The Egyptian Royals Collection (135 page)

“Gallia isn’t Livia’s slave,” I said heatedly. “She shouldn’t be anyone’s slave.”

“Well, she belongs to my mother,” Marcellus replied, “and my mother is putting her in danger. No one can afford to make an enemy of Livia.”

“I understand why Octavia did it,” Julia said. “She’s tired of Livia thinking she owns all of Rome.”

“She does,” Marcellus pointed out.

“No, my father does! Livia’s just a whore with a good marriage.”

Alexander snickered, and I covered my mouth to keep myself from laughing.

Julia smiled naughtily at me. “Now let’s find the shortest trial and get this over with.”

But there was only one trial happening in the Forum. A crowd was growing around the podium where a lawyer was addressing the seated judices, who would eventually return a verdict of guilt or innocence.

“I can’t see,” Julia complained. “What’s going on?”

“Two hundred slaves are on trial for the murder of their master, Gaius Fabius,” Juba said.

Julia gasped. “Fabius?” She turned to me. “Don’t you remember
him, Selene? He was the man you saw beating those boys at the temple!”

“And all two hundred slaves helped murder him?” I exclaimed.

“When one slave murders his master, all must be punished,” Juba said levelly.

Suddenly, Julia was interested. “Do you think we can get a better view?”

Juba raised his brows. “Certainly.” He took us behind the podium, where rows of slaves were chained together by the neck and we could watch the backs of the lawyers as they addressed both the judices and the crowds.

“Look how young they are,” I whispered to Alexander. Some of the slaves were no more than five or six, and could never have taken part in any killing. I turned to Juba. “Will they really be put to death?”

“Of course. If they are found guilty.”

“How can you be so callous?” I demanded.

“Because it’s not his problem,” Tiberius said. “What is he supposed to do about it?”

The public lawyer for the slaves stopped talking, and was replaced at the podium by the lawyer for the dead Gaius Fabius. “You have heard,” he began in a thundering voice, “pitiful stories of slaves who could not have taken part in the killing. Women, children, old men who are nearly crippled and blind. But what did they see? What did they witness and keep silent about? Make no mistake,” the lawyer said angrily, “watching and participating are no different! We cannot know which among these dregs stood by while Gaius Fabius was strangled in his chamber, then knifed more than a dozen times.” There was a groan from the crowd, and at the front, seated on wooden benches, the judices shook their heads. “We must set an example,” he said at once. “Nearly thirty-five years ago, a similar trial ended in the death of four hundred slaves. That jury understood that
a message must be sent. One that discourages any slave from killing his master for fear that
everyone
will be punished. We must stop this now,” he shouted, “or who will be next? You?” He pointed at an old man on the bench, whose neck was weighed down by heavy gold chains. “You?” he demanded, looking at a second young man in the toga of a judex. “Forget what you heard before this. Certainly, a few slave children will die. But are their lives more important than yours? More important than those of your wives and children?”

He stepped down from the podium, and Julia watched with wide-eyed fascination. “What happens now?” she whispered.

“That’s it,” Tiberius said.

“What? No more arguing?” Marcellus asked.

The crowd began to disperse, and Juba started walking. “No more until tomorrow.”

“But how many days will it go on?” Julia asked.

“As many as it takes.”

She regarded Juba crossly. “But that could be a month. Even two months.”

“It can’t be two months,” Tiberius retorted. “Courts shut down in November and December.”

“So who decides when it’s over?” I asked.

“The judices,” Gallia replied. Until then, she had been silent. Now she added quietly, “Those poor little children.”

The next day, no one complained about going to the Forum. Even my brother and Julia were more interested in the fate of the two hundred slaves than in the races at the Circus Maximus. I could hear the people on the streets talking about Gaius Fabius’s slaves, and there seemed to be outrage, not at his murder, but at the trial. “Fifty-three children,” a woman said in the crowd. “It isn’t right.” Though we had arrived at the same time we had before, word had spread throughout
Rome and more than a thousand people swelled around the podium and the judices’ seats.

“Look how angry the people are! The judices have to set them free!” I exclaimed.

“They don’t
have
to do anything,” Juba replied, leading us to the space behind the podium reserved for honored guests. This time, several senators were already there, watching the lawyers arguing. “The judices will make their decisions based on the principles of justice as they see them, not on the wishes of an angry mob.”

“Then you agree with this?” I exclaimed.

Juba looked at the miserable chain of slaves fettered by heavy iron shackles. Among them was a little brown-haired girl, who smiled when Juba met her gaze. “I agree with justice.”

The lawyer for Gaius Fabius was at the podium, banging his fist against the wood. “Would you like to see the murderer?” he demanded, and the crowds cheered. “Bring him forth!”

The guards stepped forward with a slave who was being held separately, and I whispered to Julia, “Is that one of the boys Fabius was beating at the temple?”

“Who knows? All Gauls look the same.”

I noticed Gallia shaking her head.

Fabius’s lawyer pumped his fist in the air. “This is the slave responsible for the murder, and he doesn’t even deny it!” he cried. “Which of you thinks that a boy of fourteen could have done it on his own? Strangled his master, stabbed his master, then dumped his master’s body into the atrium pool?” There was a general shaking of heads, and the slave looked down at his feet. Like the kitchen boy, he knew he was lost. Then the lawyer inhaled, dramatically. “Who here believes that slaves are blind?” A few members of the crowd laughed, and I felt a familiar twisting in my stomach. “Then no one here
believes that a murder could take place without anyone hearing. Without anyone suspecting. Without anyone ever seeing this
filius nullius
drag his master’s body away from his chamber! There are accomplices,” he promised. “And we must teach them Roman justice!” He strode away from the podium with the air of a man who knows he has won.

The lawyer for Fabius’s slaves looked beaten before he even opened his mouth. His thin shoulders were hunched in his heavy toga, and he looked as if the heat of the day was draining him of color.

“There is no knowing,” he began, “who saw or heard Gaius Fabius die. There is no one in this crowd who can tell me which of these slaves is an accomplice. Perhaps it was early morning, and while the elder slaves worked, it was the children who witnessed this terrible crime. I do not deny that this slave is responsible.” He flicked his wrist, and the guards took the boy away, holding him near the other slaves. I saw the boy look at an older woman, and felt certain from her tears that this was his mother.

“But who here wishes to punish the innocent?” the lawyer went on. “The children who have never learned right from wrong?” There was an uneasy shuffling in the crowd, and the men who had laughed wore serious faces now. “It’s true that if you allow these slaves to be put to death, you are sending a message across Rome. But the message is that we are no different from barbarians!” I could see that he had been arguing all afternoon, and the strain was beginning to show. “Look at these faces,” he implored. “This one.” He stepped back and held up the chin of the beautiful girl who had smiled at Juba. “She can’t be more than six years old. What has she done to deserve death? She hasn’t even lived life!”

I saw Gallia blinking back tears.

“And this child,” the lawyer said. He touched the shoulder of a boy
who was not more than ten. “What might he become if we let him live? He might serve another master well, he might buy his freedom. He might become as wealthy and powerful and useful as Caesar’s consul Agrippa!” There was an eager murmur in the crowd, and the lawyer fixed his gaze on the seven rows of judices. “Have pity,” he demanded. “Place blame on the shoulders it should rest on. Not upon the innocent!” He left the podium, and for several moments no one said anything.

“Do you think a decision will be made tomorrow?” Marcellus asked.

“It appears that way,” Juba said quietly, and I wondered whether he had been moved by the public lawyer’s plea.

As we walked through the Forum, Julia said brightly, “Who would have thought a trial could be so interesting? Perhaps we should place bets.”

For the first time, I saw Marcellus recoil in disgust.

“What?” she said. “It’s no different from the arena.”

“Perhaps I should not have bet there, either,” he said shortly, and Julia gave me a puzzled look.

THE CROWD
that came to witness the fate of Gaius Fabius’s two hundred slaves filled the Forum all the way from the courtyard of the Carcer to the steps of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. We had been allowed to skip our time on the Campus Martius to hear the judices pronounce their verdict, and even Octavian came, with Livia and Agrippa.

“Where are your sisters?” I asked Marcellus. “And why isn’t your mother here?”

He stepped forward to get a better view. Although we were standing behind the raised wooden platform, hundreds of senators jostled around us. “Trials of this sort upset her,” he said. “And she’d never allow my sisters to come. They saw a man sentenced to death once and have never stopped talking about it.”

“So you think they’ll be found guilty?” I worried.

“Certainly the slave who killed Fabius. The others.…” He hesitated. “I don’t know. It would be unfair to send them to their deaths.”

“And what could the children possibly have done?” my brother added.

“If the Red Eagle were here,” Marcellus whispered, “there would be acta on every temple door decrying this.”

“Perhaps he’s waiting,” I suggested, “to see what the judices do.”

Although Octavia had chosen not to come, the rest of Rome appeared to be in attendance. And because Octavian was with us, the lawyers spoke swiftly. Their last arguments were the most moving. Gaius Fabius’s lawyer pled for justice, pointing to Fabius’s wife in the crowd, who dabbed at her eyes. But the lawyer for the slaves begged for reason, reminding the judices of the children and old women who could not have taken part in a murder. I watched Octavian’s face as each judex stood to announce his verdict, and when all of them pronounced the slave boy guilty, he nodded, as if in agreement. There was a deafening cheer from the crowd, and the boy cast a fearful glance at his mother, who buried her face in her chained hands.

“This is it,” Julia said. “I wonder what they’ll do.” She brushed a stray black curl from her forehead and stood on tiptoe to see the faces of the judices.

The first judex stood and announced his verdict for the two hundred slaves. “Guilty,” he said, and I looked to Octavian, whose face was an expressionless mask. The second judex rose, and when he, too, pronounced a verdict of guilty, the people began to grow restless.

“Perhaps we should leave,” Juba suggested as the third and fourth judex announced their verdicts of guilty.

“Marcellus,” Octavian called sharply. “Tiberius. We’re leaving.”

“But we haven’t even heard the verdict,” Julia complained.

“Perhaps you would rather stay here and be killed?” Livia demanded.

The crowd was growing increasingly discontent, and as more judices pronounced their verdict of guilty, some of the freedmen began the chant of “Red Eagle.”

“Go!” Octavian shouted to us. “Go!”

The Praetorian cleared a path through the Forum, but as the last judex announced his verdict, the freedmen and slaves became uncontrollable. I could hear the sounds of rioting behind us: statues being shattered, and soldiers clashing with the people. A wave of angry men rushed toward us, and Livia cried shrilly, “It’s Spartacus all over again!” Octavian took her arm, then the guards surrounded us and began to run. The angry slaves didn’t need weapons. All they needed was fire and stones.