'Still, aren't you worried about what might happen after the trial? Such harsh words for Chrysogonus, and Sulla himself isn't spared.'
'Is there room in a Roman court for the truth, or not?' said Rufus. 'That's the question. Have we reached such a state that truth is a crime? Cicero is staking his future on the essential fairness and honesty of good Roman citizens. What else can a man of his integrity do?'
'Of course,' said Tiro soberly, nodding. 'It's his nature to challenge hypocrisy and injustice, to act out of his own principles. Given his nature, what choice does he have?'
I stood by, forgotten and alone. While they conferred and debated, I quietly slipped away and joined Bethesda between the warm sheets of my bed. She purred like a half-asleep cat, then wrinkled her nose with a growl of suspicion when she smelled Electra's perfume on my flesh. I was too weary to explain or even to tease her. I did not hold her but instead turned my back to her and let her hold me, and so, just as the sound of Cicero's droning abruptly resumed from the atrium, I slipped into a restless sleep.
One might have thought the house had been deserted, or that someone was gravely ill, so supreme did quiet reign over Cicero's household the next morning. The strain and bustle of the previous day were replaced by a steady calm that had the appearance of lethargy. The slaves did not scurry back and forth but took their time, speaking always in hushed voices. Even the constant droning of Cicero's voice had stopped; not a sound came from his study. I ate a bowl of olives and bread that Bethesda brought me and passed the morning as I had the day before, resting and reading in the courtyard near the back of Cicero's house with Bethesda nearby.
The reproof I expected from Cicero never came. Instead he ignored me, though not in any pointed manner. I simply seemed to have slipped from his consciousness. I did notice, however, that the guard on the roof whom I had eluded the day before had changed his routine to include an occasional circuit of the colonnade surrounding the courtyard. From his sullen glances I could tell that he, at least, had not escaped Cicero's wrath.
At some point Tiro appeared. He asked if I was comfortable. I told him I had been reading Cato all morning, but except for that I had no complaints. 'And your master?' I said. 'I haven't heard a sound from him all day. Not a single epigram, not even the tiniest allusion, not one specimen of alliteration. Not even a metaphor. He's not ill, is he?'
Tiro bowed his head slightly and spoke with the hushed voice of one admitted to the inner circle of a great enterprise. His transgressions with Roscia forgiven (or at least momentarily forgotten), he had fallen more than ever under his master's spell. Now the climax approached, and his faith in Cicero had become almost mystical. 'Cicero is fasting and resting his voice today,' Tiro said, with all the gravity of a priest explaining the omens to be seen in a flying flock of geese. 'All his practising these past few days has worn his throat until he's hoarse. So today no solid foods, only liquids to soothe his throat and moisten his tongue. I've been recopying a fresh draft of his oration, while Rufus sorts through each of the legal references to make sure nothing has been overlooked or wrongly attributed. Meanwhile, the house is to be as still and quiet as possible. Cicero must have a day of rest and calm before the trial.'
'Or else — what?' I said. 'A crippling attack of gas before the Rostra?' Bethesda snickered. Tiro coloured, but quickly recovered. He was far too proud of Cicero to allow a mere insult to fluster him. His manner became haughty. 'I only bring it up so that you'll understand when I ask you to be as quiet as possible and to cause no disturbances.'
'Like the one I caused yesterday by escaping over the roof?' 'Exactly.' He held himself erect for a final haughty moment, then let his shoulders slump. 'Oh, Gordianus, why can't you simply do as he asks? I don't understand why you've become so… so unreasonable. If you only knew. Cicero understands things that we only guess at. You'll see what I mean tomorrow, at the trial. I only wish you trusted him as you should.'
He turned, and as he left he took a deep breath and shivered, the way dogs shiver to dry themselves, as if I had left a residue of ill will and disbelief on him and he did not wish to re-enter his master's presence stained by my pollution.
'I don't understand you, either,' said Bethesda softly, looking up from her sewing. 'Why do you taunt the boy? It's obvious that he admires you. Why do you make him choose between his master and you? You know that's unfair.'
It was a rare thing for Bethesda to chide me in such open terms. Was my behaviour so blatantly inappropriate that even my slave felt free to criticize it? I had nothing to say in my defence. Bethesda saw that she had pricked me and made a further sally.
'If you have a quarrel with Cicero, it makes no sense to punish his slave for it. Why not go to Cicero directly? But I must confess, I don't understand your attitude any better than the boy. Cicero has been only fair and reasonable at every turn, at least so far as I can see; no, more than fair. Not like the other men you work for. He's taken you into his household for your own protection, along with your slave — imagine that! He's fed you, opened his library to you, even posted a guard to look after you from the roof. Try to imagine your good client Hortensius doing that! I wonder what the inside of Hortensius's house looks like, and how many slaves he owns? But I suppose I shall never know.'
Bethesda put down her handiwork. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked about the courtyard, noting the decorations and flourishes as if they had been installed especially for her approval. I didn't bother to reprimand her for speaking out of hand. What did the opinions of a slave matter, after all — except that, as always, she had spoken the very doubts and questions that were spinning in my own head.
30
The Ides of May dawned with a pale blue light. I woke in slow stages, dislocated from my dreams and disoriented in a strange house — neither my house on the Esquiline nor any of the houses I had passed through in a lifetime of restless travel. Hushed, hurried voices penetrated the room from every quarter. Why should any house be so busy so very early in the morning? I kept thinking that someone must have died during the night, but in that case I would have been awakened by sobbing and lamentations.
Bethesda was pressed against my back with one arm slipped beneath my own, hugging my chest. I felt the soft, full cushion of her breasts against my back, pressing gently against me with each breath. Her exhalation was warm and sweet against the back of my ear. I began to wake and resisted it, in the way that men cling to even a troubled sleep when a dull despair hangs over them. I felt content with my own unhappy dreams and altogether apathetic about whatever hushed crisis was brewing in the strange house around me. I shut my eyes and turned the dawn back into darkest night.
I opened my eyes again. Bethesda, fully dressed, was standing over me and shaking my shoulder. The room was filled with yellow light.
'What's the matter with you?' she was saying. I sat up at once and shook my head. 'Are you sick? No? Then I think you'd better hurry. All the others have already gone.' She filled a cup with cool water and handed it to me. 'I had thought they must have forgotten you entirely, until Tiro came running back and asked me where you were. When I told him I'd tried to wake you twice already and you were still in bed, he just threw up his hands and went running after his master.' 'How long ago was this?'
She shrugged. 'Only a little while. But you won't be able to catch them, not if you take time to wash yourself and eat something. Tiro said not to worry, he'd save you a place beside him at the Rostra.' She took the empty cup from me and smiled. 'I had a look at the woman.'