The Tribune's curse

10

At that time the Servian Wall had some sixteen gates in common use, and two or three others for ceremonial purposes. I know this does not sound very impressive for a city as important as Rome. After all, Egypt boasts “hundred-gated Thebes.” Well, I have visited Thebes, and it doesn’t have a hundred gates, nor anything close to that number. That is just Egyptians for you. They like to think everything they have is bigger than anyone else’s. But there is no denying that Rome’s walls and gates were rather humble in comparison to those of, say, Syracuse or Alexandria or Babylon. They were, furthermore, in a state of perpetual disrepair. But then, we believed that the best defense of the City consisted in keeping our enemies several hundred miles away and prostrated by defeat.

Nonetheless, we maintained a tiny guard keeping watch in a minimal state of readiness at each gate. These men were unarmed in keeping with the law forbidding armed soldiers within the City, but they wore military insignia. Real soldiers laughed at them.

I found the captain of the gate watch lounging against one of the massive, oaken gateposts, arms folded and one booted foot propped behind him, head down, apparently napping in this half-upright position. At my approach a lesser guard nudged him.

“Sorry to disturb your repose, Captain,” I said, “but I must ask you some questions.”

The man blinked and came to a sloppy version of attention. “Yes, sir!” He wore a red tunic and over that a harness of handsomely polished leather straps arranged in a lattice. It made him look military, although it had no discernible function, since it neither supported armor nor suspended weapons. He was clearly a freedman who had lucked into this easy job through patronage.

“Were you on duty the other morning when the consul Marcus Licinius Crassus made his memorable exit?”

“I was, sir,” he nodded.

“Excellent. Doubtless you recall the activities of the late tribune Caius Ateius Capito atop this very gate?”

“Hard to forget, Senator.”

“Even better. Did you by chance notice how the tribune made his exit?”

“To be honest, sir, I was rooted to the spot like everyone else, until the consul Pompey and the virgo maxima got things under control.”

“I see. Did, may I hope, any of your stalwart companions take note of his route of escape?”

“Those buggers?” he laughed. “They took to hiding when Ateius started reciting his curse.”

“I should not have bothered to ask. What about outside the gate? Is anyone out there now who was there that morning?”

“There’s a whole crowd of vendors and beggars that’re out there every day, Senator.”

“Splendid. Might any of these be considered reliable informants?”

“Well, sir, I wouldn’t bother asking Lucius the sausage-seller. He’s blind. And the foreigners are all liars, so you can forget about them. The rest might’ve seen something, if they weren’t covering up their heads from terror.”

“Thank you, Captain, you’ve been a great help. Nice outfit, by the way.”

“Thank you, Senator,” he beamed. It was certainly a good thing that our legions kept everyone terrorized.

I went through the gate, which was just about wide enough for two oxcarts to pass through, if the oxen were thin. It was an amazing contrast to the magnificent road just outside, the Via Appia, first and still the greatest of our wonderful highways. Built more than two and a half centuries before by the Censor Appius Claudius, it connected Rome with Capua before being extended all the way to Brundisium. It cut through mountains, bridged valleys and swamps, tunneled through hills, and ran straight as a taut bowstring from one city to the next, perfectly usable all year in any weather because of its perfect drainage and solid construction. Where it crossed soft or marshy ground, it was more like a buried wall.

Just outside the gate, the first mile or so was lined with fine tombs, interspersed with the occasional crucified felon. It was also mobbed with beggars and with vendors who thus escaped paying the market fees. People sold all manner of goods, both sound and fraudulent. Others offered to act as guides for visitors to Rome, and it was not a bad idea to hire one. The Labyrinth of King Minos was not as confusing as Rome to a stranger. Unlike the great Greek and Roman colonial cities, which were usually laid out in a grid, Rome was an overgrown village of narrow, tangled streets and alleys. I got lost there myself, sometimes.

Very near the gate, a stout peasant woman sat beneath an awning, surrounded by straw cages holding doves, cocks, and other sacrificial birds. By law, all livestock, including sacrificial animals, were to be sold in the Forum Boarium under the supervision of the aediles. The commons assumed that the authority of City officials extended only as far as the walls. This was not true, but it is notoriously difficult to convince people that their inherited folk beliefs have no legal basis.

The woman’s eyes narrowed when they caught sight of my senator’s stripe. “I’m doing nothing wrong here, Senator,” she protested before I said a word. “You’re not an aedile, anyway.”

“No, but I will be next year, so you may as well cooperate, or I’ll make your life miserable.”

“Well, what do you want, then?”

“Were you here when Crassus left the City a few days ago?”

“I was, and it was quite a show, too. We missed the best of it out here. Couldn’t see that crazy man laying his curse on the whole City.”

“I was on the other side and saw it. But then he disappeared in this direction. Did you see him?”

“Couldn’t miss him. He was wearing that robe, looked like a Babylonian whore’s tent at a country fair.”

At last, an eyewitness. “How did he get down from the gate?”

“Had a ladder, over there.” She pointed to the wall just to the west of the gate. “It’s not there, now.”

“Did you see him go up?”

She thought. “Maybe. The ladder was there when I got here before dawn that morning. Sometime after dawn there was two or three men using the ladder. I didn’t pay much attention. I thought it was people getting a good spot to watch the show. Everybody knew Crassus was going out that morning. His horsemen were all gathered over there on the road. Made a good show.”

As I had suspected, Ateius had had help. It had struck me from the first that he’d had little time to lug all his gear to the top of the gate and get a fire going. His trappings had been awaiting him when he ran there from the Forum.

“What did he do when he reached the ground?”

“Well, first thing, he skinned out of that robe, stuffed it in a sack. A man came up, looked like he was wrapping a bandage around his arm. I heard the tribune cut his arm as part of his curse.”

“Where did he go after that?”

She pointed to the west, where the wall made a great curve to the south to go around the base of the Aventine before turning north again to meet the river. “They took off that way. I didn’t see them after they passed those horse stables.” Much of the land just outside the wall in that area was still pasture, but there were numerous houses and stables as well.

“Thank you. You’ve been the first real help I’ve had in days.”

“You won’t give me a hard time when you get to be aedile, will you?”

“I’ll be far too busy.” I asked a few more people, but most hadn’t noticed anything in all the uproar, and the few who had confirmed the bird-seller’s story.

So they had fled westward, two and possibly three of them. There were three more gates before the wall reached the river. They might have reentered the City at any of them, unnoticed. Or they may have gone on to the river and taken a boat across, or trudged up the embankment to cross one of the bridges. Sometime shortly after that, Ateius had been murdered and his body dumped on the western bank of the river.

As always, questions arose. Who were the other men? Were they some of his supporters, such as I had met at his house, or were they other men entirely? Why had his body been deposited on the bank, instead of in the river? Above all, who had killed him?

It did seem that he had not been immediately attacked by indignant Friendly Ones. And it occurred to me to think, what would have happened if his body had been thrown into the river? To begin with, it might have floated all the way to Ostia and gone out to sea, there to feed the fish. And the woman had seen him stuff the robe into a sack, whereas the body had been wearing it. Brilliant philosophical deduction: the killers wanted the body to be found, and by wrapping it in the incriminating robe, they wanted to make sure that it was properly identified, despite its untidy state.

Feeling rather pleased with myself, I began to walk toward home. I was making progress. The problem was, would I progress all the way to the end of this riddle before the funeral obsequies of Ateius and the subsequent dismantling of the City by a rioting mob?

It was a long walk to my home. I came to the rounded southern end of the Circus Maximus and turned up the Triumphal Way, one of the broader of Rome’s narrow streets. The day was fading; Rome was shutting down for the night. Doors were closed, shutters latched, awnings lowered. The hammering of carpenters and smiths was stilled; people were sitting down to their evening meal. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a city poised on the edge of riot and destruction, but Rome is deceptive.

Where the Triumphal Way intersected the Via Sacra, I encountered Hermes.

“I thought I might catch you here. Julia’s been asking about you. I’ve been hanging around the Forum most of the afternoon. She’s worried about you.”

“I can’t imagine why. She knows I am on a special investigation, and I can’t keep regular-”

“No, she’s worried you’re lying around drunk someplace.” The little wretch was enjoying this.

“See what I must put up with? The woman has no faith in me.” I glanced toward him, but he averted his face, hiding his expression.

We went northeast past the fine houses of the Carinae, and then were in the crowded warren of the Subura, where I had lived most of my adult life. My head was beginning to throb from too much wine too early in the day. But I was almost home.

We were no more than two streets from my house when I saw the two men strolling very slowly ahead of us: squat brutes in coarse tunics, their massive shoulders almost spanning the narrow street, looking around idly in every direction except toward us. Their steps kept slowing so that we drew unavoidably closer. No way past them without getting within touching distance. Dusk was drawing on, but I could see them clearly.

“Uh, Master-” Hermes rarely used that address in private unless he had something important to say.

“I see them,” I told him. “Right ahead. Well, we’ll just have to-”

“Actually,” he said, “I was going to tell you about the two coming up behind us.”

“Thank all the gods I’m not wearing one of my good togas. Got your stick?”

“Right here.”

“Then we’re about to find out if I’ve wasted my money sending you to the ludus.” My hands dipped into my tunic, and the left came out with fingers slipped through my caestus, the right gripping my dagger. Hermes took out his stick-a hardwood club a little longer than his forearm, the same length and weight as the practice sword used for training in the ludus.

“Take the two in back,” I said. The caestus allows limited use of the hand it adorns, and with that hand I whipped off my everyday toga. It had lead pellets stitched into its corners, which improved the drape, kept it from flapping in the wind, and allowed for more-imaginative uses.

The two in front whirled, crouching, daggers in their fists. I was not interested in talk or negotiation, not at two-against-one odds. The man on the left caught the lead weights in the face before he had properly gotten himself set. I let the toga go, its loose folds enveloping his head as I attacked. I have always found that there is little use in fencing when outnumbered and in conditions of uncertain light. An immediate, unrelenting attack is the best tactic then, unless you have a good escape route, which was distinctly lacking in this instance.

The man to the right was a veteran street fighter and came in fast, undistracted by the other’s plight. He feinted high with his short, curved knife, then came in low, sending a gutting stroke at my belly below the ribs. I blocked with my left forearm, felt the very tip of his blade nick the skin over my left hip, sent my dagger into his chest as the fingers of his left hand clawed at my eyes. We smashed together, and I brought my knee up into his groin as his knife hand sought weakly to carve me and I drew out my dagger and stabbed upward beneath his chin.

The other man bowled into me even as the first fell away, mortally wounded. He had my toga still draped across his shoulders and chest, but his eyes were clear and he had the advantage. I dived for the pavement rather than try to come to grips with him, always a mistake if you don’t have some sort of control over your opponent’s knife hand. He slashed but only nicked the top of my ear, then he kicked at my side and connected solidly. The wind went out of me, and I thought I felt a rib or two give way, but I got onto my back, my legs doubled up and ready to kick as he dived toward me.

He jerked and grunted as something struck him. I thought it was Hermes, but from my new vantage point I could see him dealing with the others. A man howled, clutching a smashed elbow, the cry cut off abruptly as Hermes brought up the blunt tip of the stick hard into the spot an inch below where the ribs join the breastbone. That is a killing blow even with a stick.

In the instant my knife man staggered from the invisible blow, I kicked out, catching him in the belly and sending him backward. In a moment I had my feet beneath me and charged in, catching him in the jaw with my caestus, hearing the bone snap even as I jammed my dagger into his side. He went down with a grunt, and I saw Hermes circling the last man, who was armed with a short sword, grinning as they shuffled their feet on the treacherous footing. I heard shutters banging and voices shouting and things crashing all around. I reached out and grabbed the back of the sword-wielder’s tunic, jerking hard. In the instant that he was off balance, Hermes darted in and fetched him two blows, forehand and backhand, alongside the temples. With a faint crunch of soft bone, the man dropped like a sacrificial ox. The boy really was coming along nicely.

Something hit me between the shoulder blades, accompanied by a screaming, feminine imprecation, and a flowerpot narrowly missed Hermes. Then I knew what had staggered my second knifer: the neighbors were throwing things. It is the almost automatic response of Romans to sounds of riot in the street outside. They throw objects from the windows or go out on the roof and cast down roofing tiles. It is their way of telling the offenders to take their argument somewhere else.

“Come on!” I said to Hermes. I stooped to grab my toga, and we took to our heels, getting out of missile range as quickly as we could. I had seen veteran brawlers killed by flowerpots and roofing tiles.

“Are you hurt?” I asked Hermes when we were safely out of range.

“Me? Hurt? There were only four of them.”

“Getting cocky, aren’t you? I must be getting old, then. One of them nicked me at least twice.”

“Some of that blood’s yours? Let me see.”

“Your concern is touching, but we’re almost home. Let someone else fuss over me.”

“Are you going to report this?”

I paused for thought. “No, best not. There’s too much chance that whoever hired those louts is someone I’d have to report to. Let’s keep them guessing, whoever they are.”

We were almost to my door by this time. I had been ambushed many times in my life, and it was usually near my house. In a city as chaotic as Rome, the easiest way to assassinate someone was to lurk near his house and wait for him to come to you.

Julia was there as the door swung open, glaring. “I hope that’s not wine all over you.”

“No, my dear, just blood.”

“Oh, Decius! When are you going to listen to me and hire bodyguards? Cassandra! Cypria! Bring water!” All this while hustling me into the house, an arm over my shoulders as If I were about to collapse.

“Bodyguards?” Hermes said, offended. “I was with him!”

“Oh, be silent, boy! Decius, where are you hurt? Sit down here.” She pushed me onto a stool and peeled the clothes from my upper body. The slave women appeared with basins and cloths. Cypria was excited, but old Cassandra had done this so many times she was just resentful of the extra work.

“Cypria,” Julia said, “take this toga and soak it in cold water before the blood dries.” The girl carried it out at arm’s length, her nose wrinkling in disgust. Julia dabbed at my cut ear and side. The damp cloth was pleasantly cool. “I’m afraid this tunic is beyond salvage,” she sighed.

“Whereas my hide is self-repairing?” I said.

“Quit complaining. These things wouldn’t happen if you had the slightest foresight. You’ve been making enemies again, haven’t you?”

“Not personal ones,” I informed her. “I’m investigating something certain parties would just as soon did not come to light. You heard about last night’s doings in the Forum?”

“I went to the baths this morning as soon as I returned to the City. I heard about it from the wives of most of the men who were on the basilica steps with you.”

“Then you heard I’ve been appointed iudex, on top of the other investigation for the Pontifical College?”

“And Milo gave you full praetorian authority, which means you should have an escort of lictors, at the very least. You just like to run around snooping on your own.” She rubbed my side with a stinging ointment and covered the slight wound with a pad while Cassandra wrapped it in place with a bandage around my body.

“Anyway,” Julia said, “it’s really just a single investigation, isn’t it?”

“I am certain of it.”

“Cassandra, bring a clean tunic and tear this one up for rags.” She dabbed at the top of my left ear, which was now fractionally shorter than my right. “This is going to make you look lopsided,” she said.

“Next time I’ll have to get into a fight with a left-hander. Maybe I can get them evened out.”

Cassandra arrived with the clean tunic, and Julia drew it down over my poor, bruised old body. She took me by the hand. “Come have something to eat and tell me everything.”

After dinner, we lingered over fruit, cheese, and wine, which Julia diluted with far too much water. She had listened with great attention as I described the events of the momentous night before and the day just then drawing to its mercifully tranquil close.

“How utterly strange,” she said when I was done. “Not the murder-those are certainly common enough these days-but his body mangled by wild beasts, you say? What are we to make of that?”

“I think you may have hit on an important point.”

“How so?”

“That murders are common. True, this one involves a tribune, but that is just a legal complication; it has nothing to do with motive. Earlier today, I was lamenting that there were so many distractions in this case, and this strange method of eliminating a tribune is a distraction. What do you say, for the moment, we just get rid of the distractions? Forget the forbidden name and the curse and the involvement of gods. Let’s forget wild animals and Friendly Ones or whatever it may have been. What have we left?”

“A murder.”

“Exactly. A powerful politician named Ateius tried to thwart another powerful politician named Crassus and got killed for his pains. What is at stake here?”

She thought for a moment, then came back, just like a Caesar: “Political power at home and the wealth of Parthia abroad.”

“Precisely. You see, Julia, nobody fights and kills over matters of religion anymore, if they ever did. Sometimes they do it for reasons of revenge, or of jealousy; but here we are dealing with important men, and among this class, in Rome these days, all fighting and killing are done for purposes of wealth and power.”

“To gain wealth and power?” she said.

“Or else to prevent an enemy from attaining them. A long time ago, Cicero taught me a very important political principle: Cui bono? Who profits from this? Let’s examine the problem from that perspective.”

Julia smiled delightedly. She loved philosophy. “Let’s do that. Who profits if Crassus conquers Parthia?”

“Crassus does. His sons will. Almost nobody else. Even his soldiers won’t do well out of it, Crassus being such a tight-fisted skinflint.”

“So who profits if he is defeated?”

“His political enemies, who are legion. The people who owe him money, who are likewise numerous. Pompey, who wants all the military glory in the world for himself. Even your uncle, Caius Julius Caesar, who grows increasingly embarrassed by Crassus. This last year Pompey has been of more help to him than Crassus. And, of course, Orodes of Parthia profits, by keeping his country and his throne.”

“But does Orodes really profit in the long run?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if he defeats Crassus, then someone else will be sent out to avenge Roman honor. He will just have to face a far more competent Roman general.”

“You are right,” I said. “This bears thinking about.”

She smiled complacently. “I am not Julius Caesar’s niece for nothing.”

“And,” I went on, “there are other nations involved. Crassus goes out to take over Syria from Gabinius, who’s been fighting and negotiating there for years. By extension there’s Egypt. Gabinius put Ptolemy back on the throne. There’s no love lost between Ptolemy and Crassus. Crassus opposed using Roman arms to support the Egyptian king.” Something tickled the back of my mind. “Just a minute. Wasn’t there something about a consultation of the Sibyllene Books involved in that?”

“I thought we were setting aside the religious implications as unnecessary distractions,” she said.

“So we were. Now, where were we?”

“I was going over the political implications of the murder, but you were going cross-eyed from fatigue and wine. Come along, my dear, time for you to go to bed.” She took my hand, and I followed meekly.

Tired though I was, I found it difficult to get to sleep. Having spent the better part of three years fighting in Gaul, I was not kept awake by the little battle out in the street, despite a few new pains. Rather, it was the nagging, unrelenting sensation that I was being misdirected. Despite the illuminating conversation with Julia, I felt that, somehow, the sacrilege investigation was the more important of the two. I just couldn’t imagine why. It was enough to make me wish that I was back in Gaul.

Well, almost.