Rufus slumped back against the pillows in utter despair.
'I understand,' I said. 'Though you may find it hard to believe, I do understand. Roscia is of course a fine girl, but consider her situation. There's no honourable way you could openly court her.'
'Roscia?' He looked baffled, then rolled his eyes. 'What do I care about Roscia?'
'I see,' I said, not seeing at all. 'Oh. Then it's Tiro whom you….' I suddenly confronted a whole new set of complications.
Then I realized the truth. In an instant I understood, not by his words or even by his face, but by some inflexion just then remembered, some disconnected moment set next to another in memory, in that way that revelations sometimes come to us unprepared for and seemingly inexplicable.
How absurd, I thought, and yet how touching, for who could help being moved by the earnestness of his suffering? The laws of man strive for balance, but the laws of love are pure caprice. It seemed to me that Cicero — staid, fussy, dyspeptic Cicero — was probably the least likely man in Rome to reciprocate Rufus's desires; the boy could not have chosen a more hopeless object for his infatuation. No doubt Rufus, so young, so full of intense feeling, steeped in the Greek ideals of Cicero's circle, thought of himself as Alcibiades to Cicero's Socrates. No wonder it infuriated him to think of what Tiro and Roscia were enjoying at that very instant, while he burned with an unspoken passion and all the pent-up energy of youth.
I sat back, perplexed and without a word of advice to give him. I clapped and waved to the slave girl and told her to bring us more wine.
21
The stablemaster was not pleased when he saw the farm horse I came riding in place of his beloved Vespa. A handful of coins and assurances that he would be amply rewarded for any inconvenience satisfied him. As for Bethesda, he informed me that she had sulked throughout my absence, that she had broken three bowls in his kitchen, ruined the needlework she had been given and had driven both the head cook and the housekeeper to tears. His steward had begged for permission to beat her, but the stablemaster, true to my demands, had forbidden it. He shouted at one of his slaves to go and fetch her. 'And good riddance^' he added, though when she came striding imperiously out of his house and into the stables, I noticed that he couldn't take his eyes off her.
I pretended to be disinterested. She pretended to be cold. She insisted on stopping by the market on our way home so that we would have something to eat that night. While she shopped I wandered about the street, absorbing the squalid smells and sights of the Subura, happy to be home. Even the pile of fresh dung that we had to bypass on the climb up did not dampen my mood.
The stablemaster's slave Scaldus sat on the ground before the door, leaning against it with his legs outstretched. At first I thought he slept, but at our approach the colossus stirred and rose to its feet with alarming speed. Recognizing my face, he relaxed and grinned stupidly. He told me that he had taken turns with his brother so that the house had never gone unguarded, and that no one else had been there in my absence. I gave him a coin and told him to be off, and he obediently began loping down the hill.
Bethesda looked at me in alarm, but I assured her we would be safe. Cicero had promised to pay for protecting my house. I would find a professional in the Subura before we slept.
She began to speak, and from the way she curled her lips I knew she was about to say something sarcastic. Instead I covered them with a kiss. I walked her backwards into the house and closed the door with my foot. She dropped her armful of greens and bread and clutched at my shoulders and neck. She sank to the floor and pulled me with her.
She was overjoyed to see me again, and she showed me. She was angry at having been left in a strange household, and she showed that as well, clutching her nails against my shoulders and beating her fists against my back, nipping at my neck and earlobes. I devoured her like a man starved for days. It seemed impossible that I had been gone for only two nights.
She had bathed that morning. Her flesh had the taste of a different soap, and behind her ears and on her throat and in the secret places of her body she had anointed herself with an unfamiliar perfume — filched, she told me later, from the private cache of the stablemaster's wife while no one was looking. In the last rays of sunlight we lay exhausted and naked in the vestibule, our sweat leaving obscene imprints on the worn rug. That was when I chanced to look beyond the sleek planes of her body and noticed the message still scrawled in blood on the wall above us: 'Be silent or die.. .'
A sudden breeze from the atrium chilled the sweat on my spine. Bethesda's shoulder turned to gooseflesh beneath my tongue. There was a strange moment in which it seemed that my heart ceased to beat, suspended between the fading light and heat of her body and the message above us. The world seemed suddenly a strange and unfamiliar place, and I imagined I heard those words whispered aloud in my ear. I might have read this as an omen. I might then have fled from the house, from Rome, from Roman justice. Instead I bit her shoulder, and Bethesda gasped, and the night continued to its desperate conclusion.
Together we lit the lamps — and though she showed a fearless face, again Bethesda insisted that every room be lit. I told her she should come with me down to the Subura to shop for a guard, but she insisted on staying behind to cook the meal. I felt a pang of dread at the idea of leaving her alone in the house even for a short while, but she was adamant and only asked me to be quick. I could see that she was choosing to be brave and that in her own way she wanted to reassert her power over the house; in my absence she would burn a stick of incense and perform some rite learned long ago from her mother. After the door closed behind me, I listened to make sure she bolted it securely from within.
The moon was rising and nearly full, casting a blue light over the quiet houses on the hillside, making the tile roots look as if they had been scalloped from copper. The Subura was a vast pool of light and muted sound below me, that swallowed me up as I quickly descended the hill until I stepped onto the busiest night-time street in Rome.
I could have found a gang member on any corner, but I didn't want a common thug. I wanted a professional fighter and bodyguard from a rich man's retinue, a slave of proven worth who be could trusted. I went to a little tavern tucked behind one of the more expensive brothels on the Subura and found Varus the Go-Between. He understood what I wanted immediately, and he knew my credit was good. After I had bought him a cup of wine he disappeared. Not too long after he returned with a giant in tow.
They made quite a contrast walking into the dim little room side by side. Varus was so short he came only to the giant's elbow; his bald pate and ringed fingers shone in the light while his doughy features seemed to soften and run together in the glow of the lamps. The beast beside him looked hardly tamed; there was a brooding red light in his eyes that didn't come from the lamps. He gave an impression of almost unnatural strength and solidity, as if he had been built out of granite blocks or tree trunks; even his face had the look of having been chiselled from stone, a rough model discarded by a sculptor who decided it was too brutal to finish. His hair and beard were long and shaggy but not unkempt, and his tunic was made of good cloth. Such grooming bespoke a responsible owner. He looked as well cared for as a fine horse. He also looked capable of killing a man with his bare hands.
He was exactly the man I wanted. His name was Zoticus.
'His master's favourite,' Varus assured me. 'The man never steps outside his house without Zoticus at his side. A proven killer — broke the neck of a burglar only last month. And strong as an ox, to be sure. Smell the garlic on his breath? His master feeds it to him like oats to a horse. A trick the gladiators use gives a man strength. His master is wealthy, respectable, owner of three brothels, two taverns, and a gaming hall all located in the Subura; a pious man without an enemy in the worid, I'm sure, but he likes to protect himself from the unforeseen. Who wouldn't? Never takes a step without his faithful Zoticus. But especially for me, because he owes a favour to Varus, the man will let me have this creature on loan — for the four days you requested, no more. To repay a long-standing debt he owes me. How very lucky you are, Gordianus, to be a friend of Varus the Go-Between.'