Catilina's Riddle (43 page)

"When will this world ever change?" a voice whispered. It might have been in my own head, but it came from Meto, who gazed after the slaves with a solemn, sad look in his eyes. Without looking at me he mounted his horse. I did likewise, and we rode quickly back to the farm.

I wanted a suitable retinue surrounding me when I set foot again on Gnaeus Claudius's property. I ordered Aratus to come with us, partly because it seemed fitting that my foreman should accompany me and partly because I wanted to watch his reactions while I dealt with Gnaeus; I still did not trust him. I also chose a few of the burliest men, thinking I might need protection.

We set out after midday. I hoped that Gnaeus had eaten a heavy meal. I've often found it useful to accost a man while he's sleepy and off his guard.

We rode up the Cassian Way and turned onto the road to Gnaeus's house, openly and without stealth. The way grew steep. The foothills became thick with boulders and trees. In the midst of the forest we came to the house of the goatherds, where we had first met Forfex. The road came to the deep streambed and ran alongside it. At length we came to the little bridge, crossed the ravine, and so arrived before the house of Gnaeus Claudius.

The two-storied structure was of rustic design, more Etruscan than Roman. It was a very old house and not well kept up, to judge from the plaster crumbling from the walls and the shutters hanging from broken hinges. It was set against a steep, wooded hillside and surrounded by shadows. The air was dank and musty. Even on a summer's day a gloomy pall hung over the house and the little ramshackle sheds clustered around it.

Chickens and dogs inhabited the dry, dusty courtyard. At our approach the dogs roused themselves and barked, while the chickens cackled and scattered in a panic. The door to the house opened and a voice cried out sharply for the dogs to be silent. The beasts whimpered and ran about in nervous circles, but stopped their barking.

The slave at the door saw our company and backed away. I suspect his master had few enough visitors, especially from a group as formidable as I hoped ours appeared to be. The slave gave us a hard look and shut the door without saying a word.

A few moments later the door opened again. Gnaeus Claudius

- 252 -

himself stood staring back at us, looking as ill-humored as when I had last seen him ingratiating himself with Catilina and punishing the hapless Forfex. He was a strikingly ugly young man, with his unkempt mop of red hair and his chinless neck, but his height and brawny frame gave him an imposing presence. At his appearance the dogs began to bark again. Gnaeus growled back at them as if he were a hound himself. In his hand he held a bone on which he had been chewing; bits of flesh clung to his lips. He cast it into their midst, and the beasts fell on it at once and competed for the prize, slavering and sniping and tearing it from one another's mouths in an appalling melee.

"Stupid dogs," muttered Gnaeus. "Still, smarter than most slaves, and they can't talk back." His grating voice was as hard to listen to as his face was to look at. He squinted up at us. Claudia had said that his eyes were weak, but despite the gloomy shadows he seemed to recognize me easily enough. "Back, are you? And this time without your scheming friend from the city. Come to spy on me again, I suppose. What in Hades do you want, Gordianus?'

"I should think you'd know the answer to that question, Gnaeus Claudius," I said.

"Don't try to be clever with me," said Gnaeus. "I don't take to cleverness. Ask my slaves if you don't believe me. No one invited you here, Gordianus. You're trespassing on my property. I'd be perfectly in my right to pull you off that horse and beat you like a slave. State your business or get out. Or do you want a beating? I could give one to the boy, as well."

"Papa!" said Meto under his breath, bristling. I touched his arm to quiet him.

"We've come, Gnaeus Claudius, because someone has committed an atrocity on my farm. An act of desecration. An offense against the law and against the gods."

"If the gods are offended, perhaps it's because a plebeian nobody from Rome has got his hands on a piece of property that's been in my family for generations! Perhaps you should have thought of that before you set your backside down where it doesn't belong."

"Papa, we shouldn't stand for this," said Meto.

"Quiet! Are you admitting your responsibility, Gnaeus Claudius?"

"For what?"

"For the desecration I speak of."

"I don't know what you're talking about. But if some catastrophe has fallen on your head, then it's good news to me. Keep talking. You amuse me, plebeian."

"You don't amuse me, Gnaeus. Neither did the little prank you pulled a few days ago."

"Enough of the riddles! Make your meaning clear or get out!"

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"I'm talking about the body you threw into my well."

"What? You've been out in the sun too much without a hat, Gordianus. That's the first rule you should have learned if you want to be a farmer: wear a hat."

"You deny it?"

"What body? What well? Give your father a good hard slap, boy.

He's babbling."

Meto seemed barely able to restrain himself. I saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped his rein.

"I'm talking about the body of your slave, Forfex. Do you deny that you killed him five days ago?"

"Why should I deny it? He was my slave for years, and before that he was my father's slave. I had every right to kill him, and may Jupiter strike me down if he didn't deserve it!"

"You're an impious man, Gnaeus Claudius."

"And you're a fool and an upstart, Gordianus, so-called Finder. You managed to find a body in your well, then? Good for you, and good for whoever put it there. But don't lay the blame at my door. I had nothing to do with it."

"The body was that of Forfex."

"Impossible. My slaves disposed of the corpse. I gave the orders myself, and my slaves are not in the habit of disobeying me, you can believe that!"

"Even so, the body ended up in my well."

"Not Forfex."

"Yes, most certainly Forfex."

"Would you even have known Forfex if you'd seen him alive? Oh, but that's right, you were along when Forfex showed your friend the way to the mine, weren't you?"

"Was I?"

"So Forfex said later; he claimed that one of the trespassers was called Gordianus, though I didn't recognize you in the gloom that evening. If I'd known it was you, I'd have had you dragged from your horse and whipped."

"You're very generous with your threats and insults, Gnaeus Claudius. You seem quite proud to confess that you killed a helpless slave.

Why are you so timid when it comes to admitting that you had Forfex dropped down my well?"

"Because I did no such thing!" he shouted. The dogs began to bay and howl.

"I say that you did. If it had been anyone else but Forfex—"

"You keep insisting that this body was my slave. Prove it, then.

Show him to me."

"And if I do, will you admit to this act?"

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"No, but at least I might believe you when you say that it was Forfex you found in your well."

"But how can I do that, when you yourself took steps to see that I couldn't prove the slave's identity by showing his face?"

"What do you mean? I may have crushed his skull, but he could still be recognized. You must have recognized him yourself since you say you knew him by sight."

"I never said that."

"Then how do you know it was Forfex?" he shouted, infuriated.

"I have my ways."

"What do you mean? Have you been trespassing on my land again, talking to my slaves, putting lies in their ears?" He squinted, so fiercely that I could not see his eyes. "How did you know that I killed Forfex?

Who told you? Who dared?"

"I also know about the
other
body," I said, partly to change the subject, partly to see his reaction. At the same time I glanced at Aratus, whose face remained impassive. I had not caught a single look exchanged between him and Gnaeus; if they shared some secret, or even knew each other by sight, their eyes and faces did not betray it.

"What
other body?" cried Gnaeus.

"You proclaim your ignorance too quickly, Gnaeus Claudius—the sure sign of a guilty man. You know what I'm talking about. Furthermore, I have strong proof against you for that offense as well, and you shall regret your impudence."

Gnaeus cocked his head and made a face. He spat on the ground and waved both hands at me. "You're mad, utterly mad. You make no sense at all, and now you've begun to threaten me in front of my own home. Get out, now! Get out or I'll call the dogs on you. They can seize a man by the leg and pull him off his horse in an instant, and tear the throat out of his neck in the blink of an eye. If you don't believe me, just give me an excuse to prove it! And there's no law to keep me from doing it as long as you're on my land, as you well know. Now get out!"

I looked at him steadily for a moment, then reined my horse and turned around. "But Papa—" Meto protested.

"Our business is done, Meto," I said under my breath. "And I think he means his threat about the dogs. Come!"

Reluctantly, and not before he cast a glowering look back at Gnaeus, Meto turned his horse around. Aratus and the other slaves had already done so at my signal. I set the pace, riding at a gallop across the little bridge, down the trail past the goatherds' house and through the rock-strewn woods. The dappled sunlight felt good on my face, but my spirits did not truly lift until we emerged into the full sunlight again, not far from the Cassian Way.

- 255 -

Meto rode up beside me. "But, Papa, we left before Gnaeus Claudius admitted his guilt!"

"We would be a long time waiting for him to admit something he didn't do."

"I don't understand."

"You saw the man with your own eyes, Meto, and heard him speak with your own ears. Do you believe he knows anything about the body in the well?"

"He admitted to killing Forfex!"

"Without hesitation, which makes his protestations of ignorance all the more convincing. I believe him when he says he knows nothing about the body in the well. He killed Forfex and ordered his slaves to dispose of the body, and that is the last he knew of the matter. You noticed, I suppose, that I never mentioned that the body had no head, though I alluded to it. He showed no comprehension at all, and assumed that we recognized Forfex by his face, not by his birthmark."

"But he could have been lying."

"The man is not much of an actor. He shows everything on the surface. I know his type. He was raised to have all the pomposity and pride of a patrician without any of the polish of his class. He threatens and bullies other men with impunity, because he thinks it's his birthright.

Not a devious or even deceitful type; he has no use for lying, because he's never ashamed of anything he does, no matter how outrageous. He says whatever he wants because he always expects to get his way, and he probably does."

"He didn't get his way about keeping you from having the farm."

"True, but if he was serious about attacking us, I think he would do so in a less underhanded manner. And if he was involved in these outrages, I think he would admit his part when we accused him, don't you? He would boast about it. He's a crude man; he has no subtlety at all—you've seen the way he handles his slaves and his dogs. Whoever gave us Nemo and Forfex has a shrewd mind, almost playful, however wicked. That hardly describes Gnaeus Claudius."

"I suppose not. But just before we left, you accused him outright of being responsible for Nemo, too. You said you could tell he was lying.

You said you had proof!"

"A final bluff, a last effort to convince myself that he knows nothing at all about either of the bodies appearing on the farm. No, Gnaeus is not our tormentor. He killed Forfex, true, and for that I pray that Nemesis will punish him. Forfex somehow came to be in our well, with his head missing—I give you credit for remembering the birthmark when I did not, and I confess to doubting you wrongly. But between the crude interment of Forfex's body and its decapitation and appearance in the well, someone else had a hand."

- 256 -

"But who, Papa?"

"I don't know. Without some further crisis, we may never know."

I could see by the look on his face that this was not good enough for Meto. Nor was it satisfactory for me, but the years had given me more patience. "I still say we should bring charges against him," said Meto. "It's not worth bothering Volumenus. You've seen how long it's taking him to get a judgment on our water dispute with Publius Claudius.

What is the point of bringing a suit where we have no evidence at all?"

"But we do have evidence!"

"A headless corpse with a birthmark? The testimony of a goatherd who could never be compelled to testify against his master? The complete denial of the charge by Gnaeus Claudius? The testimony of an old, senile farm slave who thinks he might have heard a splash and might have glimpsed a shadow one night when he got up to pass water? No, Meto, we have no evidence at all. Granted, we might be able to bribe a jury, which is one way of winning a lawsuit in Rome when you have no case, but my heart would not be in it. I don't believe that Gnaeus Claudius was responsible."

"But, Papa, someone must have done it. We have to find out who!"

"Patience, Meto," I counseled wearily, and wondered if
I
should counsel resignation also, knowing all too well that many mysteries are never resolved. Men go on living anyway, in ignorance and fear, and though they may call their state of puzzlement intolerable, they seem able to tolerate it nonetheless, as long as their hearts keep beating.

Aratus gave me counsel on the purification of the well. Hardly a priest, he seemed nonetheless to take a practical view of the matter, and he had seen others purify wells polluted by rodents and rabbits, if not dead slaves. He thought it significant that Forfex had been properly buried, at least for a slave, before his remains were disturbed. This meant there was a good chance that Forfex's lemur had been put to rest before he was disinterred. If so, the lemur might have clung to the more familiar site of the waterfall on the mountainside, rather than follow the desecrated and beheaded corpse onto unknown soil. The arguments seemed to ring true with the slaves, who accordingly relinquished their newfound terror of the well. Whether Aratus himself believed the arguments he put forth I did not know, but I was grateful for their pragmatic effect and for his politic handling of the situation.