The First Man in Rome (16 page)

"Certainly,
domina."
And he went away at once, dying to impart this fabulous piece of gossip to the rest of the staff, and especially looking forward to breaking the news of his move to the cook; that conceited master of the pots wouldn't welcome the exchange of Rome for Puteoli!

Grania wandered into her spacious sitting room and looked around at its comfortable air of dishevelment, at her paints and workbox, at the nail-studded trunk in which reposed her baby trousseau, hopefully gathered, heartbreakingly unused.

Since no Roman wife chose or bought the furniture, Gaius Marius would not be handing any of it over; her eyes brightened a little, the tears trickled inward instead of down her cheeks, and were not replaced. Really, she had only tomorrow before leaving Rome, and Cumae was not one of the world's greatest emporiums. Tomorrow she would go shopping for furniture to fill her new villa! How nice to be able to pick what
she
wanted! Tomorrow would be busy after all, no time for thinking, no empty hours to grieve. Much of the sting and shock began at once to evaporate; she could get through the coming night, now that she had a shopping spree to look forward to.

'' Berenice!'' she called, and then, when the girl appeared, "I'll dine now, tell the kitchen."

She found paper on which to compose her shopping list amid the clutter on her worktable, and left it where it sat ready for her to use as soon as she finished eating. And something else he had said to her—yes, that was it, the little lapdog. Tomorrow she would buy a little lapdog, first item on the list.

The euphoria lasted until Crania's solitary dinner was almost done, at which point she emerged from shock and promptly plunged into grief. Up went both hands to her hair, wrenching and pulling frenziedly; her mouth opened in a keening wail, the tears poured out in rivers. Every servant scattered, leaving her abandoned in the dining room to howl into the gold-and-purple tapestry covering her couch.

"Just listen to her!" said the cook bitterly, pausing in his packing-up of special pans, pots, tools; the sound of his mistress's agony came clearly into his domain at the far end of the peristyle-garden. "What's
she
got to cry about? I'm the one going into exile—she's been there for years, the fat silly old sow!"

5

The lot which gave the province of Roman Africa to Spurius Postumius Albinus was drawn on New Year's Day; not twenty-four hours later, he nailed his colors to the mast, and they were the colors of Prince Massiva of Numidia.

Spurius Albinus had a brother, Aulus, ten years younger than himself, newly admitted to the Senate, and eager to make a name. So while Spurius Albinus lobbied strenuously yet behind the scenes for his new client Prince Massiva, it fell to Aulus Albinus to escort Prince Massiva through all the most important public places of the city, introducing him to every Roman of note, and whispering to Massiva's agents what sort of gift would be appropriate to send to every Roman of note Massiva met. Like most members of the Numidian royal house, Massiva was a well-set-up and good-looking Semite with a brain between his ears, capableof exerting charm, and lavish in the distribution of largesse. His chief advantage lay not in the undeniable legitimacy of his claim, but rather in the Roman delight of a divided camp; there was no thrill in a united Senate, no spice in a series of unanimous votes, no reputations to be made in amicable co-operation.

At the end of the first week of the New Year, Aulus Albinus formally presented the case of Prince Massiva to the House, and, on his behalf, claimed the throne of Numidia for the legitimate branch. It was Aulus Albinus' s maiden speech, and a good one. Every Caecilius Metellus sat up and listened, then applauded at the end of it, and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was delighted to speak in support of Massiva's petition. This, he said, was the answer to the vexed question as to what to do about Numidia—get it back on the right path with a lawful king at the reins, not a desperate pretender whose bloodline was not good enough to unite the whole country behind him, and who had established his tenure of the throne by murder and bribery. Before Spurius Albinus dismissed the meeting, the Senate was making noises indicating it was very ready to vote in favor of dismissing the present King, and replacing him with Massiva.

"We're up to our necks in boiling water," said Bomilcar to Jugurtha. "All of a sudden I'm not being invited to dine anywhere, and our agents can't find any ears prepared to listen."

"When is the Senate going to vote?" asked the King, his voice calm and steady.

"The fourteenth day before the Kalends of February is the next meeting scheduled for the House—that is seven days from tomorrow, sire."

The King straightened his shoulders. "It will go against me, won't it?"

"Yes, sire," said Bomilcar.

"In that case, it is pointless my trying to continue to do things the Roman way." Jugurtha was visibly growing in size, an awful majesty swelling him now that had been kept hidden since he came with Lucius Cassius to Italy. "From now on, I will do things
my
way—the Numidian way."

The rain had cleared, a cold sun shone; Jugurtha's bones longed for the warmer winds of Numidia, his body longed for the friendly and unavaricious comfort of his harem, his mind longed for the ruthless logic of Numidian plain dealing. Time to go home! Time to start recruiting and training an army, for the Romans were never going to let go.

He paced up and down the colonnade flanking the gigantic peristyle-garden, then beckoned to Bomilcar and strode with him to the center of the open air, by the loudly splashing fountain.

"Not even a bird can hear us," he said then.

Bomilcar stiffened, prepared himself.

"Massiva must go," said the King.

"Here?
In Rome?"

"Yes, and within the next seven days. If Massiva is not dead before the Senate takes its vote, our task will be that much harder. With Massiva dead, there can be no vote. It will buy us time."

"I'll kill him myself," said Bomilcar.

But Jugurtha shook his head violently. "No! No! The assassin must be a Roman," he said. "Your job is to find the Roman assassin who will kill Massiva for us."

Bomilcar stared, aghast. "My lord king, we're in a foreign country! We don' t know where or how, let alone who!"

"Ask one of our agents. Surely there's
one
we can trust," said Jugurtha.

That was more concrete; Bomilcar worked at it for some moments, nipping at the short hairs of his beard beneath his bottom lip with strong teeth. "Agelastus," he said at last. "Marcus Servilius Agelastus, the man who never smiles. His father is Roman, he was born and bred here. But his heart is with his Numidian mother, of that I'm sure."

"I leave it to you. Do it," said the King, and walked away down the path.

Agelastus looked stunned.
"Here?
In Rome?"

"Not only here, but within the next seven days," said Bomilcar. "Once the Senate votes for Massiva—as it will!—we'll have a civil war on our hands in Numidia. Jugurtha won't let go, you know that. Even if he were willing to let go, the Gaetuli wouldn't let him."

"But I haven't the faintest idea how to find an assassin!"

"Then do the job yourself."

"I couldn't!" wailed Agelastus.

"
It
has to be done! Surely in a city this size there are plenty of people willing to do murder for a good sum of money," Bomilcar persisted.

"Of course there are! Half the proletariat, if the truth is known. But I don't mix in those circles, I don't know any of the
proletarii
!
After all, I can't just approach the first seedy-looking fellow I see, clink a bag of gold at him, and ask him to kill a prince of Numidia!" moaned Agelastus.

"Why not?" asked Bomilcar.

"He might report me to the urban praetor, that's why!"

"Show him the gold first, and I guarantee he won't. In this city, everyone has his price."

"Maybe that is indeed so, Baron," said Agelastus, "but I for one am not prepared to put your theory to the test."

And from that stand he would not be budged.

Everyone said the Subura was Rome's sink, so to the Subura Bomilcar went, clad inconspicuously, and without a single slave to escort him. Like every visitor of note to Rome, he had been warned never to venture into the valley northeast of the Forum Romanum, and now he understood why. Not that the alleys of the Subura were any narrower than those of the Palatine, nor were the buildings as oppressively high as those on the Viminal and upper Esquiline.

No, what distinguished the Subura at first experience was people, more people than Bomilcar had ever seen. They leaned out of a thousand thousand windows screeching at each other, they elbowed their way through presses of bodies so great all movement was slowed to a snail's pace, they behaved in every rude and aggressive manner known to the race of men, spat and pissed and emptied their slops anywhere they fancied they saw a space open up, were ready to pick a fight with anyone who so much as looked at them sideways.

The second impression was of an all-prevailing squalor, an appalling stench. As he made his way from the civilized Argiletum to the Fauces Suburae, as the initial stretch of the main thoroughfare was known, Bomilcar was incapable of taking in anything beyond smell and dirt. Peeling and dilapidated, the very walls of the buildings oozed filth in runnels, as if the bricks and timber of which they were made had been mortared with filth. Why, he found himself wondering, hadn't they just let the whole district burn down last year, instead of fighting so hard to save it? Nothing and no one in the Subura was worth saving! Then as he penetrated deeper—careful as he walked not to turn off the Subura Major, as the main street was now called, into any of the gaps between the buildings on either side, for he knew if he did, he might never find his way out again—disgust was replaced by amazement. For he began to see the vitality and hardiness of the inhabitants, and experience a cheerfulness beyond his comprehension.

The language he heard was a bizarre mixture of Latin and Greek and a little Aramaic, an argot which probably couldn't be understood by anyone who didn't live in the Subura, for certainly in his extensive wanderings around the rest of Rome, he had never heard its like.

There were shops everywhere, foetid little snack bars all apparently doing a thriving trade—there was obviously money around somewhere—interspersed with bakeries, charcuteries, wine bars, and curious tiny shoplets which seemed (from what he could ascertain by peering into the gloom within) to sell every kind of thing from pieces of twine to cooking pots to lamps and tallow candles. However, clearly food was the best business to be in; at least two thirds of the shops were devoted to some aspect of the food trade. There were factories too: he could hear the thump of presses or the whir of grinding wheels or the clatter of looms, but these noises came from narrow doorways or from side alleys, and were hopelessly fused with what appeared to be tenement dwellings many storeys high. How did anyone ever survive here?

Even the little squares at the major crossroads were solid people; the way they managed to do their washing in the fountain basins and carry pitchers of water home astounded him. Cirta—of which city he as a Numidian was inordinately proud—he at last admitted was no more than a big village compared to Rome. Even Alexandria, he suspected, might have its work cut out to produce an ants' nest like the Subura.

However, there were places in which men gathered to sit and drink and pass the time of day. These seemed to be confined to major crossroads, but even of that he couldn't be sure, unwilling as he was to leave the main street. Everything kept happening very suddenly, in snatches of scenes that opened up before him and closed in a fresh throng of people, from a man beating a laden ass to a woman beating a laden child. But the dim interiors of the crossroads taverns—he didn't know what else to call them—were oases of relative peace. A big man in the pink of health, Bomilcar finally decided he would find out nothing more illuminating until he ventured inside one. After all, he had come to the Subura to find a Roman assassin, which meant he must find a venue where he could strike up a conversation with some of the local populace.

He left the Subura Major to walk up the Vicus Patricii, a main street leading onto the Viminal Hill, and found a crossroads tavern at the base of a triangular open space where the Subura Minor merged into the Vicus Patricii; the size of the shrine and the fountain told him this was a very important
compitum,
intersection. As he dipped his head to pass under the low lintel of the door, every face inside— and there must have been fifty of them—lifted and turned toward him, suddenly stony. The buzz of talk died.

"I beg your pardon," Bomilcar said, bearing unafraid, eyes busy trying to find the face belonging to the leader. Ah! There in the far left back corner! For as the initial shock of seeing a completely foreign-looking stranger enter wore off, the rest were turning to look at this one face—the face of the leader. A Roman rather than a Greek face, the property of a man of small size and perhaps thirty-five years. Bomilcar swung to look directly at him and addressed the rest of his remarks to him, wishing his Latin were fluent enough to speak in the native tongue, but forced to use Greek instead.

"I beg your pardon," he said again, "I seem to be guilty of trespass. I was looking for a tavern where I might be seated to drink a cup of wine. It's thirsty work, walking."

 "This, friend, is a private club," said the leader in atrocious but understandable Greek.

"Are there no public taverns?" Bomilcar asked.

"Not in the Subura, friend. You're out of your ken. Go back to the Via Nova."

"Yes, I know the Via Nova, but I'm a stranger in Rome, and I always think one cannot get the real flavor of a city unless one goes into its most crowded quarter," said Bomilcar, steering a middle course between touristy fatuousness and foreign ignorance.

The leader was eyeing him up and down, shrewdly calculating. "Thirsty as all that, are you, friend?" he asked.