Colleen McCullough - 4. Caesar's Women

Some five hours before dawn of the seventh day of November, Tiro again woke Cicero and Terentia from a deep sleep. "You have a visitor, domina," said the beloved slave. Famous for her rheumatism, the wife of the senior consul showed no sign of it as she leaped from her bed (decently clad in a nightgown, of course no naked sleepers in Cicero's house!). "It's Fulvia Nobilioris," she said, shaking Cicero. "Wake up, husband, wake up!" Oh, the joy of it! She was in on a war council at last! "Quintus Curius sent me," Fulvia Nobilioris announced, her face old and bare because she had not had time to apply makeup. "He's come around?" asked Cicero sharply. "Yes." The visitor took the cup of unwatered wine Terentia gave her and sipped at it, shuddering. They met at midnight in the house of Marcus Porcius Laeca." "Who met?" Catilina, Lucius Cassius, my Quintus Curius, Gaius Cethegus, both the Sulla brothers, Gabinius Capito, Lucius Statilius, Lucius Vargunteius and Gaius Cornelius." "Not Lentulus Sura?" "No." "Then it appears I was wrong about him." Cicero leaned forward. "Go on, woman, go on! What happened? "They met to plan the fall of Rome and further the rebellion," said Fulvia Nobilioris, a little color returning to her cheeks as the wine took effect. "Gaius Cethegus wanted to take Rome at once, but Catilina wants to wait until uprisings are under way in Apulia, Umbria and Bruttium. He suggested the night of the Saturnalia, and gave as his reason that it is the one night of the year when Rome is topsy turvy, slaves ruling, free households serving, everyone drunk. And he thinks it will take that long to swell the revolt." Nodding, Cicero saw the point of this: the Saturnalia was held on the seventeenth day of December, six market intervals from now. By which time all of Italy might be boiling. "So who won, Fulvia?" he asked. "Catilina, though Cethegus did succeed in one respect." "And that is?" the senior consul prompted gently when she stopped, began to shake. "They agreed that you should be murdered immediately." He had known since the letters that he was not intended to live, but to hear it now from the lips of this poor terrified woman gave it an edge and a horror Cicero felt for the first time. He was to be murdered immediately! Immediately! "How and when?" he asked. "Come, Fulvia, tell me! I'm not going to haul you into court, you've earned rewards, not punishment! Tell me!" "Lucius Vargunteius and Gaius Cornelius will present themselves here at dawn with your clients," she said. "But they're not my clients!" said Cicero blankly. "I know. But it was decided that they would ask to become your clients in the hope that you would support their return to public life. Once inside, they are to ask for a private interview in your study to plead their case. Instead, they are to stab you to death and make their escape before your clients know what has happened," said Fulvia. "Then that's simple," said Cicero, sighing with relief. I will bar my doors, set a watch in the peristyle, and refuse to see my clients on grounds of illness. Nor will I stir outside all day. It's time for councils." He got up to pat Fulvia Nobilioris on the hand. I thank you most sincerely, and tell Quintus Curius his intervention has earned him a full pardon. But tell him too that if he will testify to all this in the House the day after tomorrow, he will be a hero. I give him my word that I will not let a thing happen to him." "I will tell him." "What exactly does Catilina plan for the Saturnalia?" "They have a large cache of arms somewhere Quintus Curius does not know the place and these will be distributed to all the partisans. Twelve separate fires are to be started throughout the city, including one on the Capitol, two on the Palatine, two on the Carinae, and one at either end of the Forum. Certain men are to go to the houses of all the magistrates and kill them." "Except for me, dead already." "Yes." "You'd better go, Fulvia," said Cicero, nodding to his wife. "Vargunteius and Cornelius may arrive a little early, and we don't want them to set eyes on you. Did you bring an escort?" "No," she whispered, white faced again. "Then I will send Tiro and four others with you." "A pretty plot!" barked Terentia, marching into Cicero's study the moment she had organized the flight of Fulvia Nobilioris. "My dear, without you I would have been dead before now." "I am well aware of it," Terentia said, sitting down. "I have issued orders to the staff, who will bolt and bar everything the moment Tiro and the others return. Now print a notice I can have put on the front door that you are ill and won't receive." Cicero printed obediently, handed it over and let his wife take care of the logistics. What a general of troops she would have made! Nothing forgotten, everything battened down. "You will need to see Catulus, Crassus, Hortensius if he's returned from the seaside, Mamercus, and Caesar," she said after all the preparations were finished. "Not until this afternoon," said Cicero feebly. "Let's make sure first that I'm out of danger." Tiro was posted upstairs in a window which gave a good view of the front door, and was able to report an hour after dawn that Vargunteius and Cornelius had finally gone away, though not until they had tried several times to pick the lock of Cicero's stout front door. "Oh, this is disgusting!" the senior consul cried. "I, the senior consul, barred into my own house? Send for all the consulars in Rome, Tiro! Tomorrow I'll have Catilina running." Fifteen consulars turned up Mamercus, Poplicola, Catulus, Torquatus, Crassus, Lucius Cotta, Vatia Isauricus, Curio, Lucullus, Varro Lucullus, Volcatius Tullus, Gaius Marcius Figulus, Glabrio, Lucius Caesar and Gaius Piso. Neither of the consuls elect nor the urban praetor elect, Caesar, was invited; Cicero had decided to keep the council of war advisory only. "Unfortunately," he said heavily when all the men were accommodated in an atrium too small for comfort he would have to earn the money somehow to buy a bigger house! "I can't prevail upon Quintus Curius to testify, and that means I have no solid case. Nor will Fulvia Nobilioris testify, even if the Senate was to agree to hear evidence from a woman." "For what it's worth, Cicero, I now believe you," said Catulus. "I don't think you could have conjured up those names out of your imagination." "Why, thank you, Quintus Lutatius!" snapped Cicero, eyes flashing. "Your approbation warms my heart, but it doesn't help me decide what to say in the Senate tomorrow!" Concentrate on Catilina and forget the rest of them'' was Crassus's advice. "Pull one of those terrific speeches out of your magic box and aim it at Catilina. What you have to do is push him into quitting Rome. The rest of his gang can stay but we'll keep a very good eye on them. Chop off the head Catilina would graft on the neck of Rome's strong but headless body." "He won't leave if he hasn't already," said Cicero gloomily. "He might," said Lucius Cotta, "if we can manage to persuade certain people to avoid his vicinity in the House. I'll undertake to go and see Publius Sulla, and Crassus can see Autronius, he knows him well. They're by far the two biggest fish in the Catilina pool, and I'd be willing to bet that if they were seen to shun him when they enter the House, even those whose names we've heard today would desert him. Self preservation does tend to undermine loyalty." He got up, grinning. "Shift your arses, fellow consulars! Let's leave Cicero to write his greatest speech." That Cicero had labored to telling effect was evident on the morrow, when he convened the Senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator on the corner of the Velia, a site difficult to attack and easy to defend. Guards were ostentatiously posted everywhere outside, and that of course drew a large and curious audience of professional Forum frequenters. Catilina came early, as Lucius Cotta had predicted he would, so the technique of ostracizing him was blatant. Only Lucius Cassius, Gaius Cethegus, the tribune of the plebs elect Bestia and Marcus Porcius Laeca sat by him, glaring furiously at Publius Sulla and Autronius. Then a visible change swept over Catilina. He turned first to Lucius Cassius, whispered in his ear, then whispered to each of the others. All four shook their heads violently, but Catilina prevailed. Silently they got up and left his vicinity. Whereupon Cicero launched into his speech, the tale of a meeting at night to plan the fall of Rome, complete with all the names of the men present and the name of the man in whose house the meeting took place. Every so often Cicero demanded that Lucius Sergius Catilina quit Rome, rid the city of his evil presence. Only once did Catilina interrupt. "Do you want me to go into voluntary exile, Cicero?" he asked loudly because the doors were open and the crowd outside straining to hear every word. "Go on, Cicero, ask the House whether I should go into voluntary exile! If it says I must, then I will!" To which Cicero made no answer, just swept on. Go away, leave, quit Rome, that was his theme. And after all the uncertainty, it turned out to be easy. As Cicero finished Catilina rose and gathered majesty around him. "I'm going, Cicero! I'm quitting Rome! I don't even want to stay here when Rome is being run by a lodger from Arpinum, a resident alien neither Roman nor Latin! You're a Samnite bumpkin, Cicero, a rough peasant from the hills without ancestors or clout! Do you think you have forced me to leave? Well, you haven't! It is Catulus, Mamercus, Cotta, Torquatus! I leave because they have deserted me, not because of anything you say! When a man's peers desert him, he is truly finished. That is why I go." There were confused sounds from outside as Catilina swept through the middle of the Forum frequenters, then silence. Senators now got up to shift away from those Cicero had named in his speech, even a brother from a brother Publius Cethegus had clearly decided to divorce himself from Gaius as well as from the conspiracy. "I hope you're happy, Marcus Tullius," said Caesar.