The King's Gambit(10)

Cassandra brought me a dish of fish and wheat porridge, supposedly a sure guardian against the chill of winter, along with heated wine, heavily watered. After the luxurious delicacies of Sergius’s table, it was plain fare indeed. But I felt the better for having downed the mess, and quickly collapsed into bed, still in my tunic, and fell asleep.

It was perhaps two hours before dawn when I awoke to find someone in the room with me. It was black as Pluto’s privy, of course, but I could hear scuffling and the sound of breathing.

“Cato?” I said, not quite awake. “Is that—” A dazzling white light flashed inside my head. When next I was aware of the outside world, it was to hear Cato reproving me.

“This is what comes of moving from your father’s fine mansion to this Subura crib,” he was saying, nodding in agreement with himself. “Thieves and housebreakers all over. Maybe now you’ll listen to old Cato and move back …” He went on in this vein for some time.

I was unable to dispute with him because my head was swimming and my stomach heaving. It was not the effect of my excesses of the day before; I had been soundly bashed on the head by the intruder.

“You are lucky to be alive, master.” This was Cassandra’s voice. “You owe a cock to Aesculapius for your escape. We must wait till full light to find out what’s been stolen.” She was ever a practical soul. That was a question much on my own mind.

Before I could investigate the matter, though, there was still the tiresome routine of the morning report of the vigiles, and my clients’ morning call. All were properly shocked and speculated upon the new depths to which the city had fallen. I am not sure why anyone should have been shocked that my house was broken into, since the crime was so common in the Subura, but all men are baffled when the prominent are victimized along with the poor.

When the light was sufficient, I went through my bedroom to see what was missing. It had already been determined that the intruder had been in no other part of the house. I first unlocked the safe-chest and made sure that everything was there, including Sergius’s silver cup. There was little about that might tempt a thief, and nothing seemed to have been disturbed.

Then I noticed the little pile of personal effects left behind by Paramedes of Antioch prior to his journey to the Styx. Most of the items still lay on my unfolded napkin, resting on a bedside table. They were in some disarray, and the little figurine of Venus lay on the floor. I gathered the items together and at first thought that they were all present. Then I remembered that there had been an amulet of some sort. That was it, an amulet in the shape of a camel’s head, flat on the reverse side, with lettering. It was gone.

That the thing should be missing was mystery enough, but what manner of cat-eyed thief could unerringly find so small an item in such utter blackness? Sorcery came immediately to mind, but I dismissed it. Supernatural explanations are a crutch for those who won’t take the trouble to puzzle out a logical answer.

Despite my ringing head I attended my father’s rising; then we all went to the house of Hortensius Hortalus, since it was a day when official business was forbidden. Hortalus was a large man with a profile of immense dignity. He always seemed to be regarding something to one side of him, so as to present the world with his most gratifying aspect.

When Father presented me, Hortalus clasped my hand with power and sincerity, just as he would have the hand of a street sweeper whose vote he wanted.

“I have just heard about your narrow escape from death, young Decius. Shocking, utterly shocking!”

“Not all that great a matter, sir,” I said. “Just a break-in by some—”

“How terrible,” Hortalus went on, “should Rome lose her young statesmen through her lamentable lack of civic order.” Hortalus was a mealymouthed old political whore who was responsible for at least as much of the city’s violence as any of the gang leaders. “But, to lighter things. Today I sponsor a day of races, in honor of my ancestors. I would be honored if you and your clients would attend me in my box at the Circus.” At this, my spirits rose considerably. As I have said, I am passionately fond of the Circus and the amphitheater. And Hortalus, for all his bad qualities, owned the finest box in the Circus: on the lowest tier, right above the finish line. “You Caecilii are supporters of the Reds, are you not?”

“Since the founding of the races,” my father said.

“We Hortensii are Whites, of course, but both are better than those upstart Blues and Greens, eh?” The two self-styled old Romans chuckled away. The Blues and Greens in those days were the factions of the common men, although their stables were greater than those of the Reds and Whites, and their charioteers better and more numerous. It was a notable sign of the changing times that a rising young politician like Caius Julius Caesar, of an ancient patrician family which traditionally supported the Whites, ostentatiously favored the Greens whenever he appeared in the Circus.