Catilina's Riddle (7 page)

Alas, her genius, so far as it went, was with simple foods such as she had served me in my leaner years (leaner in every sense), and particularly with fish, which were always to be had in quality and abundance at the markets in Rome, either freshly caught in the Tiber or brought upriver from the sea. At the farm good fish were harder to come by, and so, with a guest from the city to entertain, Bethesda had chosen to attempt something extravagant with the provisions on hand. She had overreached herself. The celery and calf's brains with egg sauce was not up to Congrio's standards, and the asparagus stewed in wine might have succeeded had she chosen a less assertive vintage. (Such pretentious judgments about food I learned from the late Lucius Claudius.) The carrots with coriander were passable, and the potted peaches stewed with cumin at last provided a triumph I could sincerely compliment—which was a mistake.

"Congrio potted the peaches," she remarked tersely. "I merely in-

- 34 -

structed one of the slaves to simmer them with the olive oil and cumin."

"Ah—and your instructions were impeccable," I said, kissing my fingertips. Bethesda raised a dubious eyebrow.

"I'll take some more," said Meto, gesturing to the serving slave.

"Actually, the whole meal was delicious," insisted Marcus Caelius.

"There aren't many Roman matrons who could personally oversee every course of such an ambitious meal in the absence of their cook. To find such culinary excellence here in the countryside is a delight." The words sounded false to my ear, but Bethesda was suddenly glowing; it was the fancy beard that charmed her, I thought. "But you need not strive to impress Catilina when he stays here," added Caelius. "He's a man of adaptable tastes. He can discriminate between two vintages of Falernian wine blindfolded, or drink from the jug kept for slaves with equal relish.

Catilina says, 'A man's palate was meant to experience every possible flavor, or else a tongue is good only for talking.' "

This struck me as vaguely obscene; Bethesda must have caught the implication as well, for she now seemed even more charmed by our guest.

Was it this that irritated me, or the fact that Caelius seemed to take my acquiescence for granted?

"I think we should retire to the library," I said. "We still have business to discuss, Marcus Caelius."

Meto looked up expectantly and began to rise from his couch. "No,"

I said, "stay and finish your peaches."

"You have some very fine works in your collection," said Caelius, trailing his eye over the scrolls in their pigeonholes and fingering the little labels that hung from them. "I see you're particularly fond of collecting plays.

So is Cicero. I suppose on occasion he passes on his duplicates to you.

I had plenty of time to look through your library this afternoon, and I was impressed by all the volumes inscribed, 'From Marcus Tullius Cicero, to his friend Gordianus, with warm regards—' "

"Yes, Caelius, I'm well acquainted with the contents of my own library. I remember where each volume came from."

"Books are like friends, are they not? Steadfast, unchanging, reliable. There's a comfort in that. Pick up a volume you put away a year ago, and the words will be the same."

"I take your meaning, Caelius. But is Cicero really the same man now that he was a year ago? Or seventeen years ago, when I first met him?"

"I don't understand."

"The news from Rome arrives here sporadically and secondhand, and I listen to it with only one ear, but it seems to me that Cicero the

- 35 -

consul has turned out to be rather more reactionary than was Cicero the aspiring advocate. The man of the people who bravely spoke out against Sulla now seems quite at home serving the interests of the same handful of rich families whom Sulla served."

Caelius shrugged. "This is all beside the point, isn't it? I thought you were sick of politics. That's why I chose to talk about friendship, instead."

"Caelius, even if I were eager to do as you ask, I would hesitate.

How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"Quite young. I take it you have no wife and children yet."

"No."

"Then you probably don't understand why I hesitate to allow a man like Catilina into my house, no matter what the circumstance or pretext.

I left Rome partly because I was sick of the constant violence and danger.

Not because
I
feared for my own safety, but because there are others I must consider and protect. Before I adopted him, my elder son Eco was a child of the streets; he could always fend for himself, and now he's a man and on his own. But my younger son Meto is quite different; clever and resourceful, yes, but not nearly as canny or resilient as Eco. I've shared as little of the dangerous part of my life with him as I could. And you've seen my little girl, Diana. She needs protection most of all."

"But we're not asking you to do anything dangerous, Gordianus, only—"

"You sound as sincere now as when you complimented Bethesda's dinner."

Caelius gave me his heavy-lidded look. I think he was used to getting his way by using charm alone and could not quite account for my obstinacy.

I sighed. "What precisely is it that Cicero wants of me?"

To his credit, Caelius showed no hint of smugness at this concession.

His face became quite grave. "I spoke to you this afternoon of a looming threat to the state. You discounted my words as mere rhetoric, Gordianus, but the facts are plain enough. The threat is Catilina. You may despise the pomposity and corruption of what passes for politics in Rome nowadays, but believe me, the anarchy Catilina would bring would be far more terrible."

"You're beginning to speechify," I warned.

Caelius smiled grudgingly. "Stop me when I do that. To be clear, then: Catilina, as you know, is running for consul again. He cannot possibly win, but that won't stop him from trying, and from stirring up as much trouble as he can, using the campaign as a vehicle to foment disorder and discontent in the city. He has two plans. The first is predicated on his victory. If he should win the consulship—"

- 36 -

"You just said that was impossible."

"I was speechifying, Gordianus; I told you to stop me if I did that.

On the very slight chance, then, that Catilina should win the election, it will be taken as a sign that the electorate is irreparably fragmented.

Cicero's consulship will have been a momentary respite of sanity before the storm. The Senate will erupt. There will be riots and murders in the streets. Very likely there will be civil war; the various politicians and great families are already aligning themselves. In such a conflict Catilina will inevitably lose, if not quickly, then when Pompey brings his troops back from the East. And if Pompey has to be called back to restore order, what is to stop Pompey from becoming dictator? Consider that possibility."

Against my will, I did. After Catilina, Pompey as dictator was the ruling oligarchy's worst nightmare. Such an eventuality would mean either the end of the Republic or yet another civil war; men like Crassus and the young Julius Caesar would not let power elude them without a struggle.

"And if the only possible thing happens, and Catilina loses the election?" I said, hating to be drawn into the argument.

"He's already begun planning his revolt. His supporters are as desperate as he is. His military support is concentrated among the veterans settled here in Etruria, farther north. Within the city he has a small but devoted coterie of powerful men who will stop at nothing. There is already evidence that he plans to murder Cicero
before
the election."

"But why?"

"Chiefly because he blames Cicero for stealing the election from him last year, and longs to see him dead. How it fits into Catilina's overall scheme, I'm not sure; perhaps he simply wants to spread chaos and fear before the polling, or to cancel the election altogether."

"How do you know all this, Marcus Caelius?"

"There was a meeting of the conspirators earlier this month—"

"How
do you know this?"

"I'm telling you: there was a meeting of the conspirators earlier this month, and I
was there."

I paused to absorb this. If only it could have been Aratus seated across from me, discussing how many oxen to buy at market this year, or Congrio telling me we would need more provisions for the month ahead.

Instead I was confronted with one of Cicero's smoothest proteges, listening to him pronounce dire warnings of conspiracy and revolution.

"This is all too much, Caelius. You say that Catilina is hatching a conspiracy to murder Cicero, and that you yourself sat in on his secret Proceedings?"

"I'm telling you too much, Gordianus, more than I intended to, but you're a difficult man to convince."

- 37 -

"This is your way of convincing me to help you? I tell you I want no danger to this house and you tell me stories of assassination and civil war!" "All of which can be prevented,
if we work together."

Why—in spite of all my protests, my clearly reasoned judgment, all the resolutions and promises I had made to myself, the great daily satisfaction I took in turning my back on the madness of the city—why in that moment did I experience a shiver of excitement? Intrigue is an intoxicant more powerful than the headiest wine. Secrecy casts a spell over the workaday world and turns common, drab existence into the stuff of plays and epics. A man eats of such stuff and only feels hungry for more. Even so, such a diet makes a man feel alive. That shiver of excitement was something I had not felt since I left the city.

"Tell me more about the meeting you attended with Catilina," I said slowly.

"It was at Catilina's house on the Palatine; a splendid, rambling mansion that his father built, and the only thing left of his inheritance, besides his name. It began as a dinner party, but after the meal we withdrew to a room deep within the house. The slaves were dismissed and the door was shut. If I told you the names of the senators and patricians who were there—"

"Don't."

Caelius nodded. "Then I'll only tell you that the gathering ranged from the respectable to the notorious—"

" 'Taste every flavor.' So Catilina says."

"Exactly. He coins a memorable phrase, as you see. You flatter me by calling me an apt pupil of Cicero's, but I tell you Cicero has nothing on Catilina when it comes to passionate speeches. He dwelt upon the common distress of the men gathered there and pointed to the wealthy oligarchs as the cause of all their misery; he promised them a new state consecrated by the blood of the old; he spoke of canceled debts and confiscations from the rich. When it was over he produced a bowl of wine and compelled every man to make a cut on his arm and squeeze a trickle of blood into the bowl."

"And you?"

Caelius held forth his arm and showed me the scar. "The bowl was passed around. Every man drank from it. We all took an oath of secrecy—"

"Which you're breaking right now."

"An oath against Rome is no oath at all to a true Roman." Even so, he lowered his eyes.

"Then Catilina accepted you as one of his own, despite your connection to Cicero?"

- 38 -

"Yes, because for a time I was truly under his spell. I convinced him of my loyalty because it was real, at the time. Until I suddenly saw through him, until I learned that he planned to murder Cicero. Then I went to Cicero with all I knew. He told me to remain in Catilina's confidence and said that I could be more valuable to him as a spy. I'm not the only one who watches Catilina for him."

"And now he wants me to spy for him as well."

"No, Gordianus. He merely wants you to play passive host to Catilina. Catilina's movements are watched, but he has ways of getting out of the city unobserved. His principal ally outside Rome is Gaius Manlius, a military man up in Faesulae; Catilina needs a secret place of refuge between Faesulae and Rome, not one of his known supporter's farms, but a place where his enemies would never think to look."

"And that place is with me? If he doesn't know already, anyone could tell Catilina that I've done much work for Cicero in the past, and that Cicero helped me hold on to this farm."

"Yes, but I've told Catilina that you've had a serious falling-out with Cicero—that's easy enough to believe, isn't it?—and that you're disgusted with things as they are in Rome, and sympathize with him. That you know how to be discreet is accepted without question; you do have a reputation for that, Gordianus. Catilina doesn't believe that you're an ardent supporter, only that you're willing to offer him hospitality and to keep your mouth shut. That's all he'll expect from you—a safe retreat when he needs to get out of the city, and a way station on the road to Faesulae."

"How do I know there won't be secret meetings in my house, with bowls of human blood passed around?"

Caelius shook his head. "That's not what he wants from you. He wants a refuge, not a meeting place."

"And what does Cicero want?"

"An accounting of Catilina's movement, through me. Of course, if Catilina should happen to confide something of importance to you, Cicero trusts you to use your judgment in passing on vital information.

They say you have a way of drawing out the truth from men, even when they hope to conceal it."

I turned my back on him and looked out the west-facing windows, beyond the herb garden to the land sloping down toward the stream.

The treetops were gilded with moonlight. The night was quiet and peaceful, pleasantly warm. The air smelled rich and sweet, a mixture of animal dung and cut grass. Rome seemed very far away, and yet inescapable.

"I would deal only with you, then, and with Catilina? With no one else?"

"Yes. Cicero himself will be only a phantom, never seen. Any

- 39 -

message you need to send you will send to me, in the city. Catilina will find nothing suspicious in that."

"It can't be as simple as you claim. Is it because of your youth and inexperience that you can't see all the terrible things that could go wrong?