The River God's Vengeance(32)
6
WE WERE ALL BUT STAGGERING with fatigue by the time we reached my doorway. Inside, Julia rushed forward to greet me, then stood back.
“Decius, where have you been?” Her expression was almost comically horrified.
“The Puticuli,” I told her. “Actually, I feel rather lucky. That’s usually a one-way trip for those who go out there.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I want to hear about this.” She all but snatched my toga off, sending me spinning. She tossed it to a slave and said, “Take this up to the roof and spread it out on the arbor to air. Decius, take that tunic off and put on a clean one. We have guests.”
“Guests? I wasn’t expecting any.” She hustled me into our bedroom, yanked my tunic off over my head, opened a chest, drew out another, gave it a shake, drew it down over my head, settled and belted it, all with amazing speed and talking the whole time.
“How can you expect anything? It’s still dark when you leave the house in the morning, and it’s dark before I see you again. I’ve had slaves out looking for you all evening, but they couldn’t locate you.”
“It’s been a busy day, as they’ve all been lately. Who is here?”
“Your father, for one, and some other distinguished men. They were about to leave in a bad temper, but I refilled their cups and persuaded them to stay just a little while longer.”
“Just what I needed,” I said. “Father in a good temper is unpleasant enough. Who are the others?”
“You’ll see for yourself, won’t you?” she said, impatiently. “Now stop wasting time.” With a palm at my back, she pushed me into the triclinium, where my father and the others sat sipping wine around a brazier of glowing coals, brought in to take the chill off the air. Even if the African breeze was melting the mountain snows, Roman evenings were still cool at that time of year. With him were two other Metelli, Scipio and Nepos, and a man I recognized from the Senate meetings he had presided over a few years previously.
“About time,” Father groused. “You haven’t been out carousing as usual, have you?” My father, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Elder, who had held every public office including the censorship, still treated me as a child even though I held office. Legally it was his right to do so, since he had never seen fit to go through the manumission ceremony that would have granted me full adult status. By law, I married and held property only at his whim. This was yet another of those quaint old customs that cause me to wonder how we Romans ever amounted to anything in the world.
“Your son is an incredibly busy man,” said Marcus Valerius Messala Niger. “Especially since, unlike too many of our aediles, he is so attentive to the duties of his office.” This from a man who, as I was rapidly learning, had used his own offices only to enrich himself at sore cost to the citizens. I hated to think what his provincial administrations must have been like. He was a burly, balding man with a ready smile and blue eyes that twinkled merrily.
“We all remember what it was like to be an aedile,” Nepos said. His presence was almost as great a puzzle as that of Messala. He was a lifelong adherent of Pompey’s, making him the only prominent member of my family who was not of the anti-Pompeian faction. Here was yet another evidence of the family’s new tilt.
I took a cup from the table and tried to get some of the taste of the Puticuli out of my mouth. “What brings such distinguished visitors at this odd hour?” I asked. “Not that you would not be welcome at any hour, of course. And such an oddly assorted company, too.”
“A number of things,” Father said. “Surely you have not forgotten that the three of us”—he indicated himself, Scipio, and Nepos—”are all contributing substantially to your Games?”
“I could hardly forget. Speaking of which—” and I told them about Milo’s pet thugs. They listened carefully to the list of names, nodding with enthusiasm.
“This is splendid news,” Scipio said. “I’ve seen all of those men fight, and they’re at the top of the first rank. Celer will have the best funeral games ever.”
“And to get them so cheap!” Father gloated.
“Clodius will be enraged,” said Messala. “He’ll say these are Milo’s games.”
“Forget Clodius,” Nepos advised. “He’s just Caesar’s dog, and Caesar is kicking in for Decius’s munera, as his wedding present for his niece. Now, if you would like something really unusual to liven up the proceedings, I know two senators who’ve fallen out over some mutual accusations of bribery. They’re eager to fight it out, and they’ve told me they’ll volunteer to fight in your munera, Decius.”