Roman blood

'No, but when you meet Sextus Roscius—'

'You keep saying that I'll soon be meeting someone — first Caecilia Metella, now Sextus Roscius. Will they be arriving soon?'

'Actually, it's best if we pay them a visit ourselves.'

^‘What makes you so certain that I'll be coming along? I came here under the impression that you had work for me, but so far you haven't even explained what you want. Nor have you made any mention of payment.'

'I'm aware of your regular fees, at least as Hortensius explained them. I assume he would know.'

I nodded.

'As for the job, it's this: I want proof that Sextus Roscius is innocent of his father's murder. Better than that, I want to know who the real murderers were. Even better, I want to know who hired those murderers, and why. And all of this in eight days, before the Ides.'

'You talk as if I'd already accepted the job. Perhaps I'm not interested, Cicero.'

He shook his head and pressed his lips into a thin smile.

‘You're not the only man who can deduce another man's character before you've met him, Gordianus. I do know a thing or two about you. Three things, in fact. Any one of them would persuade you to take this case. First, you need the money. A man of your means, living in a big house up on the Esquiline — there can never be enough money. Am I right?'

I shrugged.

'Secondly, Hortensius tells me that you love a mystery. Or rather that you hate a mystery. You're the type that can't abide the unknown, that feels compelled to wrest truth from falsehood, strike order from chaos. Who killed old Roscius, Gordianus? You're already hooked, like a fish on a line. Admit it.'

‘Well…'

'Thirdly, you're a man who loves justice.'

'Did Hortensius tell you that, too? Hortensius wouldn't know a just man from—'

'No one told me. That I deduced for myself, in the last half hour. No man speaks his mind as candidly as you have who isn't a lover of justice. I'm offering you a chance to see it done.' He leaned forwards in his chair. 'Can you bear to see an innocent man put to death? Well, then — will you take the case, or won't you?'

'I will.'

Cicero clapped his hands and sprang to his feet. 'Good. Very good! We'll leave for Caecilia's house right away.'

'Now? In this heat? It's just past noon.'

'There's no time to waste. If the heat is too much for you, I could summon a litter — but no, that would take too long. It isn't far. Tiro, fetch us a pair of broad-brimmed hats.'

Tiro gave his master a plaintive look.

'Very well, then, fetch three.'

6

‘What makes you think she'll even be awake at this hour?'

The Forum was deserted. The paving stones shimmered with heat. Not a soul was afoot except for the three of us stealing like thieves across the flagstones. I quickened the pace. The heat burned through the thin soles of my shoes. Both my companions, I noticed, wore more expensive footwear than my own, with thick leather soles to protect their feet.

'Caecilia will be awake,' Cicero assured me. 'She's a hopeless insomniac — so far as I can tell, she never sleeps at all.'

We reached the foot of the Sacred Way. My heart sank as I gazed up the steep, narrow avenue that led to the imposing villas atop the Palatine. The world was all sun and stone, utterly without shade. The layers of shimmering heat made the summit of the Palatine seem hazy and indistinct, very high and far away.

We began the ascent. Tiro led the way, oblivious of the effort. There was something strange about his eagerness to come along, something beyond mere curiosity or the desire to follow his master. I was too hot to puzzle over it.

'One thing I must ask of you, Gordianus.' Cicero was beginning to show signs of exertion, but he talked through them, like a true stoic. 'I appreciated your candour when you spoke your mind in my study. No one can say you are less than an honest man. But hold your tongue in Caecilia's house. Her family has long been allied with Sulla — his late fourth wife was a Metella.'

"You mean the daughter of Delmaticus? The one he divorced while she lay dying?'

'Exactly. The Metelli were not happy about the divorce, despite Sulla's excuses.'

'The augurs looked in a bowl of sheep entrails and told him his wife's illness would pollute his household.'

'So Sulla claimed. Caecilia herself would probably take no offence at anything you might say, but you can never tell. She's an old woman, unmarried and childless. Given to strange ways — such as happens when a woman is left to her own devices too long, without a husband and family to occupy her with wholesome pursuits. Her passion these days is for whatever Oriental cult happens to be new and fashionable in Rome, the more foreign and bizarre, the better. She's not much concerned with mere earthly matters.

‘But it's likely there'll be another in the house with keener ears and sharper eyes. I'm thinking of my good young friend Marcus Messalla — we call him Rufus, on account of his red hair. He's no stranger to Caecilia Metella's house; he's known her since he was a child, and she's almost like an aunt to him. A fine young man — or not quite a man yet, only sixteen. Rufus comes to my house rather often, for gatherings and lectures and such, and he already knows his way around the law courts. He's quite eager to help in Sextus Roscius's behalf'

'But?'

'But his family connections make him dangerous. Hortensius is his half brother — when Hortensius dropped the case, it was young Rufus he sent to my door to beg me to take it on. More to the point, the boy's older sister is that same young Valeria whom Sulla recently took to be his fifth wife". Poor Rufus has little affection for his new brother-in-law, but the marriage does put him in an awkward position. I would ask that you restrain yourself from slandering our esteemed dictator in his presence.'

'Of course, Cicero.' When I left the house that morning I had never expected to be circulating with high nobles like the Metelli and Messalli. I looked down at the garments I wore, a common citizen's toga over a plain tunic. The only touch of purple was a wine stain near the hem. Bethesda claimed to have spent hours trying to remove it without success.

By the time we reached the summit, even Tiro was showing signs of fatigue. His dark curls were pasted to his forehead with sweat. His face was flushed with exertion — or perhaps with something more like excitement. I wondered again about his eagerness to reach Caecilia Metella's house.

'This is it,' Cicero huffed, pausing to catch his breath. The house before us was a sprawling mass of rose stucco, ringed about by ancient oaks. The doorway was recessed beneath a portico and flanked by two helmeted soldiers in full battle gear with swords at their belts and spears in their fists. Grizzled veterans from Sulla's army, I thought, and gave a start.

'The guards,' Cicero said, making a vague gesture with his hand as he mounted the steps. 'Ignore them. They must be sweltering beneath all that leather. Tiro?'

Tiro, who bad been staring in fascination at the soldiers' gear, sprang ahead of his master to rap at the heavy oak doors. A long moment passed in which we all caught our breaths and removed our hats beneath the shaded portico.

The door opened inward on silent hinges. Cool air and the scent of incense wafted out to greet us.

Tiro and the door slave exchanged the typical formalities — 'My master comes to see your mistress' — then we waited for another moment before the slave of the foyer came to usher us inside. He relieved us of our hats, then disappeared to fetch the announcer. I looked over my shoulder at the doorkeeper, who sat on a stool beside the portal busying himself with some sort of handicraft, his foot attached to the wall by a chain just long enough to allow him to reach the door.