'Gordianus, what are you talking about?'

'You must never come to my house again. Your enemies will watch for you there—' 'I understand.'

'My family — I must think of their safety.'

'Of course. And I must think of keeping my head on my shoulders!'

'Catilina, no jokes, no riddles!'

He mirrored the distress on my face. 'Gordianus—'

'Lucius, are you coming?' Tongilius waited at the trailhead, with Meto beside him.

'Go on without me,' said Catilina over his shoulder, in a jovial voice. 'The old men must rest their legs for a moment.'

Tongilius pursed his lips thoughtfully, then nodded and ducked out of sight. Meto followed, but not before looking me in the eye and hesitating, long enough to be invited to join us. At last he followed Tongilius, scowling. Why did he have to take everything I did as a personal affront?

'Now, Gordianus, what is this all about?'

'Ever since Marcus Caelius first approached me about playing host to you, strange things have been transpiring on my farm. The first was a headless body discovered in the stable.' I paused and studied his face. He only stared back at me blankly. "Then came the body in the well—'

'Yes, you told me about that. The poor goatherd who showed us this path. What did you call him?' 'No, what did you caH him, Catilina?' 'What do you mean?'

'What did you call poor Forfex? Was he your spy, your confederate, your dupe? Why did he die? Why was his head cut off before he was dropped down my well?'

Catilina looked at me gravely. 'You do me an injustice to ask me such questions, Gordianus. I have no idea what you're talking about'

I took a breath. ‘You have no secret relationship with Gnaeus Claudius?'

'Your disagreeable neighbour? I saw the man only once, and that was with you! Afterwards I told Crassus about the mine. I advised him to make an offer on this property, but I told you, he wasn't interested in dealing with the Claudii. So I never came back.'

'But you're here now, hiding on Gnaeus's property.'

'Without his knowledge. Though not for much longer if we linger here; one of his goatherds will come along and raise an alarm. When I first saw the mine, I knew it would make an ideal hiding place, especially if Crassus bought the property. Of course, that was postulated on Crassus's remaining loyal to me’ His eyes flashed with bitterness. 'Still, the place turned out to be useful, didn't it? As for these strange happenings on your farm, what have they to do with me?'

'They occurred at key moments, when I resisted Caelius's pressure to put you up.'

'Pressure? Are you saying that you never wanted to have me?'

I shook my head, not wanting to speak. How could I say that the idea had come from Cicero?

'Gordianus, I never told Caelius to strong-arm you into having me. Caelius told me you were happy to do so.'

'But your riddle in the Senate, about the headless masses and the Senate with its withered body. The coincidence of the headless bodies on my farm…'

'Gordianus, are you telling me that all this time, you've hosted me only because Caelius forced you to? Well, there you have your villain. Someone told Cicero's henchmen to go looking for me on your farm last night: Caelius, obviously. He must have been loyal to Cicero all along. By Jupiter, when I think of the confidences I divulged to him…' He threw back his head with a pained expression. 'Gordianus, have you then no affection for my cause at all? Were you merely doing Caelius's bidding when you let me into your house?'

Now it was my turn to mirror his look of consternation. I might have said yes and not told a He, but the truth no longer seemed as simple as that.

'Never mind,' he said. 'The important thing is that you didn't betray me last night, when you had the chance. Unless—' He looked at the trailhead, and his face turned grey. 'Unless Tongilius and the others are descending into an ambush!'

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword. I felt a quiver of panic. He turned to me with murder in his eyes, and for the first time I saw the true depth of his despair. Lucius Sergius Catilina was a patrician, born into privilege and respectability. Trust was his birthright and highest value — trust in the gods, trust in the immutability of his station, trust in the high regard of his fellow citizens; trust, also, in the invincibility of his own innate charm. Now these layers of trust had been stripped away from him one by one; gods and men alike had betrayed him.

I laid my hand on his. I had to grit my teeth with the effort to keep his sword in its scabbard. 'No, Catilina, your men are safe. I haven't betrayed you! Think — Meto is with them. I wouldn't send my own son into a trap.'

He slowly relaxed. His lips registered a cracked smile. 'Do you see what's become of me?' He gazed towards the empty trailhead, as if he could still see the young men who had descended ahead of us. 'But they still look to me for strength, as they always have. Come, hurry!'

As I had feared, the way down was more treacherous than the way up. The trail was littered with the debris of twigs and branches, and the rain had turned the rigid earth into a treacherous soup of mud and stones. We descended as much by sliding as by stepping. We tumbled against each other and clutched at each other's arms, using the solidity of our bodies to gain a mutual balance against the unsteady elements. I banged my elbows and scraped my knees; I slipped and fell on my rump so many times it almost stopped hurting. The near-impossibility of the descent eventually took on an air of absurdity. From below us we heard the high-spirited whooping of Catilina's men, a warning of more slipping and sliding ahead. I braced myself for the final stretch, too out of breath to laugh.

At last we came to the stony clearing where the horses waited. The beasts looked ragged and miserable after their long night in the rain, but they nickered and shook themselves at the sight of Catilina's men, as eager to set out as their riders. Everyone was covered with mud, myself most of all.