Saturnalia

13

It was late afternoon when I finished the letter, rolled it up, and sealed it. “Hermes!”

The boy came to my desk. He was nearly recovered from his excesses of the night before. I handed him the letter.

“Take this to the house of the aedile Lucius Calpurnius Bestia. It is on the Aventine somewhere.”

“The Aventine!” He groaned. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, it can’t. Give this letter to his doorkeeper and tell him that it is a matter of utmost urgency. Don’t wait for a reply; just leave and come straight back here. Waste no time.” Something in my tone cut through the fog of his hangover, and he lost his customary insolence. He nodded and left.

I opened my arms chest and took out my swords. My military sword was a bit bulky for my purposes, so I selected a smaller gladius of the sort that is used in the arenas. It was wasp-waisted, its swelling edges honed to razor keenness, its long, tapering point apt for stabbing. I tested the edges, found a couple of spots that felt slightly dull, and stroked them lightly with a small whetstone. Then I did the same with my dagger.

When all was in order I sat back and looked out my window to the west. Storm clouds were piling up beyond the Capitol, black and ominous. I lay down for a while, hoarding my strength. Despite my tension, I slept.

I woke when Hermes got back. A little twilight lingered in the sky, and I heard distant thunder. I rose, feeling greatly refreshed and oddly at peace with myself. I had determined upon a course of action, and I would see it through, whatever the cost.

“He got it,” Hermes reported. “The doorkeeper said he was home and he’d deliver it right away.” He glanced at the weapons laid out on my bedside table. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself about,” I told him, fastening on my hunting boots. “Get my dark cloak.” I put on my military belt and hooked the sheathed blades to their suspension rings. Then I tucked my caestus beneath my belt. Hermes handed me my cloak and I draped it over my shoulders, hiding my weaponry. He fastened it at the left shoulder with a Gallic fibula.

“You’d better let me go with you,” Hermes said.

“There would be no point. Stay here and be ready to open the door for me later on tonight.”

“And if you don’t come back?” He was most solemn, a rare thing in Hermes.

“You’ll be taken care of,” I told him.

“Let me carry your other sword,” he urged.

“I am touched by your loyalty, Hermes, but I haven’t yet sent you to the ludus to be trained. Either matters tonight will work out as I hope or they won’t. In neither case will your presence help, and it would only expose you to needless danger. Now I must be going.”

Hermes was a little teary-eyed as he opened the door for me. He really wasn’t such a bad boy after all, on his better days. The door shut behind me with great finality.

So I set off on yet another long walk through the streets of Rome, perhaps to be my last. The light was dimming fast and soon would be inky black. The ugly clouds now piled high over the Capitol and through them snaked fitful lightning. We Romans love omens and it was altogether just and fitting that these should be such evil ones. Something bad was going to happen to someone that night.

I came into the northeastern end of the Forum and turned onto the Sacred Way. The darkness was so complete that even the whitest buildings were all but invisible, and I had to pause from time to time and wait for a lightning flash to give me my direction again. Then I was on the winding street that climbs the Capitol. The rising wind tugged at my cloak, but there was as yet no rain.

Roman law and Roman courts are the best in the world, but sometimes they fail. Very clever and ruthless men know how to circumvent the laws, how to use the courts to their own advantage, how to suborn juries and use the power of ambitious faction leaders to secure their own protection. Some of the worst men in Rome were our public officials, and they were the men best-trained in the law. At such times a man who loves the laws and customs of Rome must violate them if justice is to be served.

At the apex of the Capitol I walked up the steps of the great Temple of Jupiter. A low, smoky fire burned atop the altar that stood before the doorway of the temple. Inside, the awesome statue of the god was dimly illuminated by a multitude of oil lamps. I drew my sword and cut off a small lock of my hair, which I dropped onto the altar coals. As it sizzled and smoked, I called upon the god by one of his many names.

“Jupiter Tarpeius, punisher of perjurers, oath-breakers, and traitors, hear me! The laws of man and of the community of your sacred city fail, and I must take action in your name. If my deeds are displeasing to you, punish me as you will.”

I had done all I could do. I went down the steps and crossed the broad pavement to the precipitous southern edge of the Capitoline, overlooking the triumphal path. There I waited. I knew there had to be at least one attendant inside the temple to see to the lamps, but otherwise I seemed to have the whole hilltop to myself.

Then a lightning flash revealed a lone figure trudging up the path. When he reached the top and came out onto the plaza before the temple, he stopped and looked around.

“Over here, Lucius,” I said. He turned and I saw the gleam of his teeth when he grinned. He walked slowly toward me. Like me he wore a dark cloak, and within it he bulked larger than I remembered. His cowl was drawn up, so I saw little more than eyes and teeth.

“I am amazed that you really came alone,” I said.

“I know you to be a man of your word, Metellus, and I don’t expect to need help. It was the strangest letter I ever received: Murder, poisoning, treason, sacrilege. Tonight I will be atop the Capitoline, alone. Meet me there, alone, or see me in court. Admirably succinct.”

“I’ve always prided myself on a fine prose style. Would you mind answering a few questions before we start?”

He glanced up. “You won’t be long, will you? It’s starting to rain and I hate to get wet.”

“I shall be brief. Was all this Pompey’s doing?”

“Certainly not. You know how one serves great men, Decius: Try to do what they want, especially the less savory tasks, without waiting for them to tell you to. That way their hands stay clean, but they are aware of how much they owe you.”

“And your disgusting witch cult? How did you get involved in such a thing?”

“Decius, there are many such clandestine religions in Italy, and I am an initiate in several of them. The dark gods are far more interesting than the Olympian crew. Their worship provides a genuine personal experience instead of the collective civic event provided by the state religion.”

“I could tell you had little respect for the gods,” I said. “Throwing Ariston from the Sublician Bridge like that. And I take it especially ill that you sent men to kill me on Saturnalia when even condemned men can’t be executed. And why such inferior thugs?”

He shrugged. “I’m not a wealthy man. All the really good thugs work for Milo or Clodius, so I couldn’t hire them. And I had to use out-of-towners who wouldn’t know me by sight. Now answer me something: How did you figure it all out?”

So I told him where he had slipped up.

“Let that be a lesson to me,” he said, shaking his head ruefully, “always make a clean sweep, even if it means another few killings.”

The storm was coming on quickly. The lightning flashes were almost continuous, and the wind whipped dry leaves around so hard that they stung when they hit. I unpinned my cloak and let it fall.

“Let’s finish this,” I said, drawing my sword. I had to raise my voice to be heard above the wind.

He grinned again. “So we’re to have our own little munera? Here, on sacred ground? Aren’t you afraid Jupiter will be displeased?”

“If so, he can strike us both down. He has plenty of ammunition ready.”

“So he has. Well, I came alone, Decius, but I didn’t come unprepared.”

He threw back his cowl and I saw that he was wearing a helmet. Then he dropped his cloak. He had a shield, the small, square parma carried by the Thracian gladiators. He also wore a shirt of mail and greaves on both shins. No wonder he had appeared so bulky.

“Your little caestus won’t be enough to turn the balance in your favor this time, Decius. Pity we don’t have an editor to give the signal to begin.”

I reached to my belt and slipped the caestus over my knuckles. “Let Jupiter decide. Next thunderclap.”

We waited tensely for a few seconds, then bright lightning flashed so close that the thunder was almost simultaneous with it. We attacked before the sound even began to echo.

Bestia came in with his shield high and well forward. His sword, which was a full-sized legionary gladius, he held low, gripping it next to his right hip, its point tilted slightly upward. I flicked my smaller sword toward his eyes to draw the shield up and immediately stabbed low, trying to get his thigh above the greave. He brought the lower edge of the shield down and blocked easily, at the same time driving his blade forward in a powerful, gutting strike. I sucked my belly in and twisted to the right, avoiding his sword by an inch.

An especially bright flash blinded us both for a second, and I sprang back to get beyond his reach. The rain was beginning to fall in earnest now, and by the light of the next flash I stooped to grab my cloak with my left hand. Fortunately, my caestus left my fingers free enough for the maneuver. Bestia came in as I was bent over and I sprang back awkwardly to get away from his slashing blade, but he punched with his shield and caught me a glancing blow on the side of my head.

I dropped to the pavement and kicked out, sweeping his feet from under him. He fell with a clatter and I scrambled to my feet, immediately lunging at him as he surged to his knees and jerked his shield up desperately. I went in over it, trying to get his neck above the mail shirt; but his shield pushed the point aside at the last instant and it caught his upper arm instead, just below the short, iron sleeve.

Meanwhile, his point was coming for my belly again and I swept the blade aside with my cloak, but it bit through the cloth and cut into the back of my forearm. I jumped back, cursing, as he scrambled up and another lightning bolt temporarily blinded us again. I used the reprieve to wiggle the fingers of my left hand and assure myself that the cut hadn’t been a crippling one. Bestia was fast and strong and highly trained and well armed, and I was in deep, deep trouble.

At the next flash I swirled my cloak at his face to blind him, but he slashed out and his sword point ripped the cloak for almost its entire length. When I dodged his next cut, my soles slipped slightly on the wet pavement. He came for me again and I threw the shredded cloth into his face and ran a few steps until I was off the pavement and standing firmly on rough stone.

He was right after me and I tried to remember those clever moves I had been taught in the ludus years before. Shield high again, he thrust for my chest. Lacking a shield, it is possible to use the sword defensively, although it is extremely dangerous and only to be employed thus in desperation. I was desperate. Our blades rang together as I knocked his to my left. Immediately I snapped it against his shield, driving it to my right and creating an opening. I drove into it with both hands. My sword caught in his mail shirt and would not penetrate, but my caestus cracked against the cheek plate of his helmet and rocked him. He fell back and I was right on top of him. Too late I saw the leg coming up. The decorated bronze of his greave smashed into my face, and I felt the bone in my long, Metellan nose give way with an audible crunch.

I staggered back, lights brighter than the lightning sparkling behind my eyelids. Blood gushed onto the breast of my tunic and I fell, feeling the rugged stone of the Capitol against my back. As he got to his feet Bestia was blinded by another bolt, and I shook my head, trying to clear my vision. When I could see, he was standing over me and his sword was behind his right shoulder. The gladius is designed for stabbing but it cuts exceedingly well and now it was coming down in a skull-splitting stroke.

From blind instinct I threw up my left hand. Better to lose an arm than a head. I felt a shock all the way to my shoulder when the blade connected. It struck the knuckle bar of my caestus. The sharp steel of the edge bit into the softer bronze and held there for an instant.

In that instant my sword snaked in below his shield and above the greaves. Then I jerked it back in a draw-cut against the inside of his left thigh. I felt the keen edge scrape bone; and when I pulled it free, it was followed by a great gush of blood from the severed artery. It splashed my face and arms and chest before I could scramble back, getting to my feet while Bestia stood there like a sacrificial ox stunned by the hammer.

Sword and shield fell from his nerveless hands and for the first time I realized that we now stood atop the Tarpeian Rock, only inches from its edge. Nothing can save a man when that artery is cut, and I didn’t want Bestia to die that way. I grabbed his arm and turned him to face the edge of the cliff as a lightning flash lit up the Forum far below.

“No honorable death for you, Bestia!” I informed him. “This is how we execute traitors!” I placed a boot against his buttocks and pushed. He had enough strength left to scream as he fell.

Wearily, I turned and walked off the rock of execution. I crossed the rain-swept pavement and stopped at the foot of the stair before the temple and I held my arms wide.

“Jupiter, Bringer of Rain!” I shouted. “Jupiter, Best and Greatest, hear me! Have I pleased you? I am polluted with blood and cannot enter your temple, but I stand here awaiting your judgment!”

I waited for a long time, watching the god within the temple, but there was no more lightning, no more thunder. The rain began to fall in earnest. I resheathed my sword and tucked my caestus beneath my belt once more.

Slowly I descended the winding road down the face of the Capitoline. Long before I reached the dark Forum, Jupiter’s good rain had washed all the blood from me.

These things happened in the year 695 of the city of Rome, the consulship of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Caius Julius Caesar.