The King's Gambit (17 page)

I had not the heart to tell them that their hope was almost certainly futile, that many powerful men coveted their master's property, and they were part of that property. The will would almost certainly be broken. They had seemed honestly grief-stricken that Sergius was dead, and it takes a man as hard-hearted as Cato (the Senator) to remain untouched by such devotion. He had never remarried after losing his slave-wife, and while he had disported himself freely with his many pretty slave girls, he had never deceived any of them with promises of marriage, as so many heartless men do. He had never produced children by any woman, a curse which he attributed to a fever he suffered about the time he shaved his first beard.

To my taste, one Sergius Paulus was worth ten of Publius Claudius, a vicious lout born with every advantage but consumed with the belief that he had somehow been denied something. At least Rome gave a man like Paulus a chance to rise from servile status and make something of himself, as Paulus had. The Greeks have always looked down their Attic noses at us and called us uncouth barbarians, but I never heard of an Athenian slave in the greatest days of Pericles gaining his freedom, becoming a citizen and having a good prospect of seeing his sons sitting with purple-bordered togas in the Curia, debating the high matters of state with the other Senators.

You have to grant us that. We Romans have practiced cruelty and conquest on a scale never attempted by any other people, yet we are lavish with opportunity. We have enslaved whole nations, yet we do not hold a previous condition of servitude as a bar to advancement and high status. The patricians make much of their superiority, yet what are they but a pitiful remnant of a decrepit, priestly aristocracy long discredited?

The sad fact is that in those days we were mad. We fought class against class, family against family. We had even fought a war of masters against slaves. Many nations have been destroyed by civil war and internecine struggle. Rome always emerged stronger from each of these conflicts, another proof of our unique character. At this time, the infighting was between two parties: the
Optimates,
who thought themselves made up of the best men, an aristocratic oligarchy; and the
Populares,
who claimed to be the party of the common man. Actually the politicians of both parties had no ideals beyond their own betterment. Pompey, a former colleague of Sulla, was a leader of the
Optimates,
while Caius Julius Caesar, although a patrician, was a rising leader of the
Populares.
Caesar's uncle by marriage had been the great Marius, and the name of Marius was still revered by the
Populares.
With leaders like these, the fact that Rome was not easily destroyed by foreign enemies must prove that we enjoy the unique favor of the gods.

All these thoughts came to me at that time, but they did nothing to help solve my problem. And now I had another thing to consider. My father's wistful hope that the whole affair would be passed on to the next year's magistrates had reminded me that time was getting short. I had only about a month before the new magistrates took office. The committee positions are by appointment, not by the annual elections, but I had a strong suspicion that the next set of praetors would have their own favorites to appoint, and I would be out. This was when we were still using the old calendar, which would get out of order every few years, so that the
Pontifex Maximus
would have to declare an extra month. That year, the new year would begin on about the first of January, as it does now. The new calendar was one of Caesar's better ideas. (At least, he called it his calendar. It was Cleopatra's court astronomer, Sosigenes, who actually created it, and in truth it was Caesar's own neglect of his duties when he was
Pontifex Maximus
that got the old calendar into such dreadful shape in the first place. That's something you won't find in the histories written later by his lackeys.)

The oddest thing was that Pompey, or Crassus, or any of the praetors could have ordered me to cease my investigations, or to turn in a false report. Undoubtedly they wanted to do just that. After the chaos of the past years, however, our rulers were determined to follow constitutional forms, and to avoid any stigma of tyranny at all costs.

That did not mean, of course, that they would not stoop to any underhanded way to sabotage my work. Assassination was not out of the question. I was convinced that the only thing preserving me from these more extreme measures was my family's prestige. Both parties were courting the Metellans. We had an ancient reputation for moderation and levelheadedness in government. Metellans had always opposed the fanatical extremes of the various parties. As a result we had an enviable reputation with aristocrats and commoners alike, and only someone bent on political suicide would attack one of us too blatantly.

Still, I did not take great comfort in this knowledge. I have already mentioned the extreme recklessness of our politicians, and I did not yet know how desperate this vat of corruption might make them. So far, each man who might have led me to the solution of this puzzle had been murdered.

Then I remembered that there might be another. The merchant Zabbai had said that the pirates maintained an agent at Ostia. The port town was not more than fifteen miles from Rome, using either the river or the Via Ostiensis. There was a chance that he might be able to supply me with some much-needed information. It was worth a try, anyway. I determined to go immediately.

I returned to my house and filled a small purse from my chronically underweight money-chest and found my traveling-cloak, the same close-woven woolen garment I had worn when campaigning in Spain. I left word with Cato not to expect me back until late the next day and left my house.

I had only the slightest knowledge of Ostia, so I decided to take a guide with me, and I knew just the man for the job. I went to pay a visit to Macro.

He was surprised to see me. "Decius Caecilius, I was not expecting you. I still haven't received word of that estate manager in Baiae. I should know in two or three days."

"Excellent. As it occurs, I'm here about something else. I have to go to Ostia immediately and I need a guide, since I'll be calling on some less-than-official people. Lend me your boy Milo. I'll have him back to you by tomorrow evening."

"Certainly," Macro said. He sent a slave running to fetch Milo.

"Possibly you could help me further. I need to contact the agent who negotiates for the pirates in Ostia. Do you know his name and where he's to be found?"

Macro shook his head. "My territory stops at the city walls. Milo should be able to tell you." He looked at me with a puzzled expression. "What happened to your neck?"

"My neck?"

"Yes. It looks like you tried to hang yourself. Are things that bad?"

My hand went to my throat. I could feel nothing, but I knew that it bore a mark like that around Sergius Paulus's neck. "Oh, that. I just had some lessons on the garrote. It's getting to be quite the fashion in Rome lately."

"So I've heard. It was Sergius Paulus this morning, wasn't it? Damned Asiatics. The city's filling up with them. Bad enough when they were just bringing in their foul gods and cults. Now they're using their strangling cords, as if Roman steel weren't good enough."

"Another sign of the times." I agreed. A few minutes later young Milo arrived and I explained what I wanted.

"Can you help him?" Macro asked.

"Certainly. We can catch a barge going back downriver empty and be there before nightfall. It's Hasdrubal you want to talk to. He's a Phoenician out of Tyre. He used to have a shop down by the Venus dock."

"Let's be off, then," I said. We left Macro's house and went to the river dock, a walk of only a few minutes. I had tucked the scarf Zabbai had given me inside my tunic and now I knotted it around my throat, soldier-fashion. I needed no more questions concerning the condition of my neck. As we walked, people waved to Milo and called his name. He waved back, smiling.

"You've become well-known in your short time in the city," I said.

"Macro's had me at work organizing the vote for the next elections."

"That's months away," I said. "It's early to be out ward-heeling."

"That's what Macro said. I told him that it's never too early. He still thinks like an old-fashioned man. Most of them do. They think it's like public service or the religious calendar, where there are days for business and days for sacrifice and holidays and such. I say you take care of business every day, all year. Just in the time I've been here, I've done twice the work of any ten of Macro's men combined."

"Be careful with Macro," I cautioned. "Men like him can turn against young men who rise too fast." Then I saw three men walking toward us. We were passing near my house on our way to the river when one of them saw us and they walked toward us, their three bodies blocking the narrow street. In front was Publius Claudius.

"Now this is fortunate," Claudius said. "We were just at your house and your slave told us you had left town."

"I am on my way to catch a boat right now," I told him. His two companions were hulking brutes, scarred arena veterans whose tunics bulged with weapons. "Was it a social call?"

"Not precisely. I have certain advice for you, Decius, advice that our Consul Pompey is too polite to voice strongly enough. I want you to terminate all this snooping about in the doings of that Greek importer. Turn in a report stating quite truthfully that you were unable to find out who killed him and burned his warehouse."

"I see," I said. "And Sergius Paulus?"

He spread his hands. "The eunuch killed him. What could be simpler?"

"What, indeed? Oh, and Marcus Ager, alias Sinistrus? What of his murder?"

He shrugged. "Who cares? I warn you, Decius, turn in your report and no one will pursue the matter."

"You warn me, eh?" I was growing very tired of him and dangerously angry. "And under what authority do you make these demands, or should I say threats?"

"As a concerned Roman citizen. Will you heed my warning, Decius?"

"No. Now, get out of my way. You're interfering with a Roman official in the pursuit of his duties." I began to brush past him.

"Strabo, Cocles." At Publius's words, the two thugs reached into their tunics.

"Claudius," I said, "even you won't attack a public official in daylight."

"Don't tell me what I can do in my city!"

I realized then, for the first time, that Publius Claudius was mad. Typical Claudian. The thugs were bringing daggers from beneath their tunics and I knew that I had misjudged the situation. Even Pompey would not move against me directly, but Publius would. Belatedly, I began to reach for my own weapons.

"Excuse me, sir." Milo stepped past me and slapped the two strong-arm men. Just that, openhanded slaps, one to the right and one to the left. The two massive men went down like sacrificial oxen beneath the priest's ax. The sound of the two impacts was like breaking boards, and the men's faces were bloodied as if by spiked clubs. I have mentioned the hardness of Milo's palms. He pointed to Publius, who stood trembling with frustrated rage. "This one, too?"

"No, he's a patrician. You can kill them, but they don't take humiliation well."

"And who is this?" Publius hissed.

"Oh, forgive me. Where are my manners? Publius Claudius Pulcher, allow me to introduce Titus Annius Milo, late of Ostia and now a resident of our city, a client of Macro's. Milo, meet Publius Claudius Pulcher, scion of a long line of Consuls and criminals. Was there anything else, Claudius?" I considered telling him what I had been doing with his sister, just to see if I could induce apoplexy, but I really wasn't sure what I
had
done.

"Don't depend on your family to save you this time, Decius. This is no game for boys who aren't willing to play it seriously, to the end." He glared at Milo. "As for you, I suggest you go back to Ostia. This is
my
city!" Publius always spoke of Rome as if he were its sole proprietor.

Milo grinned. "I think I'll kill you now and save myself the trouble later."

"Not in front of me, you can't!" I told him. "Just because a fool deserves to die doesn't mean you can do it yourself."

Milo shrugged and flashed his smile at Claudius once more. "Later, then."

Publius nodded grimly. "Later."

We walked the rest of the way to the river without further violence. In later years I thought of how much trouble and grief I could have spared everybody by letting Milo kill Claudius that day. Even augurs cannot foresee the future, but can only divine the will of the gods through the signs they send. None but sibyls can look into the future, and they only speak gibberish. To me, on that day, Claudius was little more than a highborn nuisance, and Milo just an amiable young thug on the rise.

At the docks we asked a few questions and found a barge about to head downriver after discharging its cargo. We went aboard and found seats in the bow. Soon the bargemen cast off and we were drifting downstream. The rowers maneuvered the craft into the swiftest part of the stream and then concentrated on keeping us in a favorable position, letting the Tiber do most of the work.

This was a far more pleasant way to travel than by road. The wind was damp and chilly, but it would have been the same on the road, and there I would have been getting a sore backside riding a horse. The Via Ostiensis, like all highways near the city, was lined with tombs, as if reminders of mortality were really necessary. As if the tombs weren't mournful enough, most of them were covered with the painted advertisements for political candidates, announcements of upcoming Games and the declarations of lovers.

The river presented no such vulgar display. Once we were beyond the city, the Tiber floodplain was embellished with beautiful little farms, the occasional country houses of the wealthy and here and there a great latifundium with its own river wharf. After the continual uproar and clatter of the city, this travel by water was most restful. A following wind blew up, and the bargemen hoisted up their single, square sail, so that our progress was swifter and even more silent as the oars ceased to work against their tholes.