'You mentioned Quintus Hortensius,' Tiro said. 'How did you know that it was he who recommended you to Cicero?'
I laughed softly. 'I didn't know. Not for certain. That was a guess, but a good one. The look of amazement on your face immediately confirmed that I was right. Once I knew for a fact that Hortensius was involved, everything became clear to me.
'Let me explain. One of Hortensius's men was here, perhaps ten days ago, sounding me out about a case. The one who always comes to me when Hortensius needs my help — just thinking of the creature makes me shudder. Where do men like Hortensius find such abominable specimens? Why do they all end up in Rome, cutting one another's throats? But of course you wouldn't know about that side of the legal profession. Not yet.
'At any rate, this man from Hortensius comes to my door. Asks me all sorts of unrelated questions, tells me nothing-lots of mystery, lots of posing, the sort of wheedling these types engage in when they want to know if the opposition has already approached you about a case. They always think the enemy has got to you first, that you'll go along and pretend to help them anyway, then stab them in the back at the last moment. I suppose it's what they themselves would do in my place.
'Finally he goes his way, leaving a smell in the foyer that Bethesda can't eradicate with three days' scrubbing, along with only two clues as to what he was talking about: the name Roscius, and the town of Ameria — did I know the one, had I ever been to the other? Roscius is the name of a famous comedian, of course, one of Sulla's favourites, everybody knows that. But that's not whom he meant. Ameria is a little town up in the Umbrian hill country, fifty miles or so north of Rome. Not much reason to go there, unless you want to take up farming. So my answer was no, and no again.
'A day or two passed. Hortensius's handyman didn't come back. I was intrigued. A few questions here and there — it didn't take much checking to uncover what it was all about: the parricide case upcoming at the Rostra. Sextus Roscius of the town of Ameria stands accused of plotting the murder of his own father here in Rome. Odd — no one seems to know much about the matter, but everyone tells me I'm better off staying clear of it. An ugly crime, they say, certain to be an ugly trial. I kept expecting Hortensius to contact me again, but his creature never reappeared. Two days ago I heard that Hortensius had withdrawn from the defence.'
I gave Tiro a sidelong glance. He kept his eyes on the ground as we walked, hardly looking at me, yet I could almost feel the intensity of his concentration. He was an excellent listener. Had he been other than a slave, what a fine pupil he would have made, I thought; and perhaps, in another life, in another world, I might have made a fine teacher of young men.
I shook my head. 'Hortensius and his creature and this mysterious trial — I had put it out of my thoughts completely. Then you showed up at my door, telling me I'd been "recommended" By whom? Possibly, I thought, by Hortensius, who seems to have thought it wiser to pass along the parricide case to someone else. To a younger advocate, probably, someone less experienced. A beginning lawyer who would be excited at the prospect of a major case, or at least a case with such a harrowing penalty. An advocate who wouldn't know any better — who wouldn't be in a position to know whatever it is that Hortensius knows. Once you confirmed that it was Hortensius who'd recommended me, it was simple to proceed to the final pronouncement, steered along at every turn by the reactions on your face — which, by the way, is as clear and easy to read as Cato's Latin.' I shrugged. 'To some extent, logic. To some extent, a hunch. I've learned to use both in my line of work.'
We walked along in silence for a moment. Then Tiro smiled and laughed. 'So you do know why I've come. And you know what I was to ask you. I hardly have to say a word. You make it very easy.'
I shrugged and spread my hands in a typical Roman gesture of false modesty.
Tiro furrowed his brow. 'Now if only I could read your thoughts — but I'm afraid that will take some practice. Or does the fact that you've treated me so well already mean that you agree — that you'll lend your services as Cicero needs them? He understands from Hortensius how you work, the fees you'll expect. Will you do it?'
'Do what? I'm afraid my mind reading stops here. You'll have to be more specific'
‘Will you come?'
'Where?'
'To Cicero's house.' Seeing the blank expression on my face, Tiro searched for a clearer explanation. 'To meet him. To discuss the case.'
This stopped me so abruptly that my scraping sandals actually raised a small cloud of dust. 'Your master truly is ignorant of decorum, isn't he? He asks me to his house. Asks me, Gordianus the Finder? As a guest? How strange. Yes, I think I very much want to meet this Marcus Tullius Cicero. Heaven knows he needs my help. What a strange one he must be. Yes, of course I'll come. Just allow me to change into something more appropriate. My toga, I suppose. And shoes, then, not sandals. It will only take a moment. Bethesda! Bethesda!
2
The journey from my house on the Esquiline Hill to that of Cicero, close by the Capitoline, would take more than an hour of steady walking. It had probably taken Tiro half that time to reach my door, but Tiro had set out at dawn. We left at the busiest hour of the morning, when the streets of Rome are flooded with humanity, all stirred into wakefulness by the perpetual engines of hunger, obedience, and greed.
One sees more household slaves on the streets at that hour than at any other time of day. They scurry about the city on a million morning errands, conveying messages, carrying packages, fetching sundries, shopping from market to market. They carry with them the heavy scent of bread, baked fresh in a thousand stone ovens round the city, each oven sending up its slender tendril of smoke like a daily offering to the gods. They carry the scent of fish, freshwater varieties captured nearby in the Tiber, or else more exotic species transported overnight upriver from the port at Ostia — mud-caked molluscs and great fish of the sea, slithering octopi and squid. They carry the scent of blood that oozes from the severed limbs and breasts and carefully extracted organs of cattle, chicken, pigs, and sheep, wrapped in cloth and slung over their shoulders, destined for their masters' tables and their masters' already bloated bellies.
No other city I know can match the sheer vitality of Rome at the hour just before mid-morning. Rome wakes with a self-satisfied stretching of the limbs and a deep inhalation, stimulating the lungs, quickening the pulse. Rome wakes with a smile, roused from
pleasant dreams, for every night Rome goes to sleep dreaming a dream of empire. In the morning Rome opens her eyes, ready to go about the business of making that dream come true in broad daylight. Other cities cling to sleep — Alexandria and Athens to warm dreams of the past, Pergamum and Antioch to a coverlet of Oriental splendour, little Pompeii and Herculaneum to the luxury of napping till noon. Rome is happy to shake off sleep and begin her agenda for the day. Rome has work to do. Rome is an early riser.
Rome is multiple cities in one. On any given hour's journey across it, one will see at least several of its guises. To the eyes of those who look at a city and see faces, it is first and foremost a city of slaves, for the slaves far outnumber citizens and freedmen. Slaves are everywhere, as ubiquitous and as vital to the life of the city as the waters of the Tiber or the light of the sun. Slaves are the lifeblood of Rome.