Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (140 page)

‘Not exactly.’ Marcus sighed. ‘Dear brother, he knows. There’s no use hiding the truth from him.’

‘He knows nothing. There is nothing to know!’ said Lucullus. ‘I have employed Gordianus for a single purpose: to prove to the world, and to
you
, Marcus, that I am not mistaken in what I know about Varius, or Motho, or whatever we should call him. I know what I know, and the world must be made to know it, too!’

‘Did your father say things like that, after he was recalled from Sicily and made to stand trial?’ I said, as gently as I could.

Marcus drew a deep breath. ‘Similar things, yes. He had strange notions; he fixated upon impossible ideas that no one could talk him out of. His emotions became inappropriate, his logic inexplicable, his behaviour unpredictable. It began in a small way, but grew, until towards the end there was almost nothing left of the man we had known. There was only the slightest hint of the change before he left to take up the command in Sicily – so slight, no one really noticed it at the time, but only in retrospect. By the time he returned to Rome and stood trial, the change was obvious to those closest to him – our mother, our uncles. My brother and I were mere children, of course; we had no way of understanding. It was a very difficult time for everyone. We spoke of it only within the family. It became a source of shame to us, greater than the shame of my father’s conviction and exile.’

‘A family secret,’ I said. ‘Had such a thing happened before, in earlier generations?’

‘Don’t answer, Marcus!’ said Lucullus. ‘He has no right to ask such a question.’

Unheeding, Marcus nodded. ‘Something similar befell our father’s father. An early dotage, a softening of the wits; we think it must be a kind of a malady that passes from father to son, a coiled serpent in the mind that waits to strike until a man is at the peak of his powers.’

‘All supposition!’ snapped Lucullus. ‘Just as likely, it was the harassment of his enemies that drove our father to distraction, not some affliction from within.’

‘As you see, Gordianus, my brother has always preferred to deny the truth of this matter,’ said Marcus. ‘He denied it concerning our father. He denies it now, when it begins to concern himself.’

‘And yet,’ I said, ‘he acceded to writing a will when you urged him to – now, rather than later, when his faculties may have eroded to a greater degree. That indicates to me that at some level, Lucullus knows the truth of what’s happening to him, even if he continues outwardly to deny it. Is that not so, Lucullus?’

He gazed at me angrily, than his features gradually softened. His eyes glistened. A tear ran down one cheek. ‘I have led an honourable life. I have served Rome to the very best of my ability. I have been generous to my friends, forgiving to my enemies. I love life dearly. At last, I am about to have a child! Why must this shameful fate befall me? If the child is a son, will it befall him as well? My body is still strong; I may live many years yet. What’s to become of me in the time I have left, if I lose my senses? Have the gods no mercy?’

I looked upon Lucullus and shivered. I saw a man surrounded by opulence beyond measure, at the summit of his career, adored by the multitude, beloved by his friends – yet utterly alone. Lucullus possessed everything and nothing, because he had no future.

‘The gods have much to answer for,’ I said quietly. ‘But while you still can, you must struggle against your delusions, especially those which pose a danger to others. Renounce this idea you have about Motho, Lucullus. Say it aloud, so that Marcus can hear.’

His face became a tragedy mask. The struggle within him was so great that he trembled. Marcus, weeping more openly than his brother, gripped his arm to steady him.

‘Motho . . . is
not
Varius. There, I’ve said it! Though every fibre of my being tells me it’s a lie, I’ll say it again: Motho is not Varius.’

‘Say that you won’t harm him,’ I whispered.

Lucullus shut his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. ‘I shall not harm him!’

I turned and left the brothers alone, to find what comfort they could beneath the branches of the cherry tree called Most-Precious-of-All.

So I came to taste my first cherry; so I made the acquaintance of Lucullus, to whom I never spoke again.

The months that followed marked the pinnacle of a life which, to any outsider, must have appeared especially blessed by the gods. Lucullus celebrated a magnificent triumph (at which the rebel general Varius did not appear). Also, a son was born to him, healthy and whole. Lucullus named the boy Marcus, and was said to dote upon him shamelessly. His marriage to Servilia was less happy; he eventually accused her of adultery and divorced her. Whether the charge was true, or the result of a delusion, I never knew.

Those months brought other changes, some very sad. Our conversation about Lucullus was one of my last encounters with my dear friend, Lucius Claudius, who fell dead one autumn afternoon in the Forum, clutching his chest. To my astonishment, Lucius did make me heir to his Etruscan farm – he had not been jesting that day in his garden. At about the same time, Cicero defeated Catilina and won his campaign for the consulship, making him a New Man among the nobility – the first of his family to attain Rome’s highest office. Of my move to the Etruscan countryside, and of the great and tragic events of Cicero’s consulship, I have written elsewhere.

An era of enormous tumult was beginning. Steadfast Republicans like Cicero and Cato desperately looked to Lucullus, with his immense wealth and prestige, to rise up as a bulwark against the looming ambitions of warlords like Caesar and Pompey. Lucullus failed to meet their expectations. Instead he withdrew more and more from public life into an existence of sensual pleasure and seclusion. People said Lucullus had lost his ambition. Conventional wisdom presumed he had been corrupted by Greek philosophy and Asian luxury. Few knew that his mind had begun rapidly to fail, for Lucullus and Marcus did everything possible to hide that fact for as long as they could.

By the time of his death, several years after I met him, Lucullus was as helpless as a baby, completely under the care of his brother. A curious rumour attended his demise: one of his beloved cherry trees had died, and Lucullus, denied the delicacy he most desired, had lost the will to live.

Lucullus had faded from the scene, but the people of Rome recalled his glory days and reacted strongly to his death. Great funeral games were held, with gladiatorial contests and re-enactments on a massive scale of some of his more famous victories. During the period of public mourning, his gardens were opened to the public. I braved the crowds for the chance to see them again. If anything, the exotic flowers were more beautiful and the foliage more luxuriant than I remembered.

Escaping from the crowd to walk down a secluded pathway, I came upon a gardener on all fours, tending to a rose bush. The slave heard my approach and glanced up at me with his single eye. I smiled, recognizing Motho. I thought he might recognize me in return, but he said nothing, and with hardly a pause he went back to what he was doing.

I walked on, surrounded by the smell of roses.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GORDIANUS THE FINDER: A PARTIAL CHRONOLOGY

This list places all the short stories and the novels (published so far) of the Roma Sub Rosa series in chronological order, along with certain seminal events, such as births and deaths. Seasons, months, or (where it is possible to know) specific dates of occurrence are given in parentheses. The short stories previously collected in
The House of the Vestals
are followed by a double-dagger (‡); the stories that appear in the present volume are followed by an asterisk (*).