The River God's Vengeance(75)
“Maybe we should just smash it up and hide the pieces,” Hermes suggested.
“No, Julia would never forgive me. Besides, it’s too valuable. We’ll just send it out to the country estate, hide it in a goatherd’s hut, or something.”
“You’re going to keep it?”
“Of course I’m going to keep it! Do you think I’m a fool? In two or three years, we can take it out and put it in the shrine Julia wants to build for it. All this will have been long forgotten; there will be new scandals and crimes to divert everyone. There’s no dishonor in accepting a bribe that didn’t buy anything.”
“Is that in the law tables?”
“I think so. I’ll look it up. Now get to bed. I want my writing materials ready at first light; I have a letter to write to Caesar. And find out which of the aedilician messengers is the best rider.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll get it done. You’d better get some sleep, too. If tomorrow is going to be as long and exciting as the last few, you’ll need rest.”
“I will be in shortly,” I told him. He nodded and went back into the temple. He really was maturing well and showed a lot of promise for a conniving young thief.
I needed a little time to myself to get my thoughts in order. He was right when he said that I faced a full day on the morrow. I had made light of it, but I fully expected that at least one attempt would be made on my life, perhaps several, and any of them might be successful.
It seemed to me that never before had I been called upon to deal with a problem that arose so suddenly, involved a business of which I was so ignorant and persons with whom I had not the slightest acquaintance. I was used to having my life threatened over politics or wealth or women. Never had I expected to be fighting for my life on account of lumber. Yet this seemingly trivial matter had caused the deaths of hundreds of Romans as surely as if they had been slaughtered by a foreign army. I was a plebeian aedile, and it was my job to see that justice was done and there was no avoiding it.
Satisfied, I got up and followed Hermes back into the temple. Ceres didn’t look as if she cared about my problems, but she wasn’t really a Roman goddess anyway. I might have appealed to Juno or Minerva, but Ceres was from Greece.
I slept very well in her guest chamber.
12
EVEN BEFORE THE SUN ROSE, the morning was one of furious activity.
I was somewhat surprised to see the other aediles arrive in the early gray light, accompanied by their slaves and their crowds of clients. It transpired that almost all parts of Rome were readily accessible if you didn’t mind taking a circuitous route or using a boat. As they gathered, I was sitting at a table outside the temple, scribbling away on my message to Caesar by the light of several lamps I had dragged outside.
Since I was writing to Caesar in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus, arbiter of all matters concerning Roman religious practice, and since I intended for this letter to be read by the Senate and the various priestly colleges, I wrote in a far more formal style than I usually employed. I found it no easy task to remember all those obscure cases and tenses that had been drilled into me as a boy, many of them leftovers from archaic Latin and never used except in religious matters and in certain types of poetry.
When I finished what seemed to me a creditable document, I handed it to my staff of secretaries and ordered them to make copies of it until I ordered them to stop. They had arrived only minutes before, still yawning and scratching.
“Jupiter protect us!” wailed a voice in the dimness. “Metellus is toiling by lamplight! Surely this is an omen sent by the gods!” This was the occasion of much raucous laughter. The speaker was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the curule aedile. He walked up to my desk, followed by his own pack of fiunkies.
“Why, Lepidus, I hardly recognized you without your fat backside planted in your folding chair.”
“No markets today,” he said, beaming. “I decided to come lend a hand to you poor, sweating drudges. Surely you were expecting me.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t a Senate messenger call on you last night?”
“I’ve been here all night.”
“Decius! This devotion to duty is astounding! Anyway, the interrex has summoned an emergency meeting of the Senate to be held in the Temple of Jupiter tonight before sundown. All the aediles are to assess the condition of the City and submit a report.”
“Fine idea,” I said, “but you can just about see it all from here.” I was thinking that a Senate meeting was just what I wanted.
“Odd sort of fiood, isn’t it?” Lepidus said. The growing light was making the spectacle visible. “All that water just sitting there, more like a lake than a rampaging river. I’ve seen fioods that tore whole buildings from their foundations. I don’t think this one is going to be so bad. Maybe the water will just recede and there will just be some mopping and bailing to do.”