Render Unto Caesar (19 page)

“I was in the Subura?” he asked in surprise, remembering Gaius Rubrius listing it as one of the worst parts of Rome.

“Oh, yes!” replied the young man cheerfully. “I suppose a foreigner like you
wouldn't
have known that. Your chair bearers certainly would have, though. I wonder if they were in league with the robbers? It's a pity you don't remember their names.” He closed his wax tablets. He did not seem to have made many notes. Obviously a robbery in the Subura didn't merit much attention, not when the only person killed was a slave. It would have been the same in Alexandria.

“I'm sorry about your slave,” he added. “He was obviously a good man, and loyal to his master: there are plenty who would've just run away. You'll look after the body?”

“Yes,” Hermogenes agreed guiltily.

“Good,” said the aedile, satisfied to have disposed of it.

He was just taking his leave when he frowned and turned back to Titus Fiducius. “There are some men outside watching your house,” he said. “Do you know why?”

“That's to do with me,” Hermogenes said at once. “With the business that brought me to the Esquiline.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the aedile, startled. He stared at Hermogenes with sudden respect, obviously concluding that he must be richer and more important than he looked, to have business with a man who had now sent guards to protect him. “Pity they weren't with you last night, then, eh? But better late than never, I suppose.”

He departed. Titus came over and looked at his guest with a mixture of admiration and reproach. “I never realized you were such a skilled liar,” he remarked. “You had no idea who the chair bearers were'!”

“I told Tarius Rufus that I would keep his name out of it,” Hermogenes replied. “I didn't dare give the bearers to the magistrates.”

“And I suppose you were acting your distress over the body? Jupiter, you had
me
fooled!”

“That wasn't acting.” He gazed soberly at the shrouded shape of Phormion. “Titus, he was in my household for more than
ten years
. He was always trustworthy and reliable when he was working, even if he did get into fights sometimes when he was drunk. He was a brave and honest man who trusted me. He deserved better of me than this.” He was glad that the staring eyes were hidden. He looked away and added heavily, “I must arrange a funeral.”

He wrote a letter to the priest of Mercury and Isis, explaining his need and sending it off with Tertia, then lay down on the bed in his cubicle to await a reply.

He woke when someone came into the room, and lay still for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the wall, trying to slow the pounding of his heart. Then he sat up.

Menestor was standing over him, with someone else in the dayroom behind him. The slave scowled when he saw that his master was awake. “I tried to tell her they should let you sleep,” he announced angrily. “But she doesn't understand.”

Hermogenes ran a hand through his hair, feeling groggy and unspeakably depressed. By the light coming through the window it was late in the afternoon: he had slept for hours. He noticed that behind Menestor were Cantabra, looking angry and impatient, and Tertia, looking timid and apologetic. Menestor's “she-they” resolved itself: they both wanted to see him, but only Cantabra had insisted on waking him up.

“You were right to wake me,” he told Menestor. “Cantabra, I am pleased to see you back safely. Tertia, is it about the funeral? Is it urgent?”

The slave woman bobbed her head, then shook it. “No, sir. Just the priest says he can do it, and he'll come this evening to help wash and lay out the body. He wants to know how you want it done, but”—she cast a wary look at the impatient barbarian—“it can wait, sir, until he arrives.”

“Thank you. Would you mind leaving me for now, then? Thank you.”

She went out, with another very distrustful glance at the barbarian. Cantabra pushed past Menestor and dropped to a relaxed squat against the wall. Menestor made a face and went resentfully back into the dayroom. The barbarian reached down the front of her tunic and pulled out a letter.

He took it. It had been written not on papyrus but on a very small pair of wax tablets with the edges sealed together; the seal was of a female figure holding a horn of plenty.

“He gave it to me himself,” said Cantabra. “But the mission did not go as smoothly as we wished, lord. I am sorry.”

He looked back at her sharply. “What happened?”

She shrugged guiltily. “First Pollio recognized me. He'd seen me fight, and he asked me, wasn't I Cantabra the gladiatrix. I had to say I was. I acted the stupid barbarian, but I think he suspected at once that things were hotter than your letter made them seem. He sent me to wait in the barracks of his own bodyguards, he
said
‘while he wrote a reply,' but he took a long time about it, and I think he was trying to find out more about the situation. While I was waiting in the barracks I met a man I knew.” She grimaced. “Another gladiator, discharged the same time as me. He got smart with his mouth, and I told him to shut it. Then he thought he would show his friends what a big man he was by waving his cock at me, so I shoved it into his balls. Not enough to hurt him badly, just enough to stop him. His friends got angry, and there was nearly a fight, but the chief bodyguard stopped it. When Pollio finally summoned me again, the chief bodyguard came along and complained about me.”

“I'm sorry,” Hermogenes told her, shocked.

She shrugged again. “I don't think Pollio took much notice. He just said ‘Ajax should have known better.' What does the letter say?”

He broke the seal and looked at it. It was in Greek, written with very small, very scratchy cursive letters. He tilted it at angles to the light until he found one where he could make the letters out, then glanced back at Cantabra. “It's in Greek,” he warned her. “Let me read it first; I'll translate when I've finished.” He turned his attention back to the letter.

P. VEDIUS POLLIO GREETS M. AELIUS HERMOGENES OF ALEXANDRIA.

 

It is a pleasure to receive a letter from a businessman of your spotless reputation. I believe I have had some investments in common with your father in the past—the syndicate of Philokrates of Rhodes, for one, and that of Nikomachos of Cyprus, who I believe was your kinsman, and whose penurious death last autumn you must greatly mourn.

I have indeed made a substantial loan to L. Tarius Rufus, and I would be very interested to hear of your concerns about him. I will expect you at my house on the Esquiline tomorrow at the fifth hour. I am aware that the house of your friend the excellent T. Fiducius is being watched, but I imagine that a gentleman of your resources will be able to elude the consul's notice.

I pray that the gods grant you a speedy recovery from your injuries.

He stared at the letter in deep disquiet, wondering if he wouldn't have done better to go to Scipio after all.

“So?” asked Cantabra impatiently.

He translated.

“He knows a lot about you,” she observed, instantly latching onto the thing that had disturbed him.

He closed the letter slowly. “Probably he simply checked his own records,” he said. “Most of his business has been in the East for years, and anyone who operates on the scale he does would have an archive full of notes on everyone else working in the same area.” He began to feel more confident. “All he needed to do was tell his secretary to check the archive. He would find my name linked to my father's, and my father's referenced to the syndicates of Philokrates and Nikomachos, where Pollio had money of his own. Do you notice that he calls Nikomachos my kinsman, not my uncle? Whoever made the note on the syndicate would have mentioned that my father was related to its head, but probably not bothered to find out exactly how. Nikomachos was important enough that someone would have sent Pollio a note about his death, and as soon as he looked at that in the context of my letter, he would know exactly what this was about. Then he probably sent someone down the hill to see why I didn't want a messenger sent to the house. He isn't quite as omniscient as he pretends to be.”

Cantabra looked at him with narrowed eyes. “What's ‘omniscient'?”

“‘Knowing everything'.”

“Huh! Nikomachus was your uncle, but who is this Pilokres? Does it mean anything that he mentioned him?”

“The only reason I can think of for mentioning Philo
krates
is to sound more knowing. There was never anything disreputable or peculiar about the shipping syndicate. No. I think Pollio was trying to frighten me, to drive down the price of the debt.”

“Drive down the price of the debt,” she repeated, and shook her head. “That still seems a strange idea, that you can sell a thing you don't have.”

“Not so strange!” he objected. “If money you owe is a debt, then money owed to you has to be an asset. It is no stranger to sell it than to sell a share in a building you partly own, or a ship you have never even seen.”

“And you sell those things, too, you Greeks?”

“Greeks and Romans and Syrians all sell those things. I have, often. Selling a debt, especially one this big, I have not done before, but I think it is my best option.”

“How should it work?”

He shrugged. “I will see Pollio, establish my right to claim Rufus's money, and tell him I am willing to transfer it to him for a fraction of the total. I will ask for three quarters, I may have to accept two thirds, I won't go below half. When we have agreed, we will draw up a contract in duplicate. We both sign, and then he should give me the money, while I give him the documents, made over to him. Pollio will make a profit when he recovers the debt; I will recover enough to keep my own business affairs in good order—and Rufus will have to pay everything he owes.”

Cantabra gazed at him evenly, then asked, “What if Pollio
doesn't
make Rufus pay? After all, he has not made the man repay what he loaned himself.”

He frowned. It was not a pleasant possibility. If Pollio were to buy the debt and the documents and then do nothing with them, Rufus would probably believe that Hermogenes still had them—and there'd be nothing he could use to buy protection from the consul's enemies. He began to feel very tired again.

“I will speak to Pollio,” he said wearily. “It ought to be possible to work out what he intends.”

“Have you thought how you will get to the meeting?”

“I have an idea,” he told her. “I need to work on the details.”

The priest arrived just after dinner, a couple of hours before nightfall, accompanied by a slave with a jar of Nile water. Titus welcomed him solemnly at the door, then left Hermogenes to escort him to the slaves' quarters at the back of the house, where the household had arranged Phormion's body.

Hermogenes made himself watch while the body was washed, dressed in a clean tunic, and laid out neatly on a litter. The women slaves sent up a clamor of lament—not heartfelt, the way it would have been if Phormion had died at home among his friends, but enough to signal to the gods that here lay the body of a man who would be missed. The priest prayed to Mercury, and then to Isis, and Hermogenes joined in the responses.

Afterward the priest drew Hermogenes aside to ask him how he wanted to manage the funeral the following morning. Was he willing to pay for a cremation, or would a cheap burial be sufficient? There were pits in the cemeteries outside the city wall where the bodies of slaves were often thrown one on top of another, but …

“I will pay for the cremation,” Hermogenes replied at once. “He was a good man, and he died on my behalf. Would it be possible to arrange a covered litter for me to attend in? I wish to pay my respects to the dead, but my ankle is broken, and I am ashamed to appear in public looking the way I do.”

The priest did not try to tell him he didn't need to be ashamed, which probably meant he looked even worse than he'd thought. Instead he agreed to arrange a litter, and they fixed a price for the cremation, arranged when and where to hold it, and wished each other good health.

Menestor hovered at his elbow for most of this, asking plaintive questions about what was being said, until the priest had pity on him and began to speak Greek. When Hermogenes went back to his rooms, the boy pressed on his heels. “A covered litter!” he exclaimed, as soon as he'd closed the door behind them. “What do
you
want a covered litter for?
You're
not ashamed of the way you look.”

Hermogenes sighed. “I am not planning to skip Phormion's funeral, Menestor. I'll only slip away afterward. Vedius Pollio wants me to meet him at his house at the fifth hour. I'm selling the debt to him.”

Menestor scowled furiously. “You'll send the litter back to the house empty, is that it?”

“No. I thought you could ride in it. In my cloak.”

The young man was shocked and outraged. “You're planning to go see Pollio on your own?”

“I'll have Cantabra with me.”

“That's even worse!”

“You thought her a goddess last night.”

“I was out of my mind last night!—sir. I don't trust her at all today.”

“I think,” Hermogenes told him irritably, “that she is intelligent and honest, that she has suffered terribly, and that she views me as her best chance of a better life. I think she will work very hard to satisfy me, and that I'm lucky to have found her.”

“You thought that of the men who carried the chair!”

“Not in the least! I liked having Roman citizens wait on me, and I let that blind me. It was a serious error. They were stupid, and they were easily misled. Is this insolent accusatory tone—which, incidentally, is highly inappropriate toward your master!—because I promised to free you? I do mean to do it, Menestor; I would have spoken to the magistrate, or to the priest, but whenever I look at poor Phormion's body I find it hard to think of anything else.”