The Year of Confusion(77)

He went to a table beneath an east-facing window and began to unroll the big scroll. “The first part,” he explained, “records the contributions we make to each man’s peculium. These vary in size and frequency according to the man’s length of service and diligence at his work. One who works hard and stays sober can expect to buy his own freedom from the savings in his peculium in five to seven years.” This is the traditional means of assuring obedience and good work from a slave. “They can, of course, keep any tips they receive.” He unrolled the scroll further, revealing figures in a different color of ink.

“Now here,” he went on, “are the records of the free employees’ pay. Men are paid on the day before the calends of each month. Of course,” he grumbled in a lower voice, “with this new calendar, we must refigure everything.”

“Just see if he’s in there,” Hermes growled. He was beginning to overdo it. The man was cooperating after all. I made a signal to back off and Hermes complied, reluctantly. This was one of his favorite games.

“Certainly, certainly. Ah, here he is!” He stabbed a pudgy, beringed finger at a line on which in large letters was written “C DOMIT CIT.”

“You see? Caius Domitius, citizen. This accounts for his slightly higher grade of pay than that of a foreigner, of which we employ a number.”

“Dates?” I asked.

“Last worked for us in Quinctilis of that year.” For those too young to remember, that is the name of the month that Caesar had that very year obtained consent from the Senate to name after himself, July. The Senate would grant him almost anything in those days.

It was looking like another blind alley. “Did he quit or was he dismissed?” I asked him, all but discouraged.

“Hmm, let me see, there’s a notation here. Ah, he went on detached service. That is something we do frequently. A great house or business will lease a man from us fulltime, sometimes a whole company of our messengers, as you mention your legion in Gaul did.”

I felt a tingle. “Who hired him from you?”

“Let’s see—ah, yes, now I remember it. A foreign steward hired him for the household of Queen Cleopatra for the duration of her stay in Rome.”

I thanked him effusively and we went back outside. “I knew it!” I said.

“Knew what?” Hermes asked.

“I knew that scheming Egyptian was up to something.” Have a pygmy shoot me in the nose, would she? We’d see about that.

“But what is she up to? Do you think she ordered the murders?”

“Well, we don’t really know that, but she’s involved somehow.”

“We’ve suspected that for some time. In fact, we still really don’t know much at all, do we?”

“We know that Cleopatra hired Domitius. What we need to find out now is how he got from her household to the stables of Archelaus, and why.” I looked across the street to the tavern catering to the messengers. The painting to one side of the door featured, unsurprisingly, Mercury. On the other side was painted a gladiator. For reasons I have never been able to understand these luckless men have become a popular symbol of good luck and you see them painted everywhere, usually at entrances. “Hermes, I want you to come back here this afternoon when the tavern is crowded. Hang about and see if you can learn anything about our friend Domitius.”

He beamed. “Certainly.”

“You are to stay sober.”

“How can I do that without losing all credibility?”

“You’ll find a way. You are clever. That’s one reason that I gave you your freedom.”

“It wasn’t because of affection? Because of my years of hard work and faithful service? Not to mention the numerous occasions upon which I’ve saved your life or the awful perils we’ve gone through together?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. What now?”

By this time we had turned a corner and entered the Forum. It was even more noisy and chaotic than usual due to Caesar’s building projects. Great cartloads of marble rumbled along the pavement. Others carried wood or brick or the powdery cement which, mixed with gravel and water, made Rome’s uniquely ugly, pinkish concrete. People crowded one another and loudmouths sounded off from the bases of monuments. Unsupervised children darted between the legs of adults, bound upon missions of mischief. Farmers led asses piled with produce toward the vegetable markets beyond, peddlers hawked their wares in blissful violation of the laws banning such activities in the Forum. Mountebanks performed with equal contempt for the law, and fortune-tellers had their booths set up along the porticoes, tempting the anxious with prophecies of good luck and the favor of the gods.