“I am acquainted with the most prominent undertakers. There should be no difficulty. From your description, no detailed examination should be necessary. A quick look should suffice. I shall attend to it this evening.”
“I shall be grateful,” I told him.
“My friend Decius, life is always so much more interesting when you are in Rome. Please feel free to call upon my services.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I told him.
“Try to live that long,” he urged. Asklepiodes had a strange sense of humor, but one must make allowances for Greeks.
As I walked back across the river toward my home in the Subura, I began to regret that I had not thought to arm myself before going out that day. I had been so elated at the prospect of attending my first Senate meeting that it had caused me to be less than cautious. It is forbidden to bear arms within the pomerium and doubly forbidden to carry them into the Curia, but I was prepared to risk censure. A recent attempt on my life always lowered my respect for custom.
Now here I was wandering alone through streets that might harbor Clodius’s minions. Even as I thought this, I was struck by something else: Poison was not his style. Whatever else you could say about Clodius, he was always perfectly willing to kill his enemies with his own hand, right out in public.
But who else was my mortal enemy? I hadn’t offended anyone lately. Only madmen like Clodius nurse grudges year after year, awaiting a chance to strike. I had made my peace with most of my enemies, and the rest of them seemed to have forgotten me. It was all a great puzzle.
I managed to reach my house without homicide and sent for Hermes. My aged slave Cato clucked dolefully.
“Nothing good will come of having that young lout in the house, master. He’s destined for the cross.”
“Most likely. But until that sad day, let’s see what use we can get out of him. Send him in.”
Hermes came in, smirking and swaggering as if he had done something heroic, something praiseworthy. I would have been astounded to learn he had done something moderately honest, but slaves perceive things differently from the freeborn. Sometimes one must humor them.
“What have you to report?” I asked him.
“I followed your friend from the dinner party just like you told me to. He stopped twice on the way to vomit.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “Dinner wasn’t all that rich, and the drinking had hardly started when Capito’s murder broke things up. It must have been the first time he had tried to murder somebody. It may have made him nervous.”
“Ha! So you admit I saved your life!” Hermes crowed.
“Not yet. I’m having the pastries tested. Go on with your report.”
“I followed him over past the Circus and up onto the Palatine to a big town house—”
“I knew it!” I said. “He went to Clodius’s house to report that he’d failed to kill me. I wish I could have seen Clodius’s ugly face when he heard the news!” Then I noticed that Hermes had that smug expression slaves get when they know something you don’t.
“He didn’t go to the house of Clodius, master.”
“Whose, then?” I demanded.
“He went to the house of your kinsman Metellus Celer.”
5
I did not really believe that Celer would try to kill me. We were on good terms, and he and my father were close. I had not forgotten who his wife was, though. But it had been years since Clodia had last tried to have me killed, and I could not think why she would try to do away with me now. Her only possible reason would be that she thought I threatened her brother, for whom she had a more than sisterly fondness.
These things were much on my mind as I prepared for the day. This time, I did not neglect to tuck my dagger and my caestus into my tunic. Best to be safe. Accompanied by Hermes, I set out for Celer’s house. I had no intention of confronting him with Nero’s doings. In the first place, I did not yet have confirmation that any murder attempt had taken place. I would wait and watch.
I stopped at a corner barber’s stall for a shave, then proceeded on toward the Palatine. I was at the base of the hill when I met a well-dressed procession headed toward the Forum, a grim-faced Celer at its head. He did not spare me a glance, and I was not about to attract his attention. I had seen that look before, in Gaul, and it usually meant that traitors were about to be executed. I fell in with the crowd of clients. I noticed that Caesar was there as well, equally grim-faced. I spotted my cousin-by-adoption Scipio Nasica the pontifex and stepped to his side.
“What’s happened?” I asked him in a low voice.
“We don’t know,” he said, equally quiet about it. Everyone looked as if something terrible had happened. “A messenger came during the morning call. He took Celer and Caesar aside and spoke to them in private. Then they came out looking like they do now. Celer announced that an extraordinary meeting of the Senate has been called and has said nothing more.”