Moving on, I asked him, "I thought I had themeasure of the Tribune from our time spent together on campaign,but clearly I missed something. What can you tell me about him? Atleast," I clarified, "as far as any possible weaknesses he mighthave?"
Piso considered for a moment, then his eyesnarrowed.
"There is one thing," he began, somewhathesitantly.
"Piso, my life is at stake here," I pressedhim. "And as you said yourself, his actions have put him in asituation where you owe him no more loyalty. Besides," I had asudden inspiration, "if you're unsuccessful in your defense of me,it's not going to do your career any good. Granted," I tried tomake a joke of it, "it will be a little worse for me. But still,being on the losing side is something that Rome doesn't look wellupon."
Again, I was not blind to which part of theargument convinced Piso.
"He used to have a very, very bad stutter,"he offered up. "Something that he's worked very hard to overcome.But it comes back when he's under a great amount of stress."
I considered this, and as small a thing asit might appear to those who are not Roman, I recognized thepotential damage this could cause Lucullus if it was widely known.Or even worse, for him anyway, was on display. Our society does notlook kindly on any kind of physical weakness or deformity, seeingit as a sign of the disfavor of the gods. Granted, this viewpointwas held much more strongly with the lower classes than the moreeducated members of the upper classes. But one only had to look atCaesar, with his falling sickness, and the lengths he went in orderto keep it from becoming common knowledge. He understood howdamaging it could be if it were known that a man who, in everyother respect, seemed to be so favored by the gods bore this kindof affliction.
"So, if I understand you correctly, yourstrategy involves rattling Lucullus to the point where his stuttercomes back?"
I could not hide my skepticism that this wasgoing to do much more than embarrass Lucullus.
"That's only part of it," Piso said. "Butthat's the crack in his armor that I plan on exploiting."
That sounded promising as far as it went,but when I pressed Piso on what else he had planned, he refused toexpand on it. The only thing he said, when he was leaving myquarters, just served to deepen the mystery, and my anxiety.
"With a little luck from the gods," he saidas we clasped arms, "if all goes according to my plan, this mightnot even get to the Tribunal."
With that, we parted, with an agreement tomeet two days later, which would be two days before the Tribunal,to go over what Piso had prepared. After he was gone, I looked atDiocles, who had been a silent but clearly interested observer.
"Well?" I asked him.
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think he'sclever, but I also think there's something he's not tellingus."
"You mean aside from not telling us what hehas planned? That's very observant," I replied dryly.
He gave me an irritated look and shot back,"No, I'm not talking about the obvious. There's something elsegoing on here. I can feel it."
While I trusted Diocles and his instinctsfor such matters, I was frankly just weary of trying to navigateall the undercurrents that seemed to keep threatening to drag meunder. I just wished Scribonius had been here for this interviewwith Piso so that I could get his insight, yet one more time, hehad muttered something about other plans and that he could not bepresent. I remember making the joke at the time that for asupposedly dead man, he had a very full social calendar, but notonly did he not see the humor, he looked somewhat shaken at myjest. Again, I dismissed it as just the aftermath of dealing withhis father's death and the strain of trying to remain undetected.In retrospect, what was going on was obvious, but all I can offerin my defense is that I was preoccupied with my own troubles.
The next two days were split equally betweenriding Ocelus, and spending time with Diocles going over my affairsand making a complete accounting of what constituted my estate.Although I held out little hope that I would escape with anythingbut my life, and that was if I was lucky, I still thought it wasprudent to take stock of all that I had accrued over the years. Itwas during this time that I realized what a genius my gentle littleGreek scribe was when it came to managing my concerns. Because ofhis careful and incredibly shrewd management, I had more thandouble what I would have needed to become an equestrian. In fact, Ihad enough to purchase a seat in the Senate, with only a tiny bitleft over; the price for that is a million sesterces. However,given the reaction that Appius Claudius Pulcher had to the idea ofa "low-born, insolent brute" like me, quoting the late Cleopatra,elevating myself to equestrian status, the idea of reaching for theSenate was not something I considered for even the briefest oftime. Nevertheless, I found it extremely hard not to be bitter atthe idea that I stood to lose all that I had gained, especiallywhen I thought back to that ramshackle farm outside Astigi. Dioclesand I briefly discussed the idea of me transferring the bulk of mywealth over to Gaius' name, but it was quickly dismissed. Perhapsif I had done so before this campaign, he might have been allowedto keep it, but if I did anything at this point, it would be anobvious ploy. Granted, it had been done before, successfully, butnot by anyone of my class, at least that I was aware of, andOctavian was highly unlikely to look kindly on my attempt to savemy fortune. The only thing working in my favor, at least in thatregard, was that with the sacking of Egypt's treasury, money was nolonger the pressing matter that it had been a decade before.However, I had never seen any of the nobility pass up anopportunity to grab as much money as they could, which I was surewas something Primus had counted
