The Year of Confusion(75)
“Do you patrician women do anything that doesn’t revolve around that temple?”
“It’s convenient. Common women get together at the corner fountain or the laundry to meet and gossip. The rich freedwomen and wives of the equites gather at the expensive shops on the north end of the Forum. We have the Temple of Vesta. To be terribly honest, very few even pay attention to the ceremonies except on special days.”
“I always thought it must be something like that. Like senators at the baths in the afternoon.”
I told her about our barely productive visit to the gymnasia, then about the military review on the Field of Mars. Her face fell when I told her about the boots.
“He’s giving his enemies a sword to use against him, isn’t he?” she said.
“I’m afraid so. Everything else they’ve been able to swallow, albeit with poor grace: the triumphal regalia, the ivory staff, the wreath—they’re all the things we allow a triumphing general, although only for a day. But the trappings of royalty? That’s different. The day he shows up in the Senate wearing a diadem there will be a revolt.”
“Do you think he’ll go that far?”
“I fear that the day isn’t far off,” I assured her.
One of Julia’s slaves came in. “There is a messenger outside. He says he bears a missive for my mistress from Callista of Alexandria.”
My eyebrows went up. “What might this portend?”
“I can think of a very easy way to find out,” Julia said. “Send him in.”
The messenger was dressed in the tradition of his guild in a white tunic that exposed one shoulder, brimmed red hat with the silver wings of Mercury attached, sandals with similar wings, and a wing-topped wand twined with serpents. He handed Julia a rolled and sealed letter. I tipped him and told him to wait in the atrium in case she should wish to return a reply. Julia unrolled the thing and read it for an unconscionably long time.
“Well,” I fretted, my patience at an end, “what is it?”
“Don’t rush me, dear, you know I don’t like that.”
So I snapped my fingers at a slave and the well-trained man instantly refilled my cup. It was, as I recall, an excellent Massic.
“It begins with the usual pleasantries. She calls me her sister and says that I have not called upon her in far too long, that she has missed my company dreadfully, yet she doesn’t overdo these formalities the way so many women do. She is a woman of the most exquisite taste.”
“I daresay,” I muttered.
“She invites us to a salon to be held the evening after tomorrow and apologizes for the short notice.”
“Aha!” I said, my ears pricking up finally.
“Aha what?”
“Just aha. Do go on.”
“She says that some astronomers of her acquaintance will be attending.”
“This sounds promising. Perhaps she’s found out something for us.”
“But here is the most interesting part. She says that at sundown, the whole group will go to a small banquet at Cleopatra’s villa.”
“Interesting, indeed. What is the woman up to?”
Julia smiled. “I just can’t wait to find out.”
12
The next morning I woke up realizing what I had missed the previous evening. That messenger with his Mercury garb. I should have thought of it much sooner, but I was finding that, as I got older, some mental processes seemed to be slowing down. The baleful influence of a hostile god, no doubt.
I sent for Hermes, and he arrived while I was about my morning ablutions.
“Hermes, we’re going to the headquarters of the messenger’s guild this morning.” I thrust my face into the bowl of cold water and blew like a beached whale for a while. I straightened and groped for a towel, which Hermes thrust into my hand. The cobwebs and smoke seemed to clear from my head as I dried my face.
“I should have thought of it myself,” Hermes said.
“My thought exactly. What more logical than that our fleet-footed fugitive should work as a messenger? He can keep in training and get paid for it in the bargain.”
“But the guild members are mostly slaves,” he pointed out. “He could be working as a messenger at one of the great houses instead of at the public service.”
“That’s likely,” I said, knowing that men like Cicero carried on huge correspondence and employed full-time messengers. Businessmen sometimes had scores. “But it’s a place to start and there has to be network of information among the community of messengers. It’s not that large a group of men, even in Rome.”
After a few bites of oil-dipped bread we were out the door just as the sun was clearing the roofs of the lowest buildings. Then we turned our steps, as on most mornings, toward the Forum. The headquarters of the messenger’s guild was located near the Curia, since they got a great deal of business from the senators.