“That will not be necessary, magistrate,” Cicero said. “Batiatus and I called upon the undertakers today. And Verres surely knows what we found at their residence.”
“I do not,” Verres said. “I have not had cause to visit undertakers, a task more fitting a slave.”
“Someone has visited them,” Cicero said. “Someone visited upon them a knife in the dark, and burned the dead bodies within their own household. The pollinctores, dead. The fossores, dead. Another household visited by grim Nemesis, absent cause, absent reason, absent honor.”
“And you would put blame toward me for that as well?” Verres asked.
Batiatus watched carefully, not the argument between Cicero and Verres, but the reaction on the face of Timarchides.
“See,” he whispered to Varro. “The freedman makes clear attempt to conceal his countenance. He knows something. Cicero has found them out!”
“Do you question the words of a Roman citizen?” Verres was saying.
“I do, Gaius Verres. That is my job, after all,” Cicero responded.
“If I were going to speak false of Pelorus’s wishes, why would I not make claim of his worldly goods for myself?”
“Why indeed? Your decision to award Timarchides shows virtue most praiseworthy. I understand that Timarchides has also been offered a position in your own entourage.”
“He is a good man.”
“Perhaps so. But our purpose here is not to discuss the virtues of the freedman Timarchides. We are here to discover whether you are empowered to sign over the estate of Pelorus into his hands.”
“Then hasten decision. I am due in Sicilia shortly, on the business of the Republic.”
“My question, Gaius Verres, concerns the unfortunate events that led to the death of Pelorus.”
“An answer already given. Pelorus met with unfortunate death at the hands of escaped slave, Medea of the Getae.”
“And what was the manner of her escape?”
“I do not know.”
“Let us ask someone who does. Call the witness.”
Helva smiled in surprise.
“You have a witness at the ready, quaestor? Such dedication!”
Cicero stood still, staring at his fingernails in search of imaginary dirt. He smiled calmly at Batiatus, and then turned to stare at Verres. The governor fumed in his chair, his eyes narrowed in vengeful slits.
In a distant chamber, there was the sound of footsteps and guardians’ spears clanking aside. The hurried footfalls of a household slave, mixed with the light rustle of a woman’s steps.
She entered the courtroom, her veil hiding her face. She bowed, demurely and without a word, to the magistrate, and then advanced to the podium.
“Gratitude,” Cicero said, “to this fine, upstanding lady of Neapolis, who steps forward to offer account of events of fateful night. Your name?”
“Successa,” the veiled woman said. Only her eyes, dark and flashing, could be seen over the dark silk that stretched across her face.
“Of what house?”
“Of no house, save that of the Winged Cock,” she said, naming the famed symbol that matched her Pompeiian accent.
“Lady Successa, I understand that you were present at the banquet on the night of Pelorus’s murder,” Cicero said.
“I was.”
“In what capacity?”
“So it please the court, I was hired as companion.”
“Let us not be coy. You mean in the amatory manner?”
“I do. My favors are highly regarded. Were highly regarded.”
Batiatus raised his eyebrows in agreement.
“By the people of Neapolis?” Cicero asked.
“By Pelorus himself. He said that I was the best fuck in Campania, and that I was to ensure that his honored guest, Gaius Verres, was to depart Neapolis thinking the same.”
“And, if I may ask, lady Successa, how did Pelorus come to know that you were the ‘best fuck in Campania’?”
“He was a regular visitor.”
“At the, what was it now, the House of the Winged Cock?”
“Yes.”
“He was intimate with you?”
“Upon multiple occasions.”
“And with other ladies of that establishment?”
“With all of them.”
“And with the men of your house?”
“Never.”
“For what reason?”
“Pelorus had no interest in cock.”
“I must protest!” Verres exclaimed. “Cicero employs hearsay against hearsay. Taking the word of a whore against that of a Roman citizen!”
“In my defence,” Cicero suggested, “the lady Successa is present and able to testify. She is neither conveniently dead, nor miraculously able to convey her wishes with a slit throat.”
“She has already attested that she sells her cunt for a few denarii!” Verres said. “How much cheaper is her mouth?”
“I cannot claim knowledge of pricing policies of Neapolitan brothels,” Cicero said dryly.
“My meaning,” Verres said through gritted teeth, “is that this woman’s testimony must surely be available for a price. It is not, after all, very likely that she will be amassing much more coin on her back!”
Cicero waited politely while Verres’s words resounded around the chamber.
“Really, Verres?” he said after a time. “For what reason is that?”
Verres swallowed nervously and turned to the magistrate with calm composure.
“Time comes that this farce must reach conclusion,” he said.
“I have interest in hearing Cicero’s closing arguments, nonetheless,” the magistrate said.
“As it pleases you,” Cicero said. “I would ask the lady Successa to remove her veil.”
“I have removed far more than that in the past,” Successa said, a smile clearly audible in her voice.
She reached up to withdraw a hook from an eye in her headdress, allowing the veil to fall away with exquisite slowness. It was the practiced tease of a woman who knew how to reveal her body-but now revealed a horror rather than a delight.
“Tell me, lady Successa,” Cicero said, “what it is you owe to Gaius Verres.”
“He promised me a stipend,” she replied. “I do not know how to-”
“Let me try to parse it for you,” Cicero suggested. “Gaius Verres, the kind-hearted governor-designate of Sicilia; Gaius Verres, the apparent long-term friend and hospes of the deceased Marcus Pelorus, is well known as an honorable man. And, following events of the night of this last ides past, Gaius Verres, that noble Roman, took pity on the lady Successa, so badly wounded in the fray at the House of Pelorus, and made promise to her that he would provide a stipend of five hundred denarii for years remaining. This agreement so notarized in the records of the Neapolis magistracy, and impossible to deny. And what must you do to earn this impressive honorarium, lady Successa?”
“Nothing, Cicero,” she replied.
“Nothing!” Cicero laughed. “And so it please the magistrate, ‘nothing’ is precisely what it says upon their contract. But I am lover of words and puns and poetries, and I must say that the meaning is ambiguous. It might be taken to mean that you need do ‘no thing’ in order to receive the charity of the good-natured Verres. Or, it might mean that your silence has been purchased, and that the coin is yours so long as you say and do ‘no thing’ regarding the aforesaid Gaius Verres.”
“Sophistry!” Verres shouted. “You will be claiming next that black is white.”
“Gaius Verres has been most kind to me,” Successa protested. “I had no complaint against him.”
“I am sure you did not,” Cicero said. “Not until this last night past, when sicarii ambushed you in your home and sought to send you to the afterlife.”
“And I am responsible for this, too?” Verres cried raising his arms in supplication to the ceiling above and the gods beyond. “Why not lay blame at my door for earthquakes and storms?”
Cicero ignored him, and continued in his questioning.
“Lady Successa, with bonds of silence dissolved, speak of events passed on the ides of September. How did you find yourself so injured?”