J. Clements: Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“I was.”

“In what capacity?”

“So it please the court, I was hired as companion.”

“Let us not be coy. You mean in the amatory manner?”

“I do. My favors are highly regarded. Were highly regarded.”

Batiatus raised his eyebrows in agreement.

“By the people of Neapolis?” Cicero asked.

“By Pelorus himself. He said that I was the best fuck in Campania, and that I was to ensure that his honored guest, Gaius Verres, was to depart Neapolis thinking the same.”

“And, if I may ask, lady Successa, how did Pelorus come to know that you were the ‘best fuck in Campania’?”

“He was a regular visitor.”

“At the, what was it now, the House of the Winged Cock?”

“Yes.”

“He was intimate with you?”

“Upon multiple occasions.”

“And with other ladies of that establishment?”

“With all of them.”

“And with the men of your house?”

“Never.”

“For what reason?”

“Pelorus had no interest in cock.”

“I must protest!” Verres exclaimed. “Cicero employs hearsay against hearsay. Taking the word of a whore against that of a Roman citizen!”

“In my defence,” Cicero suggested, “the lady Successa is present and able to testify. She is neither conveniently dead, nor miraculously able to convey her wishes with a slit throat.”

“She has already attested that she sells her cunt for a few denarii!” Verres said. “How much cheaper is her mouth?”

“I cannot claim knowledge of pricing policies of Neapolitan brothels,” Cicero said dryly.

“My meaning,” Verres said through gritted teeth, “is that this woman’s testimony must surely be available for a price. It is not, after all, very likely that she will be amassing much more coin on her back!”

Cicero waited politely while Verres’s words resounded around the chamber.

“Really, Verres?” he said after a time. “For what reason is that?”

Verres swallowed nervously and turned to the magistrate with calm composure.

“Time comes that this farce must reach conclusion,” he said.

“I have interest in hearing Cicero’s closing arguments, nonetheless,” the magistrate said.

“As it pleases you,” Cicero said. “I would ask the lady Successa to remove her veil.”

“I have removed far more than that in the past,” Successa said, a smile clearly audible in her voice.

She reached up to withdraw a hook from an eye in her headdress, allowing the veil to fall away with exquisite slowness. It was the practiced tease of a woman who knew how to reveal her body-but now revealed a horror rather than a delight.

“Tell me, lady Successa,” Cicero said, “what it is you owe to Gaius Verres.”

“He promised me a stipend,” she replied. “I do not know how to-”

“Let me try to parse it for you,” Cicero suggested. “Gaius Verres, the kind-hearted governor-designate of Sicilia; Gaius Verres, the apparent long-term friend and hospes of the deceased Marcus Pelorus, is well known as an honorable man. And, following events of the night of this last ides past, Gaius Verres, that noble Roman, took pity on the lady Successa, so badly wounded in the fray at the House of Pelorus, and made promise to her that he would provide a stipend of five hundred denarii for years remaining. This agreement so notarized in the records of the Neapolis magistracy, and impossible to deny. And what must you do to earn this impressive honorarium, lady Successa?”

“Nothing, Cicero,” she replied.

“Nothing!” Cicero laughed. “And so it please the magistrate, ‘nothing’ is precisely what it says upon their contract. But I am lover of words and puns and poetries, and I must say that the meaning is ambiguous. It might be taken to mean that you need do ‘ no thing ’ in order to receive the charity of the good-natured Verres. Or, it might mean that your silence has been purchased, and that the coin is yours so long as you say and do ‘ no thing ’ regarding the aforesaid Gaius Verres.”

“Sophistry!” Verres shouted. “You will be claiming next that black is white.”

“Gaius Verres has been most kind to me,” Successa protested. “I had no complaint against him.”

“I am sure you did not,” Cicero said. “Not until this last night past, when sicarii ambushed you in your home and sought to send you to the afterlife.”

“And I am responsible for this, too?” Verres cried raising his arms in supplication to the ceiling above and the gods beyond. “Why not lay blame at my door for earthquakes and storms?”

Cicero ignored him, and continued in his questioning.

“Lady Successa, with bonds of silence dissolved, speak of events passed on the ides of September. How did you find yourself so injured?”

“Precious time wasted on worthless words,” Verres said.

“If it pleases the magistrate,” Cicero said. “The slave Medea was wild beast, in locked cell, from which she was somehow set free to bring destruction upon House Pelorus. The slave Medea, as her later actions in the arena have demonstrated with ample clarity to all, is a living weapon, capable of infecting great harm upon her victims. Whoever unleashed her on that night is as culpable in the death of Pelorus as falconer who looses bird, or hunter who frees hounds. Lady Successa, I implore you, who set Medea free that night?”

“It was Gaius Verres,” she said.

“Open eyes and see stipend’s end,” Verres spat.

“A thing never seen recieved,” she snarled at him, suddenly roused. “Nor would it buy me much in the afterlife!”

“Enough!” Helva declared, banging his hands on the arms of his chair. “Enough!”

“Magistrate, I implore you-” Verres began.

“Magistrate, I am yet unfinished-” Cicero began.

“Silence, I beg you!” Helva said. “This matter full of thorns, and attended by many deliberations, twists and turns. However, representatives for both sides have identified a means through whispered threats and honeyed promises. In the matter of Batiatus versus Verres, I find reasonable doubt in the assignation of rights familiae emptor to the aforesaid Verres. Perhaps Verres misheard his friend’s last words; perhaps he misinterpreted them.”

Batiatus made to stand in protest, but Cicero stayed his arm, a finger raised in a weak parody of the gladiator’s gesture of surrender. Batiatus saw the signal and read it for what it was-a sign that they would have to concede some ground.

“However, I can have no doubt that the intentions of the pious Verres were wholly honorable,” the magistrate continued. “In treatment of the injured lady Successa, he has displayed a noble quality in the dispensation of charity. In his attempt to do right by the freedman Timarchides, he has shown great kindness.”

Verres permitted himself a sly half-smile.

Batiatus stared at Cicero, his nostrils flared in anger.

“Do you misremember whose side you represent?” Batiatus hissed to the quaestor. “This fool has ignored every one of your words.”

“Patience, Batiatus,” Cicero whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“In the matter of the accusations leveled against him,” the magistrate stated, “I remind the plaintiff that Verres became the governor of Sicilia at midnight on the night of the event in question, and that henceforth, even if Cicero were to pursue his insinuations of wrongdoing, the person of Gaius Verres is sacrosanct, protected and above reproach.”

Verres smiled at Batiatus, the smile widening into a grin fit to contain the world.

“In the matter of the estate of the late Marcus Pelorus, I shall retire to deliberate on its best dispensation. It may take some days, considering the light of these crimes peripheral, now entered into the record.”