The Sacrilege(39)

“Wonderful. Rome is full of foreigners and their loathsome religions. I cannot go knocking on the door of every Asiatic or Gaul or African in Rome.”

“You can eliminate most of them easily enough,” Milo said with his usual perspicacity. “It will have to be someone who had doings with Capito. Surely he wasn’t involved with Nubian tribesmen or Arabian camel-herders. Find out what Capito was involved in and you will probably find which foreigner had cause to kill him.”

“That makes sense,” I admitted. “Will you aid me in this as well?”

“Certainly,” he said. “Favor for favor?”

“Whatever you wish,” I said, “but what can a political nobody like me do for you?” I was never under the misapprehension that Milo’s favors were the result of purest generosity and that someday he would require favors of me, but I had assumed that this would happen after I had achieved eminence and influence.

“It is not your political importance that I need just now, but your social prominence. I want you to help me court the lady Fausta.”

I should have seen it coming. “You aim high, my friend.” The moment I said it I knew how stupid it was. Why would a man who planned to control Rome aim low?

“I don’t think the lady herself will see it that way,” Milo said. “She is a Cornelian, but her father came of the poorest branch of the family. Sulla was a patrician beggar who rose high. And she realizes it. Fausta knows that the day of the patrician is past and the future of Rome belongs to men like me.” This was characteristically blunt and perfectly true. Milo was clear-sighted in a way that even Cicero, with his preconceptions and ideals, could never match.

“I shall, of course, be happy to help in any way I can. What would you have me do?”

“As yet I lack the prominence to call upon Lucullus casually. You can do that. Fausta seems to have complete freedom of the house. You should have little difficulty in finding ways to speak with her. Press my suit and see how she reacts.”

“Ahh, Milo, my friend, it is usually customary to approach a woman’s parent or guardian in these matters. In accordance with Sulla’s will, Lucullus has that authority.”

Milo waved a hand, peremptorily dismissing all custom. “As I have said, certain aristocratic practices are of diminishing importance. They are of no concern to me, and I doubt that the lady in question has any use for them either.”

“In that case, I shall be pleased to act for you.”

I left his house amid effusive thanks. This was behavior I did not expect from Milo, whose words were always sincere but usually laconic. It was an indication of how his infatuation with Fausta was altering his manner. I had never seen him change countenance in the face of mortal danger, but this woman made him preoccupied.

It grows dark early at that time of year, so Milo provided Hermes with a torch to light our way home. I was pleasantly befuddled by the wine and greatly bemused by my new commission from Milo. I did not like the idea, but he had done me many favors and I could not refuse him this. I felt that by pursuing Sulla’s daughter he was storing up much trouble and grief for himself, and I was right, but it was not something I could say to him when his motivation was so obviously emotional rather than political.

There were some families I thought it best to avoid. The whole pack of Claudians bore that distinction, as did the Antonines. The family of Sulla was another such. People who have a tyrant among their immediate ancestors are apt to have a magnified idea of their own importance.

Thinking about this led me back to the thing Julia had said that morning that I still could not call up to the surface of my mind. I could not think what the connection might be, but I knew that it was there. I was being more than ordinarily dense, I knew. I could attribute this partly to the wine and partly to the very complicated turns my life had taken since my return from Gaul. And I was about to receive a distraction that would drive it completely from my mind.

“It’s black as Pluto’s bunghole out here,” Hermes groused as we neared my gate.

“That’s because it’s night,” I reminded him. “Night is when it’s dark. It’s daytime that is light.”

“It’s just that it’s dark even for Rome on a moonless night. This torch is about as much use as a one-wick lamp on a night like this.” A second later, he squawked and fell and the torch went out. Without thought on my part, my hands went into my tunic and reemerged with my caestus on one and my dagger in the other.

“What happened, you little idiot?” I demanded.

“I slipped! There’s something slippery on the cobbles.” He cursed mightily as he struggled to his feet.