Roman Blood (19 page)

A noble, finely dressed and attended by a large retinue of slaves, secretaries, and gladiators, stepped out of the crowd and approached the distressed graybeard. "Citizen," he called out, "are you the owner of these buildings?"

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" N o t the burning building," the man snapped. "That would be my stupid neighbor Varius, the kind of fool who lets his tenants build fires on the hottest day of the year. You don't see him here, fighting the fire.

Probably on holiday down at Baiae. This is mine, the one that's still standing."

"But not, perhaps, for long." The noble spoke in a fine voice that would not have been out of place in the Forum. I had not yet seen his face, but I knew who he must be.

"Crassus," I whispered.

" Y e s , " Tiro said, "Crassus. My master knows him." There was a trace of pride in his voice, the pride of those who appreciate a brush with celebrity no matter what its nature. " Y o u know the song: 'Crassus, Crassus, rich as Croesus.' Already they say he's the richest man in Rome, not counting Sulla, of course, which makes him richer than most kings, and growing richer every day. So Cicero says."

" A n d what else does your master say about Crassus?" The object of our conversation had wrapped one arm around the graybeard's shoulder.

Together they walked to a spot with a better view of the breach between the two buildings. I followed behind, and stared beyond them into the blinding cleft, impassable for the constant rain of ash and smoldering bricks.

" M e n say that Crassus has many virtues and only one overwhelming vice, and that is avarice. But Cicero says that his greed is only the symptom of a deeper vice: envy. Wealth is the only thing Crassus has.

He keeps hoarding it up because he's so jealous of other men's qualities, as if his envy were a deep pit, and if he could fill it full enough of gold and cattle and buildings and slaves, then he could finally stand level with his rivals."

"Then we should feel pity for Marcus Crassus? Your master is very compassionate."

We moved beyond the mass of the crowd and drew near enough to hear Crassus and the tenement owner shouting above the roar of the flames.

The fire was like hot breath against my face, and I had to blink my eyes against flying cinders.

We stood at the heart of the crisis. It seemed a strange place to transact business, unless you considered the advantage it gave Crassus.

The poor graybeard looked in no condition to strike a hard bargain.

Above the roar of the flames I could hear Crassus's trained oratorical voice like chiming bells.

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" T e n thousand denarii," he shouted. I couldn't hear the landlord's answer, but his face and his gestures indicated outrage. "Very well."

Crassus shrugged. He seemed about to offer a higher price when a sheet of flame abruptly shot up about the base of the endangered building. A group of workers immediately ran to the spot, beating against the flames with rugs and passing a chain of buckets. Their efforts seemed to douse the flames; then the fire leaped up in another spot.

"Eight thousand, five hundred," said Crassus. " M y final offer. Better than the value of the raw land, which is all that may be left. Consider the expense of having the rubble carted off." He stared into the conflagration and shook his head. "Eight thousand denarii, no more. Take it now if you're interested. Once the flames start in earnest I won't offer you an as."

The graybeard wore an expression of agony. A few thousand denarii was hardly adequate compensation. But if the building was gutted it would be utterly worthless.

Crassus called to his secretary. "Gather up my retinue. Tell them to be ready to move on. I came here to buy, not to watch a building go up in flames."

The graybeard broke down. He clutched at Crassus's sleeve and nodded. Crassus made a sign to his secretary, who instantly produced a fat purse and paid the man on the spot.

Crassus raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately his entire retinue went into action. Gladiators and slaves scurried about the building like ants, seizing buckets from the hands of exhausted volunteers, tearing up paving stones and throwing rocks, dirt, and anything else that would not burn into the breach between the buildings.

Crassus turned on his heel and walked straight toward us. I had seen him many times in the Forum, but never so close. He was not a bad-looking man, slightly older than myself, with thinning hair, a strong nose, and prominent jaw. "Citizen!" he called to me. "Join the battle. I'll pay you ten times a workman's daily wage, half now and half later, and the same for your slave."

I was too stunned to answer. Crassus walked on, unperturbed, making the same offer to every able-bodied man in the crowd. His secretary followed behind, disbursing payments.

"They must have seen the smoke and come straight over the hill from the Forum," Tiro said.

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"A chance to buy property at the foot of the Capitoline for next to nothing—why not? I hear he keeps slaves posted on the hilltops to watch for fires such as this, so that he can be first on the spot to buy up the spoils."

"It's not the worst story they tell on Crassus." Tiro's face turned livid, either from my sudden scrutiny or from the heat of the flames.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, only that he made his fortune by profiting from the proscriptions. When Sulla had his enemies beheaded, their property was confiscated by the state. Whole estates went up on the auction blocks. Sulla's friends were able to buy them for scandalous prices. Everyone else was afraid to bid."

"Everyone knows that, Tiro."

"But Crassus finally went too far. Even for Sulla."

" H o w ? "

Tiro lowered his voice, though no one could possibly have heard us amid the rumble of the flames and the sudden din of Crassus's hirelings.

"I overheard Rufus telling my master one day. Rufus is connected to Sulla by marriage, you know, through his sister Valeria; he hears all sorts of things that otherwise would never leave Sulla's house."

" Y e s , go o n . "

" T h e story goes that Crassus had an innocent man's name added to the proscription lists, just so he could get his hands on the man's property. This was an old patrician who had no one to protect his interests; his sons had been killed in the wars—fighting for Sulla! The poor man was rounded up by thugs and his head was chopped off that very day.

His estates were auctioned off a few days later, and Crassus saw to it that no one else was allowed to bid. The proscriptions were strictly for political enemies, and terrible enough, but Crassus used them to satisfy his own greed. Sulla was furious, or pretended to be, and hasn't let him run for a public office since, for fear that the scandal will come o u t . "

I searched the busy crowd for Crassus. He stood amid the swirling mass of slaves and gladiators, heedless of the confusion, staring wide-eyed and smiling like a proud parent at his latest acquisition. I turned around and followed his gaze. As we watched, the wall of the flaming tenement gave way and fell in on itself with a great shudder and a shower of sparks. The fire was contained. The smaller building would not be lost.

I looked again at Crassus. His face was flushed with an almost religious 123

joy—the ecstasy of a bargain well and truly struck. In the reddish glow of the bonfire his face looked smooth and younger than its age, flushed with victory, set about eyes that glittered with an unquenchable greed.

I stared into the face of Marcus Licinius Crassus, and I saw the future of Rome.

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FOURTEEN

C I C E R O was still in seclusion when I returned with Tiro to the house on the Capitoline. The old manservant solemnly informed us that his master had stirred before midday and managed to descend to the Forum to conduct some business, but had returned after only a short while, weakened by the disquiet in his bowels and exhausted from the heat.

Cicero had retired to his bed with word that not even Tiro should disturb him. It was just as well. I had no stomach for reciting the day's events and parading the players before Cicero's caustic eye.

Tiro assumed authority to offer me food and drink, and even a bed if I felt too weary to make my way home. I declined. He asked at what hour he should expect me the next day. I told him he would not be seeing me at all until the day after, at the earliest. I had decided to pay a visit to the town of Ameria and the country estates of Sextus Roscius.

The stroll down the hill and through the Forum refreshed my mind.

The dining hour approached, and an evening breeze carried scents of cooking from every corner. The Forum had reached the end of another long day of business. The lowering sun cast long shadows across the open squares. Here and there business continued in an informal vein. Bankers gathered in small groups at the foot of the temple steps to exchange the final gossip of the day; passing friends exchanged last-minute invitations to dinner; a few stray beggars sat in tucked-away corners counting the day's revenue.

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Rome is perhaps most appealing at this hour. The mad trafficking of the day is done, the languor of the warm night still lies ahead. Dusk in Rome is a meditation on victories accomplished and pleasures yet to come. Never mind that the victories may have been trivial and imperma-nent, or that the pleasures may fail to satisfy. At this hour Rome is at peace with herself. Are the monuments to the gods and heroes of her past pitted with corrosion and weathered by neglect? In this light they appear newly hewn, their crumbling edges made smooth and their fissures erased by gentle twilight. Is her future uncertain, unforeseen, a feverish leap into darkness? At this hour the darkness looms but does not yet descend, and Rome may well imagine it will bring her only sweet dreams, dispens-ing its nightmares to her subjects.

I left the Forum for more common streets. I found myself wishing that the sun could stand still on the horizon, like a ball come to rest on a windowsill, so that twilight might linger indefinitely. What a mysterious city Rome would become then, perpetually bathed in blue shadow, her weed-ruptured alleyways as cool and fragrant as mossy riverbanks, her great avenues pocked with deep shadows where the narrower tributaries lead off to those places where the masses of Rome are constantly getting and begetting themselves.

I came to that long, serpentine, unrelieved passageway through which I had taken Tiro the day before, the Narrows. Here the sense of peace and serene expectation wavered and abandoned me. To traverse the Narrows while the sun is still rising is one thing; to pass through while the light fails is another. Within a few steps I was already plunged into premature night, with black walls on either side, an uncertain grayness ahead and behind, and a thin ribbon of twilight-blue sky above.

In such a place it is easy to imagine not only all manner of sounds and shapes, but a whole catalogue of other phenomena detected by a nameless sense more rarified than hearing or sight. If I thought I heard footsteps following me, it was not for the first time in the Narrows. If it seemed that those footsteps halted whenever I stopped to listen, and resumed when I decided to press on, this was not my first encounter with such an experience. But on this night I began to feel an unaccustomed sense of dread, almost of panic. I found myself walking more and more quickly, and glancing over my shoulder to make sure that the nothing I had seen only moments before was the same nothing that still doggedly pursued me. When at last I stepped out of the Narrows and into the 126

broader street, the last traces of twilight seemed as open and inviting as the noonday sun.

I had one last bit of business to transact before I made my way up the Esquiline. There are stables on the Subura Way, not far from the pathway that leads up to my house, where farmers visiting from the country find stalls and straw for their nags, and riders relay their steeds. The proprietor is an old acquaintance. I told him I would be needing a mount the next day for a very quick journey north to Ameria and back again.

"Ameria?" He sat hunched over a bench, squinting at his tallies for the day beneath a newly lit lamp. "A hard eight hours of riding, at the least."

" T h e least is the most I can manage. Once I'm there I'll need to attend to my business with what's left of the day, and head back to Rome early the next morning. Unless I have to make a very fast escape before that."

The stablemaster scowled at me. He has never been quite sure what I do for a living, though he must suspect it has some criminal element, given the oddities of my comings and goings. Even so, he has never given me less than the finest service.

"I suppose you're going alone, like a damned f o o l ? "

" Y e s . "

He hawked up a mass of mucus and spat onto the straw-littered floor.

"You'll be needing a quick, strong horse."

" Y o u r quickest and strongest," I agreed. "Vespa."

" A n d if Vespa's not available?"

"I can see her tail from here, hanging over the gate to her stall."

" S o you can. One of these days I suppose you'll come back to me with the story of her sad end, and how you did your best to keep her out of harm's way. 'Very fast escape' indeed. From what? But of course you're not telling me. She's my best mare. I shouldn't loan her to a man who'll ride her too hard and put her in danger besides."

"It's more likely that one of these days I shall take Vespa and she'll return to you unscathed and without a rider, though I don't suppose you'll shed a tear over that. I'll be here before dawn. Have her ready for m e . "

"The usual fee?"

" N o , " I said, and watched his jowls droop. " T h e usual—and a special gratuity besides." In the combination of blue twilight and soft lamplight, I could make out the lines of a grudging smile on his ugly face. I would pass on the extra fee to Cicero.

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Day lingers longest on the summits of the seven hills of Rome. The sun had departed for good, but the hillside of the Esquiline was still brighter than the narrow, deep-shadowed artery at her feet. As I hurried up the rough pathway to my house, I entered a latitude of lingering, pale blue twilight. Above the hilltop the stars were already shining faintly in a sky of deepest blue.