Robert Harris: Lustrum

'And then,' mused Cicero, 'if they refuse to accept them, the blame will clearly be theirs, and I shall be released from my obligation. It's not a bad idea.'

'Well said, Tiro!' declared Quintus. 'Always the wisest man in the room.' He yawned excessively. 'Now, come on, brother.' He reached down and pulled Cicero to his feet. 'It's getting late and you have a speech to make tomorrow. You must get some sleep.'

By the time we made our way through the house to the vestibule, the place was silent. Terentia and Tullia had retired to bed. Servius and his wife had gone home. Pomponia, who hated politics, had refused to wait for her husband and had departed with them, according to the porter. Outside, Atticus's carriage was waiting. The snow gleamed in the moonlight. From somewhere down in the city rose the familiar cry of the night-watchman, calling the midnight hour.

'A new year,' said Quintus.

'And a new consul,' added Atticus. 'Well done, my dear Cicero. I am proud to be your friend.'

They shook his hand and slapped his back, and eventually – but only grudgingly, I could not help noticing – Rufus did the same. Their words of warm congratulation flickered briefly in the icy air and vanished. Afterwards, Cicero stood in the street, waving to their carriage until it rounded the corner. As he turned to go back indoors he stumbled slightly, and plunged his foot into the snowdrift piled against the doorstep. He pulled out his wet shoe, shook it crossly and swore, and it was on the tip of my tongue to say it was an omen; but wisely, I think, I held my peace.

I do not know how the ceremony goes these days, when even the most senior magistrates are merely errand boys, but in Cicero's time the first visitor to call upon the new consul on the day of his swearing-in was always a member of the College of Augurs. Accordingly, just before dawn, Cicero stationed himself in the atrium alongside Terentia and his children to await the augur's arrival. I knew he had not slept well for I had heard him moving about upstairs, pacing up and down, which is what he always did when he was thinking. But his powers of recuperation were miraculous, and he looked fit and keen enough as he stood with his family, like an Olympian who has been training his whole life for one particular race and at last is about to run it.

When all was ready I signalled to the porter and he opened the heavy wooden door to admit the keepers of the sacred chickens, the pularii – half a dozen skinny little fellows, looking a bit like chickens themselves. Behind this escort loomed the augur, tapping the floor with his curved staff: a veritable giant in his full rig of tall conical cap and abundant purple robe. Little Marcus shrieked when he saw him coming down the passageway and hid behind Terentia's skirts. The augur that day was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, and I should say something of him, for he was to be an important figure in Cicero's story. He was just back from fighting in the East – a real soldier, something of a war hero, in fact, after beating off an enemy attack on his winter quarters while greatly outnumbered. He had served under the command of Pompey the Great, who also happened to be married to his sister, which had not exactly hindered his promotion. Not that it mattered. He was a Metellus, and therefore more or less predestined to be consul himself in a couple of years; that day he was due to be sworn in as praetor. His wife was the notorious beauty Clodia, a member of the Claudian family: all in all you could not have got much better connected than Metellus Celer, who was by no means as stupid as he looked.

'Consul-Elect, good morning!' he barked, as if addressing his legionaries at reveille. 'So the great day has come at last. What will it hold, I wonder?'

'You're the augur, Celer. You tell me.'

Celer threw back his head and laughed. I found out later he had no more faith in divination than Cicero had, and was only a member of the College of Augurs out of political expediency. 'Well, I can predict one thing, and that is that there will be trouble. There was a crowd outside the Temple of Saturn when I passed just now. It looks as though Caesar and his friends may have posted their great bill overnight. What an amazing rogue he is!'

I was standing directly behind Cicero so I couldn't see his face, but I could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened that this news immediately set him on his guard.

'Right,' continued Celer, ducking to avoid a low beam, 'which way is your roof?'

Cicero ushered the augur towards the stairs, and as he passed me he whispered urgently, 'Go and find out what's going on, as quickly as you can. Take the boys. I need to know every clause.'

I beckoned to Sositheus and Laurea to join me, and led by a couple of slaves with torches we set off down the hill. It was hard to find our way in the darkness, and the ground was treacherous with snow. But as we came out into the forum I saw a few lights glinting ahead, and we headed for those. Celer was right. A bill had been nailed up in its traditional place outside the Temple of Saturn. Despite the hour and the cold, such was the public excitement a couple of dozen citizens had already gathered to read the text. It was very long, several thousand words, arranged on six large boards, and was proposed in the name of the tribune Rullus, although everyone knew that the authors were really Caesar and Crassus. I set Sositheus on the beginning part, Laurea on the end, while I took the middle.

We worked quickly, ignoring the people behind us complaining that we were blocking their view, and by the time we had it all down, the night was nearly over and the first day of the new year had arrived. Even without studying all the details I could tell it would cause Cicero great trouble. The republic's state land in Campania was to be compulsorily seized and divided into five thousand farms, which would be given away free. An elected commission of ten men would decide who got what, and would have sweeping powers to raise taxes abroad and buy and sell more land in Italy as they saw fit, without reference to the senate. The patricians would be incensed, and the timing of the promul gation – just hours before Cicero had to give his inaugural address – was obviously meant to put the maximum amount of pressure on the incoming consul.

When we got back to the house Cicero was still on the roof, seated for the first time on his ivory curule chair. It was bitterly cold up there, with snow still on the tiles and parapet. He was swaddled in a rug, almost up to his chin, and wore a curious hat made of rabbit fur, with flaps that covered his ears. Celer stood nearby with the pularii clustered around him. He was sectioning the sky with his wand, wearily checking the heavens for birds and lightning. But the air was very still and clear and he was obviously having no success. The instant Cicero saw me he seized the tablets with his mittened hands and began flicking through them rapidly. The hinged wooden frames clattered over, click click click, as he absorbed each page.

'Is it the populists' bill?' asked Celer, alerted by the noise and turning round.

'It is,' replied Cicero, his eyes scanning the writing with great rapidity, 'and they could not have designed a piece of legislation more likely to tear the republic apart.'

'Will you have to respond to it in your inaugural address?' I asked.

'Of course. Why else do you think they've published it now?'

'They've certainly picked their moment well,' said Celer. 'A new consul. His first day in office. No military experience. No great family behind him. They're testing your mettle, Cicero.' A shout came from down in the street. I looked over the parapet. A crowd was forming to escort Cicero to his inauguration. Across the valley, the temples of the Capitol were beginning to stand out sharply against the morning sky. 'Was that lightning?' said Celer to the nearest sacred chicken-keeper. 'I hope to Jupiter it was. My balls are freezing off.'