Render Unto Caesar (3 page)

On the other side of the Palatine, as Rubrius had promised, they reached a crossroads with another major thoroughfare.

“Tha's the Sacra Via,” said Gaius Rubrius, gesturing left down a wide, marble-lined avenue. “It goes to the forum. An' tha's the Via Tusculana.” He jerked the basket of luggage right. “Y'can start askin' fer yer friend's house, sir.”

The first man Hermogenes asked—a water vendor on the corner—had never heard of Fiducius Crispus. They had to go another six blocks along the Via Tusculana, to a point where the houses were far less grand and had been joined by insulae again, before they found someone who knew his house.

“Crispus the moneylender,” said the old woman, grimacing. “On the right, three blocks north. A big place with a door all studded with iron and dolphin torch brackets. But if you're thinkin' to borrow money, think again. It's always better to sell than to borrow.”

Hermogenes thanked her and started on. Gaius Rubrius followed more slowly, frowning. “A moneylender, sir?” he asked hesitantly. The word,
faenerator,
was far less respectable than the
negotiator
Hermogenes had used.

Hermogenes shrugged, slowing his own steps to keep beside the porter. “He lends money at interest. So do I. Large sums, mostly, at moderate interest, and only to those who can repay me. Not small sums to poor men, at extortionate rates which are extracted with violence.”

“Oh,” said Rubrius. His expression, however, said he was not convinced. Moneylenders were cruel and disreputable men.

Hermogenes sighed, wondering whether to say more or just leave it. Say more, he decided. Gaius and Quintus Rubrius seemed reasonably honest and helpful, and they appeared to know the city well: he might want to hire them again, and if he did he would want their goodwill. “It isn't always better to sell than to borrow,” he said quietly. “What would you do if your sedan chair broke, and you didn't have enough saved to buy a new one?”

“Gods avert the omen!” exclaimed Rubrius.

“Would you just carry things on your back until you had enough for a new chair?” Hermogenes went on.

“You'd have a hard job tryin' to buy a new chair tha' way,” Quintus Rubrius put in contemptuously. “You don' make half as much carryin' sacks as you do wi' a sedan chair.”

“Well, then, would you sell your wife's jewelry, or your winter cloaks, to pay for one?”

Rubrius shook his head. “Wouldn' be worth the grief from my wife, and if I sold the cloak I'd have to buy a new one or shiver all winter. New cloaks cost a lot more'n I'd get for the old one. Y'r right, sir, to think that me 'n Quintus'd borrow the money.”

“And so the man who lent you that money would be providing you with a service that benefited you. If he was a dishonest man who made loans to those who could not repay him, and who sent in bailiffs to seize their goods or their children when they were overcome by debt, you would be right to despise him—but if he was an honest man who never did those things, why should you think ill of him? Carrying luggage is also a useful service. Some porters steal from their customers, or damage or lose their goods. Should I despise you because of them?”

There was a silence, and then Quintus Rubrius laughed. “Greeks c'n prove that black is white!”

“All I am saying is that moneylending is an honest trade, even if some who practice it are dishonest.”

Gaius Rubrius looked at him sideways. “But you don' give loans for sedan chairs, do you, sir?”

Hermogenes smiled. “On the whole, no. Most of my money—like most of the money of my friend Titus Fiducius Crispus—is in shipping. The building and equipping of ships for trade is costly, and the risks they meet on the seas are great. It's customary to defray both by spreading them among syndicates of investors, who may make a great profit on a successful voyage, or lose money on an unsuccessful one: trade benefits either way. I—and Titus Fiducius—also have money invested in buildings, and in some loans to private individuals. But neither of us can rightly be termed a moneylender. If a man handles large sums, he terms himself a businessman. I agree, though, that the principle is the same. We charge for the use of our money as you do for the use of your chair.”

Gaius Rubrius looked down. He shifted the poles of the sedan chair on his shoulder, then smiled. Hermogenes, assessing that smile, decided that the porter was not convinced that moneylending might be an honest trade, but that he was flattered that a rich Greek thought him worth conciliating. Hermogenes sighed: he should have kept his mouth shut. He never could seem to manage to look after his dignity as he should.

Not that Romans, from all he had ever seen, allowed much dignity to Greeks in the best of circumstances. Dignity, as far as he could make out, was supposed to be a purely Roman attribute: Greeks were supposed to be clever. It was odd, the way they always exclaimed over Greek cleverness while treating it as somehow inherently dishonest:
Greeks can prove that black is white!
If you actually asked them about their own tradesmen, merchants, or politicians, they had no hesitation in telling you that some were thieves and liars; likewise, they'd readily agree that such-and-such a Greek banker or ship captain was an honest man—but somehow or other this never dented their assurance that Romans were honest and Greeks weren't.

He'd met the attitude often enough in Roman merchants. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised to see that it went right to the bottom of Roman society.

“Is that y'r friend's house?” asked Quintus Rubrius.

It was, unmistakably: the only house in a block of insulae. It was a large, fine house, with a wrought-iron torch bracket in the shape of a dolphin on either side of the iron-studded double door. Gaius and Quintus Rubrius set down the sedan chair with the luggage in front of that door, and Gaius knocked. Menestor abruptly hurried forward from his place at the back of the procession and edged the porter aside. Dealing with the slaves of his master's associates was his job, and he was always very protective of his position. He rapped smartly on the iron-studded oak.

There was a long silence, but at last a window in the lodge swung open, and a hideous face looked out—a shiny white mask of scar tissue from which two red eyes blinked suspiciously. It was hairless, and the ears were no more than stumps. A fire, Hermogenes thought, wrestling with his shock: the poor fellow was burned in a fire.

“What d'you want?” growled the doorkeeper suspiciously.

Menestor hesitated, then asked hopefully, “Do you speak Greek?”

The doorkeeper merely blinked at him. Hermogenes sighed and stepped forward: it was undignified to negotiate with Crispus's slaves himself, but it seemed he had to do it. “Is this the house of Titus Fiducius Crispus?” he asked politely.

The doorkeeper blinked again. “Yes,” he admitted. “But the master isn't in. Try again tomorrow morning.”

“He has invited me to be his guest. He should be expecting me. I am Marcus Aelius Hermogenes, of Alexandria.”

“He never said he was expecting nobody,” the doorkeeper objected.

Hermogenes firmly squashed his rising anger and embarrassment. Letters could easily miscarry, or instructions from a master could fail to reach the person responsible for carrying them out—neither of which was a doorkeeper's fault. “Your master has invited me,” he repeated calmly, “and I believe he is expecting me. If he is out, will you check whether he's left any instructions about me?”

The doorkeeper blinked at him some more. “Marcus Aelius Hermokrates of Alexandria, you said?”

“Hermo
genes
!”

The doorkeeper grunted and disappeared, closing his window behind him.

There was a silence, then a snigger from Quintus Rubrius.

Young Menestor turned a dusky red and glared at the porter. Then he gave his master a look of angry apology. “I'm sorry, sir,” he said. “You shouldn't have had to deal with a freak like that. He was rude, wasn't he?”

“No,” Hermogenes told the boy soothingly, “merely abrupt in his manner. He said that his master is out, and that no one had told him to expect us. I should have sent a letter from Ostia yesterday.” It had been dusk by the time they'd disembarked from the ship the previous day; he hadn't wanted to search the streets and taverns for someone willing to carry a letter through the dark, and most likely wouldn't have found anyone if he had—but still, he should have
tried
to send a letter.

“
I
should have learned Latin,” said Menestor unhappily.

“We've been busy,” Hermogenes comforted him. He looked at Gaius Rubrius, who was watching with an expression of amusement. “As you see, there is some confusion,” he told the man, in Latin. “If my friend has forgotten to leave instructions for my reception, do you know of an inn nearby where we could—”

“My
dear
Hermogenes!”

Hermogenes turned back to the door, and found the sweating, pink-cheeked face of Fiducius Crispus himself beaming from the lodge window.

“Titus Fiducius,” Hermogenes said formally, “greetings!”

“And to you, dear fellow!” replied Crispus. He turned from the window and snapped “Dog! What are you standing there for? Let him in!”

A bolt squealed on the inside of the door, and then the iron-studded oak swung open. The scarred doorkeeper pushed open its mate, then stood aside. Crispus pushed past him—a fat man in his late forties, rumpled in an unbelted tunic and no cloak, barefoot as though he'd been asleep. He reached for Hermogenes' outstretched hand with both his own and clasped it in two moist meaty palms.

“What a pleasure to see you here in Rome!” he exclaimed, still beaming. “Come in, come in; welcome to my house!”

“I thank you,” Hermogenes said, smiling. He extricated his hand and went on, “I must first pay the porters—”

“Let me!” Crispus interrupted.

Hermogenes shook his head and turned to the Rubrius brothers, who had just finished removing the chest from the sedan chair. He took two sestertii from his purse and handed one to each man. The porters' looks of surprise gave way to wide grins.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Hermogenes told them. “You seem to know the city well. If I wish to hire you again, where should I look for you?”

“Thank
you,
sir,” said Gaius Rubrius at once, still grinning. “You can send word to us at the Cattlemarket, at the foot of the Aemilian Bridge. We could come by here for you whenever you want, if we're not on another job. We charge a denarius n' a half the day, sir, if you want the chair for longer. Half a denarius after noon.”

“I may send for you, then, once I know more about how I should conduct my business here in Rome. Good health to you both.”

“Good health to you, sir!” chorused the Rubrii, and set off down the street, their empty chair dangling from one pole between them.

Crispus tut-tutted. “You shouldn't be so polite to rabble like that,” he informed his guest. “It makes them greedy—and you paid those fellows too much, too.”

“I know,” said Hermogenes, turning back to his host. “In a strange city, I try to acquire every potential asset I meet.”
Besides,
he thought to himself,
it was worth a bit extra, to have a pair of Roman citizens carrying my luggage
.

Crispus laughed. “Asset? A ragamuffin pair of sedan-chair bearers? If you need a chair, my friend, you are welcome to borrow mine. But come in, come in! Are these men yours?”

“My slaves,” Hermogenes agreed. “Young Menestor here is my valet and secretary.” He snapped his fingers for them to pick up the luggage.

“Dog!” snapped Crispus to the scarred doorkeeper. “Do I have to tell you everything? Help them!”

The doorkeeper went silently to the traveling chest and took one end of it. Hermogenes realized that Crispus had called the man “dog” in Greek, even though the rest of the conversation was in Latin. “Does your doorkeeper speak Greek?” he asked in confusion. The man had not appeared to understand Menestor.

Crispus giggled and shook his head. “Not a word of it. But I give all my slaves Greek names; it's the fashion. His is Kyon.” He giggled again. “Good name for a doorkeeper, don't you think?”

Hermogenes tried to keep his feelings from his face. The idea of renaming slaves to fit a current fashion was repulsive, and the thought of obliging one to answer to Dog made him queasy. He didn't like the idea of a fashion for giving slaves
Greek
names, either.

His attempt at concealing his emotions obviously hadn't succeeded, because Crispus cried, “Oh, dear! You're offended. I assure you, this fashion for Greek names is only because we admire Greek culture so much, not because …
obviously
we don't think of Greeks as naturally servile!”

Hermogenes forced himself to smile understandingly. Inwardly he wondered if staying with Crispus was really such a good idea. It had seemed the obvious thing to do: Crispus was an old business associate of his father, after all, and had been a guest in Alexandria on several occasions. He had always declared himself eager to return the favor. It was very much the done thing to stay with guest-friends if you had any, much more respectable than a public inn … but now that he was here, he was remembering that he'd never actually
liked
Fiducius Crispus much.

Too late to do anything about it now. Besides, he needed advice, and Crispus could give it to him. He followed his host into the house.

The street door opened onto a wide entrance corridor decorated with a mosaic picture of a barking dog; the doorkeeper's lodge was a tiny cell to the right of it. Through the entranceway was a vaulted atrium, with a pond in the center to catch the rainfall from the open circle of the impluvium in the ceiling. An archway beyond revealed a small courtyard with a garden.