A Gladiator Dies Only Once (2 page)

One of the joys of writing the Gordianus short stories is the chance to explore various aspects of Roman life and history which simply have not come up in the novels. In these pages, readers will learn about gladiator combats, chariot racing, and the role of the Roman censor, as well as some curious facts regarding food—the making of garum (the fish-pickle sauce essential to Roman cuisine), the origin of Cicero’s famous epigram about a piece of cake, and the first appearance of cherries in Rome. (Regarding this last, somewhat touchy subject, see more details in the historical notes at the end of the book.)

The setting of most of the stories is the teeming, beautiful, endlessly fascinating, endlessly wicked city of Rome, but Gordianus’s investigations also take him to Spain, Sicily, the Bay of Naples, and across the breadth of Italy.

The stories are presented in chronological order. At the back of the book, readers will find a detailed chronology, which incorporates all the short stories and novels, along with some notes on historical sources.

Why “Roma Sub Rosa” for the collective series title of the Gordianus novels and stories? In ancient Egypt, the rose was the emblem of the god Horus, later regarded by the Greeks and Romans as the god of silence. Customarily, a rose hanging over a council table indicated that all present were sworn to secrecy. “Sub rosa” (literally, “under the rose”) has come to mean “that which is carried out in secret.” Thus “Roma Sub Rosa”: a history of Rome’s secrets, or a secret history of Rome, as seen through the eyes of Gordianus.

A GLADIATOR
DIES ONLY
ONCE

THE CONSUL’S WIFE

“Honestly,” muttered Lucius Claudius, his nose buried in a scroll, “if you go by these accounts in the
Daily Acts
, you’d think Sertorius was a naughty schoolboy, and his rebellion in Spain a harmless prank. When will the consuls realize the gravity of the situation? When will they take action?”

I cleared my throat.

Lucius Claudius lowered the little scroll and raised his bushy red eyebrows. “Gordianus! By Hercules, you got here in a hurry! Take a seat.”

I looked about for a chair, then remembered where I was. In the garden of Lucius Claudius, visitors did not fetch furniture. Visitors sat, and a chair would be slipped beneath them. I stepped into the spot of sunlight where Lucius sat basking, and folded my knees. Sure enough, a chair caught my weight. I never even saw the attendant slave.

“Something to drink, Gordianus? I myself am enjoying a cup of hot broth. Too early in the day for wine, even watered.”

“Noon is hardly early, Lucius. Not for those of us who’ve been up since dawn.”

“Since dawn?” Lucius grimaced at such a distasteful notion. “A cup of wine for you, then? And some nibbles?”

I raised my hand to wave away the offer, and found it filled with a silver cup, into which a pretty slavegirl poured a stream of Falernian wine. A little tripod table appeared at my left hand, bearing a silver platter embossed with images of dancing nymphs and strewn with olives, dates, and almonds.

“Care for a bit of the
Daily.
? I’m finished with the sporting news.” Lucius nodded toward a clutter of little scrolls on the table beside him. “They say the Whites have finally got their act together this season. New chariots, new horses. Should give the Reds a run for the prizes in tomorrow’s races.”

I laughed out loud. “What a life you lead, Lucius Claudius. Up at noon, then lolling about your garden reading your own private copy of the
Daily Acts.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow. “Merely sensible, if you ask me. Who wants to elbow through a crowd in the Forum, squinting and peering past strangers to read the
Daily
on the posting boards? Or worse, listen to some clown read the items out loud, inserting his own witty comments.”

“But that’s the whole point of the
Daily,”
I argued. “It’s a social activity. People take a break from the hustle and bustle of the Forum, gather round the posting boards and discuss whatever items interest them most—war news, marriages and births, chariot races, curious omens. It’s the highlight of many a man’s day, perusing the
Daily
and arguing politics or horses with fellow citizens. One of the cosmopolitan pleasures of city life.”

Lucius shuddered. “No thank you! My way is better. I send a couple of slaves down to the Forum an hour before posting time. As soon as the
Daily
goes up, one of them reads it aloud from beginning to end and the other takes dictation with a stylus on wax tablets. Then they hurry home, transcribe the words to parchment, and by the time I’m up and about, my private copy of the
Daily
is here waiting for me in the garden, the ink still drying in the sun. A comfy chair, a sunny spot, a hearty cup of broth, and my own copy of the
Daily Acts
—I tell you, Gordianus, there’s no more civilized way to start the day.”

I popped an almond into my mouth. “It all seems rather antisocial to me, not to mention extravagant. The cost of parchment alone!”

“Squinting at wax tablets gives me eyestrain.” Lucius sipped his broth. “Anyway, I didn’t ask you here to critique my personal pleasures, Gordianus. There’s something in the
Daily
that I want you to see.”

“What, the news about that rebellious Roman general terrorizing Spain?”

“Quintus Sertorius!” Lucius shifted his considerable bulk. “He’ll soon have the whole Iberian Peninsula under his control. The natives there hate Rome, but they adore Sertorius. What can our two consuls be thinking, failing to bring military assistance to the provincial government? Decimus Brutus, much as I love the old bookworm, is no fighter, I’ll grant you; hard to imagine him leading an expedition. But his fellow consul Lepidus is a military veteran; fought for Sulla in the Civil War. How can those two sit idly on their behinds while Sertorius creates a private kingdom for himself in Spain?”

“All that’s in the
Daily Acts
?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Lucius snorted. “Nothing but the official government line: situation under control, no cause for alarm. You’ll find more details about the obscene earnings of charioteers than you’ll find about Spain. What else can you expect?
The Daily
is a state organ put out by the government. Deci probably dictates every word of the war news himself.”

“Deci?”

“Decimus Brutus, of course; the consul.” With his ancient patrician connections, Lucius tended to be on a first-name basis, sometimes on a pet-name basis, with just about everybody in power. “But you distract me, Gordianus. I didn’t ask you here to talk about Sertorius. Decimus Brutus, yes; Sertorius, no. Here, have a look at
this.”
His bejeweled hand flitted over the pile and plucked a scroll for me to read.

“Society gossip?” I scanned the items. “As son engaged to B’s daughter . . . C plays host to D at his country villa . . . E shares her famous family recipe for egg custard dating back to the days when Romulus suckled the she-wolf.” I grunted. “All very interesting, but I don’t see—”

Lucius leaned forward and tapped at the scroll. “Read
that
part. Aloud.”

“The bookworm pokes his head outside tomorrow. Easy prey for the sparrow, but partridges go hungry. Bright-eyed Sappho says: Be suspicious! A dagger strikes faster than lightning. Better yet: an arrow. Let Venus conquer all!’ ”

Lucius sat back and crossed his fleshy arms. “What do you make of it?”

“I believe it’s called a blind item; a bit of gossip conveyed in code. No proper names, only clues that are meaningless to the uninitiated. Given the mention of Venus, I imagine this particular item is about some illicit love affair. I doubt I’d know the names involved even if they were clearly spelled out. You’d be more likely than I to know what all this means, Lucius.”

“Indeed. I’m afraid I do know, at least in part. That’s why I called you here today, Gordianus. I have a dear friend who needs your help.”

I raised an eyebrow. Lucius’s rich and powerful connections had yielded me lucrative work before; they had also put me in great danger. “What friend would that be, Lucius?”

He raised a finger. The slaves around us silently withdrew into the house. “Discretion, Gordianus. Discretion! Read the item again.”

“The bookworm—’”

“And whom did I call a bookworm only a moment ago?”

I blinked. “Decimus Brutus, the consul.”

Lucius nodded. “Read on.”

“ The bookworm pokes his head outside tomorrow . . .’”

“Deci will venture to the Circus Maximus tomorrow, to watch the races from the consular box.”

“ ‘Easy prey for the sparrow . . .’ ”

“Draw your own conclusion from that—especially with the mention of daggers and arrows later on!”

I raised an eyebrow. “You think there’s a plot against the consul’s life, based on a blind item in the
Daily Acts
? It seems far-fetched, Lucius.”

“It’s not what I think. It’s what Deci himself thinks. The poor fellow’s in a state; came to my house and roused me out of bed an hour ago, desperate for advice. He needs someone to get to the bottom of this, quietly and quickly. I told him I knew just the man: Gordianus the Finder.”

“Me?” I scowled at an olive pit between my forefinger and thumb. “Since the
Daily
is a state organ, surely Decimus Brutus himself, as consul, is in the best position to determine where this item came from and what it really means. To start, who wrote it?”

“That’s precisely the problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you see the part about ‘Sappho’ and her advice?”

“Yes.”

“Gordianus, who do you think writes and edits the
Daily Acts
?.”

I shrugged. “I never thought about it.”

“Then I shall tell you. The consuls themselves dictate the items about politics and foreign policy, giving their own official viewpoint. The drier parts—trade figures, livestock counts and such—are compiled by clerks in the censor’s office. Sporting news comes from the magistrates in charge of the Circus Maximus. Augurs edit the stories that come in about weird lightning flashes, comets, curiously shaped vegetables, and other omens. But who do you think oversees the society news—weddings and birth announcements, social engagements, ‘blind items,’ as you call them?”

“A woman named Sappho?”

“A reference to the poet of ancient Lesbos. The consul’s wife is something of a poet herself.”

“The wife of Decimus Brutus?”

“She wrote that item.” Lucius leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Deci thinks she means to kill him, Gordianus.”

“My wife . . .” The consul cleared his throat noisily. He brushed a hand nervously through his silvery hair and paced back and forth across the large study, from one pigeon-hole bookcase to another, his fingers idly brushing the little title tags that hung from the scrolls. Outside the library at Alexandria, I had never seen so many books in one place, not even in Cicero’s house.

The consul’s house was near the Forum, only a short walk from that of Lucius Claudius. I had been admitted at once; thanks to Lucius, my visit was expected. Decimus Brutus dismissed a cadre of secretaries and ushered me into his private study. He dispensed with formalities. His agitation was obvious.

“My wife . . .” He cleared his throat again. Decimus Brutus, highest magistrate in the land, used to giving campaign speeches in the Forum and orations in the courts, seemed unable to begin.

“She’s certainly beautiful,” I said, gazing at the portrait that graced one of the few spaces on the wall not covered by bookcases. It was a small picture, done in encaustic wax on wood, yet it dominated the room. A young woman of remarkable beauty gazed out from the picture. Strings of pearls adorned the masses of auburn hair done up with pearl-capped pins atop her head. More pearls hung from her ears and around her throat. The chaste simplicity of her jewelry contrasted with a glint in her green eyes that was challenging, aloof, almost predatory.

Decimus Brutus stepped closer to the painting. He lifted his chin and squinted, drawing so close that his nose practically brushed the wax.

“Beautiful, yes,” he murmured. “The artist didn’t capture even a fraction of her beauty. I married her for it; for that, and to have a son. Sempronia gave me both, her beauty and a baby boy. And do you know why
she
married me?” The consul stepped disconcertingly close and peered at me. With another man, I would have taken such proximate scrutiny as an intimidation, but the myopic consul was merely straining to read my expression.

He sighed. “Sempronia married me for my books. I know, it sounds absurd—a woman who reads!—but there it is: she didn’t assent to the marriage until she saw this room, and that made up her mind. She’s read every volume here—more than I have! She even writes a bit herself—poetry and such. Her verses are too . . . passionate . . . for my taste.”

He cleared his throat again. “Sempronia, you see, is not like other women. Sometimes I think the gods gave her the soul of a man. She reads like a man. She converses like a man. She has her own motley circle of friends—poets, playwrights, dubious women. When Sempronia has them over, the witticisms roll off her tongue. She even appears to think. She has opinions, anyway. Opinions on everything—art, racing, architecture, even politics! And she has no shame. In the company of her little circle, she plays the lute—better than our best-trained slave, I have to admit. And she dances for them.” He grimaced. “I told her such behavior was indecent, completely unsuitable for a consul’s wife. She says that when she dances, the gods and goddesses speak through her body, and her friends understand what they see, even if I don’t. We’ve had so many rows, I’ve almost given up rowing about it.”