Catilina's Riddle (34 page)

Worst of all had been the heads, I thought. The heads of Sulla's enemies, spitted on poles and lined up in the Forum for all to see. Bounty hunters cut off the heads and brought them to Sulla for a reward. For the bodies they had no use. What had become of all the bodies, the bodies without heads? Suddenly, as clearly as on the day Diana found it, I saw the body of Nemo beneath me on the straw, with the blood all clotted about the stump of his neck. The shock of it was so great that I gasped and my shoulders convulsed.

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"Yes! At last!" whispered Eco in my ear, his hand on the back of my neck. "There, flying up swiftly from the river."

I blinked, confused and dazed by the brightness. White stones blazed at my feet and the sun seemed to have filled up the sky. In the midst of so much light a tiny black form took shape, flying from left to right and growing larger until it resolved itself into a body with long, outstretched wings. "A hawk," whispered Eco.

"No," said Mummius, "an eagle!"

The bird circled once over the Field of Mars and then grew larger and larger as it approached. Its speed was stunning; no horse could have galloped so fast across the sky. A moment later it landed so close to Rufus that he could have bent down to touch it if he dared. We stood transfixed and silent. We stared at the eagle, and the eagle stared back. I had never seen one so close. Then, as suddenly as it had landed, it spread its giant wings and ascended over our heads, straight up into the sun.

I lowered my eyes, blinking and half-blind. Rufus turned toward us with a look of awe on his face.

"The omen," I said. "Was it good?"

"Good?" He frowned at me quizzically, then broke into a smile. "It could not possibly have been better!"

Had the city not already been consumed with the immediate controversies swirling around Catilina and the elections, perhaps the prodigious omen that landed at Rufus's feet would have excited great comment. Had it occurred on a lazy summer day when nothing else of importance was happening in the Forum, the gossip would have spread through the squares and taverns—Jupiter's bird, an eagle, alighting at the Auguraculum for a boy's simple passage to manhood, and a boy who had once been a slave, at that! The superstitious would have found it either inspiring or fearsome, a sign of the gods' displeasure or their benediction. But in the general chaos of that day, the incident went unremarked except among those who were there.

On the path back down to the Forum, Marcus Mummius was greatly excited. "An eagle, a military bird! It portends a great career in the army!" I noticed Meto smiling at such talk, and I wished that Mummius would be silent.

I turned to Rufus, who had changed from his augur's trabea back into his candidate's toga. "Is that what it means, Rufus?"

"Not necessarily." Meto overheard and his smile faded, for which I was glad. I wanted no thoughts of military glory going through his

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head. I had not rescued the boy from slavery to see him spill his blood for some ambitious general.

Rufus slowed his pace and let the others go ahead of us. He touched my arm to signal that I should stay back with him. His expression was uneasy. His initial ebullience at the eagle's landing had vanished, replaced by uncertainty. "It's a powerful portent, Gordianus. Never has such a thing happened to me, and not to any other augur so far as I know."

"But it's a good portent?" I said hopefully. "You seemed to think so at the time it happened."

"Yes, but what I felt was a kind of religious awe. That can blind a man, even an augur. All omens are awesome, because they come from the gods, but what they mean for mortal men does not always bring us happiness."

"Rufus, what are you saying?"

"I almost wish the auspices had been less prodigious. A simple sighting of a vulture, a crow flying in an upward spiral—"

"But an eagle sent from Jupiter, surely that's good—"

"Such a powerful omen, appearing at such a modest occasion—it worries me. It seems out of place, out of balance. We live in a time when small men are drawn into great events—sometimes elevated to greatness themselves by those events, but more often crushed by them. Meto is so simple and good-natured, what can it mean that such a potent auspice should attend his coming of age? It worries me."

"Oh, Rufus—" I almost forgot myself and would have scoffed in his face, but my respect for him was too great. Still, I felt myself in sympathy with disbelievers like Cicero, who in private shake their heads at the hand-wringing of the pious. Or was I only putting a good face on my own anxiety? "Perhaps the omen was misdirected. Perhaps it has something to do with Catilina or Cicero. Perhaps it was meant for the consuls and arrived an hour too late! The gods do make mistakes from time to time—all the poets say so."

"You won't hear a priest or an augur say so," said Rufus, un-amused.

We proceeded down the path. The noise from the Forum rose to greet us. Ahead of us, Mummius had one arm around Meto's shoulders and was enthusiastically gesturing with the other. "When Romans go into battle with flags waving, you'll always see an eagle atop the standards.

Pompey wears a golden breastplate with an eagle embossed across the pectorals, its wings spread open—like a great bird come to snatch Mith-ridates' kingdom from him! Oh, and I remember, before the battle of the Colline Gate, back when I was a young lieutenant for Crassus and we fought for Sulla, the augurs saw three eagles circling over Rome. . . . "

Meto seemed completely captivated by such talk.

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I was somewhat relieved, then, when we came to the foot of the Capitoline and Mummius took his leave of us, saying he wanted to catch the last of the debate in the Senate House. He did not tarry over farewells, but gave Meto and Eco each a crushing hug and departed at a quick marching pace, with Apollonius following him.

It seemed a good time for the whole retinue to disperse; I thanked the friends and well-wishers who had accompanied us and released them to go on about any business they might have in the Forum. It would be enough, I thought, for Meto to be accompanied by his father and brother as we crossed the Forum on our way back to the women.

But Rufus had another plan. "Remember, earlier I said I might have a surprise for Meto." He seemed to have put aside his misgivings and smiled slyly, or as slyly as his nature allowed. "I am going to take you into the Senate House with me!"

"What?" My heart sank.

"To hear the senators debate?" said Meto, who seemed almost as interested in this news as he had been in Mummius's military talk.

"The idea came to me as soon as Eco asked me to preside as augur for you. Of course, in the normal course of things the Senate might not be convening at all on this day, but as it turns out, the occasion could hardly be better. The chamber will be full, and you may see quite a spectacle. We
are
running late, but still . . . "

"But, Rufus, only sons and grandsons of senators themselves are allowed to attend."

"Not so. There are plenty of secretaries scurrying about."

"But surely the likes of the Gordiani will not be allowed into the Senate House," I said.

"Accompanied by me, you will." He seemed completely certain.

Patricians can be very sure of themselves, usually with good reason.

"Oh, Rufus, it is an honor, of course, but I think that we must decline," I said.

Meto looked at me as if I had carelessly thrown one of his birthday presents into the Tiber. "But, Papa, why not?"

"Yes, Papa, why not?" said Eco.

"Because—well, surely, Meto, you would feel self-conscious in such a place."

Meto wrinkled his brow. Rufus answered for him. "We shall hang back in the shadows. No one will even notice us."

"But, Rufus, we shall only be in your way. We've already kept you from your business as a senator by accepting your services as augur."

"And you're keeping me from my business now, by arguing to no purpose. Come, Gordianus, this is the day, the very hour in which Meto has become a full citizen of Rome. What better way to celebrate than to take him into the very heart of the Republic? How could you deny

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your son such an invaluable lesson in citizenship? I confess, I remained a little uncertain about doing this myself, up until the arrival of the eagle at the Auguraculum. Now I am convinced that it must be the right thing to do. Come, then, let's hurry, before the senators conclude their business and rush back into the Forum to beg for votes!"

He turned and pressed into the crowd. Meto looked at me with a mixture of boyish entreaty and manly impatience. Eco stared at me sympathetically, for he knew me well enough to know how deeply revolted I was by the idea of immersing myself and my family in a sea of politicians, and at the same time he knew that I had no reasonable excuse to refuse Rufus's generous and thoughtful offer, or to deny Meto the opportunity to see such a thing with his own eyes. I suppose I might have left my sons with Rufus and gone skulking back to the women—but then I would not have heard Catilina pose his riddle.

A broad flight of steps leads up to the porch of the Senate House, where great columns flank the doorway. Loitering on the steps were various retainers of the senators within; among them I recognized some of the burly bodyguards who had accompanied Cicero in his retinue. Other guards, attached to the Senate House itself, flanked the tall doors, which by law remained open so as not to hide the proceedings within from the eyes of the gods. Again it struck me as unlikely that we would be allowed into such a place, even accompanied by Rufus, but that was because I thought the Senate House had only one entrance. Rufus knew better.

Next to the Senate House and attached to it is another, less impressive building which houses various offices of the state. I had never been inside, and in fact had hardly ever noticed it. The wooden doors of the entrance stood open on such a hot day and there was no one to stop us from entering.

Within, a broad hallway ran the length of the building with rows of small rooms on either side. The rooms were full of scrolls stacked in cases against the walls and piled on tables. A few sleepy clerks moved lethargically among the documents, like shepherds tending a docile flock.

They took no notice of us.

At the center of the building a flight of steps ascended to a second story and then to a third. Rufus led us through a succession of small, plain rooms. I began to hear echoey voices speaking in loud, oratorical tones, interrupted occasionally by an indistinct roar that might have been jeering or laughter. The sounds grew louder as we passed from room to room, until we came to an iron door that stood half-open. Rufus put a finger to his lips, though none of us had said a word since we began

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to follow him; then he slipped through the doorway. With one hand he gestured for us to follow.

The Senate House is not an old building, having been rebuilt and refurbished by Sulla during his dictatorship. The materials within reflect the despot's impeccable taste—the decorative, walls of colored marble, the beautifully carved columns, the ornately coffered ceiling. A vestibule separates the meeting room from the main entrance. The great chamber is rectangular, illuminated at night or in stormy weather by great lamps that hang from the ceiling, and on a bright, sunlit afternoon such as this by tall, unshuttered windows placed high up in the walls and covered by bronze lattices. Against the longer walls and in a semicircle against the short wall opposite the vestibule are three tiers of seats, so that the rows of carved wooden chairs follow the shape of the letter U
.
We had entered near the left-hand prong of the
U,
between the vestibule on our left and the tiers of seats on our right. In this inconspicuous place stood some ten or more clerks who kept attentive eyes upon the senators in case they should be summoned to fetch some document or carry a message. A few of the clerks noticed our arrival and gave us a suspicious glance, but when they saw that we were with Rufus they paid us no more attention. They seemed too engrossed by what was happening on the floor of the Senate.

Cicero stood at the very center of the room, surrounded by the seated senators like a gladiator in the circus. If Meto needed instruction by example on how to comport himself in a toga, he could have learned much that day from Cicero, who seemed to be able to speak with his entire body, subtly turning and twisting his neck, gesticulating with one arm and clutching the other to his midriff as if it held a shield. He had come a long way from the impassioned but rather stiff orator I had met many years ago. One hardly even had to hear him to feel the force of his eloquence.

He was not delivering a set speech at the moment, but seemed instead to be engaged in a spontaneous debate with one of the senators in the tiers. From where we stood I had to crane my neck to catch a glimpse of the man, but when I heard his voice, I had no need to see him: it was Catilina.

Sulla, when he rebuilt the Senate House, had used not only his impeccable eye but his ear as well. The great lover of music and the theater had learned a thing or two from those famous Greek theaters where an actor's whisper can be clearly heard from the farthest seat.

Every word that Cicero and Catilina exchanged pealed as clear as if we had stood between them.

"Catilina, Catilina!" Cicero cried in a mock-wounded tone. "I ask not that the elections be postponed to jeopardize your chances of being

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elected, if that is the will of the people. I would do nothing to jeopardize the will of the Roman people! But so long as I have been entrusted with the guidance of the state, I will do everything possible to see that the state and the people are preserved from harm. That goes as well for the members of this august body! As it stands now, if the voting is held tomorrow, we are likely to have not an election but a bloodbath!"

At this there was another mild uproar. Thanks to the room's extraordinary acoustics, I could hear quite distinctly the mingled shouts of scoffing and agreement within the general roar.