Murder on the Appian Way (21 page)

Baby Face and his troop of gladiators closed ranks around us like an armoured tortoise for the walk down the Ramp, across the Forum and through the Fontinalis Gate. We crossed the traditional boundary of the city as we stepped through the gate, but the Flaminian Way was just as crowded with buildings outside the wall as within. Gradually the buildings became smaller and fewer until we came to an open area. The disused public voting stalls were off to our left. Up ahead to the right was a high, guarded gate that opened at our approach.

The paved path led up through terraced gardens, sometimes sloping, sometimes in steps, switching right and left as it ascended. The grounds on either side were mantled with winter greys and browns, the dreariness of the naked trees and bushes relieved here and there by statues in marble or bronze. A regal swan that might have been Jupiter courting Leda graced a small circular pool. We passed a low wall where a slave boy sat pulling a thorn from his foot, painted in such lifelike colours I might have mistaken him for flesh and blood except that he was naked under the cold sun. I saw no gods or goddesses in the garden, until we came upon the requisite Priapus, guardian and motivator of growing things, occupying a stone alcove set into a high hedge, grinning lasciviously and displaying an erection almost as large as the rest of him. The crown of his marble phallus had been rubbed shiny-smooth by passing hands.

We came at last to the villa, where more gladiators stood guard before a pair of tall wooden doors with bronze fittings. Baby Face told us to wait while he went inside.

Eco tugged at my sleeve. When I turned there was .no need to ask what he wanted to show me. The view was spectacular. Tangled branches and treetops hid the path we had just ascended, as well as the Flaminian Way and the voting stalls immediately below us, but above and beyond the treetops the whole Field of Mars lay open before us. The ancient marching grounds and equestrian training courses had all but vanished in the course of my lifetime, filled up by cheap tenements and jumbled warehouses. Dominating everything else was the great complex built by Pompey in his consulship two years back, a sprawling mass of meeting halls, galleries, fountains, gardens and the city's first permanent theatre. Farther on, like a great arm curving around the Field of Mars, was the Tiber, its course marked by a low, thick blanket of river mist that allowed only glimpses of the gardens and villas on its other bank. Clodia's garden villa, where the stylish young men of Rome used to swim nude for her amusement, was somewhere on that distant bank. The whole scene was like a painting done in muted winter hues of rust-red and grey-green, bone white and iron blue.

Eco tugged at my elbow again and nodded towards the south. The mass of the villa blocked the view of most of the city proper except for a narrow glimpse of the temples on the Capitoline Hill and a jumbled cityscape beyond. Far away, perhaps on the Aventine Hill, a plume of smoke rose like a vast marble pillar into the still air. Whatever chaos reigned at the base of that pillar, it was too far away for us to see or hear. Did a man begin to feel remote and uncaring, looking down on Rome from such a high place? Or did he become even more acutely aware of buildings burning out of control and chaos in the streets, surveying Rome from such a godlike vantage point?

The doors behind us opened with a clank. Baby Face emerged, smiling grimly. "The Great One will see you now."

I must have been rather nervous as Baby Face ushered us through the foyer, into the atrium and up a curving flight of stairs, because afterwards, when Bethesda asked me, I couldn't remember a thing about the furnishings and fixtures, though I could vividly recall that my mouth was as dry as vellum and my heart seemed to have swollen to twice its normal size.

We were led to a room of many windows at the southwest corner of the house. Curtains and shutters had been pulled back to allow an expansive view of the city. The column of smoke off to the south which we had glimpsed from the doorstep was at the centre of this view, and was joined by two more pillars of smoke, closer and off to the left, probably made by fires on the Esquiline Hill or down in the Subura. Pompey stood at the windows, his back to us. He was only a silhouette at first, a crown of unkempt curls above powerful shoulders and a robust, well-padded torso. As my eyes adapted to the light I saw that he wore a long, voluminous woollen robe of emerald green. His hands were joined together behind his back, his fingers tapping nervously against each other. He heard us enter and slowly turned around. Baby Face moved inconspicuously into a corner. I glimpsed the shadow of another guard on the balcony outside the windows.

Pompey was the same age as Cicero, which meant that he was a few years younger than me. I could have wished for as few wrinkles, though not for as many chins. It occurred to me that Pompey might be the sort of man who turns to food in a crisis. Commanding armies on the march kept him busy and fit. Holed up in his Pincian villa, he had taken on the weight of the world.

But there were no puns in my mind at that moment. This was not Fulvia or Clodia, mysterious and grimly determined but made vulnerable by their sex. Nor was it Cicero or Caelius, a known quantity with whom I could exchange careless banter. This was Pompey.

When he was young, poets had swooned for his beauty. With his luxuriant, wind-tossed locks of hair, his smooth brow and chiselled nose, people had called the boy general another Alexander even before his military prowess proved them right. Young Pompey's typical expression had been a placid, dreamy half smile, as if the contemplation of his own future greatness kept him perpetually cheerful but also a bit aloof. If his face had a flaw, it was a tendency to roundness and a fullness in his lips and cheeks that appeared either ripely sensual or pleasantly plump, depending on the angle and the light.

As he grew older his face seemed to flatten a bit and to grow even rounder. The chiselled nose became fleshy. The wild locks were shorn in deference to maturity. The smile became less sensual, more complacent. As his prestige and power grew, it was as if Pompey had less need of physical beauty, and so put aside the comely garment of his youth.

All this I had seen from a distance as Pompey built his career, orating in the courts of law, campaigning for office on the Held of Mars, cutting a great swathe through the Forum attended by his vast retinue of military and political lieutenants, each of those lieutenants in turn attended by his own coterie of followers seeking favours at second hand from the Great One. But what cannot be seen from a distance are a man's eyes, as I now saw Pompey's eyes staring into mine with a disconcerting intensity. For some reason I recalled a famous quote from his youth. When he was sent to drive the dictator Sulla's enemies out of Sicily, the people of the liberated city of Messana had complained that Pompey had no jurisdiction over them because of ancient agreements between themselves and Rome. Pompey had replied, "Stop quoting laws to us. We carry swords."

"Gordianus the Finder," he said, "and your adopted son Eco." He smiled to himself and nodded, as if pleased that he could remember such insignificant details without a slave to remind him. "We haven't met before, have we?"

"No, Great One."

"I didn't think so."

The silence that followed was uncomfortable for me, but apparently not for Pompey, who paced slowly before us, his hands still clasped behind his back. "You've had a busy day," he finally said.

"Pardon, Great One?"

"Clodia comes by to carry you off in her litter. You pay a call on Fulvia. I suppose Sempronia was there, as well. No sooner are you home than Cicero's freedman comes calling, and you and your son are off to confer with Cicero and Caelius. Milo wasn't there today, was he?"

I started to answer, then realized that Pompey was looking not at me but at Baby Face, who shook his head and answered, "No, Great One. Milo hasn't left his house all day."

Pompey nodded and returned his gaze to me. "But you've met with Milo before, under Cicero's roof"

It was not a question, but it seemed to require a response — an admission, rather than an answer. "Yes."

"It's been quite a while since I saw Titus Annius Milo. How is he looking these days?"

"Looking, Great One?"

"He's always been so proud of his powerful physique, naming himself after Milo, the legendary wrestler of Croton, and all that. Is he holding up?"

"He appears fit enough."

"And his state of mind?"

"I'm not privy to that, Great One."

"No? But you're a reader of signs, are you not? Surely you read something from his face, his voice."

"Milo is anxious, angry, uncertain. But you hardly need me to tell you that."

"No, I do not." His smile seemed without irony, merely a gesture of appreciation for not wasting his time. "What did Clodia want with you this morning?" When I hesitated, Pompey frowned. "Don't tell me it's none of my business. It is. Everything that happens in Rome nowadays is my business. What did Clodia want with you?"

"To take me to Fulvia. Only that."

"And what did Fulvia want?"

"Great One, surely words spoken in confidence by a grieving widow —"

"Finder, you make me impatient."

I considered how to answer. "A certain man has approached her. She's uncertain whether to trust him."

"Surely suitors haven't started knocking on her door already!"

"Not a suitor, exactly," I said, though in feet Antony had once been Fulvia's lover, if Caelius was to be believed.

Pompey looked profoundly uninterested. "Well, I won't press you for details; Fulvia's personal affairs are of no immediate importance to me. Did you agree to help her?"

"I haven't yet decided."

"Perhaps I could help. Who knows? I might possess whatever information you're seeking."

It seemed unlikely. Marc Antony was Caesar's man, not Pompey's. "Are you offering to help me, Great One?"

"Perhaps. I'm a reasonable man. If I can give something of value to you, then I imagine you'll be more willing to give me what I want."

"And what is it that you want from me, Great One?"

"I'll come to that in a moment. Do you have any questions for me?"

I thought carefully and saw no danger in asking. "What can you tell me about Marc Antony?"

"Caesar's lieutenant? I know that his father made a mess of clearing out the pirates before the Senate finally gave me the job. And that his stepfather got himself executed for treason at Cicero's behest. And I recall that young Antony went off soldiering in my old stamping grounds out east for a few years before he signed up with Caesar. What else is there to know?"

"Perhaps nothing."

"By Hercules, he's not the one courting Fulvia, is he? I don't see how. He's already married to his cousin Antonia, and that's not the sort of marriage it's easy to step out of. But if he is a suitor, Fulvia would do well to avoid him; that's my advice. Clodius may have been an extortionist and a rabble-rouser, but at least he knew how to bring home the silver; look at that house they ended up in. Young Antony's another matter. Like Caesar and the rest of that circle, always more and more in debt, always selling themselves for the next loan to see them through. They'll come to a bad end, the lot of them. I only hope they don't bankrupt the Republic along with them."

He fell silent and raised an eyebrow in mild surprise — at himself) I realized, for saying- more than he meant to.

"And what did Cicero make of your visit to Fulvia?" said Pompey, pressing on.

I cleared my throat. "He was curious — like yourself Great One."

"He wasn't somehow behind your visit to Fulvia, was he? No? I thought perhaps he'd set you up to be his spy. That would be so very like Cicero. Covert networks, unsigned letters,, messages sent in some secret code invented by Tiro, paid informers, one lurker keeping watch on the next. Like a spider casting webs in all directions. He'd have turned out differently if he'd had any talent as a military man. More action, fewer words. Are you Cicero's spy, Finder?" He disconcerted me again with his gaze.

"No, Great One."

"Perhaps you are and you simply don't know it."

The suggestion surprised me, then made me uneasy. "I think I know all of Cicero's tricks by now."

Pompey raised an eyebrow. "Really? Even I wouldn't make that claim! What do you make of Caelius's behaviour? Why is he standing up for Milo? What's in it for him?"

"Caelius has cast his lot with Cicero; Cicero has cast his lot with Milo."

"So by extension, Caelius is Milo's man?"

"I'm not sure that Caelius is anybody's man." "You speak the truth there, Finder. And what do you make of Milo himself?"

"As I said before, Great One -"

"Yes, I know: 'anxious, angry, uncertain'. But what do you make of him?"

"I met him for the first time only recently — since the death of Clodius."

"Really? No previous connection?" "None."

"But you do have some old connection with Clodius." "No. I did a bit of work for Clodius's sister a few years ago -" He nodded. "When she helped prosecute Caelius for murder. I spoke in Caelius's defence, you may recall." "Yes. I'm afraid I missed your speech."

"It wasn't a very good one. Just as well; a good speech would have been wasted. No one would have remembered it, not after the speech Cicero made that day for Caelius — or against Clodia, should I say? So, Finder, were you ever in Clodius's camp?"

"I was not and I am not."

"And you're not in Milo's camp, either?"

"No."

He appraised me for a long moment, then turned to Eco. "What about you? Like father, like son?"

Eco cleared his throat. "I helped my father when he worked for Clodia, but I never met her brother. I went with my father to Cicero's house today, but I have yet to meet Milo face to face."

"And your loyalties?"

"I'm my father's man."

Pompey smiled. "A loyal son makes the best partisan of all, eh, Finder? But what about your other son, the one who's off in Gaul? Has he not pulled the rest of the Gordiani into Caesar's orbit along with him?"