The King's Gambit (23 page)

The next day, after my morning duties were taken care of, I sought out expert legal advice. Hortalus was deemed the best lawyer in Rome, but with good reason I was reluctant to seek him out for this, so I looked for Marcus Tullius Cicero, who I was certain was not involved in the conspiracy. My search was made easier because one of the augurs had detected unfavorable omens the night before and had canceled public business for the day.

Thus, I found Cicero at home, the one place a Roman in public life was almost never found in the second half of the morning on a day devoted to public work. Cicero's house was a modest one, although not as modest as mine, and very eccentric in its own way. I found his janitor perusing a scroll as I came to announce myself. All of Cicero's slaves were scholarly-looking men who could read to him on demand when his eyes grew tired. Every room of his house was lined with shelves bearing stacks of scrolls. He was an easy man to buy gifts for on Saturnalia, because he loved books above all things, original manuscripts by preference, but decent copies were almost as good. If you had a famous manuscript in your possession and hired one of his favorite scribes to copy it as a gift for him, Cicero was your friend for life, or at least until you fell afoul of him politically.

The janitor brought a man to receive me and conduct me to the master. He was a slave a few years older than I, dressed as well as any free man. This was the famous Tiro, Cicero's secretary and confidant. He had invented an abbreviated system of writing specifically to take down

Cicero's incredibly prolific dictation. He taught it to Cicero's other slaves and it quickly spread to all Roman scribes. Its use is now universal. He was one of those slaves who was never treated as anything other than a free man by anyone, from cobblers to Consuls.

"If you'll come with me, sir," Tiro said. I followed him through a hall redolent of papyrus and parchment and up a flight of stairs onto the roof, where we found Cicero reading in his splendid little solarium. It was a sunny, if somewhat chilly, morning and the light fell in oblique bars through an overhead vine-trellis. Planting boxes topped the low rampart that ran around the roof and a few flowers bloomed to defy winter. Cicero sat at a delicate Egyptian table laden with scrolls, rolls of blank papyrus, pots of ink and a vase full of reed pens. He smiled and stood as I came onto the roof.

"Decius, how good to see you." He held out his hand and I took it. Then he gestured to a chair. "Please, sit down." We both sat, and Tiro took a chair just behind Cicero, to his right.

"Most generous of you to allow me a little of your time," I told him. "Your nonstop activity is the stuff of legends."

He leaned back and laughed gently. "I think at my birth some malevolent god cursed me with a need to fill my every waking minute with activity."

"I thought you favored the stars as determinants,"I said.

"Perhaps it was the stars, then. How may I be of service to you?"

"I need advice concerning some difficult points of law."

"Then I am at your service."

"Thank you. I know that there is no one in Rome better qualified to advise me."

"There are those who would hold that Hortalus is a better counselor than I," Cicero said.

I took a deep breath. "I may have to bring suit against Hortalus."

Cicero frowned. "He is the patron of your father and yourself, is he not?"

"No man is my patron where treason is concerned."

Cicero's face registered shock. "Treason! You use the strongest word in the legal vocabulary, my friend. Were you Metellans not noted for moderation in political matters, I would say that you speak most rashly."

"The rest of what I have to say is stronger than this, so let us use no more names for a while. It is law we need to speak about, not personalities. I have seen certain evidence which indicates that a conspiracy exists to suborn the authority of a Roman general in the field and to attack his shipping, a plan involving collusion with the eastern pirate fleet."

"I will not ask the name of this general, although it is easy to guess. Such an attack could be lawful only if the general in question were to be declared an enemy of the state by the Senate, as was the case with Sertorius."

"There is to be no Senate vote on the matter. It is to remain a clandestine operation known only to the conspirators involved."

"This is an evil business, but so far you have not given me enough cause to bring forth a charge of treason, which is defined by constitutional law as engaging in or conspiring toward the armed overthrow of the government."

I had been afraid of that. "There is more involved: The conspiracy includes a foreign prince. His reward is to be the throne of his father, a monarch with whom we are not at war, and perhaps the throne of another with whom we currently are fighting. He promises for his part to rule both as a Roman puppet."

"Once again there is little guesswork here as to identities. If the monarch in question had been granted the title of 'Friend of Rome' by the Senate, as was the case with, say, Nicomedes of Bithynia, then conspiring to take his throne and grant it to another would be a grave in-stance of criminal corruption. But even then it would not be treason. Is there more?"

"Thus far, I know of three murders committed for the purpose of keeping this conspiracy secret: two citizens and a resident alien. The last murder involved an arson as well."

He pondered for a moment. "Murder of citizens and arson are both capital offenses. However, both are extremely difficult to prove in court. Do you believe that any of the highly placed conspirators personally committed these acts?"

I shook my head. "One was committed by a freedman, a manumitted gladiator. He himself was the second victim, probably to remove him from the chain of conspiracy as a worthless player. His murderer also committed the third homicide. All the evidence I have indicates that the killer is an Asiatic burglar and assassin in the employ of the foreign prince I mentioned."

"Then you will almost certainly not secure a conviction against any of the plotters. Plus, unless I miss my guess, your third victim was a very rich freedman, not so?"

"That is true."

"So we have as victims two freedmen and a foreigner. One of the freedmen was himself a murderer. A Roman jury will laugh at you if you try to lay such charges at the feet of high officials. What is your chief evidence? Do you have anything in writing?"

"Not in my possession. My surest proof of conspiracy lies in documents placed in the Temple of Vesta."

"Hmm. I won't ask how you got a look at them, but let us pretend that you read them before they were placed there. Documents entrusted to the Temple of Vesta may be subpoenaed by vote of the Senate where imminent danger to the state is involved and with the concurrence of the
Pontifex Maximus
. Since you need the documents to prove danger to the state, I see very little chance for that."

"You are saying, in essence, that I have nothing with which to bring charges against these people?"

"It is, of course, the right of every Roman citizen to bring suit in court against any other citizen. However, no serving Roman magistrate may be charged while in office, although as soon as he leaves office he may be charged with malfeasance. From what you have been saying, I take it that at least one of these conspirators is a serving magistrate?"

"Two, actually," I said.

"And the office they hold?"

"Consul. Both of them."

He paused. "Well. That does remove a bit of the guesswork, doesn't it? Tiro, I can tell you want to say something."

Tiro's waiting for Cicero's permission to speak was the only slavelike behavior I ever detected in him.

"Sir," he said to me, "the Consuls for this year have only a bit more than a month left in office. If you can gather more solid evidence against them, you may bring charges as soon as they step down. Neither has his army with him, and the proconsular command of the greater has not yet been chosen. It would be a good time, if the evidence can be produced."

Cicero nodded. "It would certainly make your name in Roman politics. You'd be singled out as consular material before even serving as quaestor."

"At the moment, I don't find the prospect all that tempting. My recent experiences have made me doubtful of the wisdom of a career in politics."

"Pity. You have what I regard as the highest of qualifications, which is a sense of public duty. A rare commodity these days. Tiro?"

"From what you have said," Tiro commented, "another of the conspirators is a Consul-elect for the next year. That complicates things further. The Consulate is not a judicial office and, technically, he may not interfere but political reality is otherwise. Since he and his colleague will rule on alternate days, you may try to set your court dates for days when his colleague holds office, but that would be difficult."

"You have my congratulations," Cicero said. "At a very young age, you have acquired not one but three of the most powerful enemies in the world. However, you have asked for legal advice and I shall give it. If you wish to prosecute all the conspirators at once, you must wait until this Consul-elect, who shall remain nameless, is out of office, a matter of some thirteen months and odd days. By that time, the two ex-Consuls will undoubtedly be on foreign soil, in command of very large and powerful armies. Such men may be impeached, as will probably happen to Lucullus. However, I must warn you that, as an exercise in futility, taking legal action against a Roman general in the midst of his legionaries has few peers."

"Is there no hope, then?" I asked, what few hopes I had arrived with already dashed.

"I have spoken as your legal advisor," Cicero said. "Now let me speak as a man of the world." He began ticking off points on his fingertips, lawyer-fashion. "First, the people you wish to prosecute are, for all practical purposes, above the law and the constitution. One of them is the greatest general in the world; another is the richest man in the world; the third is, besides myself, the best legal mind before the Roman bar. Each of the two Consuls commands a party of supporters in the Senate so powerful that they would be safe if they broke into the Temple of Vesta and raped all the virgins. Most importantly, they have the loyalty of thousands of the saltiest, most vicious and battle-hardened troops the world has ever seen. Once, it was unthinkable that Roman generals would lead their troops against Rome herself, but Marius and Sulla changed all that."

Now he leaned forward and spoke most earnestly. "Decius Caecilius, nobody,
nobody
, is going to convict those men for engaging in a bit of conspiracy against an ambitious fellow general or killing a couple of freedmen and a foreigner. I marvel that you are alive at all. This I

can only attribute to the fact that these men would like the support of the Metellan family in their future plans."

"I suppose that is true of the highest of the conspirators," I acknowledged. "But there has been one unsuc-cessful attempt on my life. You see, one of the less highly placed conspirators does not fear the wrath of the Me-tellans, the laws of Rome or, for all I can tell, the immortal gods."

Cicero smiled wryly. "I think I know who that must be. I believe we had dinner at his table a few nights ago, did we not? Well, him you may protect yourself from. Hire a pack of gladiators from the Statilian school, like all the other politicians. They make good bodyguards."

"Not the family tradition, I'm afraid," I said, rising. "Marcus Tullius, I thank you for your advice. You've given me little cause for hope, but you have clarified some points on which I was unclear, and that will be a great help."

"Will you not drop this matter?" he asked.

I shook my head. "They have murdered people in my district, and I must pursue the case."

He rose and took my hand. "Then I wish you well. I look to see great things from you, if you live." Tiro conducted me out.

Since lawyers, like physicians, were forbidden to accept fees, I pondered what I might give Cicero. I was building up quite a Saturnalia debt lately. As I walked toward the Forum I remembered that I had a rather nice original manuscript of the poet Archias, whom Cicero loved. That should do it. A morning of legal consultation was not quite as demanding as if he had won an important court case for me.

I had other things buzzing through my mind, naturally. Cicero had very aptly and succinctly made my position clear. I was Rome's most unloved investigator and number-one candidate for the next homicide victim. My plans to expose a conspiracy were in ruins. After all, who in Rome
cared
which of several power-mad, plunderaddled generals ruled as cock of the roost? Who
cared

which oily Oriental sat on some eastern throne? Most of all, who cared about a few corpses in the street, where on some mornings corpses were as numerous as peach pits?

I cared, of course, but I found myself in a distinct minority. Very well: I had no chance against Pompey or Crassus, or even Hortalus. I could at least pursue the immediate murderers of the residents of my district. It was a poor accomplishment in light of the larger issues, but it was within my power. If I could stay alive.

The day had warmed slightly, heating the Roman blood to a level of moderate activity. The markets in the Forum were bustling. Some sold country produce, but I noticed an inordinate number of fortunetellers' booths. Fortune-tellers were periodically banished from the city, but the last such action had been a year or two before, so they had dribbled back in. I noticed that there were long lines at the booths of the various bone-tossers, star-readers, snake-diviners and other such charlatans. It was a sign of unrest in the city. In times of great uncertainty, a single lunatic prophet could send the urban mob into a panic culminating in a full-blown riot.

At the base of the Rostra I saw Caesar talking with a mixed group of Senators and ordinary citizens. He had so far amounted to little politically, but he had demonstrated an extraordinary ability to sway the Centuriate Assembly and had secured himself a quaestorship for the next year. He caught my eye and gestured for me to join him.