The Tribune's curse s-7 Read online

  “Take the two in back,” I said. The caestus allows limited use of the hand it adorns, and with that hand I whipped off my everyday toga. It had lead pellets stitched into its corners, which improved the drape, kept it from flapping in the wind, and allowed for more-imaginative uses.

  The two in front whirled, crouching, daggers in their fists. I was not interested in talk or negotiation, not at two-against-one odds. The man on the left caught the lead weights in the face before he had properly gotten himself set. I let the toga go, its loose folds enveloping his head as I attacked. I have always found that there is little use in fencing when outnumbered and in conditions of uncertain light. An immediate, unrelenting attack is the best tactic then, unless you have a good escape route, which was distinctly lacking in this instance.

  The man to the right was a veteran street fighter and came in fast, undistracted by the other’s plight. He feinted high with his short, curved knife, then came in low, sending a gutting stroke at my belly below the ribs. I blocked with my left forearm, felt the very tip of his blade nick the skin over my left hip, sent my dagger into his chest as the fingers of his left hand clawed at my eyes. We smashed together, and I brought my knee up into his groin as his knife hand sought weakly to carve me and I drew out my dagger and stabbed upward beneath his chin.

  The other man bowled into me even as the first fell away, mortally wounded. He had my toga still draped across his shoulders and chest, but his eyes were clear and he had the advantage. I dived for the pavement rather than try to come to grips with him, always a mistake if you don’t have some sort of control over your opponent’s knife hand. He slashed but only nicked the top of my ear, then he kicked at my side and connected solidly. The wind went out of me, and I thought I felt a rib or two give way, but I got onto my back, my legs doubled up and ready to kick as he dived toward me.

  He jerked and grunted as something struck him. I thought it was Hermes, but from my new vantage point I could see him dealing with the others. A man howled, clutching a smashed elbow, the cry cut off abruptly as Hermes brought up the blunt tip of the stick hard into the spot an inch below where the ribs join the breastbone. That is a killing blow even with a stick.

  In the instant my knife man staggered from the invisible blow, I kicked out, catching him in the belly and sending him backward. In a moment I had my feet beneath me and charged in, catching him in the jaw with my caestus, hearing the bone snap even as I jammed my dagger into his side. He went down with a grunt, and I saw Hermes circling the last man, who was armed with a short sword, grinning as they shuffled their feet on the treacherous footing. I heard shutters banging and voices shouting and things crashing all around. I reached out and grabbed the back of the sword-wielder’s tunic, jerking hard. In the instant that he was off balance, Hermes darted in and fetched him two blows, forehand and backhand, alongside the temples. With a faint crunch of soft bone, the man dropped like a sacrificial ox. The boy really was coming along nicely.

  Something hit me between the shoulder blades, accompanied by a screaming, feminine imprecation, and a flowerpot narrowly missed Hermes. Then I knew what had staggered my second knifer: the neighbors were throwing things. It is the almost automatic response of Romans to sounds of riot in the street outside. They throw objects from the windows or go out on the roof and cast down roofing tiles. It is their way of telling the offenders to take their argument somewhere else.

  “Come on!” I said to Hermes. I stooped to grab my toga, and we took to our heels, getting out of missile range as quickly as we could. I had seen veteran brawlers killed by flowerpots and roofing tiles.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked Hermes when we were safely out of range.

  “Me? Hurt? There were only four of them.”

  “Getting cocky, aren’t you? I must be getting old, then. One of them nicked me at least twice.”

  “Some of that blood’s yours? Let me see.”

  “Your concern is touching, but we’re almost home. Let someone else fuss over me.”

  “Are you going to report this?”

  I paused for thought. “No, best not. There’s too much chance that whoever hired those louts is someone I’d have to report to. Let’s keep them guessing, whoever they are.”

  We were almost to my door by this time. I had been ambushed many times in my life, and it was usually near my house. In a city as chaotic as Rome, the easiest way to assassinate someone was to lurk near his house and wait for him to come to you.

  Julia was there as the door swung open, glaring. “I hope that’s not wine all over you.”

  “No, my dear, just blood.”

  “Oh, Decius! When are you going to listen to me and hire bodyguards? Cassandra! Cypria! Bring water!” All this while hustling me into the house, an arm over my shoulders as If I were about to collapse.

  “Bodyguards?” Hermes said, offended. “I was with him!”

  “Oh, be silent, boy! Decius, where are you hurt? Sit down here.” She pushed me onto a stool and peeled the clothes from my upper body. The slave women appeared with basins and cloths. Cypria was excited, but old Cassandra had done this so many times she was just resentful of the extra work.

  “Cypria,” Julia said, “take this toga and soak it in cold water before the blood dries.” The girl carried it out at arm’s length, her nose wrinkling in disgust. Julia dabbed at my cut ear and side. The damp cloth was pleasantly cool. “I’m afraid this tunic is beyond salvage,” she sighed.

  “Whereas my hide is self-repairing?” I said.

  “Quit complaining. These things wouldn’t happen if you had the slightest foresight. You’ve been making enemies again, haven’t you?”

  “Not personal ones,” I informed her. “I’m investigating something certain parties would just as soon did not come to light. You heard about last night’s doings in the Forum?”

  “I went to the baths this morning as soon as I returned to the City. I heard about it from the wives of most of the men who were on the basilica steps with you.”

  “Then you heard I’ve been appointed iudex, on top of the other investigation for the Pontifical College?”

  “And Milo gave you full praetorian authority, which means you should have an escort of lictors, at the very least. You just like to run around snooping on your own.” She rubbed my side with a stinging ointment and covered the slight wound with a pad while Cassandra wrapped it in place with a bandage around my body.

  “Anyway,” Julia said, “it’s really just a single investigation, isn’t it?”

  “I am certain of it.”

  “Cassandra, bring a clean tunic and tear this one up for rags.” She dabbed at the top of my left ear, which was now fractionally shorter than my right. “This is going to make you look lopsided,” she said.

  “Next time I’ll have to get into a fight with a left-hander. Maybe I can get them evened out.”

  Cassandra arrived with the clean tunic, and Julia drew it down over my poor, bruised old body. She took me by the hand. “Come have something to eat and tell me everything.”

  After dinner, we lingered over fruit, cheese, and wine, which Julia diluted with far too much water. She had listened with great attention as I described the events of the momentous night before and the day just then drawing to its mercifully tranquil close.

  “How utterly strange,” she said when I was done. “Not the murder-those are certainly common enough these days-but his body mangled by wild beasts, you say? What are we to make of that?”

  “I think you may have hit on an important point.”

  “How so?”

  “That murders are common. True, this one involves a tribune, but that is just a legal complication; it has nothing to do with motive. Earlier today, I was lamenting that there were so many distractions in this case, and this strange method of eliminating a tribune is a distraction. What do you say, for the moment, we just get rid of the distractions? Forget the forbidden name and the curse and the involvement of gods. Let’s forget wild animals an
d Friendly Ones or whatever it may have been. What have we left?”

  “A murder.”

  “Exactly. A powerful politician named Ateius tried to thwart another powerful politician named Crassus and got killed for his pains. What is at stake here?”

  She thought for a moment, then came back, just like a Caesar: “Political power at home and the wealth of Parthia abroad.”

  “Precisely. You see, Julia, nobody fights and kills over matters of religion anymore, if they ever did. Sometimes they do it for reasons of revenge, or of jealousy; but here we are dealing with important men, and among this class, in Rome these days, all fighting and killing are done for purposes of wealth and power.”

  “To gain wealth and power?” she said.

  “Or else to prevent an enemy from attaining them. A long time ago, Cicero taught me a very important political principle: Cui bono? Who profits from this? Let’s examine the problem from that perspective.”

  Julia smiled delightedly. She loved philosophy. “Let’s do that. Who profits if Crassus conquers Parthia?”

  “Crassus does. His sons will. Almost nobody else. Even his soldiers won’t do well out of it, Crassus being such a tight-fisted skinflint.”

  “So who profits if he is defeated?”

  “His political enemies, who are legion. The people who owe him money, who are likewise numerous. Pompey, who wants all the military glory in the world for himself. Even your uncle, Caius Julius Caesar, who grows increasingly embarrassed by Crassus. This last year Pompey has been of more help to him than Crassus. And, of course, Orodes of Parthia profits, by keeping his country and his throne.”

  “But does Orodes really profit in the long run?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if he defeats Crassus, then someone else will be sent out to avenge Roman honor. He will just have to face a far more competent Roman general.”

  “You are right,” I said. “This bears thinking about.”

  She smiled complacently. “I am not Julius Caesar’s niece for nothing.”

  “And,” I went on, “there are other nations involved. Crassus goes out to take over Syria from Gabinius, who’s been fighting and negotiating there for years. By extension there’s Egypt. Gabinius put Ptolemy back on the throne. There’s no love lost between Ptolemy and Crassus. Crassus opposed using Roman arms to support the Egyptian king.” Something tickled the back of my mind. “Just a minute. Wasn’t there something about a consultation of the Sibyllene Books involved in that?”

  “I thought we were setting aside the religious implications as unnecessary distractions,” she said.

  “So we were. Now, where were we?”

  “I was going over the political implications of the murder, but you were going cross-eyed from fatigue and wine. Come along, my dear, time for you to go to bed.” She took my hand, and I followed meekly.

  Tired though I was, I found it difficult to get to sleep. Having spent the better part of three years fighting in Gaul, I was not kept awake by the little battle out in the street, despite a few new pains. Rather, it was the nagging, unrelenting sensation that I was being misdirected. Despite the illuminating conversation with Julia, I felt that, somehow, the sacrilege investigation was the more important of the two. I just couldn’t imagine why. It was enough to make me wish that I was back in Gaul.

  Well, almost.

  11

  A native-born Roman knows the moods of the Forum far better than he knows the moods of wife, children, and close relatives. After all, from childhood he has spent a considerable part of nearly every day there. That is why, when we must be away on foreign service, or even while we are escaping the heat and crowding of the City in a country villa, there is something in us that longs for the Forum. Despite our imperial posturing we are still a village people. Our ancestors lived their entire lives within hailing distance of the Forum. In those days, it was not only the assembly place. It was also the only market in Rome as well as the place where most religious ceremonies were performed. It is impossible to exaggerate the centrality of the Forum in the life of every Roman.

  These thoughts passed through my head as I walked toward it the next morning, nursing my almost unprecedented number of cuts and bruises. My problem, I decided, was that I had been away too long. I had lost that ineffable sense of what the Forum was feeling and thinking. Nearly three years of the City’s experience had escaped me, and letters from friends had given me only the barest idea of what had been going on.

  Conducting an investigation in Rome was largely a matter of discovering correspondences and linkages. Ordinarily, my sense of these things was extremely acute, but now everything was off: my timing, my judgment, my ability to sense the life and experience of the City. I was sure that, had I been in the City continuously these last three years, I would have arrived at the common point shared by all these events long before.

  Amid such ponderings I reached the Forum itself, and I knew that its mood was ugly. That much of my sensitivity was functioning. The day before the mood had been vehement. Today it was dark and brooding. People weren’t shouting; they were muttering. The senators on the steps weren’t arguing so much as hissing at one another like a nest of disturbed vipers.

  In front of the curia I saw a very distinctive conveyance: a huge litter draped with colorful curtains, its poles of polished ebony tipped with golden lions’ heads with jewels for eyes. Over its roof a golden vulture spread sheltering wings. It was the litter of the Egyptian ambassador, Lisas. A dozen magnificently clad bearers stood by the poles, patient as oxen.

  As usual, a number of senators stood around on the steps of the curia. These were men with committee meetings to attend or juries to organize or, often as not, just senators with nothing else to do. I walked into the midst of one such group and jerked my head toward the litter.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Old Lisas showed up about an hour ago,” said a man named Sulpicius. “He looked like a man under death sentence. Demanded to see Pompey at once. The two of them are in there now.”

  “Must be bad news out of Egypt to get that fat pervert up this early,” said another.

  “When is there ever any good news out of Egypt?” Sulpicius snorted.

  Then a praetor named Gutta spoke up. “Plenty of good news for Gabinius.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “Haven’t you heard? Word has it old Ptolemy paid him ten thousand talents to reinstall his fat backside on the throne. Took three battles to do it, but the Flute-Player’s king now, and Gabinius comes home a rich man.”

  “I knew Gabinius had restored Ptolemy,” I said. “I heard that as soon as I returned to Rome. I thought it was all rather bloodless. Who was he fighting?”

  “It was one of the princesses who raised a rebellion. Had a lot of the Alexandrians on her side, too. Which one was it?” Gutta scratched his head, suffering from the usual Roman difficulty in keeping Egyptian dynastic politics sorted out.

  “Cleopatra?” I asked. “She’s awfully young, but she’s the only one in the whole family with any brains.”

  “No, it was one of the others,” Sulpicius said. “Berenice, that’s the one.”

  “Berenice?” I said. “I know her. The woman can’t plot her next party, much less a rebellion.”

  “She married a fellow named Archelaus,” Sulpicius said, “a Macedonian whose father was one of Mithridates’ generals. A real soldier, so they say.”

  I thought I remembered him: one of the hard-faced professionals who kept the degenerate Macedonian dynasty on the throne of Egypt, supporting whichever of the claimants treated them best.

  “Here comes Lisas now,” Gutta said.

  I looked up toward the entrance of the curia and saw Pompey coming out with Lisas on his arm. He was patting the ambassador’s shoulder as if to reassure him. Lisas parted from the consul and descended the steps, mopping at his face. His makeup was running in streaks, even though the morning was chilly.
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br />   I went up the steps to meet him. “Lisas, what’s happened?”

  “Ah, my friend Decius! In the middle of the night, a terribly disturbing dispatch arrived from Alexandria.”

  “Old Ptolemy’s croaked, eh?” I said, unable to imagine that anything else would upset Lisas so deeply. “Well, it happens to them all, and there are plenty of-”

  “No, no, no!” He waved his purple-dyed scarf in agitation. “It is not that at all! My master, King Ptolemy Dionysus, is in excellent health. But, it became necessary for him to put Princess Berenice to death to punish her for her unfilial rebellion.”

  “That’s sad news,” I commiserated. “The woman was just a pawn. What happened to Archelaus?”

  Now he waved the scarf dismissively. “Oh, the usurper died in the last battle with Gabinius. He was of no account.”

  “I see. But, sad though this news may be, surely it is nothing unusual. Anyone who tries to seize a throne must expect death as the price of failure.”

  “Even so, even so,” he said, wringing his hands, covered as they were with perfumed oil and inflamed lesions. “Great as was my affection for the princess, I understand that His Majesty had no choice in the matter. No, there were-more severe consequences.”

  “Ah.” Now we were getting to the real news. “What manner of consequences, if this is not a matter of diplomatic secrecy?”

  “On, no. I thought it best to come at once and inform the consul Pompey. I believe he will address the assembled Senate on the matter soon, although there is little to be done about it now.”

  “Lisas,” I prodded gently, “what’s happened?”

  “As you may have learned, Berenice had some degree of support from the people of Alexandria, including some of the leading citizens.”

  “I’ve been out of touch,” I told him. “Did these Alexandrians take it ill that Ptolemy killed his daughter?”