She had gradually moved closer to me, so that now she stood very near, her face turned up to mine. Her son's beauty came from her. Her undressed hair fell back from her face in dark, shining tresses. Her black gown emphasized the creamy flesh of her throat and the gentle flush of her cheeks. Her green eyes gazed up at me with disconcerting intensity. It was impossible to think of her as a man.
"Surely the Great One told you all you need to know. It would be his duty to you, as the boy's cousin and your kinsman-"
"Pompey told me what he thought I needed to know, that Numerius was… strangled. That he must have been taken by surprise from behind, off his guard, with no chance to respond. Pompey said that meant it must have been quick. Quick and… not so terribly painful."
Not necessarily, I thought. Did Maecia really want me to confirm her worst fears? To tell her that a man strangled by a garrote, with no chance to escape, might nonetheless struggle against the inevitable for quite some time- an eternity for him, no doubt- before succumbing? Did she truly wish to dwell on what Numerius might have thought and felt in those final panic-stricken moments of life?
"Pompey… told you the truth."
"But not the exact details," she said. "When I pressed him… you must know how he is. When the Great One has no more to say, no more will be said. But you were there. You found my son. You saw…"
"I saw a young man lying in my garden, before my statue of Minerva."
"And the instrument used to kill him…"
I shook my head. "Don't do this."
"Tell me, please."
I sighed. "A garrote. A simple device that serves no other purpose than to kill."
"Pompey says he left it with you, because you might need it for your inquiries. I can't even imagine what such a thing must look like."
"A piece of wood as long as my forearm, but not so thick, with a hole bored near each end; a slightly longer piece of stout rope, pulled through the holes and tied into knots."
"How does it work?"
"Please-"
"Tell me!"
"You slip the rope over a man's head, then twist the piece of wood."
"Pompey said it was still around his throat."
"There are ways to catch the rope over the wood so that it stays twisted tight and can't be removed by the victim."
She touched the creamy flesh of his throat. "I saw the marks. Now I understand." Her eyes glistened. "When you found him, with that thing still around his neck, what did his face look like?"
I lowered my eyes. "Just as he looks now."
"Yet you won't look at me as you say that. Can you look at him?"
I tried to turn my gaze to Numerius, but couldn't.
"He must have looked quite horrible, to have such an effect on a man of your experience."
"He was hard to look at, yes."
She shut her eyes. Tears glistened in her lashes. She blinked until they vanished. "Thank you. I had to know how he died. Now I can turn to asking why, and by whose hand. Pompey says you make your livelihood following such inquiries."
"I used to."
"Pompey says you'll help us now."
"He gave me no choice." Her eyebrows lifted. She had demanded unflinching answers, after all. "Did the Great One not explain that he coerced me into accepting this duty?"
"No. I never ask after his methods. But you will help?"
I thought of Davus and Diana, and Cicatrix in my home. "I'll do what I must to satisfy Pompey."
Maecia nodded. "There's something… something I couldn't tell Pompey."
"A secret? Anything you tell me may end up in the Great One's ear. I can't promise you otherwise."
She shrugged uncertainly. "If there's anything to be found out, Numerius has already suffered the consequences. I'm not even sure there's anything to it. A mother's suspicions…"
"What do you mean?"
"Between Numerius and Pompey, everything may not have been as it seemed."
"Numerius was the Great One's favorite, wasn't he?"
"Yes, Pompey doted on him. And Numerius had always been loyal to Pompey. But in recent months…" She had broached the subject herself, but seemed reluctant to pursue it. "In recent months… as the situation with Caesar grew more tense, and the debates in the Senate became more acrimonious… as it became evident that war might come, and soon- I began to think that Numerius might not be quite so loyal to Pompey as we all thought."
"What made you doubt him?"
"He was mixed up in something. Something he kept secret. There was money…"
"Money and secrets. Are you saying he was a spy?"
"A spy… or something worse." Now it was Maecia who could neither look me in the eye nor stand to look at her son.
"What do you mean?" I said quietly.
"I discovered a box in his room. It was full of gold coins- so heavy with gold I couldn't lift the box. We're not a rich family and never have been, in spite of our connections to Pompey. I couldn't imagine where Numerius had come by so much money."
"When was this?"
"About a month ago. I remember, it was the day one of the tribunes- Caesar's attack dog, Marc Antony- made that horrible speech against Pompey in the Senate, ridiculing his whole career, demanding amnesty for all the political criminals expelled from the city by Pompey's reforms. 'Every virtuous Roman in exile must be returned and given back his property, even if it takes a war to do it!' You see, a woman can follow politics."
"More closely than many men, I'm sure. But the gold?"
"That night, I asked Numerius where it had come from. I caught him by surprise. He was flustered. He wouldn't tell me. I pressed him. He refused. He spoke… harshly to me. That was when I knew something was very wrong. Numerius and I never argued. We were always very close, from the day he was born. And after my husband died… it was Numerius who reminded me most of his father, more than his younger brothers. It upset me very much that he had kept something secret from me. It worried me. The city in such a state, and Numerius somehow piling up money and refusing to explain, acting guilty when I questioned him…"
"Guilty?"
"He said that I mustn't tell Pompey about the money. So you see, the money couldn't have come from Pompey. From whom, then? And why must it be a secret from Pompey? I told him I didn't like it. I said to him, 'You're doing something dangerous, aren't you?' "
"What did he say?"
"He told me not to worry. He said he knew what he was doing. Blind certainty! Every man on his father's side of the family is just the same. I've yet to meet a Pompeius who doesn't think he's indestructible."
"Did you have any idea of what he was up to?"
"Nothing specific. I knew Pompey had made him a confidential courier. Pompey trusted him. Why not? Pompey was in and out of this house all the time while Numerius was growing up; Pompey watched him grow from child to man. Numerius was always his favorite of the younger generation. But these days, everything is twisted and turned upside down. The young have no sense of what it means to be a Roman. Every man looks out for himself, not even putting family first. So much money pours in from the provinces, corrupting everything. Young men become confused…"
She took refuge in abstractions; it was easier to talk about Rome's problems than about her own suspicions. I nodded. "When you say that Numerius was a confidential courier for Pompey, you mean that he carried secret information."
"Yes." She bit her lip. Her eyes glistened. "Secret information has value, doesn't it? Men will pay gold to get it."
"Perhaps," I said carefully. "You say you found a box full of gold. Did you find any other boxes with surprises inside?"
"What do you mean?"
"If Numerius possessed valuable information- documents- he must have kept them somewhere."
She shook her head. "No. Only the box with the gold."
"Have you looked again? I mean, since…" I glanced at the body.
"I stayed up all last night searching the house, pretending to help my brother and sons pack. If there were any more surprises to be found, I wanted them to be found by me- not by my brother, or by Pompey… or by the assassin who killed my son. I found nothing." She exhaled wearily. "You take it for granted, don't you- that Numerius was a spy? It doesn't even shock you."