Стивен Сейлор - The Throne of Caesar

“What did you do to Cinna? What did you do to the parts of Cinna after you tore him to pieces?” I knew, but I had to hear it.

“We ate him.”

I covered my mouth in horror.

“We devoured his raw flesh. Crushed him with our teeth and swallowed him.” She turned toward me. On her face I saw not horror but a kind of ecstasy. “It was the most perfect and most complete rite of Bacchus I have ever experienced, and I doubt that I will ever experience such a thing again—a rite worthy of our most ancient ancestors, of those mo rtals never to be forgotten who populate the ancient legends and myths. There was no limit to our power in that moment. It was blissful. Exquisite. Indescribably beautiful. It was beyond anything you can ever hope to experience, beyond anything you can imagine.”

I shivered. “What about the bones? You can’t have eaten those.”

“Only the marrow.”

The gorge rose in my throat.

“As for the rest of his bones,” she said, “by that time there were already bonfires around the Forum, started by men telling the mob to light torches, hoping to burn down the houses of Brutus and the rest. When we were done, we threw the bones and other bits and pieces on the fires. They were burned to ashes and no one took notice.”

“And the head?”

“The head was carried off as a trophy by a man I hired to do so, intentionally to distract the funeralgoers and lead them away so that we could carry on our business uninterrupted and unobserved. The man saw to it that the head was eventually tossed into the Tiber. Food for fishes—the traditional end for a beheaded criminal. They say that a man who’s lost his head in this world remains without it in Hades as well, body and head severed for all time. A fit punishment for Cinna.”

“But how could you have taken such a risk? Cinna had a bodyguard that day, as did I. What if Davus and the bodyguard hadn’t been lost in the crowd? What if they had fought back?”

She smiled. “It was Cinna’s bodyguard who carried off his head. The man was in my pay, one of my spies in Cinna’s household. First he abandoned his master at my signal and saw to it that your son-in-law was separated from you and lost in the crowd. It was he who struck you in the head just before Cinna was taken. I told the man not to kill you, only to daze you. He did well.”

“The slave should be crucified for betraying his master!” I said.

“The man is far from Rome by now, with a new name and a bag full of gold.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. At last I broke the silence .

“Cinna made the Zmyrna come true, using his own daughter. But you made his Orpheus and Pentheus come true. You tore a living man apart, you and your Maenads. And then you burned the only copy of that poem on his funeral pyre!”

“Poetic justice, Finder. We couldn’t destroy all traces of his vile Zmyrna. There are too many copies, in too many hands. But we could see to it that Cinna’s final dose of poison was never inflicted on the world.”

“Poison? Caesar called it the crowning achievement of Latin literature.”

She spat on the floor. “The judgment of men! Men who write poems about rape and incest to titillate other men who declare such pornographic rubbish to be masterpieces. I heard enough of the Orpheus and Pentheus to know that it was another foul piece of garbage. Instead of a scheming nurse and a lust-mad daughter, the women were all mad, murdering monsters.”

“But you became those monsters yourselves!”

She shook her head. “That which is truly monstrous runs counter to divine will. Everything we did was pleasing to Father Liber. And now that you know the truth, Finder, let me caution you never to speak of it. I should hate for Cinna’s terrible fate to befall a man of your qualities. For the sake of your lovely wife and daughter, say nothing.”

We were both silent. I searched for the courage to ask a final question.

“Bethesda … and Diana…?”

Fulvia’s smile was not unkind. “That’s the question you really came here to ask, isn’t it? You’d figured out the rest already, or most of it, but you don’t yet know if Bethesda and Diana took part. They both took part in the Liberalia, after all.” She paused, seeming to enjoy the way I fidgeted as I waited for her to answer. She drew a deep breath through her nostrils and narrowed her eyes.

“For better or worse, Senator Gordianus, your wife and daughter played no part in Cinna’s punishment. Nor did they have any knowledge of our plans. I excluded them intentionally, for fear they might give something away to you. Also, it’s my understanding that once already, some years ago, they secretly brought justice to a man not unlike Cinna. No woman should be called on to do such a thing more than once.”

I had been holding my breath, braced to receive a different answer. My gasp was mingled with a sob of relief.

“Now that you have the answer to that question, are we done?” said Fulvia.

I shook my head. “Not quite. There’s another reason I came here. There’s something I have to tell you.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Sappho is dead.”

The sardonic smile vanished. “How do you know this?”

“I came here from the house of Cinna. Polyxo found her this morning, hanging by a rope. I’m very sorry, Fulvia.”

At first she looked more shocked than grief-stricken. Then her wide eyes abruptly brimmed with tears. She said not another word but turned and left the room.

A little while later, Antony appeared, dressed now in his consul’s toga. From his tone of voice, it was evident he had not seen his wife and her distress. “Are you still here, Finder? Senator, I mean to say.”

“I was just leaving.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

The house was noisier than before. As we drew near the vestibule, I heard many voices.

“Another day, another meeting.” Antony sighed. “What an awful lot of talk there’s been, since Caesar died.”

“Better talk than the alternative.”

“Perhaps. There’ll be plenty of time for bloodshed later. I’ll say farewell to you here, before we reach the vestibule. I’m not quite ready to face all that jabbering. By the way, do you know what’s become of my wife?”

“She left me rather abruptly. I don’t know where she went. Perhaps … to the house of Cinna.”

“Ah, to comfort Sappho? That poor girl. We’re her guardians now, you know. I call her poor, but Cinna left her an enormous fortune, which it is now my duty to administer. Well, I shall leave the financial dealings to Fulvia. She’s quite good at that sort of thing.”

“She’s a most unusual woman, your wife.”

Antony smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

LII

“The consul’s wife—a cannibal? And all those respectable matrons at the funeral, as well? Perhaps I’ve not become as Roman as I thought,” said my Egyptian wife, tilting an eyebrow.

We sat in the garden at midday, picking at a meal for which none of us except Davus had much appetite. In spite of Fulvia’s warning to say nothing—which I took quite seriously, especially since her husband might eventually take Caesar’s place—I knew it would be useless to try to keep the truth from my wife and daughter. I told Bethesda and Diana everything.

Their surprise—which seemed entirely genuine—reassured me that Fulvia had been truthful when she told me they had no involvement in the plot. My relief was somewhat lessened by what Diana said next.

“I wonder why Fulvia didn’t ask us to take part, Mother? I thought Fulvia liked us.”

Would you have done so? I started to say, but thought better of it. I might not like the answer. “Fulvia was afraid one of you might give away the plot to me. I might have alerted Cinna, you see. Or done something else to wreck their scheme. ”