Стивен Сейлор: The Throne of Caesar

“What is it you want from me?” I said quietly.

“Only this, Gordianus: that you put your ear to the ground, and share with me, through Tiro, any rumblings you might hear. You’re so good at that sort of thing—making sense of rumors, knowing whom and what to ask, seeing what others fail to see. Think of the occasions when you and I worked together over the years—remember our first collaboration, when we tweaked the nose of the dictator Sulla! If those memories mean anything to you, all I ask is that you share with me any information you come across regarding any plot to do away with the Dictator. What I do with that information will be my own business, leaving you blameless … if I should take a misstep. Once Caesar leaves Rome, the situation will change completely, and I’ll ask no more of you after that.”

“We’re talking about a matter of days, Gordianus,” said Tiro.

“Why you think I might know anything of importance…” I shook my head.

“You have a way of acquiring other people’s secrets without even trying,” said Cicero, “rather like the iron of Magnesia that attracts other bits of metal to itself.”

“Exactly so!” agreed Tiro, who reached for a stylus and tablet to jot down the comparison. Would it be filed with other items about me, for inclusion in the memoirs Cicero planned to write someday?

I looked at Davus, seeking silent solace in his bovine features, but he seemed to think my glance required a comment. He cleared his throat. “They’re right, you know. Some days, whether you like it or not, you’re covered all over, from head to feet, with other people’s secrets.”

I tried to picture such an image, and failed—what, after all, do secrets look like?—but I knew exactly what the three of them meant. Sometimes I sought out secrets, but at other times, very often, they came to me unbidden.

“Such was the blessing the gods gave me,” I said quietly. “Sometimes, the curse.”

V

I took my leave of Cicero with no agreement to see him again, much less report to him. Probably he thought otherwise, having endless faith in his powers of persuasion. It was hard for Cicero to hear the word “no.”

As Davus and I strolled toward my house, a thought struck me: Might Cicero himself be part of some plot against Caesar? If that were the case, his questioning of me might have been aimed at discovering what Caesar himself knew or suspected, information I might have learned from Meto. That Cicero could be so conniving I had no doubt, but that he was part of a plot to kill Caesar I could not credit. To murder in cold blood was not Cicero’s way. This was not to say he was squeamish. When he was consul, he had put Catilina’s supporters to death without blinking an eye, and even boasted of it—behavior that led to his temporary exile. But those had been executions carried out by the state. Legality made all the difference to Cicero, who lived and breathed Roman law. If Caesar could be put on trial and condemned to exile or death by legal means, then Cicero might enthusiastically take part. Any number of Caesar’s actions since crossing the Rubicon might be construed as capital offenses against the state. But to kill the man without legal sanction—no, I couldn’t see Cicero taking part in any clandestine scheme .

That meant he was genuinely in the dark about such activity, if in fact it was happening. He didn’t like feeling uncertain and excluded, and to inform himself he had called on me. Cicero wasn’t merely curious, he was alarmed. His political instincts had become unreliable in recent years, but they still counted for something. If Cicero was alarmed, should I be also? And should I convey the details of our encounter to Meto, who might then convey them to Caesar?

Davus and I rounded a corner, and my house came into view. An expensive-looking litter with expensive-looking bearers was stationed in front of my door. Expensive but not ostentatious. The wooden poles were beautifully carved with a leafy pattern, but not painted or gilded, and while the curtains appeared to be of silk, they were a somber grayish-green color, without tassels or other gewgaws. They were also drawn back, so that I could see that the compartment, strewn with silk cushions of the same somber color, was empty. The visitor must be inside my house.

I had already received one unexpected caller that morning. I was not looking forward to another. “An old man deserves a bit of peace and quiet,” I muttered to myself. Davus overheard and nodded in agreement.

The bearers were dressed in identical loose-fitting tunics of a color similar to the curtains, but made of linen, not silk. The one in charge glanced at me as I approached my front door, appraised my status, then lowered his eyes. They were all big fellows, bigger even than Davus, and looked quite capable of acting as bodyguards as well as bearers. The fact that their leader took careful notice of an approaching citizen and then averted his gaze meant that they were exceptionally well trained. How many surly, ill-tempered bodyguards owned by other men had I endured over the years, even though I was a citizen and they were slaves?

I knocked at the door. The slave whose job it was to peek at visitors through a narrow opening did so, then hurriedly allowed me in. Diana appeared in the atrium, looking radiant under the slanting column of sunshine from the skylight above.

“Papa! You’ll never guess who’s here!”

“I had no idea until this moment, but from the look on your face I think it must be Meto. ”

“Right you are, Papa.” Meto stepped into the sunshine beside his sister. Though they shared no kinship by blood, to my eyes they looked much alike, and equally beautiful. Meto, not quite thirty-five, still had a boyish smile. He was dressed not in military garb but in a toga. While I gave him a warm embrace, I saw from the corner of my eye that Diana was greeting Davus with a kiss that was anything but perfunctory.

“How curious that you should pay us a visit,” I said to Meto. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Good thoughts, I hope.”

“Better thoughts than most I’ve had this morning.”

“Diana says Tiro called on you and dragged you off to Cicero’s house.”

“Yes.”

“What can that broken stylus want from you?”

“Oh, you might be surprised.”

“Or not,” said Diana, speaking from Davus’s encircling arms. “Oh, Papa, the look on your face! Don’t worry, I kept my mouth shut. I know it’s your business, not mine, to inform Meto about your dealings. I told him where you’d gone and said no more. You men are so touchy about such things.”

“So true, daughter,” said another voice, a bit deeper than Diana’s but of the same timbre. “A woman must never spoil a bit of gossip before a man can deliver it himself.”

“Good morning, wife,” I said, stepping to Bethesda and giving her a kiss more modest than that exchanged by Davus and my daughter. “I let you sleep late. You look all the lovelier for it.”

She squared her shoulders, ran her fingers through her silver and black tresses, and made a quiet snort. “You thought I was asleep when you came home last night and when you rose this morning, but I wasn’t. You came home inebriated and you woke with a terrible headache. I heard you groaning.”

“Bethesda, must you reprimand me in front of my children?”

“If I don’t do it, who will?”

I sighed. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, wife, telling the cook what to fix for our midday meal? We’ll need an extra portion for Meto. Perhaps a double portion,” I said, looking at him. It seemed to me that he was at the very peak of manhood, bursting with vitality—an ideal warrior to head off to Parthia with Caesar. The thought filled me with both pride and dread.