The Tribune's curse

13

I awoke in a state of anxiety. This would be my last day to find the killer or killers. I had to stop a riot. I had to satisfy the gods. I had to save Rome. Needless to say, my wife was very annoyed with my behavior.

“Decius,” she said as we sat down to breakfast, “stop acting as if the fate of the world hinged upon your actions. If there is trouble in the City, Pompey and Milo and the rest can handle it. That is the job of public officials. We have priests to act as our intermediaries with the gods. Settle down, eat, and plan out what you have to do.”

So, in obedience to this very sensible advice, I managed to get down some bread with honey and a few slices of melon. It was far from my usual very substantial breakfast, but Julia was trying to wean me away from what she considered a barbaric and un-Roman practice.

“Now,” she said, “where do you propose to start?”

I thought about it. “At the Sublician Bridge.”

“Why there?”

“Because Ateius and probably his friends almost certainly crossed the river there. He was probably killed shortly after that somewhere in the Trans-Tiber district. His body was discovered on the western bank, and if you’re going to dispose of a body in the river, you dump it in from the nearer bank. You don’t carry it across a bridge and leave it on the other side.”

“Your mind seems to be functioning clearly again. That’s a good sign. The Trans-Tiber is nowhere near the size of the City proper, but it’s still a sizable district. How will you conduct your search?”

“To begin with, there are always beggars at bridges. They like to catch people in narrow spots where they can’t get away. What’s more, the same beggars are always in the same spot every day, because they defend a good begging spot against the competition. I’ll find out if anybody remembers seeing them.”

“The bridge is heavily used,” she said doubtfully. “Was there any distinctive mark that would have made Ateius stand out?”

“Unfortunately, no,” I said. “He was a fairly ordinary-looking man. So was Silvius, the one I am pretty sure was with him. He stuffed the famous robe into a sack.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” she said.

“It’s not just information I’ll be looking for there,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s more-I want to get into his mind. Maybe, by retracing some of his steps, I can get a feel for him, for the way he was thinking and where he would go from there.”

“Well, I’ve always known your mind doesn’t work like those of normal people.”

“I knew you’d understand.” I stood. “I’d better be going. If I don’t come up with something, maybe I can line up a fast horse. With luck, I can reach Transalpine Gaul before the passes get snowed in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, giving me a warm embrace. “If you can’t live with disgrace, you have no business in Roman politics. All of the great men have far worse things to live down than a failed murder investigation.”

“At least I always know where I can come for comfort.”

“Will you be home for lunch?” she asked.

“Don’t count on it. If I sniff out the very faintest trail, I will pursue it until I drop.”

“Be careful, Decius.”

“Am I not always careful?” She rolled her eyes upward, and I made my escape.

“Come along, Hermes,” I said. “We’re going to the Trans-Tiber.”

“I was headed that way anyway,” he said. “It’s time for my morning lesson.” As if he had any choice in the matter. I never knew a slave more determined to make it look as if my orders to him were just what he would have done on his own. Insolence takes many forms.

I avoided passing through the Forum. There I would inevitably encounter many friends and acquaintances and be forced to talk to them and lose time thereby. Instead, we took the narrow streets through the neighborhoods to the east of the Forum, pushing past the heavy morning traffic and avoiding as best we could the things being dumped from the balconies overhead.

The facades of the towering, firetrap tenements were covered with graffiti as high as the human arm could reach. Most of them were election notices, some of them very well lettered by professionals, many of whom would append brief advertisements at the bottom of the message. One such, for instance, read: Vote for Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus for consul. He will see that Pomptinus gets to celebrate his triumph. Domitius will oppose the greedy generals and save the Republic. Vote for Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. Below this, in smaller letters: Echion wrote this by moonlight. Hire Echion, and he will work for you day and night. I deduced from this that the neighborhood contained many clients of Pomptinus. Seven years before he had put down a rebellion of the Allobroges and had been pestering the Senate ever since for permission to celebrate a triumph. Seven years was a long time to spend outside the walls waiting for permission, but that was how important a triumph was to a Roman politician.

I saw more ominous wall-scrawlings calling for vengeance for the dead tribune. A few of these even attacked me personally for the ineffectiveness of my investigation. Most of these, luckily, had already been painted over by the men I had hired to paint my own election notices.

When we reached the river, I noticed that the river wall just shoreward of the wharves was badly in need of repair, and I made a mental note to do something about it as soon as I took office. Now that I knew there was a flood coming, it would have to be given priority. I wondered if anybody during the last ten years had been paying attention to the upkeep of the City. Probably not. The great men just built grandiose theaters and put on shows, leaving all the real work to drudges like me.

The Sublician is the oldest of our bridges, although it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The very name refers to the heavy timbers of which it was once built, but the present bridge is of stone. For many generations it was the only bridge over the Tiber at Rome, because the Etruscans lived on the other bank, and Rome was strong enough to defend only one bridge at a time.

The most famous story concerning the bridge is the one about Horatius Cocles, who is said to have held off the army of Lars Porsena single-handed while the Romans dismantled the bridge behind him. There are several versions of this celebrated tale. In one of them, Horatius is simply the point man of a wedge of Romans. In another, he held the bridge with two companions, who fell at his side before the bridge was destroyed. In a third, Horatius held the bridge alone right from the first.

Personally, I think only the first version has any truth to it. I have been in many battles and skirmishes and played a heroic part in none of them. But I have seen last-ditch stands and delaying actions in plenty, and I have never seen a place, however narrow, that could be defended against an army by a single man for more than a minute or so. No matter how strong and skillful you are, while one man engages you, somebody else can always thrust a spear over the rim of your shield. And then there are the arrows and sling-stones that always fly about in such profusion when men thirst for one another’s blood.

Supposedly, when the bridge was destroyed, Horatius somehow found leisure to address a prayer to Tiberinus, god of the river, and leaped in fully armed and swam across to great applause, to be rewarded richly by the citizenry. Another version has him drowning, which is what usually happens when a man in armor finds himself in deep water.

Whatever really happened, it makes a good story.

The day-fishers were already there with their poles, spaced along the stone parapet as evenly as gulls on a ship’s rail. The flocks of beggars were at work, too. At my approach, the ones who had eyes immediately recognized the quality of my toga. As one man, they came toward me with palms outstretched, except for the ones who had no hands.

I used a palm of my own to warn them back. “I am the iudex Metellus. Which of you is the head beggar?”

A truly pitiable specimen came forward. “I am, Senator.” Some nameless disease had rotted away the left side of his face, although he spoke clearly enough considering he had what seemed to be only half a mouth. He wore verminous rags and hobbled on a crutch, his left leg being gone below the knee. He managed the crutch with his left hand and held out a wooden bowl with the three remaining fingers of the right.

“You’re Mallius, aren’t you? You used to beg at the Quirinal Gate.”

“That’s me,” he agreed.

“How did you end up here at the bridge?”

“The guild promoted me.”

“Really?” I said, intrigued. “You mean, like in the legions? How do you get promoted? Are you a better beggar than the others?”

“It’s more a matter of seniority, Senator,” he said.

“Amazing.” There are facets of Roman life that even lifelong residents never dream of. “Well, the reason I am here is to determine the whereabouts of some fleeing felons. Were all of you here on the morning that Crassus departed the City?”

“Most of us. A few had permission to beg at the Capena Gate, on account of the big crowd that was to be there that morning. But most of us stayed here. We didn’t figure that crowd would be feeling very generous, what with Crassus and his war being so unpopular. People in a nasty mood would rather kick beggars than give them coins.”

“I see that you know your trade. Anyway, on that morning, does anyone remember a man, possibly two or three men, crossing the bridge from the City side in great haste? One of them was carrying a sack.”

Mallius frowned, a truly alarming sight on that face. “That’s not much to go on, Senator. Hundreds of people use this bridge every morning. Most of them are carrying something, and a lot of them are in a rush.”

I was afraid of that. Then I remembered something. “One of them had a freshly bandaged arm. And he may have had some paint on his face.”

“I remember that one!” An emaciated, one-armed man pushed forward. “There was three of them, two men in good clothes, another one behind them, looked like a slave, carried a sack over his shoulder.”

This seemed promising. “Go on.”

“Reason I remember, I went up to the one in front, he snarled like a dog, pushed me back, and I almost went over the parapet there into the river. Arm he pushed me with was wrapped in a white bandage with fresh blood showing through. And he had streaks of paint in front of his ears and down the sides of his neck. Now that I remember, the whole front of his tunic was wet, like he’d just washed off the paint.”

“What color was the paint?”

“Red and white.”

Others claimed that they, too, remembered the trio, but this confirmation was unnecessary. I now knew that Ateius had crossed the bridge under his own power. He hadn’t been killed in the City and carried across. Two citizens, Ateius and, almost certainly, Silvius. The third a probable slave brought along to carry the magical paraphernalia, help with the ladder, and so forth. Ateius was keeping his circle of conspirators as limited as possible-always a good idea when conspiring.

“Can you give me a physical description of the men?”

The one-armed beggar thought for a while. “Man that pushed me was shorter than you, pretty thin, dark hair and eyes. I think the second was taller, but I don’t remember what his face was like, or his hair. He wore some pretty expensive-looking rings. Third was just a slave, maybe the same height and color as the man with the bandages; a few years younger, maybe.” Like most beggars, he was used to sizing people up by the quality of their clothes and jewelry. As it was, I was delighted to get so much information from this source.

“Did you see which way they went when they were off the bridge?” I asked him.

“Up that way,” he said, pointing up the hill along the ruinous old wall of Ancus Marcius, which led to the equally ruinous old fort atop the Janiculum, where the red banner flapped listlessly in the morning breeze, waiting to be lowered in warning of an approaching enemy.

I distributed some money, took my leave of the beggars, and crossed the bridge into the Trans-Tiber. At that time, the district was mainly devoted to businesses involving the river trade, as well as those that could not be practiced within the walls of the City.

“Where will you go now?” Hermes asked.

I thought for a moment. “I’ll come along with you.”

“To the ludus? ” he said, surprised.

“I want to speak with Asklepiodes.”

The ludus of Statilius Taurus was one of those activities forbidden within Rome proper. It had been sited on the Campus Martius, but the building of Pompey’s theater complex had forced it to move. The Senate had been trying to forbid ludi near Rome ever since the rebellion of Spartacus. Back in the days when most of the gladiators were volunteers, nobody had worried much about them. But the increasing use of slaves and barbarian prisoners for this purpose made people nervous, and with good reason.

The familiar clatter of arms came from within as we passed beneath the entrance portal, its lintel carved with trophies of arms, the doorposts engraved with the names of famous champions of the school. Inside, about a hundred men practiced against one another and strove with the various ingenious pieces of training equipment while others stood around awaiting their turn, all under the watchful eyes of the trainers. Hermes went off to get into his practice armor while I went to the infirmary.

I found Asklepiodes there, splinting the fingers of a careless trainee. He smiled as he looked up. “Ah, Decius! How good of you to visit me.” He turned to his Egyptians and said something. One of them took over the task, carefully wrapping the mangled finger of the stoically unflinching combatant.

“Come up to my study,” Asklepiodes said. We went up the stairs into the spacious, airy room with its racks of books and its profusion of weapons hanging on the walls, each carefully labeled as to origin and effects.

“I made enquiries,” he said, “but I was unable to locate any bestiarii. There are no schools for them nearer than Capua.”

“I was afraid of that. Even if I’d summoned one the minute I was appointed iudex, I doubt he’d have reached Rome before Ateius’s body, along with half the buildings on the Campus Martius, went up in flames.”

“It is unfortunate,” he said complacently. He lived safely on the other side of the river. “May I offer you refreshment?”

“I’m afraid not, thank you. I have a lot to accomplish today.”

He quirked an ironic eyebrow. “You must be truly concerned. Have you learned nothing of any help in this matter?”

I told him of the facts I had been able to glean, leaving aside much of the religious accretion that so occluded the demonstrable facts. Asklepiodes nodded wisely as I spoke, but then, physicians always do that.

“You say he was enrolled in the equestrian order some fifteen years ago?” he said when I was finished.

“Why, yes. It’s done every five years when there’s a Censorship. The Censors conduct the Census of the citizens, assess their property holdings, and assign them to classes. An equestrian or candidate for that status has to demonstrate that he possesses at least the minimum wealth required. If he can’t, he’s reduced in status. It comes from the days when the Roman cavalry was made up of men who could afford to maintain their own horses. Now it’s just a property class.”

“I see. I must confess that I am not terribly knowledgeable concerning your political institutions. You allow children into this class?”

“What?” I was utterly mystified at his words. “What do you mean? Candidates for equestrian status are still of military age, just like in the old days.”

“The man I examined at the Theater of Pompey was badly mangled, but not so badly that I was unable to estimate his age. Fifteen years ago, he was no more than seven or eight years old.”

I felt like a man struck on the head with a padded club. “Are you sure?”

“Please,” he said, offended. “I am an expert on wounds caused by weapons, not the mauling of beasts, but I can still judge age as well as any physician.”

“Of course, I mean, it’s just-”

“Perhaps some refreshment is in order after all. You look rather pale.” He said something in a foreign tongue, and one of his Egyptians came into the study, then dashed out. I sat at a table with my mind working like an overturned beehive as the implications swarmed all around. I was looking for two men now; one of them was Ateius. Silvius might be alive as well. Out of the picture was the slave who carried the sack, the one the beggar had described as being about the same size and coloration with the man in front, but a few years younger. The slave lay, unknowingly, in state in the Theater of Pompey. The Egyptian came back in with a pitcher and cup. He filled the cup and placed it in my half-numb fingers.

“I met Ateius Capito,” I said, “and he was a man about my age. The bastard’s still alive, hiding someplace.”

“The same thought just occurred to me,” Asklepiodes said. “What a pity neither of us thought to consult on the age question at the time. I thought then that the unfortunate fellow seemed young to have held an office as important as the tribuneship, but I have no vote here and never paid attention to the various age qualifications.”

“There’s no age requirement for tribune,” I told him. “It isn’t one of the offices you have to hold to climb the political ladder. But I never knew a tribune to be much younger than thirty. It takes time and long service to build up a political following.”

“I fear I have failed you,” he said.

“Not at all. I just haven’t been asking the necessary questions.” I sipped at the wine, trying to remember any other questions I might have failed to ask. I glanced up at the man who held the pitcher so attentively.

“Asklepiodes,” I said, “back at the theater, just before we parted company, your Egyptians went through some sort of ceremony or prayer over the body. I thought it was just one of those superstitious rituals people always perform in the presence of death. What was it about?”

“Oh, yes. They spoke to me about it on the way back here. They are from a Nile village near the First Cataract. It is still rather savage and wild country. Their prayer was a propitiation of the god Sobek.”

I knew that god. My scalp prickled. “Why Sobek?”

“They thought that the dead man looked just like one who has been savaged by crocodiles, and Sobek is the crocodile god. Those killed by crocodile attack are considered his sacrifices.” The Greek smiled indulgently. “Of course, I told them that there are no crocodiles in Rome.”

I jumped to my feet. “Asklepiodes, you have come through for me again, if somewhat belatedly. I must be off!”

“I am always overjoyed to be of aid to a servant of the Senate and People,” he said bemusedly. The last words were addressed to my back as I dashed down the stairs.

All the way back into the City, I had to force myself not to run. It would display a terrible lack of gravitas to dart into the City with my toga flapping around my legs. Luckily, from the City end of the bridge to the Temple of Ceres was but a short walk.

I went into the headquarters beneath the portico. The aedile Paetus was nowhere in evidence, but I didn’t need him. “Demetrius!” I bellowed.

The clerk came from in back, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Sir?”

“Demetrius, I want you and your staff to drop everything you are doing. I want all the records pertaining to the aedileship of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, and I want them now! Bring everything out onto the terrace outside, where we’ll have decent light. I order this as an official iudex with full praetorian authority. Jump!”

He scurried back inside, and I went out into the fine light of late morning, studying the facade of the Circus Maximus, thinking while the temple slaves brought out folding tables, then emerged with armloads of scrolls and tablets.

Of all things to stumble over, I thought as they got things in order. Asklepiodes had helped me in so many investigations, and this time he had the answers but didn’t know it. He was unaccustomed to injuries of animal origin, but his slaves weren’t. He was ignorant of our political institutions and had no experience of the diplomatic life of Rome. He could have solved this for me days ago at the Theater of Pompey.

But I knew I was foolish to rebuke him, even mentally. This was my investigation, and I had been misled by all the mystical mummery. I should have asked him the right questions.

“What are we looking for, sir?” Demetrius asked. In an amazingly short time they had arranged the records in neat piles. There were five slaves besides Demetrius, including Hylas, the boy who had assisted me on my previous visit.

“I want anything that may involve Egypt, either foreign correspondence or contact with Egyptians here in Rome, most especially with King Ptolemy, who was here in Rome for much of the time Scaurus was in office. I also want anything concerning the Games he put on-particularly, who contributed money toward his financing of them. I want anything that bears the name of his assistant, Ateius Capito. Get to work!”

It was not an easy task, and it did not go swiftly. An aedile generates an awesome amount of documentation in the course of his year in office. Much of what I really wanted probably never made it into the official record, anyway, especially those things involving gifts of money. But there was hope. Powerful, arrogant men can be amazingly maladroit when it comes to leaving evidence of their malfeasance. They assume that nobody will ever investigate them, and that they are immune from attack anyway.

“Did any of you attend these Games?” I asked as I went over a huge bill for animal fodder for such exotic beasts as lions, bears, zebras, even ostriches.

“Most of us went to the races,” Demetrius said. “Some watched the plays. As slaves we couldn’t attend the munera and the animal fights.”

“That’s a law seldom observed,” I noted. Women weren’t supposed to attend them, either. That didn’t stop them from going.

“It was enforced this time,” Demetrius said. “So many people came in from the countryside to see them that everyone had to get entry passes months in advance and show proof of citizenship.”

“I suppose it makes sense,” I said. “If the whole purpose of an aedile’s munera is to win votes, why waste them on people who can’t vote in the first place?”

While we were going over the accounts, the aedile Paetus showed up.

“Back again, Metellus? What’s all this?” I told him, and he pulled up a bench. “I’ll give you a hand. Do you plan to prosecute him next year for the Sardinians? It’ll make your reputation if you can pull it off.” He picked up a tablet with an elaborate seal and opened it, then let out a low whistle. “Rather generous contribution from Ptolemy, here. The old drunk was really spreading the money around that year. I wish I’d been in a position to have some come my way.”

“Let me see!” I snatched it from him. “Hah! Two talents toward the expenses of his Games, as a loving token from the king of Egypt, Friend and Ally of Rome.”

“Nothing illegal about it,” Paetus reminded me. “He put it in the public record.”

“But it’s evidence. Anyway, while I’m sure Scaurus deserves flogging and exile, he’s not really the one I’m after. Keep looking,” I told the others.

Paetus shook his head. “What shows that man put on. The first hippos ever seen in Rome. Do you have any idea of the expense involved in bringing hippos to Rome? Took a whole ship converted into a big fish tank for each beast. Crocodiles, too. First ever shown in public.

“Crocodiles, eh?” I said. Today, everyone was dropping these little tidbits in my lap. “You don’t get hippos and crocodiles from Gaul, now, do you?”

“No, but his timing was right,” Paetus went on. “That year and the next, if you were a man of influence and there was any favor old Ptolemy could do for you, it was done. The Alexandrians kicked him out, but he could get anything he wanted from his upriver estates: gazelles, lions, leopards, elephants. All he wanted was your vote and your influence. If he hadn’t been so strapped for ready cash, he would have bought the whole Senate. Lucky for Aemilius Scaurus he was able to tap Ptolemy that first year, when he still had some of his treasure.”

By midafternoon we had reduced the heap of documentation to enough scrolls and tablets to fill a bushel basket. I borrowed a temple slave to carry the basket, and with the slave following me I went to the Grain Office to make my report.

The lictor rapped on the door with the butt of his fasces, and when the doorkeeper opened it, we went inside without waiting for permission. The hairless, eunuch majordomo came into the atrium, all indignation, but I cut him off before he could speak a word.

“Get Lisas!” I barked. Squawking and wringing his hands, the eunuch hustled off. Minutes later, Lisas appeared.

“Why, Senator Metellus! and Praetor Milo! What an unexpected pleasure!” He was trying hard, but even his skills could not hide the deathly gray of his face. It was not entirely attributable to his progressive diseases, either. “What brings you-”

I brushed past him. “We will speak with you presently.” With Milo and his lictors behind me, I went out into one of the side courtyards. At the crocodile pond I surveyed the torpid animals, which didn’t seem to have moved since I had last seen them, the night the supposed body of Ateius Capito was discovered. I walked around the periphery until I found the animal Julia had pointed to that night. It still had the bit of gold wire wrapped around a fang in its upper jaw. “Here’s the one,” I said.

Milo took off his purple-bordered toga and tossed it to a lictor. Then he fearlessly vaulted the railing into the ankle-deep water on the border of the pool.

“Praetor!” Lisas squawked, beside himself with anxiety. “Those are wild creatures! They will-”

Milo ignored him. He clamped one hand over the creature’s muzzle and wrapped his other arm around its body just behind its front legs. Then, with no more effort than most men would display in lifting a large dog, he hauled it upright. The monster thrashed a bit, but the cool November weather seemed to have sapped its energy.

Milo hauled the thing over to the edge of the pool, and I reached out for the golden glint. I managed to get the wire between my fingernails and slowly worked it loose from the tooth. When it came out, I saw that a tuft of purple-and-black threads was twisted into the end of the wire that had been in the animal’s mouth. With a surge of his whole body, Milo flung the great beast into the water, and it disappeared beneath the water with a lazy wave of its tail.

Lisas did not try to bluster as Milo climbed out and resumed his toga. “Let’s go back inside,” I said.

In the great audience room Lisas sat. “How may we resolve this?” he said wearily.

“My fat old friend,” I said sadly. “You had better speak swiftly and to our great satisfaction, if you value your life.”

“Oh,” he said, almost managing a smile, “I don’t value my life very highly these days.” He sighed deeply, almost buried his face in his hands, then stiffened his spine and sat upright. “But I must still serve my king. What would you have of me?”

“The men you hide in this villa,” Milo said, “Ateius and Silvius. They must go back with me to Rome to stand trial.”

“My friends,” Lisas said, “this is an embassy. By treaty, I am not bound to surrender anyone to you. This is Egypt.”

“Matters have moved beyond the stage of public embarrassment, Lisas,” I told him. “You have been in collusion with Ateius Capito for at least three years, from the time he agreed to become King Ptolemy’s agent in Rome.” Lisas said nothing, and I went on. “On behalf of Aemilius Scaurus, he approached Ptolemy for bribe money, found out just how much money Ptolemy had to spread around, and let it be known that he would be Ptolemy’s servant, for a price. What did Ptolemy buy him with? A villa near Alexandria? A big estate in the Delta with hundreds of peasants to work it for him?” Still, Lisas said nothing.

“There was one service Ptolemy needed more than any other. He wanted to prevent Crassus from getting the Syrian command. When Ptolemy was here in Rome, Crassus publicly humiliated him by coming up with that patently fake reading of the Sibylline Books. He knew that Crassus was greedy beyond all other Romans. Ptolemy could deal with Pompey; he could deal with Caesar. He could not and would not deal with Crassus.”

Still Lisas held his silence.

“But even the most heroic efforts of Ateius Capito and his confederates were in vain. However many votes he could buy with Ptolemy’s money, Crassus could buy more. If Ptolemy hadn’t had to pay Gabinius so much to put him back on the throne, maybe he could have managed it, but that was not to be. I must admit, though, that the curse was an amazingly clever device. It robbed Crassus of whatever Roman support he had left. And who knows? It might even be a perfectly good curse. If anything ever got the gods’ attention, that ceremony did.”

Lisas sighed deeply once more. “It seemed so fitting. Crassus thwarted His Majesty with a false reading of the prophetic books, and His Majesty revenged himself with the curse of a suborned tribune.”

“Was it Ateius’s idea?” Milo asked him.

Lisas nodded. “He was very enthusiastic about it. He had always wanted to produce a truly potent curse, and now he would have the-the resources to do it.”

“Because he knew that Ariston of Cumae was corruptible. He knew because Crassus himself had bought the man to advise him on his fraudulent reading of the Sibylline Books. With Ptolemy back in power in Alexandria, he had the money to buy a really unique curse from Ariston, one that contained the ultimate name of power.”

There was a commotion at the door, and twelve lictors came into the audience chamber. Behind them came Pompey.

“Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Consul of Rome,” Lisas said, wearily. “How you honor me.”

Pompey looked at Milo and me. We both nodded, and I held up the bit of gold wire with its colorful threads. He turned to Lisas. “Produce them, Egyptian.”

“This is Egyptian territory, Consul,” Lisas said. “Greatly as I esteem you, and the Senate and People of Rome, I must insist that the treaty obligations pertaining between our nations be observed.”

“Lisas,” Pompey said, “I have lost patience with King Ptolemy. Rome has lost patience. Do you know what I am going to do if you do not produce those men, Lisas? Now, I know you are familiar with the Temple of Bellona, out on the Campus Martius near my theater. The Senate always meets there to deal with foreign ambassadors.”

“I have been there many times, Consul,” Lisas affirmed.

“Excellent. Are you aware of the special priesthood called the fetiales? In the old days, they used to accompany the army to the enemy’s border and hurl a spear dedicated to Mars into enemy land to declare war before the gods. That was practical when our enemies were no more than a day or two from here, but now they are too far away. Instead, there is a patch of bare earth before the temple, with a column in the middle of it. That patch is designated enemy territory, and when we go to war, a fetial hurls a spear of Mars into it.”

“I am familiar with your custom,” Lisas said.

“Good. Because tomorrow I am going to go to the Temple of Bellona and declare that patch of land to be Egypt. A fetial will hurl a spear of Mars into it. I will demand that the Senate declare war on Egypt, and it will do it. The tribunes will get the Assemblies to vote me the command, and I will go collect Ptolemy’s head. After that I may put one of his children on the throne, or I may not. If I want to, I will make Decius Metellus here pharaoh. I will be able to do anything I feel like doing because I will be absolute master of Egypt. Do you understand me, Egyptian?” This last sentence was roared out in Pompey’s parade-ground voice, a phenomenon dangerous to any delicate objects in the vicinity.

Lisas wilted, the last defiance gone from him. He spoke to the majordomo, and the man beckoned to Milo’s lictors. They passed into the rear of the estate.

“That’s better,” Pompey said. “Perhaps something may still be worked out. Ptolemy has offended us greatly, both with the massacre of the Alexandrians and with this unprecedented tampering with the internal administration of Rome. But we are long accustomed to dealing with degenerate drunks, and forgiveness follows repentance. And reparations, of course.”

“I wish only to serve my king,” Lisas said.

Minutes later the lictors returned holding two men by the scruff of the neck. With the efficiency of long practice, they cast them down to sprawl on the polished, marble floor at our feet.

“You’ve furnished us with some extraordinary entertainment, Ateius Capito,” Pompey said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

Ateius struggled to his knees. Silvius remained prone, despairing. Ateius glared at us madly. “I say that I am in an embassy and may not be touched!”

“Lisas has seen fit to waive that ambassadorial privilege,” Pompey told him.

Ateius whirled on Lisas. “You Egyptian pig!”

“Such language,” I said, “to address a man who has stood by you faithfully, until we brought pressure against his king.”

“You still may not touch me!” he shouted. “I am a Tribune of the People, and my person is inviolable by ancient law.”

“Ateius,” I said, “by the same ancient law that grants the Tribunes of the People their inviolability, they are forbidden to be absent from Rome for as long as a single day. You have forfeited your office and all its privileges.” I saw with some satisfaction the curtain of fear descend over him as the mad defiance left his eyes. “You were unlucky in the time of year,” I said. “In summer you could have ridden to the coast and caught a ship for Egypt. You were hiding out here until the sailing weather got better, weren’t you?” I shook my head. “You should have chanced it anyway.”

“Ateius,” Pompey said, “you are to have a rare experience. You are going to attend your own funeral tomorrow in my theater, where you will have a chance to explain to your assembled supporters why it is not you on the pyre, but some unfortunate slave who resembled you in size and build.” He signaled his lictors. “Take them away. Keep them under close watch. I want them alive tomorrow.”

The lictors dragged the two out, both of them too paralyzed by terror to use their own feet.

“Lisas,” Pompey said, “I will not lay hands upon you, but you are no longer welcome in Rome. Tell Ptolemy to send us another ambassador, one with a long list of favors Ptolemy is eager to perform for us.” With that, Pompey and his lictors swept out.

Milo looked at me. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’ll be along shortly.”

Milo left with his lictors. Lisas and I were alone, Lisas looking more like a corpse than a man.

“Lisas, you didn’t send those thugs to kill me, did you?”

He shook his head. “It was Silvius; he slipped out after we heard that you had been appointed iudex. No one was looking for Silvius at that time. You are too famous for your specialty. I rejoice that they failed.”

“Why the crocodile?”

He shrugged. “They came in that morning, and I concealed them as we had agreed. Ateius told me he intended to kill the slave and disfigure him so that the populace would think their tribune was murdered. This would make him safe and throw Rome into turmoil at the same time. I thought, I have been accused of throwing men to my crocodiles for so long, might it not be amusing to try it?”

“What will you do now?”

“I must go and compose a letter to my king.”

“Why not deliver your message personally?”

He shook his head. “It was such poor timing that you reached the climax of your investigation at the same time the news came from Alexandria. Pompey and the Senate might have been inclined to smooth things over otherwise. Now, as the intermediary, I must take the full blame for how things have fallen out. I am too old for that, and I am tired of life, anyway.”

“I shall miss you,” I said. He was a strange man, but I couldn’t help liking him.

“Leave me now. I hope the balance of your life will be prosperous.” He knew better than to hope it would be peaceful.

So I took my leave of Lisas. Word came to us later that he retired to his chambers, wrote out his letter to Ptolemy, and took poison.

The next day, Rome was treated to a rare spectacle. The surly crowd assembled for the funeral and riot; then Pompey appeared and exposed Ateius and Silvius to them and explained, with great sarcasm, how they had all been duped. Derisively, he put a torch to the pyre, giving the nameless slave a fine send-off. Then he led the whole mob back to the Forum, where a court was convened and the two men were condemned on all three counts. I gave a summary of my investigation, and Pompey addressed the jury. There was no need for rhetorical flourishes. As Cicero used to say, the facts spoke for themselves.

The men were taken up to the top of the Capitol and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock; then their shattered but still-living bodies were impaled on bronze hooks and dragged down to the Sublician Bridge, where they were cast into the river.

After these odd events Rome settled down like a man trying to wait out a bad hangover. A few weeks later I was elected aedile, and new scandals occupied the attentions of the people. The gods accepted their sacrifices again, and Rome, at least, seemed to be out from under the curse. Not Crassus, though.

For my part, I knew I was going to miss Lisas. He was an amusing companion, he served his king loyally, and he threw the best parties ever seen in Rome.

These things happened in the year 699 of the City of Rome, in the second consulship of Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives.