The River God's Vengeance(72)

“If I can’t get them before a praetor’s court, if the corruption runs too deep to prosecute them successfully before a jury, then I’ll denounce them before a religious court. The charges are as binding as they are in any civil matter, and the punishments are far worse, no slap-on-the-wrist fines or temporary banishments. Cato’s beloved ancestors set down some genuinely barbarous sentences for offenses that could anger the gods against the whole Roman people.

“This fiood is going to be truly disastrous, and the Assemblies are sure to demand blood to pay for their suffering.”

“That’s going to call for some crowd-pleasing speeches,” Hermes said doubtfully. “Caesar is good at that sort of thing. So is Clodius. It’s not your style.”

“Cato was a popular tribune of the people, and he is a demagogue to match the best of them. He’ll support me. He loves this sort of thing.”

Hermes nodded, lighting another torch with the dying fiickers of the last. “It could work. There’s one thing you’ve got to do first, though.”

“What is that?”

“Live long enough to pull it off.”

“There is that little problem,” I allowed.

“Maybe we shouldn’t try to return to your house tonight. They’ll be out to kill you for sure, now. You have been asking too many questions about too many important people. There’s no way to keep that quiet in a city like Rome. Their best place to ambush you is in the street leading to your door.”

He spoke with some authority. We had fought our way through more than one such ambush on that street. “You may be right,” I acknowledged. “Let’s see what it looks like on the other end of this bridge; then perhaps I can find a friend I can cadge a night’s lodging from, somebody I don’t owe too much money to.”

“That narrows the list,” he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Watch your mouth. I’ve been allowing you too much familiarity lately. It’s time I shortened your leash.” He made no smart reply, so I decided he was learning.

The top of the embankment on the eastern side of the river was still dry; but a few steps down its landward side, the water started. Either the river had overfiowed its banks farther upstream, perhaps in the Campus Martius, and then fiowed down here, or, as I judged more likely, all the sewers had backed up and water was surging up through the drains.

“Needing a ride, neighbors?” The speaker was a boatman who was poling his little craft toward us. From the prow of his boat thrust a long pole with a torch burning on its end, identifying the man as a night fisherman. Ordinarily, he would be out on the river at this hour, where the torch would lure fish near the surface to be caught by his cast net.

“Yes, but we don’t know exactly where we are going,” I told him. “What’s still above water?”

“The whole Forum Boarium is awash,” he said. “So is the Valley of Murcia,” this being the old name of the depression in which lay the Circus Maximus. “The Forum was wet, but not much higher than your ankles, just awhile ago. Might be deeper now.” The area near the Forum was densely populated, though not as densely as the Subura, where I lived.

I looked up to our left, where the Capitol rose in splendor, crowned by the great Temple of Jupiter. Uphill and to our right was the Temple of Ceres on the lower slope of the Aventine Hill, where I had what was termed, sarcastically, my headquarters as aedile. I pointed toward it.

“We could go up there. I have a right to use the place at any hour. The slaves will find couches for us. They hold feasts there, so there must be some sort of furniture.”

“Probably no food, though, or any other comforts,” Hermes said. “You have friends over there on the Palatine.” He nodded toward the hill that rose to the east above the Circus Maximus. “It’s not so far.”

“The problem is,” I said quietly, “I don’t know who my friends are anymore.”

I negotiated with the boatman until we agreed on his fare, and we boarded the boat.

It was a strange, dreamlike experience drifting slowly southward in this place where I had walked all my life. We passed silent buildings, and the water was alive with the rats fiushed from their cellars. We passed other boats and barges as people were ferried to and fro. The boatmen called out to each other, using the peculiar jargon of their trade. The moon was bright, spreading a silvery light over the strange scene. It might have been almost pleasant, except for one thing.

“What a stench!” Hermes said, gagging. Owing to some trick of the still air, the smell had been nearly unnoticeable from atop the embankment; but here, just a few feet from its surface, the foul reek was all but visible, making my eyes water. I had been right. It was the sewers backing up, fiushing years of neglected corruption right back into the City.