Roman matron?
'…were crucified,' I heard Davus say, jarring me back to the moment.
'What?'
'The gladiators at Neapolis and the field slaves who fought with Milo: they were crucified. The gladiators were already in custody. As for the field slaves, the soldiers from the garrison at Compsa hunted them down. Some died fighting, but most of them were rounded up and crucified alongside the roadways. They say so many slaves haven't been crucified at one time since the days of Spartacus, when Crassus put down the great slave revolt and lined the whole length of the Appian Way with crucified slaves.'
A silence fell over the garden. Hieronymus, sensing an opening, flashed a sardonic expression and began to say something, but I held up my hand. 'I've heard enough,' I said. 'I want to be alone for a while. Davus, go to Diana. She's with her mother, I think. Hieronymus, I heard a commotion in the kitchen a moment ago. Androcles and Mopsus are probably behind it. Would you go and have a look?'
They departed the garden in separate directions and left me alone with my thoughts.
I was surprised at how powerfully the news affected me. Milo had been a hotheaded brute and no friend of mine. Caelius had been either a mad visionary or a crass opportunist. Did it matter which, in the end? Together they had tried to bully me into joining their cause. When I refused, they had allowed me to escape with my life-but only, so far as I could make out, because Cassandra somehow compelled them to do so. What had been her connection to the two of them? Now that Milo and Caelius were both dead, in retrospect it seemed more impossible than ever that their mad scheme could have possibly succeeded.
Cassandra had been murdered. Why? By whom?
An idea came to me. How could it not have occurred to me already? It was so obvious, yet I had somehow tricked myself into over looking it. The instant of revelation was so acute as to be palpable, almost painful, as if a spring inside my head suddenly uncoiled. I must have actually cried out, for Davus reappeared in the garden, quickly followed by Hieronymus and the boys.
'Father-in-Law,' said Davus, 'you're weeping!'
'I had no idea he would take the news so hard,' whispered Hieronymus.
Androcles and Mopsus looked at me aghast. They had never seen me so shaken, even at Cassandra's funeral.
'Fetch my toga,' I told them. 'I must pay a formal visit.'
'Where are you going, Father-in-Law? I'll put on my toga, too-'
'No, Davus, I shall go alone.'
'Surely not on such a day,' insisted Davus. 'You don't know what it's like down in the Forum.'
'The young man is right,' said Hieronymus. 'The streets aren't safe. If Caelius's supporters riot, and Isauricus calls on his own ruffians to keep order-'
'I shall go alone,' I insisted. 'I won't be going far.'
She would not be at her horti, not on a day such as this, with so much uncertainty and the potential for violence in the city. She would be safely locked up in her house on the Palatine, only a short walk from my own. I kept to the smaller streets and saw hardly anyone afoot. Every now and then I heard echoes from the Forum-shouts of jubilation, as far as I could tell. Isauricus must have called up every partisan he could muster to make a show of celebrating the news from the south.
Her house was situated at the end of a quiet lane. In recent years the trend among the wealthy and powerful had been to erect massive, ostentatious houses that brazenly proclaimed their owners' status, but hers was a very old house and had been in her family for generations; it followed the old-fashioned custom of houses of the great patrician families by presenting an unassuming face to the street. The front was windowless and stained with a muted yellow wash. The doorstep was paved with glazed red and black tiles. The wash needed redoing, I noticed, and some of the tiles were cracked or missing. Framing the rustic oak door were two towering cypress trees. They, too, had an unkempt look; they were shot through with pockets of dead, brown foliage and masses of spider webs. Those trees were visible from the balcony at the back of my house. I never noticed them without thinking of Clodia.
I expected a handsome young man or a beautiful girl to answer the door-Clodia had always surrounded herself with beautiful things-but it was an old retainer who greeted me. He disappeared for a few moments to announce me, then returned and escorted me deeper into the house. Once it had been among the most sumptuously appointed homes in Rome, but now I saw pedestals without statues, places on the walls where paintings should have been, cold floors that lacked rugs. Like so many others in Rome whose place in the world had once seemed unshakable, Clodia had fallen on hard times.
She was in her garden, reclining on a couch beside a little fishpond, dropping bits of meal into the water and watching the fish dart about, their scales flashing in the watery sunlight. This was the garden where years ago I had attended one of her infamous parties; Catullus had declaimed a poem of passion and grief while couples made love in the shadows. Now it was silent and empty except for Clodia and her fish.
She looked up from the pond. The sunlight reflected from the surface of the water had a flattering effect; I caught a glimpse of Clodia as she had appeared when I had first met her years ago, when her beauty had been at the very end of its bloom.
'Another visit, so soon?' she said. 'For years you forget me, then you come calling at my horti, and now at my house. So much attention is likely to spoil me, Gordianus.' She seemed to produce this banter by rote; her voice had the proper lilt, but there was no spark in her eyes.
'You've heard the news?' I said.
'Of course. Rome has been saved once again, and all good Romans must assemble in the Forum to shout, 'Hurrah!' The Senate will pass a resolution to congratulate the consul. The consul will issue a proclamation to congratulate the Senate. The commander of the garrison at Compsa will receive a promotion. The soldiers at Thurii-' Abruptly she stopped. She gazed down at the hungry fish, who crowded together and gazed back at her.
'For months you've been seeing Marcus Caelius,' I said, 'ever since he came back from Spain with Caesar. All spring and summer, while he was stirring up trouble in the Forum, he was also coming here to your house.'
'How do you know that, Gordianus?'
'Calpurnia told me. She has spies all over the city.'
'Does she think I was in league with Caelius?'
'Were you?'
Clodia's face drew taut. The flattering moment passed; she looked her age. 'For people like Calpurnia, the world must seem such a simple place. Others are in league or not in league; allies or enemies; to be trusted or not. She has the mind of a man. She might as well not be a woman.'
'Curious,' I said.
'What?'
'Calpurnia has an equally low opinion of you, but for opposite reasons. She says you're driven by whims and emotions. She says you're weak and have no control.'
Clodia laughed without mirth. 'We'll see how long a woman like Calpurnia can hold Caesar's interest, if and when he makes himself master of the world. Can you imagine making love to such a block of wood?'
'You've changed the subject. Were you in league with Caelius?'
'In league with him? No. In love with him…' Her voice broke. She shut her eyes. 'Yes.'
I shook my head. 'I don't believe you. You were lovers once, but that was years ago. You prosecuted him for a murder. You did your best to destroy him, to have him driven out of Rome. Instead, he humiliated you in the court. He stood up for Milo after your brother was murdered. After all that, you can't possibly-'
'How would you know what I'm capable of, Gordianus?'
I felt a sudden, cold fury in my chest. 'I'm afraid I may know exactly what you're capable of.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'I don't think you fell in love with Caelius all over again. That would make you as flighty and foolish as Calpurnia paints you. And you're not a fool. You're hard and shrewd and endlessly calculating. I think you hated Marcus Caelius more than ever when he came back to Rome with Caesar. There he was, the man you despised most in the world, standing proudly at Caesar's side, rewarded with a magistracy, still a player in the great game
