The Catiline Conspiracy (26 page)

"Orestilla?" he said, coming back from wherever his mind had wandered. "I've sent them both to a house in the country. They'll be safe until I can send for them."

"What will you do now?" I asked, relieved. "I intend to watch the excitement," he said, grinning. Now he sounded like the old Catilina. Whatever had unnerved him, he was shaking it off. "I will make some public speeches, pointing out the advantages of a change in government. Never fear, there will be plenty of popular support for me when the swords are drawn." This was the first I heard that he counted on much popular support.

I thought of this as I walked home that night. It was not only dark but chill, rainy and suitably miserable. As I splashed through puddles and dodged disgruntled dogs, I reflected on the fickleness of the Roman electorate. Although Rome and the empire as a whole were richer than ever, the body of poor citizens was also unprecedentedly great. There were many crushed by debt, with little hope of relief. The labor market was flooded with cheap slaves and even skilled craftsmen could only manage a living wage. The situation was worse in some rural areas, where slave-worked
latifundia
had crowded out and impoverished the free farmers, and the people, had no access to a public dole.

Under such circumstances, many might grasp at a chance for a better condition. The rabble could easily be swayed by demagogues and opportunists, never thinking far enough ahead to see what they were being led into.

And there was the simple fact of boredom. Times had been quiet, Rome was victorious, life was a pallid round of work, games, public holidays, religious festivals and sacrifices. In a word: dull. There were many, and not just among the urban poor, who missed the bad old days, when the mobs and private armies of Marius and Cinna, of Sulla and all the others had fought in the streets, when a common city-dweller might kill a Senator with impunity, when the houses of the rich were sacked and torched in the name of one tyrannical warlord or other. They had been heady times until their great harvest of misery brought people to their senses.

But the temptation was always there, to revel in the swinishness of civil rapine and butchery, the mob glutting itself on blood and loot, heedless of the hangover that follows every great debauch. And what did they care? Civic participation in government had become little more than a hollow shell, now that a professional army did all the fighting and a few dozen families supplied most of the statesmen and slaves did most of the work. What did the people care whether a Cicero or a Catilina lorded it over them? Even a temporary respite from their misery would be desirable. That, and a little excitement.

Cato opened my door with his usual sour looks and words. "Late again. Not only that, but this woman came calling for you this evening, and she insisted on waiting. She's in the
atrium
."

Puzzled and dripping, I went in. A heavily veiled woman rose at my entrance. No quantity of veils could hide that shape. "Aurelia!" I gasped.

She threw back the veils that covered her face. I would have embraced her but Cato made a scandalized sound. "Go to bed, Cato," I ordered. Grumbling, he left the
atrium
. Then I could hear his voice and his wife's coming from their quarters.

"Decius," Aurelia said, "don't you think you should dry yourself?"

I looked down at myself. Every fiber I wore water onto my tiled floor. More water dripped from my hair. My dagger, I decided, was probably getting rusty.

"I think there are some towels in my bedroom," I said, "Wait here."

I went to my room and stripped off my clothing, snatched up a towel and began drying myself vigorously, As I rubbed at my hair I discovered that there was an extra pair of hands working the towel.

"Do you mind if I help?" Aurelia asked.

"Your impatience is flattering," I told her. I turned and saw that she had already loosened her clothing. I needed only a few moments to finish the task, then she wore only her pearls. I was baffled by her presence there on that particular night, but my need for her drove all questions from my mind. She covered my lips with hers and we sank onto my narrow, bachelor's bed. Our ingenuity made up for the inadequacy of the furniture and the oil in my lamp was as exhausted as I was before I had breath to spare for questions.

"Catilina said that you and your mother were safe in the country," I said. I lay on my back and she lay half-across me, her cheek and both hands on my chest.

"I came back," she said. "I could not stay away from you."

As deeply as I wished to believe this, I could not but note that she had successfully stayed away from me for quite a while. Had she been sent to spy on me? To make sure that I reported to no one tonight? But Catilina and his followers acted with such desperate recklessness that such a precaution seemed alien to them.

"The city is too dangerous for you now," I insisted. "How much do you know of your stepfather's plans?"

She stretched. "Enough to know that he will soon be the ruler of Rome. What of it?"

"Within a few days he will be declared a public enemy by the Senate," I said. "When that happens, no member of his family will be safe. There will be blood in the streets again, Aurelia."

She stifled a yawn. "There is always blood in the streets. Usually it's common blood. A little noble blood is about to flow. Is that something to get excited about?"

"It is if the blood is yours," I said, then added "or mine."

"You mean you aren't anxious to throw your life away for your new Consul?" She snuggled closer against me and slid a leg over my hip.

"The whole idea behind a coup," I told her, "is to get someone else to sacrifice himself for your own advantage. That's what we are all in this for, after all. I could die heroically serving in some foreign war, without risking disgrace. I joined your stepfather's cause in order to reach high office without having to wait for fifty elder Metellans to die first."

"That's my Decius," she said. "The others are fools, just cattle to be sacrificed, but you know what this rebellion is truly about. Of all my stepfather's followers, only you have real intelligence."

"Followers are there to be used," I said. "But what of the men even Catilina must defer to?" Even here I could not stop probing for information. With my left hand I stroked her spine, but this was not merely a caress. I was feeling for the involuntary tension that would precede a lie.

"What do you mean?" she asked sleepily.

"He told me that Crassus supported him." It was a wild try, but I was desperate for any sort of confirmation of my suspicions.

"He told you that?" she said, waking up. "Then you truly stand high in his estimation. I thought he had kept that secret from his closest companions."

It was true. I had it at last but not, as Cicero demanded it, in writing. And there was admiration in her voice. I was an even more important man than she had thought. I knew about Crassus.

She yawned again. "He told you about meeting with Crassus last night?"

"No," I said, my scalp tingling. "The others were present."

"Crassus came to my mother's house last night, after dark. They went into one of the rooms and closed the door. It sounded like they were arguing." Her voice drifted off.

So another knucklebone had taken an unexpected hop on the game board. Had Crassus reneged, after leading Catilina on? That would explain the shaken confidence Catilina had shown. If so, why? Had Crassus given up on the plot as misconceived or incompetently implemented? Or had he never been serious about his support in the first place? As I pondered it, I decided that this was the most likely explanation.

With Pompey in the East and Lucullus in retirement, with at least one of the
praetores
involved in the conspiracy, Crassus was the most distinguished general left near the Capitol, with many veterans ready to come at his call and rally to the eagles. He expected that the Senate, in a panic, would call upon him to crush the rebellion, perhaps even name him
Dictator
for the duration of the emergency.

But Cicero had already taken steps to prevent that. He might not take direct action to impeach Crassus, but he would make sure that the military command against Catilina was spread among as many commanders as possible. And in this he was undoubtedly wise and prudent. The enemy here would be no Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Jugurtha or Mithridates, nor even a Spartacus. No unified command would be necessary against what was essentially several packs of bandits raising insurrection in various parts of Italy.

All of this was a fascinating puzzle to work out, but it was not my main concern. What was happening in Rome, all over Italy and in far-flung parts of the empire that night was a splendid example of the chicanery, treachery, double-dealing and conspiracy that had become the lifeblood of Roman politics. And very little of it was my concern, now that I had notified Cicero of my findings.

What had concerned me from the beginning had been the murders. I do not like murders in my city, especially those involving peaceable citizens. I now had all but one accounted for. They were creditors murdered as part of an initiation rite by Catilina's followers.

The one that did not fit the pattern was the murder of Decimus Flavius, at the Circus. He was not a moneylender and he had died in a strange place, killed with an uncommon weapon. I had a question to ask, and it was one I had wanted to avoid since seeing her at the Circus that morning. Gently, I shook Aurelia to wake-fulness, keeping my fingers against her spine.

"Aurelia, wake up."

She blinked. "What?"

"I need to know something. Were you with Valgius and Thorius when they killed Decimus Flavius?" My fingertips felt the tension that crawled along her spine.

"No. Why do you ask, anyway? He was just another
eques
." She came wide awake with indignation. "Was his death any worse than that of the Greek physician you killed?"

"When I encountered the three of you that morning," I said, "you were not just passing by. You were actually
entering
that tunnel when I ran into the bearded twins."

"And what does that signify?" she asked, pouting.

I stared at my ceiling, barely visible in the flickering lamplight. "It made no sense at first, but then I learned more of what Catilina planned. You've been assigned to supervise those two, haven't you?"

She yawned again. "They aren't very bright. From the beginning, my stepfather has been plagued by the incompetence of his supporters. I've had to check everything they did to make sure they didn't bungle it."

"Why you?" I asked.

"I am trusted. They are near my age, and who would question a patrician lady accompanied by a pair of flunkies? Who would even notice who the flunkies were?"

"Who but I?" I said. "And Valgius is in charge of fire-raising in the city. He is intimately familiar with the Circus Maximus, and everyone knows that it is the most dangerous firetrap in Rome. As I figured it later, he and Thorius had found that great heap of trash and decided that it would be a good place to start their fire. In their usual bungling fashion, they spoke out loud and sound carries in those galleries. Flavius was passing by on his way home and overheard them. He came too close when he tried to hear more, and they caught him."

"You have spent all this time reconstructing what might have happened from what you knew?" She sounded annoyed. "You're a man of strange tastes."

"I would have figured it out sooner had I not been so besotted with you, Aurelia."

"Oh, Decius," she said, pleased, patting me intimately.

"Anyway," I went on, "the two bearded wonders were at a loss what to do. Since they were merely scouting for arson, they had not come armed for murder. But Valgius is a race fanatic. Like many other superstitious race fans, he carries a charioteer's knife for luck. Its shape was inappropriate, but in their emergency it had to do and they cut Flavius's throat with it."

"I think this sophistry of yours is a waste of imagination," she said. "What does all this matter?"

"It matters to me," I said. "Were you the one who got them to catch Flavius before he could get away and then to murder him?"

"Why do you want to know these things?"

"Don't worry. I will think no less of you. I know you were involved. Why are you so reluctant to admit it?"

She squirmed a little and I could almost feel her blush heating my skin like a distant fire. "Well, it was not something--not something I wanted to be associated with."

I knew what she meant. It was not the murder. Murder is all too common and Roman citizens are rarely put to death for murder, unless it is done with poison. It was the arson, the one unforgivable crime on the Roman law tables. The citizenry would take terrible vengeance on anyone caught fire-raising. If this were known of her, she could find herself bound to a stake in the arena, soaked with tar and awaiting the executioner's torch.

I stroked her back. "It doesn't matter," I said. "Go back to sleep." Within minutes she was faintly snoring.

Indeed, it did not matter. The situation had moved far beyond a few killings. And one way or another justice would be done. Within a matter of days or at most weeks, Catilina and all of his followers would be dead or in exile. The shades of the murdered
equites
would not haunt the city. Perhaps they would not even haunt my dreams.

At first light the next morning I walked Aurelia through the awakening streets of Rome. She wore her veils, but no one sought her. I looked around for some sign of change, but there was none. The war had commenced, but Rome was blissfully ignorant of the fact. All that would change soon enough. I wanted Aurelia out of it when it happened.

She had left her litter and slaves at a friend's house, and I took her there. We made our goodbyes at the gate of the house, a respectable mansion near the Colline gate.

"Leave the city, Aurelia," I said. "Go as far as you can and as quickly as you can."

She smiled at me. "Decius, you are too nervous. Within a few days my stepfather will be Consul and I can return."