“The woman of the Getae.”
“Ah yes, a natural,” Batiatus said. “Her frame is small, but she has a truly murderous intent. Her pleasure in killing warms the soul.”
“She will not be the last, I am sure.”
“She lives for it. But her survival thus far seems but an accident. She cares not for her own life.”
“I spoke with her in her cell. She is a spitting cat. Full of fire and vigour, but not prophecy. And while she has had better fortune than a cat, even cats meet their end in time.”
“Are you surprised? These prophecies are doggerel. The priests are artful swindlers. Who cares what nursery rhymes are in the Sibylline Books if they are only found to be true after the event? The Getae woman’s rantings are of no importance to you, to me, to any noble citizen.”
“She has no ‘ranting,’ as you put it. She is lucid. Angry, but not… prophetic. But Pelorus would not have lied to me. There must be some way to unlock her sight of futures and posterities.”
“The oracles of the east surely do not spring from their beds spouting prophecies. They are induced, their site aided by elixers and opiates.”
Cicero patted Batiatus on the arm.
“You are too kind, Batiatus. But I fear that my time is limited.”
“Perhaps not, good Cicero. There a matter I wish to discuss with you.”
“What possible help can you offer in this situation, good Batiatus?”
“I can claim ownership of the Getae witch.”
“She is not for sale.”
“That is of no import, if I proved her rightful owner. I wish to engage your services.”
Batiatus beckoned Cicero toward the inner rooms of the house. Cicero followed, indulgently, a cup of wine forgotten in his hand as they strolled toward the shrine of the household gods.
“Verres’s case seems solid,” Cicero said. “It seems but a formality for him to present Timarchides to the magistrate tomorrow and sign over what remains of the estate of Pelorus.”
“But what if I have examined Verres’s armor and found gap?”
“A fenestra.”
“Indeed, I have a window. A window for us both!”
“My policy is always to be available to petitions,” Cicero said. “But I cannot promise anything unless the facts of the case warrant my involvement.”
“In truth,” Batiatus said, “it is a relatively simple matter. Pelorus has died absent a will. He has no heirs, no family.”
They reached the shrine of the Pelorus household gods. The lamps sputtered in the near darkness over a sparse tableau. A figurine of Nemesis spread threatening wings across the table. Mercury, too, frozen in time as if in mid-run; Diana, the huntress, her statuette’s bow bent as if ready to release an arrow, although it lacked any string.
“You are sure of this?” Cicero asked.
“I am certain.”
Batiatus gestured at the altar, where the figurines of violent gods stood. There were no ancestral tablets among them; no representations of parents or cousins, children or friends. The altar in the house of Pelorus had only representations of the gods themselves, and no place for man.
“I see,” Cicero said. “He was alone.”
“Pelorus and I have been associates since childhood.”
“How so?”
“Ever since my father bought him-”
“Wait. Pelorus was a slave?”
“For some time, yes. He was freed by my father. He saved him from roadside brigands, and in a moment of uncharacteristic charity my father promised him whatever he desired. Naturally, he asked for his freedom, and it was granted with deep reluctance. And thenceforth, my father refused to have slaves as his bodyguards, lest similar happenstance place the same burden upon his goodwill and purse.”
Batiatus pointed at the only other object in the shrine-the wooden sword that hung on the wall.
“The proof yet lies there,” he said.
Cicero plucked the sword from its hooks and squinted in the dark at the crude words etched in its side. The abbreviations were drastic, largely hacked down to clusters of two and three letters, but the meaning was clear. Pelorus, a gladiator of Capua, freed for valor, with the blessings of his master Titus Lentulus Batiatus, and in thanks to the gods.
“From where did he come?” Cicero asked.
“The slave market. Purchased as a boy to be my companion, and sometime guardian. His family were Cimbri from the far north, captured in the campaigns of Gaius Marius.”
“Well, Batiatus, I fear that you will be disappointed. None but a Roman citizen can write a will.”
“That is surely not the case,” Batiatus said, seating himself with a smug sigh upon the altar itself. “What about that king of Asia who left his entire kingdom to the Republic?”
“The state can make exceptions where it suits it. But for private individuals, the matter still stands.”
“But we are all Roman citizens now. The franchise has been extended over all the Latins. You may have been born a Roman citizen, Cicero, but even humble Capuans such as myself are now admitted to the ranks. Pelorus, too.”
Cicero leaned his haunches on the altar next to Batiatus. He smiled to himself in appreciation of a new and dangerous loophole.
“Batiatus, my friend,” he breathed, “you are entirely correct. Yet another problem to occupy the lawyers of the Republic for decades to come.”
“So if Pelorus can claim to be a citizen of Rome, what consequence to his estate, if he is left without heir?”
“His citizenship is less of an issue than his status as a freedman.”
“And as freedman who departs this life absent a will, his estate becomes property of his former owner?”
“Indeed. His owner being your late father, who himself leaves his estate to you, Batiatus. I can see why this interests you so. You have identified a window of immense size.”
“You will take my case?”
“There is a case?”
Batiatus leaned in as close as seemed proper.
“Verres is self-appointed,” he said. “He makes claim to be familiae emptor.”
“The ‘buyer of the family,’ meaning he has charge of disbursing the estate as Pelorus would have wished it?”
“Well, what the fuck would Verres know of Pelorus’s wishes? What gives him the right to make decision, absent guidance?”
“Your points have validation, good Batiatus,” Cicero said. “What is Verres’s claim?”
“That as he died Pelorus willed him to dispense his fortune, largely to the freedman Timarchides.”
“So?”
“The evidence of such an intent is strangely absent.”
“Pelorus intended differently?”
“I do not imagine Pelorus had any intentions at all, one way or another.”
“Why?”
“I was well acquainted with the man. Such a man as he lived for the moment. Pelorus lived a life both safe and secure-or so he thought. He had no enemies. He had wealthy friends. He did not expect to depart life at such early age!”
Something clattered in the corridor outside. The men looked up but saw nothing in the moonlight.
“I sense a Thracian’s disapproval,” Medea said, scratching her head. Her chains rattled in the dark.
“It is your life,” Spartacus said from the neighboring cell.
“It is not my life,” Medea replied. “It ceased to be my life when Roman legionaries fell upon the Getae and captured me.”
“The story is familiar,” Spartacus said.
“With variants, I am sure,” she said. “I never yet saw Asia, but from the road as I was marched to Bithynian slave markets. Sold to the Syrians. Acquired by agents of Pelorus, with his strange predilection for sorcerous women. And thence to Italia.”
“Where you will die in the arena.”
“So be it.”
“Unless you cooperate with Cicero.”
“Fuck him.”
“Give him what he wants,” Spartacus said. “Give him what he wants, and you shall be taken from this place in his custody, taken to Rome as a seer and prophetess.”