Saturnalia(41)

“This has always been one of my favorite sights since I was a child,” Julia said, as the flickering or blazing lights spread over the Forum and the rest of the city. “It’s how I pictured Olympus or the cities in old Greek myths. How sad that it’s only for a day and two nights.”

“But the whole point of holidays is that they’re unlike other days of the year,” I pointed out.

“I suppose so,” she said, taking a long swallow. I had the distinct feeling that, like everybody else, she had started much earlier in the day. “All right, Decius, why are you here? I’ve already heard gossip that you and Clodius have called a truce, and that’s like hearing somebody discovered a lost book of the Iliad where Patroclus catches Hector and Achilles in bed together. Tell me what you’re here for and let me help you.

So I told her. I knew it was useless trying to keep secrets from her, although I didn’t see how she could help out in this case. Something kept me from giving a full account of the episode in the striga’s booth. The experience still upset me. I had to go back for refills before I got the whole account out.

“You’ve done a lot, considering you’ve been in the city less than three full days.”

“I pride myself on my diligence,” I said.

“Clodia! I wish you could stay clear of that woman. She’s perfectly capable of poisoning, and I was sure she has. Do you really think she might be innocent?”

“Only because so many others seem to have had equal if not greater reasons to do away with him. I am sure now that he was poisoned, else why kill the herb woman? It must have been to cover whoever bought the poison from her. But why are these Marsi threatening me? I would think they should want the killer brought to justice.”

Julia’s brow wrinkled in deep thought. There were times when she could see the patterns in things better than I could, probably because she didn’t have to deal with all the violence that kept me continually on my toes. She always claimed that it was because she drank so much less.

“There is one common factor that keeps cropping up in all this, if you can ignore the witches long enough.”

“They’re pretty hard to ignore,” I said. “What factor?”

“Gaul. Murena and his brother were in command there not so long ago. Celer was to have Transalpine Gaul for his proconsular province, but Flavius took it from him and Celer died before he could get the courts and the Senate to give it back. He spent his whole consulship fighting Pompey, and Pompey wanted that Gallic command.”

“Instead,” I said, turning over the possibilities in my mind, “your uncle Caius Julius got the whole of Gaul for five years.”

“My uncle had nothing to do with killing Celer!” she insisted. She still had a blind spot for Caesar, although by then his ambitions were plain to everybody.

“Gaul. I don’t know, Julia. We’ve been occupying and colonizing and fighting in that place for so long that hardly anyone of public consequence hasn’t had some connection with it. I’ve been there myself more than once on military or diplomatic duties.”

“But so many of them connected with the murders, and so recently! Right now, Gaul is the biggest plum to be picked. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to poison my uncle. You know Pompey wants Gaul.”

“Caesar is too smart for that,” I said, with the clarity of vision that wine sometimes bestows upon me. “He finally got Pompey’s veterans their settlement. With his disgruntled soldiers behind him, Pompey was a force to be reckoned with. Even with a good war in view, they may be difficult to pry off their fat Campanian farms now.” It had been a neat bit of maneuvering now that I thought of it, the way Caesar had protected himself from treachery by Pompey.

“Besides,” I went on, “Lisas told me that it may turn into a fight with the Germans, not just the Gauls. There’s precious little loot to be had fighting the Germans.”

“Germans?” she said sharply. “What’s this?”

So I had to explain my talk with Lisas in some detail. She followed my recital closely, with a Caesar’s quick grasp of political and military nuance.

“Do you think you can trust that scheming Egyptian?”

“I don’t see what advantage there would be for him in making it up,” I told her. “It could be catastrophic for your uncle. It won’t be the war he was counting on.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He is equal to anything, including big armies of bigger barbarians. When he comes back from Gaul, he’ll celebrate the biggest triumph ever seen in Rome.”