Стивен Сейлор - The Throne of Caesar

“Father-in-law!”

Even amid so much horror I felt a flood of relief—as did my son-in-law, to judge from the tears that flowed down his cheeks as he ran toward me.

“Father-in-law, thank the gods I’ve found you! But are you wounded? All this blood—”

“No, not wounded,” I said, feeling myself to make sure. “Thank the gods you’re here, Davus. Cinna’s bodyguard—is he with you?”

“No. Lost in the crowd. But where is Cinna? What’s become of him?”

I looked around at the pools of blood. Helped by Davus, I staggered to my feet. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know!”

DAY TWELVE: MARCH 21

XLV

“This bump on your head is the size of a lemon!” declared Bethesda, dabbing it none too gently with a wet cloth. I winced. “And this other bump is twice that big.”

After a restless night filled with terrible dreams, I sat in the garden and submitted to my wife’s doctoring. The morning air was still and the sunlight quite warm. It would have been a beautiful day were it not for the pall hanging over us.

“You exaggerate, wife. They’re no larger than a small olive, or an almond, perhaps. I’ve had worse bumps on my head.”

“Struck in the head by gods know what, not once but twice! You are very lucky to be alive,” she said.

“And not a gibbering idiot,” my daughter added. “That can happen sometimes, from a blow to the head.”

“I would say that you two are the lucky ones,” I said. “Imagine having to bury me, with the city in such a foul temper. Or having to feed me porridge like a baby and wipe the drool from my chin.”

Sitting nearby, Davus laughed. This drew sharp looks from both women.

“It’s not funny,” Diana said gravely. “You might both be dead, or horribly maimed. Where would Mother and I be then? Two defenseless women in a city gone mad?”

Something told me that my resourceful wife and daughter would manage without us, somehow. But Davus’s smile faded and he hung his head. “I should never have lost sight of you. I still don’t know how it happened. You were there behind me one moment, then something seemed to come at me from the side, and I almost fell, and the mob spun me around, and by the time I righted myself, the three of you were gone and I was alone. I should never have let that happen…”

“The amazing thing is that you managed to find me again,” I said. “You have the perseverance of a hunting dog.” And are almost as smart, I refrained from adding. “Diana, your husband pulled me to my feet and then practically carried me all the way home. He deserves only praise. I take all the blame for putting us both in danger. I should have known better. I did know better. I went only because…” Because Cinna asked me to. I shuddered. “I suppose…”

“Yes, husband?”

“I suppose I should go to his house today.”

“To whose house?”

“The house of Cinna.”

“I suppose you’ll go nowhere at all!” she protested. “Who’s to say the streets are any safer today than yesterday? Mobs wearing hoods and carrying daggers, and all those men with torches, set on arson. No, no, no! You’ll stay in.”

I shook my head. “As soon as you’ve finished washing my wounds, and I’ve had a bite to eat, I shall put on my toga. Cinna’s toga, I should say. Senator Gordianus must pay a call on the grieving household of his dead friend.”

“You can wait for his funeral.”

“I think not. Cinna had no close relations, no siblings or even close cousins. So he told me. But he had a daughter. I met her. A visit from me is the least she deserves. I was with her father in his final moments. I was there when he died. I saw—I saw…”

What exactly had I seen? A swarm of hooded pygmies bring down a giant of poetry and carry off his head for a trophy? Had they carried off the rest as well, leaving no vestige of his corpse behind?

So jumbled and confused were my memories, I might have convinced myself that I had imagined it all, except that Davus, when I questioned him on the way home, revealed that he, too, had seen the head paraded on a spear, though he hadn’t seen its face. He also heard the ditty chanted by the mob, though the words had seemed mere nonsense to him. What I had witnessed in dim flashes, reeling from the blows to my head, had actually taken place. Cinna had been beheaded and torn limb from limb. It happened so quickly.…

Bethesda shook her head. “Do you think it will comfort the poor girl to know that her father was beheaded? Perhaps she doesn’t even know that he’s dead. Perhaps she thinks he’s only gone missing.”

“All the more reason I must call on her. If she doesn’t know what happened, she’ll be sick with worry. And she shouldn’t learn the details from some gossiping slave. Though I dread seeing the shock on her face if I’m the first to tell her…”

“Papa’s right,” Diana said quietly. “Cinna was his friend. He should do what he can to comfort Cinna’s daughter. Perhaps we should go as well.”

“Have you met the girl?” I asked. “At some gathering at Fulvia’s, perhaps?”

“No,” said Diana. Then she cocked her head. “Actually, we did see her once, didn’t we, Mother? She was leaving Fulvia’s house just as we were arriving. Fulvia seemed to know her quite well. But when the girl saw us, she became very quiet, and left very quickly, before Fulvia could introduce us. Such a shy thing, I thought. I asked Fulvia if the girl was a relative, and she said no. She told me the girl’s name, which I remember only because it was so quaint. Imagine being called Sappho—and having Rome’s most famous poet for a father!”

I shook my head. “If you’ve never met the girl, then I think you should stay at home. First, let me determine the situation at Cinna’s house.”

* * *

There was a black wreath on the door. I felt a flood of relief when I saw it. The wreath meant that his death was known already .

I felt an overwhelming sense of absurdity. First I had seen Caesar die, then Cinna. One death was comprehensible, the other incomprehensible. The murder of Caesar had resulted from a cold-blooded decision made by men for motives all too understandable—jealousy of his success, anger at his rule, fear of his wrath, desire for self-advancement, perhaps even ambition to take his place. The murder of Caesar did nothing to make me think the universe was meaningless. Quite the opposite: The death of Caesar was replete with meaning. But the killing of Cinna, a man of unique and surpassing talent— by mistake, for no reason whatsoever—was profoundly dispiriting. The death of Cinna epitomized a capricious, meaningless cosmos.…

Davus cleared his throat. “Father-in-law?”

How long had I been standing on the doorstep, staring at the black wreath? I knocked, then announced myself to an eye that peered from the peephole. My temples began to throb, and I reached up to touch the bandages Bethesda had wrapped around my head.

An unseen slave opened the door.

I was not entirely surprised to see Fulvia standing in the vestibule to greet me, suitably dressed in black. She and Antony had been friends of Cinna. With no mother to oversee the grieving of the household, Fulvia had taken responsibility. How busy she was, first with Caesar’s funeral, and now with Cinna’s.

“Gordianus,” Fulvia said, taking my hand. “It’s good of you to come.”

“I thought, perhaps, I should say something … to Sappho. Is that smell—do I smell myrrh?” I suddenly had a powerful sense memory of the myrrh I had smelled the previous day, only moments before Cinna was killed. The smell of it now made me feel nauseated. I broke out in a cold sweat.