Caesar's Women (49 page)

“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.

It was a victory, of course it was a victory, and yet it seemed to fizzle, even after Cicero addressed the Forum crowd from the rostra the next day. Apparently stung by Catilina's concluding remarks, Catulus got up when the House met two days after that and read out a letter from Catilina which protested his innocence and consigned his wife, Aurelia Orestilla, to the care and custody of Catulus himself. Rumors began to circulate that Catilina was indeed going into voluntary exile, and had headed out of Rome on the Via Aurelia (the right direction) with only three companions of no note, including his childhood friend Tongilius. This completed the backlash; men now began to swing from believing Catilina guilty to thinking him victimized.

Life might have become steadily more intolerable for Cicero had it not been for independent news from Etruria only a few days later. Catilina had not proceeded into exile in Massilia; instead he had donned the toga praetexta and insignia of a consul, clad twelve men in scarlet tunics and given them fasces complete with the axes. He had been seen in Arretium with a sympathizer, Gaius Flaminius of that decayed patrician family, and he now sported a silver eagle he declared was the original one Gaius Marius had given to his legions. Always Marius's chief source of strength, Etruria was rallying to that eagle.

That of course terminated the disapproval of consulars like Catulus and Mamercus (Hortensius it seemed had decided that gout at Misenum was preferable to a headache in Rome, but the gout of Antonius Hybrida at Cumae was rapidly becoming an unseemly excuse for staying away from Rome and his duty as junior consul).

However, some of the senatorial smaller fry were still of the opinion that events had been Cicero's doing all along, that it was actually Cicero's tireless persecution had pushed Catilina over the edge. Among these was the younger brother of Celer, Metellus Nepos, soon to assume office as tribune of the plebs. Cato, who would also be a tribune of the plebs, commended Cicero—which only made Nepos scream louder, because he loathed Cato.

“Oh, when was an insurrection ever such a contentious and tenuous affair?” cried Cicero to Terentia. “At least Lepidus declared himself! Patricians, patricians! They can do no wrong! Here am I with a pack of villains on my hands and no way to convict them of tinkering with the water adjutages, let alone treason!”

“Cheer up, husband,” said Terentia, who apparently enjoyed seeing Cicero grimmer than she usually was herself. “It has begun to happen, and it will go on happening, you just wait and see. Soon all the doubters from Metellus Nepos to Caesar will have to admit that you are right.”

“Caesar could have helped me more than he has,” said Cicero, very disgruntled.

“He did send Quintus Arrius,” said Terentia, who approved of Caesar these days because her half sister, Fabia the Vestal, was full of praise for the new Pontifex Maximus.

“But he doesn't back me in the House, he keeps picking on me for the way I interpret the Senatus Consultum Ultimum. It seems to me he still thinks Catilina has been wronged.”

“Catulus thinks that too, yet there's no love lost between Catulus and Caesar,” said Terentia.

Two days later word came to Rome that Catilina and Manlius had finally joined forces, and that they had two full legions of good experienced troops plus some thousands more still in training. Faesulae hadn't crumbled, which meant its arsenal was intact, nor had any of the other major towns in Etruria consented to donating the contents of their arsenals to Catilina's cause. An indication that much of Etruria had no faith in Catilina.

The Popular Assembly ratified a senatorial decree and declared both Catilina and Manlius public enemies; this meant they were stripped of their citizenship and its perquisites, including trial for treason if they were apprehended. Gaius Antonius Hybrida having finally returned to Rome—gouty toe and all—Cicero promptly instructed him to take charge of the troops recruited in Capua and Picenum—all veterans of earlier wars—and march to oppose Catilina and Manlius outside Faesulae. Just in case the gouty toe continued to be a handicap, the senior consul had the forethought to give Hybrida an excellent second-in-command, the vir militaris Marcus Petreius. Cicero himself took responsibility for organizing the defenses of the city of Rome, and began now to dole out those armaments—though not to people he or Atticus or Crassus or Catulus (now thoroughly converted) deemed suspect. What Catilina was currently plotting no one knew, though Manlius sent a letter to the triumphator Rex, still in the field in Umbria; it came as a surprise that Manlius would write so, but it could change nothing.