I thought of something. "The guards told me that Cicero writes letters to you all the time, back in Greece."
"So he does. Our host in Patrae, who supposedly is nursing me back to health, is in on the scheme. As soon as he receives the letters, he posts back false ones, bearing my name."
"So Cicero's letters to you are blank?"
"Hardly! They're full of gossip, quotations from plays, exhortations to get better. You see, he always has the letters done in duplicate. Nothing unusual about that, except that he posts both copies. One goes by regular messenger all the way back to Patrae, to keep up the deception. The other is sent by secret messenger to me, wherever I actually happen to be."
"But if the messages are identical, Cicero is merely sending you gossip and get-well wishes."
"On the surface, yes. Safer that way." He smiled, seemed to mull something over, then produced a pouch from his tunic. From the pouch he pulled out a folded piece of parchment. He called for one of the serving girls to unhook a hanging lamp and bring it to our table. By its sputtering glow, I read the letter. It was dated the first day of the month, some fifteen days previous.
AT FORMIAE, ON THE KALENDS OF FEBRUARIUS.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, to Marcus Tullius Tiro at Patrae:
I remain very anxious about your health. The news that your complaint is not dangerous consoles me, but its lingering nature worries me. The absence of my skillful secretary vexes me, but more vexing is the absence of one dear to me. Yet though I long to see you, I urge you not to stir until you are fully recovered, especially as long as harsh weather prevails. Even in snug houses it is difficult to escape the cold, to say nothing of enduring wet, windy weather at sea. As Euripides says, "Cold to tender skin is deadliest foe."
Caesar continues to make pretense of negotiating with Pompey even as he plays invader. Like Hannibal sending diplomats ahead of his elephants! He says now that he will give up Gaul to Domitius and come to Rome to stand for the consulship in person, as the law requires- but only if Pompey will disband all the loyalist forces recently levied in Italy and depart at once to Spain. Caesar says nothing of giving up the garrisons seized since he crossed the Rubicon.
Our hope is that the Gauls among Caesar's troops may desert him, for they certainly have reason to hate him after all the pain he inflicted in conquering Gaul. To the north he would have a rebellious Gaul; to the west, Pompey's six legions in Spain; and to the east, the provinces which Pompey pacified long ago and where the Great One is still held in high esteem. If only the center can hold long enough to keep Caesar from sacking Rome!
Terentia asks, are you wearing the yellow scarf she gave you when we left for Cilicia? Do all you can to ward off the chill!
I looked up from the letter. "His hope that the Gauls will desert Caesar seems far-fetched to me. My son Meto tells me they cling to Caesar with the fervor of religious converts. Otherwise, the letter seems straightforward enough."
"Yes, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean."
"Words can carry more than one meaning."
I frowned and scrutinized the text under the flickering light. "Are you saying that the letter is in some sort of code?" It was Tiro, during Cicero's consulship, who had invented and introduced the use of an abbreviated writing system for recording debates in the Senate. But this was not Tironian shorthand; nor was it ciphered.
Tiro smiled. "We all know what the word 'blue' means, for instance. But if I say to you ahead of time, 'Use blue to mean a legion and red to mean a cohort,' and later you write to me about a blue scarf, then only the two us know what you truly mean."
"I see. And if Cicero quotes a line from Euripides…"
"It might mean something very different than if he had cited Ennius. The actual content of the quotation is irrelevant. If he mentions sea travel, it might mean that Pompey has a head cold. 'Snug houses' might refer to a particular senator who bears watching. Even the mention of elephants might have a secret meaning."
I shook my head. "You and Cicero make quite a team. What need for swords, when you have words for weapons?"
"We've been together a long time, Gordianus. I helped Cicero write every speech he's ever given. I've transcribed his treatises, edited all his commentaries. I often know what he'll say next even before he knows. It wasn't hard for the two of us to concoct an invisible language to use between ourselves. Everyone can see the words. No one but us can see the meaning."
I gazed into the dim corners of the room. "I wonder if Meto and Caesar were ever that close?"
He seemed not to notice the rueful tone in my voice. He tapped his forehead. "Perhaps. Great men like Cicero- even Caesar, I suppose- need more than one head to store their intellects."
"Freedom hasn't changed you, Tiro. You still underestimate yourself and overestimate your former master."
"We shall see."
As he refolded the letter and slipped it back into his pouch, I had a sudden realization. "It was Cicero, wasn't it?"
"What do you mean, Gordianus?"
"It was Cicero who wrote that confidential report for Pompey, about me and my family."
Tiro hesitated. "What report?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
"Do I?"
"Tiro, you can hide behind words, but you can't hide behind your face, not with me. You do know what I'm talking about."
"Perhaps."
"It all makes sense. If Pompey wanted an intelligence report on various men in Rome, and needed it on short notice, and from someone he trusts- who better than Cicero, who's been seeing phantoms under beds ever since he sniffed out the so-called conspiracy of Catilina. Cicero's probably kept a dossier on me for years! That remark about my lack of 'Roman values,' the dig at me about adopting slaves out of habit- oh, yes, that's Cicero, looking down his nose at me, as usual. And who better to help Cicero transcribe his confidential report into ciphered code than you, Tiro- his trusted secretary, the inventor of shorthand, the other half of his brain? You were in town that day, weren't you- the day Numerius died? I caught a glimpse of you in the street, after I left Cicero's house. Was that Numerius's last errand for the Great One, to pick up Cicero's secret loyalty report?"
Tiro looked at me shrewdly. "If there ever was such a report… the copy Cicero gave Numerius went missing. Pompey was never able to find it, even though he turned Numerius's clothing inside out and tore open the stitches. He assumed that whoever murdered Numerius must have absconded with it. How did you come to know about it, Gordianus?"
"I read it. The part about myself, anyway. I found it on Numerius's body, inside a hidden compartment in the heel of his shoe."
"His shoe!" Tiro laughed. "That's something new. But what did you do with the report? Do you still have it?"
"I burned it."
"But you said you read only the part about yourself. You burned it without having read it all? The cipher wasn't that complicated."
"Pompey arrived at the house unexpectedly. I had no time to replace it in Numerius's shoe. If Pompey found it in my study…"
"I see. Well, there's a riddle solved. Cicero and I have been wondering where that report ended up."
"When you write to him about this meeting- as I presume you will- I suppose you'll have to mention the 'rosy-colored dawn,' or whatever passed between the two of you for 'secret report went up in flames.' "
"That would be a particular quotation from Sophocles, actually. Do you think Numerius was murdered because someone knew he was carrying Cicero's 'loyalty list,' as you call it?"