Roman blood

Rufus clamped his jaw shut and glared at his brother-in-law. Cicero stepped between them. 'Go on, Rufus. Say what you have to say.'

Rufus took a deep breath. 'Sextus Roscius…' he whispered. 'Yes?'

'Sextus Roscius is dead.'

All eyes abruptly turned to Sulla, who looked as startled as the rest of us.

'But how?' said Cicero.

'A fall.' Rufus shook his head in consternation. 'From a balcony at the back of Caecilia's house. It's a long drop. The hill falls away steeply from the ground floor below. There's a narrow stone stairway that winds down the slope. He apparently hit the steps and then tumbled quite a way. His body was terribly broken—'

"The fool!' Sulla's voice was like a thunderclap. 'The idiot! If he was so bent on exterminating himself—'

'Suicide?' Cicero said quietly. 'But we have no proof of that.' In his glance I saw that we shared the same suspicion. Without the guard on Caecilia's house, someone might have made his way into Sextus Roscius's quarters — an assassin sent by the Roscii, or by Chrysogonus, or by Sulla himself. The dictator had declared a truce, but how far could be or his friends be trusted?

Yet Sulla's own indignation seemed proof of his innocence. 'Of course it was suicide,' he snapped. 'We all know the state of the man's mind over the last months. A parricide, slowly going mad! So justice prevails after all, and Sextus Roscius is his own executioner.' Sulla laughed without mirth, then turned ashen. 'But if he was determined to punish himself, why did he wait until after the trial? Why didn't he kill himself yesterday, or the day before, or last month, and save us all the trouble?' He shook his head.

'Acquitted — and yet he kills himself. His guilt catches up with him only after a court absolves him. It's absurd, ridiculous. The only result is my embarrassment before all Rome!' He made a fist and rolled his eyes heavenward, and in a low, accusing voice I heard him mutter, 'Fortune!'

I realized I saw a man engaged in a lovers' quarrel with his guiding genius. All his life Sulla had been blessed; glory, wealth, fame, and pleasures of the flesh had all been his for the merest effort, and not even the smallest setbacks had encumbered the pageant of his career. Now he was an old man, declining in body and influence, and Fortune, like a bored lover, had begun to turn fickle on him, flirting with his enemies, stinging him with petty defeats and trivial reverses that must have seemed perverse indeed to a man so spoiled by success.

He wrapped himself in his toga and proceeded towards the doorway, his head lowered like the prow of a ramming ship. When Cicero and Rufus stepped aside, I stepped forward to block his path, keeping my head meekly bowed.

'Lucius Sulla good Sulla — I assume this changes none of the conditions that were agreed upon here tonight?'

I was close enough to hear the sharp intake of his breath, and to feel its heat on my forehead when he expelled it. It seemed that he waited a long time to answer — long enough for me to contemplate the rapid beating of my heart and to wonder what mad impulse had driven me to bar his way. But his voice, however cold, was resolute and even. 'Nothing is changed.'

'Then Cicero and his allies are still immune from the Roscii's revenge—'

'Of course.'

'— and the family of Sextus Roscius, despite his death, will still receive recompense from Chrysogonus?'

Sulla paused. I kept my eyes averted. 'Of course,' he finally said. 'His wife and daughters shall be provided for, despite his suicide.'

'You are merciful and just, Lucius Sulla,' I said, stepping out of his way. He left without looking back, not even bothering to wait for a slave to show him out. A moment later we heard the sound of the door opening and slamming shut, and then the street was abruptly filled with the noise of his departing entourage. Then all was quiet again.

In the silence that followed, the slave girl returned to clean up Sulla's debris. While she stacked the pieces of pottery, Cicero stared abstractedly at the mess of porridge Sulla had thrown against the wall. 'Leave the scrolls where they are, Athalena. They'll be all out of order. Tiro will pick them up later.' She nodded obediently and Cicero began to pace.

'What irony,' he said at last. 'So much effort on all sides, and in the end even Sulla is disappointed. Who profits, indeed?'

'You, for one, Cicero.'

He looked at me archly, but could not conceal the smile that trembled on his lips. Across the room, Tiro looked more confused and crestfallen than ever.

Rufus shook his head. 'Sextus Roscius, a suicide. What did Sulla mean, saying justice had been done, that Roscius had executed himself?'

'I'll explain everything to you on the way back to Caecilia's house,' I said. 'Unless Cicero would rather explain it to you himself' I stared straight at Cicero, who clearly did not relish the prospect. 'He can also explain to me exactly how much of the truth he knew when he hired me. But in the meantime I see no reason to accept that Roscius's fall was a suicide, not until I see the evidence with my own eyes.'

Rufus shrugged. 'But how else to explain it? Unless it was simply an accident — the balcony is treacherous, and he'd been drinking all night; I suppose he could have tripped. Besides, who in the household would have wanted him dead?'

'Perhaps no one.' I exchanged a furtive glance with Tiro. How could either of us forget the bitterness and desperation of Roscia Majora? Her father's acquittal had dashed all her hopes for revenge, and for the protection of her beloved sister. I cleared my throat and rubbed my weary eyes. 'Rufus, if you will, come back with me now to Caecilia's house. Show me how and where Roscius died.'

'Tonight?' He was tired and confused, and had the look of a young man who had drunk too much wine too early in the evening.

'Tomorrow may be too late. Caecilia's slaves may disturb the evidence.'

Rufus acquiesced with a weary nod.

'And Tiro,' I said, answering the plea in his eyes. 'May he come as well, Cicero?'

'In the middle of the night?' Cicero pursed his lips in disapproval. 'Oh, I suppose he may.' 'And you, too, of course.'

Cicero shook his head. The look he gave me was part pity, part disdain. 'This game is ended, Gordianus. The time has come for all men with a clear conscience to take their well-earned rest. Sextus Roscius is dead, and what of it? He died by his own choice; Sulla-from-whom-there-are-no-secrets he himself says so. Give it up, Gordianus. Follow my example and go to bed. The trial is done with, the case is over. It's finished, my friend.'

'Perhaps it is, Cicero,' I said, walking towards the vestibule and gesturing for Rufus and Tiro to follow. 'And perhaps it is not.'

'It must have been here, from this very spot,' Rufus whispered.

The full moon shone down brightly on the flagstones of the balcony and the knee-high stone railing that bordered it. Peering over the edge, I saw the stairway Rufus had mentioned, thirty or more feet directly below; the smooth, well-worn edges of the steps gleamed dully in the moonlight. The stairway twisted down into darkness, surrounded by tall weeds and overgrown shrubbery, and obscured here and there by overhanging branches of oaks and willows. From deep within the house the sound of wailing carried across the warm night air; the body of Sextus Roscius had been placed in the sanctum of Caecilia's goddess, and her slave girls were mourning with ceremonial wails and screams.

"This railing seems woefully short,' said Tiro, kicking at one of the squat pillars from a safe distance. 'Hardly high enough to keep a child safe on the balcony.' He backed away with a shiver.

'Yes.' Rufus nodded. 'I made the same remark to Caecilia. It seems there used to be a second railing atop it, a wooden one. You can see the metal brackets for it here and there. The wood got all rotten and dangerous, and someone had it torn away. Caecilia says she meant to replace it but never got around to it; the back wing of the house hadn't been used for a long time until Sextus and his family arrived.' He stepped beside me and peered cautiously over the edge. "That stairway down there is steeper than it looks from here. Very steep and worn, slippery and hard. Dangerous enough to walk down; for a man who'd fallen or tripped…' He shuddered. 'He tumbled halfway down the hill before his body came to rest. There, you can see the place, through that opening in the oak tree, where the stairway takes a sharp bend. You can see. the very spot — where the blood catches the moonlight, like a pool of black oil.' 'Who found him?' I said.