The litter was an enormous eight-man affair, elaborately decorated (Egyptian litters make the most elegant Roman conveyances look plain) and attended by no fewer than a hundred armed bodyguards, also lent to Asicius by King Ptolemy. (If the king supplied the bodyguards for Asicius's physical defense, who can help but conclude that it was also the king who hired Cicero for Asicius's legal defense?) Can you see it in your mind-Cicero and Asicius discussing the upcoming murder trial while they proceed along the shore borne aloft in a litter, lolling about in Egyptian luxury with a hundred swordsmen in their train?
I missed the trial; a relapse of the cough which plagued me in Illyria kept me from venturing down to the Forum.
Bethesda went to watch, but you can imagine the sort of report she came back with-I was informed that Asicius is quite good-looking, if a bit wasted and pale (Bethesda has heard that he drinks to excess); that Asicius's friend, our handsome young neighbor M.C., was nowhere in sight; and that Cicero was as long-winded and boring as ever.
And oh, yes, that Asicius was acquitted of murdering Dio.
I now regret having missed the trial, for I should like to have heard with my own ears the evidence presented. But I do not regret having missed whatever devious conjurer's tricks Cicero used to distract, disorient and ultimately persuade the judges. I don't need the aggravation.
So, for better or worse, the matter has come to a conclusion. Poor Dio shall go unavenged, but his legacy may yet prevail-
I lifted my stylus from the parchment, distracted by a knock. I turned in my chair and saw Belbo in the doorway.
"The messenger's come back, Master. He says he must have your letter now if he's to take it for you."
I grunted. "Show him in. No need to make him wait in the hallway." I returned to the letter.
I must close abruptly. Caesar's message bearer has re-turned.
I have foolishly spent this precious hour recounting Forum gossip and left myself no time to speak of family matters. Know that all is well. Bethesda is as always, and Diana becomes more like her mother every day (more beautiful, more mysterious). Eco continues to prosper, though I often wish I could have taught him a less dangerous trade than his father's, and his beloved Menenia has proved herself a woman of surpassing patience, especially in bringing up the uncontrollable twins. Imagine having two four-year-olds squabbling and stubbing their toes and catching colds…
I must close. The messenger has entered the room and stands before me, glancing over his shoulder at the statue of Minerva in the sun-filled atrium, tapping his foot impatiently.
Take care, Meto!
I dusted the parchment with fine sand, then pursed my lips and gently blew the sand away. I rolled the parchment, slipped it into a leather jacket and sealed the cylinder with wax. As I handed it reluctantly to the messenger, thinking of things left unsaid, I took a closer look at the man. He was dressed in a soldier's regalia, all leather straps and clinking steel and blood-red wool. His jaw was stiff and his countenance stern.
"How old are you, soldier?" "Twenty-two."
Meto's age exactly; no wonder the fellow looked to me like a child playing soldier. I studied his face, searching for some sign of the horrors he must have beheld already in his young life, and saw only the bland innocence of youth framed by a soldier's helmet.
His stern expression abruptly softened. He looked puzzled. I realized he was staring beyond me at someone in the doorway.
As I swung about I heard Belbo bluster, "Master, another guest- I told him to wait in the foyer, but he's followed me anyway-"
At first I hardly saw the visitor, blocked as he was by Belbo's bulk. Then he slipped into view, and what he lacked in stature was more than made up for by the gaudy splendor of his garb. He was covered from the neck down in a gown of vibrant red and yellow. Silver bracelets dangled from his wrists, a silver pectoral with glass beads hung from his neck, and his ears and fingers sported silver rings. His cheeks were painted white. On his head was a multicolored turban, from which his bleached hair hung down in wavy tresses. The last time I had seen him he had been dressed in a toga, not in the vestments of a priest of Cybele.
"Trygonion," I said.
He smiled. "You remember me, then?"
"I do. It's all right," I said to Belbo, who continued to hover uncertainly, ready to interpose himself between the gallus and myself. Belbo could easily have lifted the little priest over his head and could probably have snapped him in two, but he kept his distance, afraid to lay his hands on a holy eunuch. Trygonion had slipped into my study without missing a step, while a man three times his size blustered for him to stay back.
Belbo gave the gallus a disgruntled look and withdrew. Behind me I heard the clearing of a throat and turned to see the soldier slipping my letter into a leather pouch. "I'm off, then," he said, nodding to me and then looking at the eunuch with a mixture of curiosity and distaste.
"May Mercury guide you," I said.
"And may the purifying blood of the Great Goddess spring from between her legs and wash over you!" added Trygonion. He pressed his palms together, making his bracelets jingle, and bowed his head. The soldier wrinkled his brow and hastily moved to depart, uncertain whether he had just been blessed or cursed. As he moved to slip out the narrow doorway, he turned sideways to avoid touching the eunuch, but Trygonion deliberately shifted his stance so that their shoulders brushed, and I saw the soldier shudder. The contrast was striking, between the stern, virile young Roman in his military garb and the diminutive, grinning, foreign-born gallus in his priestly gown. How odd, I thought, that the larger, stronger one, trained to kill and defend himself, should be the one to shiver in fear.
Trygonion seemed to be thinking the same thing, for as the soldier stomped down the hallway the eunuch looked after him and made a trilling laugh. But as he turned back to me his smile quickly faded.
"Gordianus," he said softly, bowing his head in greeting. "I am again honored to be admitted into your home."
"It would seem I had little choice over whether to admit you or not, considering how giants give way before you and soldiers flee in panic."
He laughed, but not in the trilling way he had used to mock the soldier. It was a throaty chuckle, such as men exchange over a witticism in the Forum. The gallus seemed able to change his persona at will, from feminine to masculine, never seeming wholly one or the other but something which was neither.
"I've been sent to fetch you."
"Oh?"
"Yes, imagine that – a priest of Cybele, dispatched like a messenger boy." He cocked an eyebrow. "Dispatched by whom?" "By a certain lady." "Does she have a name?"
"Of course she does-many names, though I'd advise you to avoid the more scandalous ones and call her by the name her father gave her, unless you wish to have your face slapped. That is, until you get to know her better."
"What name is that?"
"She lives here on the Palatine, only a few steps away." He gestured toward the door with an ingratiating smile.
"Still, before I go off to see her, I think I should like to know her name and what business she might have with me."
"Her business involves a certain mutual acquaintance. Two mutual acquaintances, actually. One living; one… dead." He looked coy, then somber. Neither expression seemed quite genuine, as if he had exchanged one mask for another. "Two mutual acquaintances," he repeated. "One, a murderer-the other, the murderer's victim. One who even now moves through the Forum, laughing with his friends and flinging obscenities at his enemies, while the other moves through Hades, a shadow among shadows. Perhaps he will meet Aristotle there and debate him face to face, and the dead can decide which of them knew more about living." "Dio," I whispered.