The King's Gambit(65)

I await your reply.



I rerolled the scroll, happy to see that my hands had stopped shaking. Gradually, things were falling into place. Paramedes had been murdered as soon as Tigranes had moved to the house of Publius Claudius. It was probably Publius who had been entrusted with the murder, since he was a part of the conspiracy, had his own squad of thugs and simply liked that sort of activity. Something struck me as I closed the lid of the box: The light-footed, nimble-fingered, garrote-wielding foreign boy who was working so much mischief in Rome was probably in the entourage of the versatile Tigranes.

My aunt bade me farewell at the entrance. “Was I justified in letting you see documents entrusted to the goddess?”

“You may have saved Rome,” I assured her.

“Then I am satisfied.” As I was about to leave, she stopped me. “Tell me one thing.”

I turned back. “Yes?”

“That scarf. Is it the new fashion for men to wear them?”

“The very latest,” I assured her. “The military look. Our adventurous generals and their troops are all the rage these days. Soldiers wear them to spare their necks chafing from the armor.”

“Oh. I was wondering.”

I turned and went down the steps, into another dark Roman night.





10


THE NEXT DAY,AFTER MY MORNING duties were taken care of, I sought out expert legal advice. Hortalus was deemed the best lawyer in Rome, but with good reason I was reluctant to seek him out for this, so I looked for Marcus Tullius Cicero, who I was certain was not’ involved in the conspiracy. My search was made easier because one of the augurs had detected unfavorable omens the night before and had canceled public business for the day.

Thus, I found Cicero at home, the one place a Roman in public life was almost never found in the second half of the morning on a day devoted to public work. Cicero’s house was a modest one, although not as modest as mine, and very eccentric in its own way. I found his janitor perusing a scroll as I came to announce myself. All of Cicero’s slaves were scholarly-looking men who could read to him on demand when his eyes grew tired. Every room of his house was lined with shelves bearing stacks of scrolls. He was an easy man to buy gifts for on Saturnalia, because he loved books above all things, original manuscripts by preference, but decent copies were almost as good. If you had a famous manuscript in your possession and hired one of his favorite scribes to copy it as a gift for him, Cicero was your friend for life, or at least until you fell afoul of him politically.

The janitor brought a man to receive me and conduct me to the master. He was a slave a few years older than I, dressed as well as any free man. This was the famous Tiro, Cicero’s secretary and confidant. He had invented an abbreviated system of writing specifically to take down Cicero’s incredibly prolific dictation. He taught it to Cicero’s other slaves and it quickly spread to all Roman scribes. Its use is now universal. He was one of those slaves who was never treated as anything other than a free man by anyone, from cobblers to Consuls.

“If you’ll come with me, sir,” Tiro said. I followed him through a hall redolent of papyrus and parchment and up a flight of stairs onto the roof, where we found Cicero reading in his splendid little solarium. It was a sunny, if somewhat chilly, morning and the light fell in oblique bars through an overhead vine-trellis. Planting boxes topped the low rampart that ran around the roof and a few flowers bloomed to defy winter. Cicero sat at a delicate Egyptian table laden with scrolls, rolls of blank papyrus, pots of ink and a vase full of reed pens. He smiled and stood as I came onto the roof.

“Decius, how good to see you.” He held out his hand and I took it. Then he gestured to a chair. “Please, sit down.” We both sat, and Tiro took a chair just behind Cicero, to his right.

"Most generous of you to allow me a little of your time,” I told him. “Your nonstop activity is the stuff of legends.”

He leaned back and laughed gently. “I think at my birth some malevolent god cursed me with a need to fill my every waking minute with activity.”

“I thought you favored the stars as determinants,” I said.

“Perhaps it was the stars, then. How may I be of service to you?”

“I need advice concerning some difficult points of law.”

“Then I am at your service.”

“Thank you. I know that there is no one in Rome better qualified to advise me.”

“There are those who would hold that Hortalus is a better counselor than I,” Cicero said.

I took a deep breath. “I may have to bring suit against Hortalus.”

Cicero frowned. “He is the patron of your father and yourself, is he not?”