The King's Gambit(7)

“What’s a moneybags like Paulus doing in partnership with a petty Greek importer?” I wondered aloud.

“No opportunity for making money is too small for base cash-breeders like Sergius Paulus,” Opimius said with contempt. No patrician, no plebeian noble, can match the snobbery of a jumped-up commoner like Opimius.

“I’ll call on him this afternoon,” I said. “Junius, be so good as to send a Senate messenger to the house of Paulus and tell him to expect me. Do you think I could pry a lictor loose to accompany me?” Nothing impresses a Roman with one’s power and gravitas more than a lictor bearing the fasces. It is truly amazing how a simple bundle of rods tied about an ax can invest a simple mortal with the majesty and might of the Senate, the People of Rome and all the gods of the Pantheon.

“They’re all assigned,” Junius said. I shrugged. I’d just put on my new toga and hope for the best. The meeting broke up. Opimius was to get a full report on the fire, which was, of course, in his district. I was to look into the murder of Paramedes, which had occurred in my district, and call upon Sergius Paulus, who likewise lived in my district. Rutilius was going to flee back to the Trans-Tiber and hope that none of this would touch him.

I cursed piously as I left the Curia. I would loiter a few minutes to allow the messenger time to reach Sergius’s house, then proceed there myself, stopping at my house on the way to change into my new toga. It would be a long trudge and I would have to forgo my customary bath and midday meal. It was not shaping up into a good day. There had been days when I had had to investigate ten murders before noon, but a hundred ordinary homicides were preferable to one which involved high personages.

There was also the little matter of my career, which could come to an abrupt and premature end should I mishandle this matter. So, I reflected, could my life.





2


THE HOUSE OF SERGIUS PAULUS stood on a back street in the Subura, flanked by a pair of tremendous tenements. I was resplendent in my new toga, whitened with fuller’s earth and only a little dirtied by my progress through Rome’s unsanitary winter streets.

The janitor conducted me into the atrium and I studied the decorations while a slave ran to fetch the master. In contrast to the squalid streets outside, all within was rich and sumptuous. The mosaics were exquisite, the lamps were masterpieces of the bronze-worker’s art, the walls were covered with frescoes superbly copied from Greek originals. All the stone in evidence was fine marble and the roof-beams smelled of cedar.

I had not expected this. While it is true that freedmen often possess great riches, they seldom have taste commensurate with their wealth. I speculated that Paulus had had the sense to buy a good Greek decorator, or perhaps he had a wellborn and educated wife.

Sergius himself arrived with commendable promptness. He was a portly man with a round, hospitable face. His tunic was of plain cut, but its material and dye probably cost more than my whole house and its contents and, probably, its occupants.

“Decius Caecilius Metellus, how honored I am to make your acquaintance!” He grasped my hand and his grip was firm despite the pudginess of his hand. His palm had never suffered manual labor or practice of arms. “You look starved. I know you must be here because of that terrible business this morning, but do let me offer you a bite of lunch before we get down to serious matters.” I accepted gladly and he led me through his lavish peristyle and into the dining room. There was something instantly likable about the man.

I realize that this may sound strange coming from a member of the nobility, a class with a traditional contempt for the new-rich who have made their wealth from commerce and speculation, instead of decently through inheritance, but in this as in many another attitude, I have always differed from the general run of my class. My beloved Rome is made up of a multitude of human types, and I have never sought to banish any of them from my company on a basis other than personal behavior or poor character, or, sometimes, because I simply didn’t like them.

Sergius’s “bite of lunch” consisted of a banquet that would have done the Senate proud at the reception of a new ambassador. There were pickled peacocks’ tongues and sows’ udders stuffed with Libyan mice, deep-fried. There were 1ampreys, oysters, truffles and other rare, exotic delicacies in endless profusion. Whoever handled Sergius’s interior decoration did not moderate his table. It was ostentatious and vulgar and utterly delicious. I did my noble best to do justice to the meal, but Sergius, a notable trencherman, surpassed me easily. Father would have been shocked. The wines were as lavish as the food, and by the end of the meal I was most unprofessionally jovial.