Catilina's Riddle (21 page)

"The odd thing is, the silver mine just might be worth buying."

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"Are you serious?" I said.

"I'm always serious, Gordianus. Of course, all those bones would have to be cleared out—too discouraging for the new workers. 'It doesn't do to dampen morale, even among mine slaves.' "

"You're quoting someone."

"Yes. My associate in the city, the one who buys abandoned mines and makes a good profit from them."

"Then there really is such a person?"

"Of course. Did you think I was lying to poor old Forfex?"

"Your friend in the city sounds familiar."

"He is hardly obscure."

"Marcus Crassus?"

Catilina opened his eyes to slits and arched an eyebrow. "Why, yes.

You've solved a riddle, Gordianus: who is the secret buyer from Rome?

But the clues were perhaps too easy. Well-known—otherwise why hide his name?—experienced with mining, always concerned to maximize the productivity of his slaves. Who else but Rome's wealthiest man?"

"The riddle is that you should be associated with such a man closely enough to be scouting out properties for him," I said.

"Where's the puzzle in that?"

"Your politics are known to be quite radical, Catilina. Why should the richest man in the world ally himself with a firebrand who advocates the forcible redistribution of wealth and the wholesale cancellation of debts?"

"I thought you had no desire to discuss politics, Gordianus."

"It's the water, making me lightheaded. I'm not myself. Indulge me." "As you wish. True, Crassus and I have our differences, but we face a common enemy—the ruling oligarchy in Rome. You know whom I mean—that little circle of incestuous families who clutch the reins of power so jealously, and will stop at nothing to cripple their opposition.

You know what they call themselves, don't you? The Best People, the Optimates. They refer to themselves thusly without the least twinge of embarrassment, as if their superiority were so evident that modesty could only be an affectation. Everyone outside their circle they consider to be mere rabble. The state, they argue, must be run by the Optimates alone, without concession to any other party, for what better way to run a state than to place it in the hands of those who are undeniably and in all ways demonstrably the Best People? Oh, their smug self-satisfaction is insufferable! And Cicero has bought into it completely. Cicero, the nobody from Arpinum, without an ancestor to his name. If he only knew what they say about him behind his back . . . "

"We were talking of Crassus, not Cicero."

Catilina sighed and settled himself more comfortably in the water.

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"Marcus Crassus is too great a force to belong to any party, even the Optimates. Crassus is his own party, and so he finds himself at odds with the Optimates as often as not. You're right, Crassus has no sympathy with my plans to restructure the economy of the state, which must be done if the Republic is to survive. But then, Crassus cares not a whit for the survival of the Republic. He would just as soon see it wither and die, so long as the dictator who inevitably follows is named Marcus Crassus. In the meantime, the two of us quite often have occasion to find ourselves allied against the Optimates. And of course Marcus Crassus and I go back a long way, to the days when we both served under Sulla."

"You mean to say that like Crassus, you also profited from the proscriptions during Sulla's dictatorship, when the property of his enemies was confiscated and put up for auction?"

"Many others did the same. But I never murdered for gain or used the proscriptions to get away with murder—oh, yes, I know the rumors.

One has me putting my own brother-in-law on the lists, because my sister couldn't stand him and wanted his head cut off. Others say I killed him myself and then had his name inserted in the lists to legalize the crime.

As if I would have wanted to see my own sister dishonored and disinherited!"

His voice took on an angry edge. "And then there's the wretched lie put about by Cicero's brother Quintus last year during the consular campaign, which had me taking part in the murder of the praetor Gratidianus during those years. Poor Gratidianus, chased down by the mob.

They broke both his legs, cut off his hands, gouged out his eyes, and then beheaded him. Hideous savagery! I witnessed that atrocity, yes, but I didn't instigate it, as Quintus Cicero claimed, nor did I swagger about Rome carrying Gratidianus's head like a trophy. Even so, only last year some of the Optimates managed to call me to trial for the murder—and I was soundly acquitted, just as I've been acquitted of every single charge they've brought against me over the years."

"Speaking of heads, your own is turning red as a beet, Catilina. I think the water must be too hot."

Catilina, who in his passion had drawn himself up until his chest was above the water, took a deep breath and sank back into the tub.

"But we were talking about Crassus. . . ." He smiled, and I marveled at how easily he could let go of his bitter tone and restore his good humor.

"Do you know what really cemented our relationship? The scandal of the Vestal Virgins! Fabia and I weren't the only ones brought to trial that spring—Crassus was accused of polluting the Virgo Maxima herself.

Do you remember the details? He had been seen in her company so often that that scheming Clodius had no trouble convincing half of Rome to believe the worst. But Crassus's defense was unbeatable: the millionaire was merely pestering the Virgo Maxima over a piece of property that he

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wanted to buy from her at a bargain—a story so typical of Crassus that no one could disbelieve it! He escaped with his life, and so did I, but both of us took a blow to our reputations—Crassus, because everyone believed he was innocent but greedy, and I, because everyone thought I was guilty but got away with it. After the trial we celebrated together over a few bottles of Falernian wine. Political alliances are not always founded on hard logic, Gordianus. Sometimes they grow out of shared distress." He looked at me steadily, as if to emphasize his words. "But I understand you've had your own dealings with Crassus."

"He called on me to deal with the murder of his cousin down in Baiae," I said. "That was nine years ago. The circumstances were quite remarkable, but I'm not at liberty to discuss the details. Suffice to say that Crassus and I parted on less than friendly terms."*

Catilina smiled. "Actually, Crassus has told me most of the story, or his version of it. He wanted certain slaves found guilty of the crime, while you would settle for nothing less than the truth, no matter how disappointing to Crassus's schemes or how personally embarrassing. Believe it or not, he secretly admires your integrity, I think, even if he did resent your, shall we say, inflexible nature. I suppose Crassus himself is rather inflexible, which accounts for your mutual antipathy. But your work for him in Baiae had at least one good outcome. I understand that's how you met your son Meto. Oh, please, don't lower your eyes, Gordianus. I think it's a remarkable thing, to free a young slave boy and then adopt him as your son. I realize it's not a fact you care to advertise, for the boy's sake. But I know the story, and with me you can be frank."

"I would rather forget that Marcus Crassus was ever Meto's master.

Had Crassus had his way, Meto would be long dead. As it was, Crassus sold him to a farmer in Sicily, just to thwart my having him. That he was eventually found, that I freed him and made him my son, is proof that even the richest man in the world can be cheated of his petty revenge."

Catilina pursed his lips. "Evidently Crassus didn't tell me the whole story."

"Because Crassus doesn't know the whole story. But you won't hear it from me."

"Now it's you who've turned beet-red, Gordianus! Are you ready for the cool plunge?"

Like Catilina in his agitation, I had raised myself halfway out of the water. I sighed and settled back into the soothing warmth.

"You're very protective of the boy, as well you should be," said Catilina. "These are dangerous times, full of peril. I'm a father, too. I worry constantly about the future of my wife and her daughter. Sometimes
Arms
of Nemesis
(St. Martin's Press, 1992)

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I think it would be better to follow your example and withdraw from the world entirely, or as much as a man can. To live in simple obscurity, like Cincinnatus. You know the old story—when the Republic was imperiled, the people called on the farmer Cincinnatus, who laid down his plow, assumed the dictatorship, and saved them all."

"And when the peril was over, he laid down his dictatorship and went back to his plow."

"Yes, but the point is that he acted when the occasion called for it. For a man to turn his back on the world entirely is to relinquish his opportunity to shape the world's future. Who can give up that chance, even if his efforts end in failure?"

"Or in utter disaster?"

"No, Gordianus, when I contemplate the world my descendants will live in, I cannot become a hermit, apathetic and ineffectual. And when I think of the shades of my ancestors watching me, I cannot be idle. The founder of my family stood by Aeneas when he first set foot on Italian soil. Perhaps it's my patrician blood that drives me to take the reins—to rip them from the Optimates' hands if I have to!"

He reached out and clutched a fistful of steam, then relaxed his grip and slowly dropped his open hands into the roiling water. The motion took on a vague and unreal aspect in the orange haze, like an actor's gesture seen from afar.

For a while we were both quiet. A slave stepped silently into the room and asked if he should open the valve from the furnace to add fresh hot water. I nodded, and the slave withdrew. A moment later the pipes gurgled and the tub swirled. The mist thickened and the lamp burned lower. In the dense orange haze I could see Catilina's face only as a soft blur.

"Do you want to know a secret, Gordianus?"

Oh, Catilina, I thought, there are many secrets I would like to know, foremost among them the identity of Nemo and how his headless body came to rest in my barn! "Why not?"

"It's a riddle, actually—"

"Telling a secret and posing a riddle are entirely different things, Catilina. I would like to hear a secret. But tonight I would not care to hear a riddle."

"Indulge me. Well, then: how can a man lose his head twice?"

The water swirled. The mist was as thick as a sea fog. "I don't know, Catilina. How can a man lose his head twice?"

"First, over a beautiful woman, and then to the executioner's blade."

"I understand the answer but not the riddle."

"I lost my head over the Vestal Fabia, and then almost lost my head for the crime. Do you see? I think it's a rather good riddle. I was younger then. What a fool I made of myself. . . . "

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"What are you saying, Catilina?"

"I'm telling you that what you always suspected was true. There was more between Fabia and myself than a shared appreciation for Arretine vases."

"And that night in the House of the Vestals—"

"It was the first time. Before that, she always resisted me. But that night she gave in to me. When the man behind the curtain cried out, we were in the middle of making love. Fabia wore her gown, and I wore my tunic, and we stood the whole time. I wanted her to be naked, I wanted to touch her everywhere, I wanted to take her on the couch. But she insisted we keep our clothing on and do it standing up. Even so, it was one of the most exciting and exquisite moments of my life. When the man cried out, I hardly heard him in the heat of my passion. It might have been myself crying out in sheer ecstasy. Fabia panicked, of course.

She pushed at me, trying to make me withdraw, but I told her that would be madness. I wasn't quite finished, you see, and if she pushed me out of her I would either leave a pool of evidence on her floor or else carry a telltale bludgeon inside my tunic. We consummated the act and drew apart only moments before the Virgo Maxima entered the room. Fabia's cheeks were as red as apples. Her breasts were heaving, covered with beads of sweat. I was still tingling—"

"Catilina, why are you telling me this?"

"Because you prize the truth, Gordianus; you're one of the few men I know who does. Because you've never been quite certain what really transpired, and now you can be."

"But why tell me now?"

Catilina was quiet for a long moment. In the dim orange mist I tried to make out his expression, but could not tell if he smiled or frowned, or even if his eyes were open. At last he said, "They say you have a gift for listening, Gordianus. Every politician needs a listener. They say you have a way of drawing out the truth, even if one doesn't mean to speak it."

" 'They'?"

"Crassus, actually. In all these years he hasn't forgotten your late-night conversations down in Baiae. He says he can't recall ever speaking so frankly to another man, and a hireling at that. He says you have some uncanny power to draw the truth from men's hearts."

"Only if their hearts are burdened with something that they need to release."

"What sort of burden?" he said.

"It varies from man to man, woman to woman. Some feel compelled to confess fear of failure, others their remorse for wickedness done to the dead. Some confess their shame at submitting to the cruelty of others, some confess their shame for inflicting such cruelty. Some have com-

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mitted terrible crimes and gone unpunished by man or god, and yet feel they must tell someone. Others have only imagined such crimes, and yet they feel a burden just as heavy as if they had committed them."

"And what of those who failed to commit a crime when they should have?"

"I don't understand."

"What of those who should have taken action, and then quavered and failed to act? Have you ever encountered a man like that, Gordianus, whose confession was that he did not commit a crime when he should have?"

"Is this another riddle, Catilina?"

Despite the dimness, I knew he smiled. "Perhaps. But like the riddle that Caelius repeated to you, the time for its telling hasn't yet arrived.