"He was terribly angry. He shouted that you were not to be killed for any reason whatsoever, but Clodius wouldn't listen. My uncle said: 'If I learn that you have the blood of Decius Metellus on your hands, I will solemnly pronounce the curse of Jove Optimus Maximus upon you before the whole Roman people.' "
This was a serious threat. It would mean that no Roman citizen anywhere in the world could so much as speak to him or give him any aid. No allied king could take him in. He would become a rootless wanderer among barbarians.
"And what did Clodius answer?"
"He laughed. He said: 'Jove need not concern himself. Charun will have him.' I don't know what he meant by that."
I felt as if I had fallen into the cold pool at the baths. "He means that he has set his Etruscan priests on me."
"I wish I could have stayed to hear more, but I'd had to tiptoe from my own quarters when I heard the shouting, and I might have been discovered at any moment. I couldn't leave the house until my uncle left for the theater, and I had no way of getting word to you earlier."
"I don't know how I can thank you," I said, my mind whirling. "But you dare not be seen with me. Just coming to my house put you at terrible risk." Further implications hit me. "They could be out there already. There's no place to hide in these deserted streets. You have to stay here until dark."
"Would they dare attack me?" she asked, all patrician haughtiness.
"Ordinarily, no," I answered her. "Clodius fears Caius Julius. But now his derangement has entered a particularly lurid stage, and he is liable to do anything. And the Etruscans are fanatics. Only Pompey can call them off, and he's not about to do that. Not after the theater this morning."
"What?"
She was not the only one with questions. Just then I was wondering why Caius Julius was so determined to keep me alive. It was a relief to know that there was someone who was not out for my blood, but I could think of no reason why in Caesar's case. Doubtless all would be made clear in time, when more pressing matters were settled.
"Oh, I made a bit of a scene this morning. A great revelation came to me while we were watching Trojan Women"
"A vision from Apollo!" she cried, clapping her hands. "But of course! Euripides is the most sublime of playwrights, and Trojan Women was the most inspired of his plays. I love Euripides."
"Indeed?" I said. Women are difficult to fathom. "Well, in any case, I was suddenly vouchsafed a glimpse of the meaning of a number of anomalies. It was the sight of all those Greek men in women's clothing, and Pompey sitting there like a puffed-up bullfrog in his triumphator's robe. And do you know what my first thought was? Without even knowing why it came to me, I thought, 'Milo will be pleased.'"
"You make no sense whatever," she said with considerable restraint.
"Made no sense to me at first, either. That's the way it is with divine revelations. You see, my friend Milo wants to marry Fausta. He was very displeased when he heard that you saw her there that night when she had no right to attend the Mysteries but didn't join you unmarried women. He hinted that he might be quite unhappy with me should I implicate her in any wrongdoing, and Milo is not a man I would want to fall afoul of. So imagine my relief when I understood that she was not there that night!"
"But I saw her," Julia said coolly. "Do you think I am a liar, or merely a fool?"
"No, no, nothing of the sort," I said, laughing and shaking my head. I must have looked and sounded truly demented. "You see, that wasn't Fausta you recognized. It was her twin brother, Faustus, dressed as a woman!"
Her jaw dropped gratifyingly. "Dressed as a woman? Like Clodius?"
"Yes, like Clodius. And Pompey, and your uncle, Caius Julius. I suspect that Crassus was there as well. Pompey was wearing the dress of the peasant herb-woman, a purple dress. He does so love to wear purple."
"But Uncle Caius? Can you be sure?"
"He was supposed to spend that night at the house of Metellus Celer, but he went out, ostensibly to look for omens on the Quirinal. I checked at the Temple of Quirinus and found out that he did not go out through the Colline Gate that night. I think he, too, must have donned women's clothing and went into his own house thus disguised. And if Caesar, Pompey, Clodius and Faustus were there, then Crassus was most likely involved as well."
"Oh, dear," she said weakly. "But why? Why meet together in such a bizarre fashion?"
"That is what I am about to find out," I said. "Come along. Let's have a few words with my slave boy, Hermes."
"Your slave?" she said as she followed me to the rear of my house, Cato close behind us.
"Exactly." I threw open the door to his cubicle, and the boy backed against a wall, white-faced. "Where is it, you thieving little swine?" I shouted.
"What do you mean, master? I don't know what you're talking about!" At least he had the grace to look as guilty as Mars in Vulcan's net.
"I mean the things you stole from the body of Appius Claudius Nero, you disgusting creature!" I slapped his face twice, forehand and backhand.
"Under my bed!" he cried, all but bawling.
I threw back his pallet, revealing a cache of rings, bracelets and coins in a hollow scooped into the dirt floor. Among the glittering loot was a plain bronze cylinder as long as my palm and as big around as my thumb.
"You couldn't resist, could you?" I said. "You went back out there that night and stripped the body. That's pretty low, Hermes, robbing a corpse!"
"Of course it's low!" he yelled. "I'm a slave! What do you expect! You noblemen can murder each other in the streets, and the praetor sends you out of town for a year or two. We get sent to the cross! I couldn't just leave him lying there with all that gold on him. Anyway, I sacrificed to Mercury, and he's the god of thieves."
"Admirable piety. Well, you may have cleared things with the gods, but not with me. You made a mistake, Hermes. You came back here with your ill-gained loot and you had to gloat, didn't you? It was still dark, but you couldn't resist trying the quality of the gold." I held the poison ring before his nose. There were teeth marks on its capsule.
"You didn't know this was a poison ring and you bit into it. You didn't suck out all the poison, but you got enough to give you a bellyache all the next day."
"So poor old Nero had his revenge after all," he said, wincing at the memory.
"He deserves more!" I shouted. "Cato, bring the whip!"
"You don't own a whip, master," Cato said. I turned to face him.
"Yes, I do. A great, nasty-looking flagrum with bronze studs along all the thongs. My father gave it to me when I set up in my own house. Where is it?"
"You lost it in a dice game years ago," Cato said.
His wife, Cassandra, appeared in the doorway. "Will you all stop yelling? The neighbors will think we're disorderly. I'm trying to get dinner together. Nobody's going to whip any slaves in this house, master. Cato's too old and you're too softhearted."
"Oh, let's go back out to the atrium," I said, disgusted. "It's too crowded in here." I could swear that I saw Julia masking a smile. I examined the bronze tube. The wax seal over its cap was broken. Back in the atrium, Julia and I took chairs while Hermes, temporarily reprieved, stood nervously shifting from one foot to the other.
"You've been into this, I see," I said, holding up the tube.
"I thought there might be something valuable in it," Hermes said. "But it was just a roll of paper."
"That is because this is a message tube. And did you read the message?"
"How could I? I can't read."
"And did it not occur to you that Nero might not have come to kill me, but rather to bring me a message?"
"Did it occur to you?" he said insolently.
I sighed. "I really must purchase another flagrum and a strong, stupid, stony-hearted slave to wield it."
"If I'd know it was for you, I'd have brought it immediately, master," Hermes mumbled.
"What does it say?" Julia urged impatiently.