The Venus Throw (9 page)

Between conquering Gaul and vying for control of Rome, it seems that the great man finds time in his busy schedule to keep a minutely detailed journal. While other politicians leave their memoirs as monuments to posterity, Caesar intends to distribute his (so Meto suspects) as a tool in his election campaigns. The people of Rome will read of Caesar’s extraordinary skins of leadership and his triumphs in spreading Roman civilization, and then rush to support him at the polls—provided, of course, that things continue to go as Caesar wishes in Gaul.

Caesar has slaves to take his dictation, of course—Meto says the commander often dictates while on horseback riding from camp to camp, so as not to waste time—and he has slaves to assist in the collation and compilation of his notes, but as my own experience has often borne out, the rich and powerful will make use of other men’s talents wherever they find them. Caesar happens to like Meto’s prose style—never
mind that Meto was born a slave, received only sporadic tutoring in mathematics and Latin after I adopted him, and has no experience at practicing rhetoric. Ironic, too, is the fact that Meto, who chose to be a soldier against my wishes, now finds himself a tent-bound literary adjutant. instead of a sunburned, wind-bitten legionary. It would be hard, I imagine, for one of his humble origins to rise much higher, with so many patricians and sons of the rich vying for honor and glory in the upper ranks.

Which is not to say that he no longer faces danger. Caesar himself takes extraordinary risks—this is said to be one of the keys to the hold he has over his men, that he faces the enemy alongside them—and no matter what his day-to-day duties, Meto has seen plenty of battle. His role as one of Caesar’s secretaries simply, means that during quiet times, instead of building catapults or digging trenches or making roads, Meto labors over his commander’s rough drafts. Just as well; Meto was never very good, at working with his hands or his back. But when the crisis comes and the enemy must be faced, Meto puts clown his stylus and takes up his sword.

Meto had plenty of hair-raising tales to thrill his older brother and set his brooding father’s teeth on edge. Ambushes at dawn, midnight raids, battles against barbarian tribes with unpronounceable names—I listened to the details and wished I could cover my ears, as images ran riot through my head of Meto in hand-to-hand combat against some hulking, hairy Gaul, or dodging a rain of arrows, or leaping off a catapult consumed by fire. Meanwhile I watched him wide-eyed, at once amazed, appalled, proud and melancholy at how thoroughly the boy had vanished and the man taken his place. Though he was only twenty-two, I counted a few gray hairs among the shock of unruly black curls on his head, and his jaw was covered with stubble. His speech, especially in the excitement of recounting a battle, was salted with crude soldier’s slang—could this really be the boy
whose prose Caesar found so admirable? Relaxing in his quarters, it was Meto’s custom to wear the same garment day after day, a dark blue, much-washed woolen tunic. I raised an eyebrow at his slovenliness but said nothing, even when I noticed the numerous murky spots, large and small, which stained the fabric in various places. Then I realized that the stains were clustered where his armor joined and around the edges of his leather coat. The spots were bloodstains, made where the blood of other men had soaked through his battle gear.

Meto told us of mountains he had crossed and rivers he had forded, of Gallic villages with their peculiar sights and smells, of Caesar’s genius at outwitting the tribes and putting down their rebellions. (Much of the commander’s behavior sounded like gratuitous cruelty and base treachery to me, but I knew better than to say so.) He confirmed that the Gauls were uncommonly big, many of them veritable giants. “They think of us as a midget race, and make fun of us to our faces,” he said. “But they don’t laugh for long.”

He was eager for news of Rome. Eco and I shared with him all the gossip we could remember, including the latest maneuvers regarding the Egyptian situation. “Pompey and your beloved commander seemed to have matched scores in the latest round,” Eco noted, “extorting equal hoards of silver from King Ptolemy in return for bribing the Senate to smile on his claim to the Egyptian throne. It’s Crassus who’s been left out.”

“And what does Crassus need from Egypt?” said Meto, who had his own reasons to dislike the millionaire quite apart from his loyalty to Caesar. “He’s rich enough.”

“Crassus will never be rich enough for Crassus,” I said.

“If he wants to keep his hand in the contest,” said Meto, absently reaching for his short sword and fiddling with the handle, “Crassus will need to wrangle another military command from the Senate and score some victories to impress the people. Silver buys votes, but only glory buys greatness.”
I wondered if these words came from Meto himself or from Caesar, whose finances become more precarious even while the list of his conquests grows longer.

“But Pompey has pacified the East, and now Caesar is pacifying Gaul,” said Eco. “What’s left for Crassus?”

“He’ll simply have to look further afield,” said Meto.

“Well, Egypt is as far as I care to cast my thoughts,” I said, and proceeded to relate what I had learned from Dio on the night before I left Rome. From his proximity to Caesar and his staff, Meto already knew a little about the murders of the Alexandrian envoys, but had not realized the scale of the scandal. He seemed genuinely appalled, and I found myself wondering how someone who had become so inured to the carriage of battle could be alarmed any longer by mere murder. The thought made me uneasy, as I suddenly felt the growing distance between Meto and myself. Then, as I continued to describe the peculiar circumstances of Dio’s visit and my guests’ absurd disguises—the philosopher as a woman, the gallus as a man—Meto burst out laughing. His laughter encouraged me to pile on more details, which made him laugh all the harder. Suddenly the stubbly jaw and the bloodstains faded from my sight. The harrowing tales and the crude soldier’s slang were forgotten. I saw the face of the laughing little boy I had adopted years ago, and found what I had come searching for.

As it turned out, Eco and I were gone from Rome for almost a month, and did not return until after the Ides of Februarius. First a snowstorm detained us. Then I fell ill with a cough in my chest. Then, just as I was well enough to travel, Belbo fell ill with the same complaint. While some men might scoff at postponing a trip to coddle a slave, it made no sense to me to go traveling over dangerous back roads with a sick bodyguard. Besides, I welcomed the excuse to spend more time with Meto.

On the way back, we happened to cross the Adriatic using
the same intrepid boatman and in the same boat as before. I had no trouble getting Eco to pause for a few moments in the temple of Fortune before we set sail. Happily for our crossing, the sky was clear and the waters were calm.

Back in Rome, Bethesda seemed to be in considerably better spirits than when I had left. Indeed, her attentions to me on the night of my return could have stopped the heart of a weaker man. Once there had been a time when a month’s separation was enough to build our appetites for each other to a ravenous pitch; I had thought those days were long gone, but on that night Bethesda managed to make me feel more like a youth of twenty-four than a bearded grandfather of fifty-four. Despite the aches and pains of the previous days’ long hours on horseback, I arose the next morning in excellent spirits.

As we ate our breakfast of Egyptian flatbread and millet porridge with raisins, Bethesda caught me up on the latest gossip. I sipped at a cup of heated honeyed wine and listened with only half an ear as she explained that the miserly senator across the way was finally putting a new roof on his house, and that a group of Ethiopian prostitutes appeared to have taken up residence at the home of a rich widower who keeps an apartment up the street. When she turned to affairs down in the Forum, I paid closer attention.

Bethesda had a soft spot for our handsome young neighbor Marcus Caelius, the one whom I had run into on the night before my departure. According to Bethesda, Caelius had just finished prosecuting a case which had set the city abuzz.

“I went down to watch,” she said.

“Really? The trial, or the prosecutor?”

“Both, of course. And why not?” She became defensive. “I know quite a lot about trials and the law, having lived with you so long.”

“Yes, and Marcus Caelius is exceptionally good-looking when he gets himself all wound up with an exciting oration—eyes
flashing, veins bulging on his forehead and neck . . .”

Bethesda seemed about to respond, but thought better of it and stared at me straight-faced.

“A prosecution,” I finally said. “Against whom?”

“Someone called Bestia.”

“Lucius Calpurnius Bestia?”

She nodded.

“You must be mistaken,” I said, with a mouth full of millet.

“I think not.” Her expression became aloof.

“But Caelius supported old Bestia for the praetorship last fall. They’re political allies.”

“Not any longer.”

This was entirely credible, given Caelius’s reputation for fickleness, both in love and polities. Even when he was publicly allied with a candidate or cause, one could never be quite sure of his real intentions. “On what charge did he prosecute Bestia?”

“Electoral bribery.”

“Ha! In the fall he campaigns for Bestia, and in the spring he tries the man for illegal campaigning. Roman polities!” I shook my head. “Who defended?”

“Your old friend Cicero.”

“Oh, really?”

This added a new wrinkle to the matter. Marcus Caelius had made his entry into public life as Cicero’s pupil and protégé. Then, during the turmoil of Catilina’s revolt, he parted ways with his mentor—or perhaps he only pretended to do so, in order to spy for Cicero. Throughout that tumultuous episode, Caelius’s real allegiance remained a mystery, at least to me. Afterward, Caelius left Rome for a year of government service in Africa. On his return he seemed to have left the camp of his old mentor for good, going up against Cicero in court and actually getting the better of the master orator. Later, when the Senate exiled Cicero and his
enemies went on a rampage and destroyed Cicero’s beautiful house on the Palatine, it was my neighbor Marcus Caelius who came knocking at my door with the news—complaining that the windows of his apartment afforded no view and asking if he could watch the flames from my balcony! The way the lurid glow danced on his handsome face, it was impossible to tell whether Caelius was appalled or amused, or perhaps a little of both.

After much political wrangling, the Senate had recalled Cicero from exile, and he was back in Rome. His house on the Palatine was being rebuilt. And now, according to Bethesda, he had again matched wits in a court of law with his one-time pupil Marcus Caelius.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” I said. “How did the case come out?”

“Cicero won,” Bethesda said. “Bestia was acquitted. But Caelius says the jury was bribed and vows that he’s going to prosecute Bestia again.”

I laughed. “Tenacious, isn’t he? Having once defeated Cicero in court, I imagine he simply can’t stand being bested by his old teacher this time. Or did a single speech not suffice for Caelius to adequately slander Bestia?”

“Oh, for that purpose I think the speech did very well.”

“Full of venom?”

“Dripping with it. In his summation Caelius brought up the death last year of Bestia’s wife, and the death of his previous wife before that. He practically accused Bestia of poisoning them.”

“Murdering one’s wives can’t have much to do with electoral bribery.”

“Perhaps not, but the way Caelius brought it up, it seemed entirely appropriate.”

“Character assassination,” I said, “is the cornerstone of Roman jurisprudence. The prosecutor uses any means possible to destroy the accused’s reputation, to make it seem more likely that he’s committed whatever crime he’s accused of.
It’s so much easier than producing actual evidence. Then the defender does the same thing in reverse, accusing the accusers of various aborninations to destroy their credibility. Strange, to think that once upon a time I actually had a certain amount of respect and even admiration for advocates. Yes, well, I’ve heard the rumors that Bestia did his wives in. Both died relatively young, with no preceding illness and without a mark on them, so naturally people say he poisoned them, though even poison usually leaves some evidence.”

“There wouldn’t have been much evidence if it was done the way that Marcus Caelius implied,” said Bethesda.

“And how was that?”

She sat back and cocked her head. “Remember that this was said in a court of law, before a mixed audience of men and women alike, not in a tavern or at one of his orgies. Marcus Caelius is a very brazen young man.” She did not sound wholly disapproving.

“And a brazen orator. Well, out with it. What did he say?”

“According to Caelius, the quickest of all poisons is aconitum.”

I nodded. Many years of investigating the sordid means of murder have given me some familiarity with poisons. “Aconitum, also called panther’s-death, harvested from the scorpion-root plant. Yes, its victims succumb very quickly. But when swallowed in sufficient amount to cause death, there are usually noticeable reactions in the victim and plentiful evidence of foul play.”

“Ah, but according to Caelius, the poison was not
swallowed
.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“According to Caelius, if aconitum touches a woman’s genitals, she will die within a day.”

I raised an eyebrow. Even with all my experience of poison, this bit of information was new to me, and I was not sure I believed it. “What Caelius says is possibly true—
though I’m inclined to wonder how anyone could ever have discovered such a curious thing. But then, I suppose there’s not much that Marcus Caelius doesn’t know about female genitalia.”

“Ha!” Bethesda’s eyes sparkled. “Even Cicero didn’t come up with that one.”

I turned up my palms to show modesty. “So, Caelius accused Bestia of having poisoned his wives by . . .” I left the sentence unfinished. There seemed no delicate way to complete it.