Catilina's Riddle (4 page)

In the heat of the morning Congrio was already sweating. His two assistants stood to each side and slightly behind him, respectful of his authority.

I dismissed Aratus and asked Congrio and his helpers to step closer.

I explained my intention to lend them to Claudia for the next few days.

Congrio knew Claudia, because she had dined with his late master from time to time. She had always been pleased with his work, he assured me, and he was certain he would please her again and give me cause to be proud of him.

"Good," I said, thinking it might help to smooth matters with the Claudii to render them this favor. "There is one other thing. . . . "

"Yes, Master."

"You will do your best for the Claudii, of course; you will obey Claudia, and Claudia's own cook as well, since you will be serving in her house."

"Of course, Master; I understand."

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"And also, Congrio . . . "

"Yes, Master?" He wrinkled his fleshy brow.

"You will say nothing to embarrass me while you are in Claudia's service."

"Of course not, Master!" He seemed genuinely hurt.

"You will not exchange gossip with the other slaves, or trade opinions of your respective masters, or pass along what you may perceive to be my opinions."

"Master, I fully understand the proper behavior of a slave who has been lent to a friend of his master."

"I'm sure you do. Only, while you keep your mouth closed, I want you to keep your ears open."

"Master?" He inclined his head, seeking clarification.

"This applies more to your assistants than to you, since I assume you may not leave the kitchen at all, while they may assist in serving the Claudii at their meal. The family will mostly be discussing politics and the upcoming consular elections; about that I care nothing, and you may ignore whatever they say. But if you should happen to hear my name mentioned, or any other matter concerning this farm, prick up your ears.

Indicate no interest, but note what is said and by whom. Do not discuss the details among yourselves, but remember them. When you return, I will want to hear any such details, faithfully recounted. Do you understand, all of you?"

Congrio drew back with a sudden look of self-importance and nodded gravely. His assistants, watching him for their lead, did likewise.

What makes a slave feel more warmly wicked than to be commissioned as a spy?

"Good. About the instructions I have just given, you will say nothing, not even to the other slaves. Not even to Aratus," I added. They nodded again.

After I sent them on their way, I stepped to the window and leaned out, breathing in the warm fragrance of mowed grass. The bloom was finally off the grass, and the slaves had begun to make hay. I also noted the figure of Aratus walking quickly alongside the house, his back turned to me, as if he had been standing by the window and listening to everything I said.

It was two days later, in the afternoon, when the stranger arrived.

I had taken a stroll to the stream and had settled on a grassy slope, my back against the trunk of a spreading oak, a wax tablet on my knees and a stylus in my hand. In my imagination a mill began to take shape on the bank of the stream. I tried to draw what I saw in my mind, but

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my fingers were clumsy. I smoothed the wax with the edge of my hand and started again.

"Papa! Papa!" Diana's voice came from somewhere behind me and echoed off the opposite bank. I stayed quiet and continued to draw. The result was no more satisfactory the second time. I rubbed the tablet clear again. "Papa! Why didn't you answer me?" Diana stepped in front of me, putting her hands on her hips in imitation of her mother.

"Because I was hiding from you," I said, beginning a fresh mark in the wax.

"That's silly. You know I can always find you."

"Really? Then I hardly need to answer when you call, do I?"

"Papa!" She rolled her eyes, imitating Bethesda again, then collapsed on the grass beside me as if suddenly exhausted. While I drew, she contorted herself into a wheel and pulled at her toes, then lay flat again and squinted up at the sunlight that filtered through the oak canopy above. "It's true that I can always find you, you know."

"Can you? And how is that?"

"Because Meto taught me how. Meto says that you taught him. I can follow your footsteps in the grass and always find you."

"Really?" I said, impressed. "I'm not sure that I like that."

"What are you drawing?"

"It's called a mill. A little house with a great wheel that dips into the water. The flowing water turns the wheel, which turns other wheels, which will grind corn, or stones, or a little girl's fingers if she isn't careful."

"Papa!"

"Don't worry, it's just an idea. A problem, if you like, and probably too complicated for me ever to solve it."

"Meto says that you can solve any problem."

"Does he?" I put the tablet aside. She squirmed and rolled on the grass and laid her head in my lap. The broken sunlight spangled her hair, jet black in shadow and shot through with lustrous rainbows, like oil on water, where the light struck it. I had never seen a child with hair so black. Her eyes were also black, very deep and clear as only a child's eyes can be. A bird flitted above us. I watched Diana follow it with her gaze, amazed at the beauty of her least movement. She reached for the tablet and stylus, stretching her body awkwardly, and held them above her. "I don't see a picture at all," she said.

"It's not very good," I admitted.

"Can I draw over it?"

"Yes."

She did a thorough job of obliterating my tentative lines with her

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small hand, then set to drawing. I stroked her hair and studied my imaginary mill by the stream. At length, across the water, two women emerged from the woods. They were kitchen slaves carrying clay jugs.

They saw me and gave a start, conferred for a moment with their heads close together, then disappeared back into the woods. A little later I glimpsed something farther down the stream and saw them stepping down to the water's edge at a less convenient place. They dipped their jugs into the current, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and struggled up the steep bank and into the woods. Had Publius Claudius told them I was a monster who would eat them?

"This is you!" announced Diana, turning the tablet about and thrusting it toward me. Among the squiggles and curlicues I could barely make out a face. She was an even poorer draftsman than myself, I thought, but not by much.

"Extraordinary!" I said. "Another Iaia Cyzicena is among us!"

"Who is—" She stumbled over the unfamiliar name.

"Iaia, born in the city of Cyzicus, on the Sea of Marmara far away.

She is a great painter, one of the greatest of our day. I met her down in Baiae, when your brother Meto first came into my life."

"Did Meto know her?"

"He did."

"Will I ever meet her?"

"It is always possible." Nine years had passed since the events in Baiae, and Iaia had not been so very old. She might yet live long enough for Diana to know her. "Perhaps one day you and Iaia may meet and compare your drawings."

"Papa, what is a Minotaur?"

"A Minotaur?" I laughed at the abrupt change of subject. "So far as I know, there was only ever one,
the
Minotaur. A terrible creature, the offspring of a woman and a bull; they say it had a bull's head and a man's body. It lived on a faraway island called Crete, where a wicked king kept it in a place called the Labyrinth, a great maze."

"A maze?"

"Yes, with walls like this." I wiped the tablet clean and set about drawing a maze. "Every year the king gave the Minotaur young boys and girls to eat. They would make the children enter
here,
you see, and the Minotaur would be waiting for them
here.
This went on for a very long time, until a hero named Theseus entered the Labyrinth and slew the Minotaur."

"He killed it?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"Completely sure?"

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"Yes."

"Good!"

"Why do you ask about the Minotaur?" I said, anticipating the answer.

"Because Meto has been saying that if I'm not good, you'll feed me to it. But you've just said that it's dead."

"Ah, so it is."

"So Meto is wrong!" She rolled out of my lap. "Oh, Papa, I almost forgot! Mama sent me to fetch you. It's important."

"Yes?" I raised an eyebrow, imagining some dispute with the un-skilled slaves who were overseeing the kitchen in Congrio's absence.

"Yes! There's a man who's come to see you, a man on horseback all the way from Rome, all covered with dust."

It was not one man, but three. Two of them were slaves, or more precisely bodyguards, to judge from their size and the daggers at their belts. The slaves had not entered the house, but stood outside with their horses, drinking water from a jug. Their master awaited me just inside the house, in the little formal courtyard with its fishpond and flowers.

He was a tall, strikingly handsome young man with dark eyes. His wavy black hair was trimmed short over his ears but left long on top, so that black curls fell carelessly about his smooth forehead. His beard was trimmed and blocked so that it was no more than a black strap across his chin and upper lip, accentuating his high cheekbones and red lips.

As Diana had said, he was dusty from his journey, but the dust did not hide the fashionable and expensive-looking cut of his red tunic or the quality of his riding shoes. He looked familiar; a face from the Forum, I thought.

A slave had brought him a folding chair to sit on. He stood up as I entered and put down the cup of watered wine from which he had been drinking. "Gordianus," he said, "it's good to see you again. Country life agrees with you." His tone was casual, but it carried the polish of an orator's training.

"Do I know you?" I said. "My eyes fail me. The sunlight is so bright outside, here in the shade I can't see you clearly . . . "

"Forgive me! I'm Marcus Caelius. We've met before, but there's no reason you should remember me."

"Ah, yes," I said. "I see you more clearly now. You're a protege of Cicero's—and also of Crassus, I believe. You're right, we've met before, no doubt at Cicero's house or in the Forum. Memories of Rome are so irrelevant here, I sometimes have a hard time recollecting. And the beard fooled me. The beard is definitely new."

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He reached up and stroked it proudly. "Yes, I was probably clean-shaven when we met. You've grown a beard, as well."

"Mere laziness—not to mention cowardice. At my age a man needs every drop of blood he has to keep his bones warm. Is that the fashion in Rome these days? The way you trim it, I mean."

"Yes. Among a certain set." There was a trace of smugness in his voice that put me off.

"The girl has already brought you some wine, I see."

"Yes. It's quite good."

"A modest vintage. My late friend Lucius Claudius was rather proud of it. Are you on your way from Rome to some point farther north?"

"I've come from Rome, yes, but this is my destination."

"Really?" My heart sank. I had hoped he was merely passing through.

"I have business with you, Gordianus the Finder."

"It's Gordianus the Farmer now, if you don't mind."

"Whatever." He shrugged. "Perhaps we could retire to another room?"

"The courtyard is the coolest and most comfortable place at this time of day."

"But perhaps there's another place more private, where we might be less likely to be overheard," he suggested. My heart sank again.

"Marcus Caelius, it's good to see you again, truly. The day is hot and the road is dusty. I'm glad I can give you a cup of cool wine and a respite from your horse. Perhaps you require more than a drink and a brief rest? Very well, my hospitality is not exhausted. To ride all the way from Rome to my door and back again in a single day would challenge even a man as young and fit as you appear to be, and so I will gladly offer you accommodations for the night, if you wish. But unless you want to talk about haymaking or pressing olive oil or tending the vine, you and I have no business to discuss. I have given up my old livelihood."

"So I've heard," he said amiably, with an undaunted glimmer in his eyes. "But you needn't worry. I haven't come to offer you work."

"No?"

"No. I've come merely to ask a favor. Not for myself, you understand, but on behalf of the highest citizen in the land."

"Cicero," I sighed. "I might have known."

"When a duly elected consul calls him to duty, what Roman can refuse?" said Caelius. "Especially considering the ties that bind the two of you. Are you sure there's not another room that might be more appropriate for our discussion?"

"My library is more private . . . if hardly more secure," I added under my breath, remembering my glimpse of Aratus skulking away from the window two days before. "Come."

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Once there, I shut the door behind us and offered him a chair. I sat near the door to the herb garden, so that I could see anyone approaching, and kept an eye on the window above Caelius's shoulder, where I had caught Aratus eavesdropping. "What have you come for, Marcus Caelius?" I said, dropping all pretense of pleasant conversation.

"I'll tell you right now that I will not go back to the city. If you need someone to spy for you or dig up trouble, you can go to my son Eco, though I hardly wish it on him."

"No one is asking you to come back to Rome," said Caelius soothingly.

"No?"

"Not at all. Quite the opposite. Indeed, the very fact that you are now living in the countryside is what makes you so appropriate for the purpose Cicero has in mind."

"I don't like the sound of that."

Caelius smiled thinly. "Cicero said you wouldn't."

"I'm not a tool that Cicero can pick up whenever he wishes, or bend to his purpose at will; I never was and never will be. No matter that he's consul for the year, he's still only a citizen, as I am. I have every right to refuse him."

"But you don't even know what he's asking of you." Caelius seemed amused.