Caesar's Women (47 page)

“You were right, my friend,” said Crassus, and held out both hands. His right contained an open sheet of paper; his left held several letters still folded and sealed. He passed the open sheet across. “Read that and you'll know what's amiss.”

It was very short, but authored by someone well schooled, and it was addressed to Crassus.

I am a patriot who has by mischance become embroiled in an insurrection. That I send these letters to you rather than to Marcus Cicero arises out of your standing in Rome. No one has believed Marcus Cicero. I hope everyone will believe you. The letters are copies; I could not make off with the originals. Nor dare I tell you any names. What I can tell you is that fire and revolution are coming to Rome. Get out of Rome, Marcus Crassus, and take all who do not wish to be killed with you.

Though he couldn't compete with Caesar when it came to swift and silent reading, Cicero wasn't that far behind; in a shorter time than it had taken Crassus to read the note, Cicero looked up.

“Jupiter, Marcus Crassus! How did you come by this?”

Crassus sat down in a chair heavily, Metellus Scipio and Marcellus going together to a couch. When a servant offered him wine, Crassus waved it aside.

“We were having a late dinner at my place,” he said, “and I'm afraid I got carried away. Marcus Marcellus and Quintus Scipio had a scheme in mind to increase their family fortunes, but they didn't want to break senatorial precedents, so they came to me for advice.”

“True,” said Marcellus warily; he didn't trust Cicero not to blab about unsenatorial business ventures.

But the last thing on Cicero's mind was the thin line between proper senatorial practices and illegal ones, so he said, “Yes, yes!” impatiently, and to Crassus, “Go on!”

“Someone hammered on the door about an hour ago, but when my steward went to answer it there was no one outside. At first he didn't notice the letters, which had been put on the step. It was the noise made by the pile falling over drew his attention to them. The one I've opened was addressed to me personally, as you can see for yourself, though I opened it more out of curiosity than from any presentiment of alarm—who would choose such an odd way to deliver mail, and at such an hour?'' Crassus looked grim. “When I'd read it and shown it to Marcus and Quintus here, we decided the best thing to do was bring everything to you at once. You're the one who's been making all the fuss.”

Cicero took the five unopened packets and sat down with an elbow on the peacock-grained citrus-wood table he had paid half a million sesterces for, heedless of its depreciation should he scratch it. One by one he held the letters up to the light, examining the cheap wax closures.

“A wolf seal in ordinary red wax,” he said, sighing. “You can buy them in any shop.” His fingers slipped beneath the edge of the paper of the last in the pile, he tugged sharply and broke the little round wax emblem in half while Crassus and the other two watched eagerly. “I'll read it out,” he said then, opening the single sheet of paper. “This one isn't signed, but I see it's addressed to Gaius Manlius.” He began to pore over the squiggles.

“You will start the revolution five days before the Kalends of November by forming up your troops and invading Faesulae. The town will come over to you in mass, so you have assured us. We believe you. Whatever else you do, make straight for the arsenal. At dawn of this same day your four colleagues will also move: Publius Furius against Volaterrae, Minucius against Arretium, Publicius against Saturnia, Aulus Fulvius against Clusium. By sunset we expect that all these towns will be in your hands, and our army much bigger. Not to mention better equipped from the arsenals.

“On the fourth day before the Kalends, those of us in Rome will strike. An army is not necessary. Stealth will serve us better. We will kill both the consuls and all eight praetors. What happens to the consuls-elect and the praetors-elect depends on their good sense, but certain powers in the business sphere will have to die: Marcus Crassus, Servilius Caepio Brutus, Titus Atticus. Their fortunes will fund our enterprise with money to spare.

“We would have preferred to wait longer, build up our strength and our forces, but we cannot afford to wait until Pompeius Magnus is close enough to move against us before we are ready for him. His turn will come, but first things are first. May the Gods be with you.”

Cicero put the letter down to gaze at Crassus in horror. “Jupiter, Marcus Crassus!” he cried, hands trembling. “It is upon us in nine days!”

The two younger men looked ashen in the flickering light, eyes passing from Cicero to Crassus and back again, minds obviously unable to assimilate anything beyond the word “kill.”

“Open the others,” said Crassus.

But these proved to be much the same as the first, addressed to each of the other four men mentioned by name in Gaius Manlius's.

“He's clever,” said Cicero, shaking his head. “Nothing put down in the first person singular for me to level at Catilina, no word of who in Rome is involved. All I really have are the names of his military henchmen in Etruria, and as they're already committed to revolution, they can't matter. Clever!”

Metellus Scipio licked his lips and found his voice. “Who wrote the letter to Marcus Crassus, Cicero?” he asked.

“I would think Quintus Curius.”

“Curius? That Curius who was thrown out of the Senate?”

“The same.”

“Then can we get him to testify?” Marcellus asked.

It was Crassus who shook his head. “No, we daren't. All they'd have to do was kill him and we'd be right back where we are at the moment except that we'd lack an informer at all.”

“We could put him in protective custody even before he testified,” said Metellus Scipio.

“And shut his mouth?” asked Cicero. “Protective custody at any stage is likely to shut his mouth. The most important thing is to push Catilina into declaring himself.”

Whereupon Marcellus said, frowning, “What if the ringleader isn't Catilina?”

“That's a point,” said Metellus Scipio.

“What do I have to do to get it through all your thick skulls that the only man it can be is Catilina?” yelled Cicero, striking the precious surface of his table so hard that the gold and ivory pedestal beneath it shivered. “It's Catilina! It's Catilina!”

“Proof, Marcus,” said Crassus. “You need proof.”

“One way or another I will get proof,” said Cicero, “but in the meantime we have a revolution in Etruria to put down. I will summon the Senate into session tomorrow at the fourth hour.”

“Good,” said Crassus, lumbering to his feet. “Then I'm for home and bed.”

“What about you?” asked Cicero on the way to the door. “Do you believe Catilina is responsible, Marcus Crassus?”

“Very probably, but not certainly” was the answer.

“And isn't that typical?” asked Terentia some moments later, sitting up straight. “He wouldn't commit himself to an alliance with Jupiter Optimus Maximus!”

“Nor will many in the Senate, I predict,” sighed Cicero. “However, my dear, I think it's time you sought Fulvia out. We've heard nothing from her in many days.” He lay down. “Blow out the lamp, I must try to sleep.”

What Cicero hadn't counted on was the full degree of doubt in the Senate's mind as to Catilina's masterminding what certainly did appear to be a brewing insurrection. Skepticism he expected, but not outright opposition, yet outright opposition was what he got when he produced and read his letters. He had thought that bringing Crassus into the story would procure a senatus consultum de re publica defendenda—the decree proclaiming martial law—but the House denied him.

“You should have retained the letters unbroken until this body assembled,” said Cato harshly. He was now a tribune of the plebs-elect, and entitled to speak.

“But I opened them in front of unimpeachable witnesses!”

“No matter,” said Catulus. “You usurped the Senate's prerogative.”

Through all of it Catilina had sat with exactly the right series of emotions reflected on face and in eyes— indignation, calm, innocence, mild exasperation, incredulity.

Tried beyond endurance, Cicero turned to face him. “Lucius Sergius Catilina, will you admit that you are the prime mover in these events?” he asked, voice ringing round the rafters.

“No, Marcus Tullius Cicero, I will not.”

“Is there no man present who will support me?” the senior consul demanded, looking from Crassus to Caesar, Catulus to Cato.

“I suggest,” said Crassus after a considerable silence, “that this House request the senior consul to further investigate all sides of this matter. It would not be surprising if Etruria revolted, I will give you that, Marcus Tullius. But when even your colleague in the consulship says the whole thing is a practical joke and then announces that he's going back to Cumae tomorrow, how can you expect the rest of us to fly into a panic?''

And so it was left. Cicero must find further evidence.

“It was Quintus Curius who got the letters to Marcus Crassus,” said Fulvia Nobilioris early the following morning, “but he will not testify for you. He's too afraid.”

“Have you and he talked?”

“Yes.”

“Then can you give me any names, Fulvia?”

“I can only tell you the names of Quintus Curius's friends.”

“Who are?”

“Lucius Cassius, as you know. Gaius Cornelius and Lucius Vargunteius, who were expelled from the Senate with my Curius.”

Her words suddenly linked up with a fact buried at the back of Cicero's mind. “Is the praetor Lentulus Sura a friend?” he asked, remembering that man's abuse of him at the elections. Yes, Lentulus Sura had been one of the seventy-odd men expelled by the censors Poplicola and Clodianus! Even though he had been consul.

But Fulvia knew nothing about Lentulus Sura. “Though,” she said, “I have seen the younger Cethegus—Gaius Cethegus?—with Lucius Cassius from time to time. And Lucius Statilius and the Gabinius nicknamed Capito too. They are not close friends, mind you, so it's hard to say if they're in on the plot.”

“And what of the uprising in Etruria?''

“I only know that Quintus Curius says it will happen.”

“Quintus Curius says it will happen,” Cicero repeated to Terentia when she returned from seeing Fulvia Nobilioris off the premises. “Catilina is too clever for Rome, my dear. Have you ever in your life known a Roman who could keep a secret? Yet every way I turn, I'm baffled. How I wish I came from noble stock! If my name was Licinius or Fabius or Caecilius, Rome would be under martial law right now, and Catilina would be a public enemy. But because my name is Tullius and I hail from Arpinum—Marius country, that!—nothing I say carries any weight.”

“Conceded,” said Terentia.

Which provoked a rueful glance from Cicero, but no comment. A moment later he slapped his hands upon his thighs and said, “Well, then I just have to keep on trying!”

“You've sent enough men to Etruria to sniff something out.”

“One would think. But the letters indicate that rebellion isn't concentrated in the towns, that the towns are to be taken over from bases outside in the country.”

“The letters also indicate a shortage of armaments.”

“True. When Pompeius Magnus was consul and insisted there must be stocks of armaments north of Rome, many of us didn't like the idea. I admit that his arsenals are as hard to get into as Nola, but if the towns revolt— well…”

“The towns haven't revolted so far. They're too afraid.”

“They're full of Etrurians, and Etrurians hate Rome.”

“This revolt is the work of Sulla's veterans.”

“Who don't live in the towns.”

“Precisely.”

“So shall I try again in the Senate?”

“Yes, husband. You have nothing to lose, so try again.”

Which he did a day later, the twenty-first day of October. His meeting was thinly attended, yet one more indication what Rome's senators thought of the senior consul—an ambitious New Man out to make much from very little and find himself a cause serious enough to produce several speeches worth publishing for posterity. Cato, Crassus, Catulus, Caesar and Lucullus were there, but much of the space of the three tiers on either side of the floor was unoccupied. However, Catilina was flaunting himself, solidly hedged around by men who thought well of him, deemed him persecuted. Lucius Cassius, Publius Sulla the Dictator's nephew, his crony Autronius, Quintus Annius Chilo, both the sons of dead Cethegus, the two Sulla brothers who were not of the Dictator's clan but well connected nonetheless, the witty tribune of the plebs-elect Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, and Marcus Porcius Laeca. Are they all in on it? asked Cicero of himself. Am I looking at the new order in Rome? If so, I don't think much of it. All these men are villains.

He drew a deep breath and began.… “I am tired of saying a mouthful like senatus consultum de re publica defendenda,” he announced an hour of well-chosen words later, “so I am going to coin a new name for the Senate's ultimate decree, the only decree the Senate can issue as binding on all Comitia, government bodies, institutions and citizens. I am going to call it the Senatus Consultum Ultimum. And, Conscript Fathers, I want you to issue a Senatus Consultum Ultimum.”

“Against me, Marcus Tullius?” Catilina asked, smiling.

“Against revolution, Lucius Sergius.”

“But you have proven neither point, Marcus Tullius. Give us proof, not words!”

It was going to fail again.

“Perhaps, Marcus Tullius, we would be more prepared to take credence of rebellion in Etruria if you would cease this personal attack on Lucius Sergius,” said Catulus. “Your accusations against him have absolutely no basis in fact, and that in turn casts huge shadows of doubt on any unusual state of unrest northwest of the Tiber. Etruria is old hat, and Lucius Sergius clearly a scapegoat. No, Marcus Tullius, we will not believe a word of it without far more concrete evidence than pretty speeches.”

“I have the concrete evidence!” boomed a voice from the door, and in walked the ex-praetor Quintus Arrius.

Knees sagging, Cicero sat down abruptly on his ivory chair of office and gaped at Arrius, disheveled from the road and still clad in riding gear.