I stared at Rufus. He blushed and lowered his eyes. Love frustrated may turn to hate, and thwarted desire may long for vengeance. All along he had been a viper, I thought, entrusted with the heart of Cicero's strategy and meanwhile plotting its perversion. You can never trust a noble, I thought, no matter how young and innocent he may appear. Somehow the enemies of Sextus Roscius had twisted his motives to their own ends. He had actually been willing to sacrifice my life and that of Sextus Roscius to see Cicero brought low — it seemed impossible, looking at his boyish face and freckled nose, but of such stuff are Romans made.
I was about to accuse him out loud and expose his secrets — his hidden passion for Cicero, his treachery — but at that instant whatever god had saved my life that night chose to save my honour as well, and I was spared from humiliating myself before a generous client and his highborn admirer.
Tiro made a stifled, choking noise, as if he tried to clear his throat and failed.
As one we turned to look at him. His face was the very image of guilt — blinking, blushing, gnawing his lip.
'Tiro?' Cicero's voice was high and hoarse, despite the leek soup. Yet his face betrayed only mild consternation, as if reserving judgment in expectation of a quite simple and satisfactory explanation.
Rufus glanced at me with fire in his eyes, as if to say: And how could you have doubted me? 'Yes, Tiro,' he said, folding his arms and looking down his freckled nose. 'Is there something you wish to explain to us?' He was more haughty than I could have imagined him. That cold, implacable gaze — is it a mask all nobles carry with them for use at a moment's notice, or is it the one true face they show when all their other masks have fallen away?
Tiro bit his knuckles and began to weep. Suddenly I knew the truth.
"The girl,' I whispered. 'Roscia.' Tiro hid his face and sobbed aloud.
Cicero was furious. He paced the room like a wolf. There were times, as he passed by Tiro, who sat meekly wringing his hands and sniffling, when I thought he would actually strike the poor slave. Instead he threw his hands in the air and shouted at the top of his lungs until he was so hoarse he could hardly speak.
Occasionally Rufus tried to interpose himself, taking on the role of the all-comprehending, all-forgiving noble. He wore the part uneasily. 'But, Cicero, such things happen all the time. Besides, Caecilia need never know.' He reached up to take Cicero by the hand, but Cicero angrily snatched his arm away, blind to Rufus's pained reaction.
'While her household laughs at her behind her back? No, no, Caecilia may have been fooled, just as I was fooled, but you don't think her slaves weren't onto it? There's nothing worse, nothing, than having a scandal take place beneath the very nose of a Roman matron while her slaves laugh behind her back. And to think that I brought such shame into her house! I can never face her again.'
Tiro sniffled and flinched as Cicero swept by. I scratched at the blood on my fingernails and winced at the first intimations of a headache. The light in the atrium showed the first faint blush of dawn.
'Whip him if you must, Cicero. Or have him strangled,' I said. 'It's your right, after all, and no man would object. But save your voice for the trial. By shouting you only punish Rufus and me.'
Cicero went rigid and scowled at me. At least I had put a stop to his constant pacing.
'Tiro may have acted stupidly and even immorally,' I went on. 'Or it may be that he simply acted like any young man eager for love. But there is no reason to believe that he betrayed you, betrayed us, at least knowingly. He was duped. It's a very old story.'
For a moment Cicero seemed to grow calm, drawing deep breaths and staring at the floor. Then he exploded again. 'How many times?' he demanded, throwing his hands in the air. 'How many?' We had already gone over this, but the number of times seemed particularly to irritate him.
'Five, I think. Maybe six,' Tiro answered meekly, just as he had answered every other time Cicero asked the same question.
'Beginning with the first time, the very first time I visited Caecilia Metella's house. How could you have done such a thing? And then, to have gone on doing it in secret, behind my back, behind the backs of her father and her father's patroness, in her very house! Had you no sense of decency? Of propriety? What if you had been discovered? I would have had no choice but to have given you the direst punishment on the spot! And I would have been held accountable. Her father could have brought suit against me, could have ruined me.' His voice had grown so hoarse and grating it made me wince to hear it.
'Hardly likely,' Rufus yawned, 'considering his circumstances.'
'That makes no difference! Really, Tiro, I see no way out of this. Every suitable punishment I can think of is so severe that it makes me shudder. And yet I see no alternative.'
'You could always forgive him,' I suggested, rubbing my sore eyes.
'No! No, no, no! If Tiro were some simple, ignorant labourer, a slave from the bottom rung, a man hardly better than a beast, then his behaviour might be excusable — he would still have to be punished, of course, but at least the crime would be comprehensible. But Tiro is an educated slave, more knowledgeable in the laws than many a citizen. What he did with the young Roscia was not the act of an ignorant creature of impulse, but the conscious choice of a well-taught slave whose master has clearly been much too lenient and much, much too trusting.'
'Oh, in the name of Jupiter, stop, Cicero!' Rufus had finally reached his limit. I closed my eyes and rendered a prayer of thanks to the unseen gods that it was Rufus who had finally spoken and not me, for I had been biting my tongue so hard it nearly bled. 'Can't you see this is useless? Whatever crime Tiro has committed, it's known only to those of us in this room, and to no one else who cares, at least so long as the girl keeps her mouth shut. It's a matter to be handled between you and your slave. Sleep on it and put it out of your mind until after the trial, and meanwhile simply see that he's kept away from the girl. As Gordianus says, save your voice and your anger for more important matters, such as saving Sextus Roscius. What matters now is discovering what Tiro told her and how the information got to our enemies.'
'And why the girl would betray her own father.' I looked wearily at Tiro. 'Perhaps you have some idea about that.'
Tiro looked meekly at Cicero, as if to see whether he had permission to speak or even breathe. For a moment Cicero seemed on the verge of another outburst. Instead he only cursed and turned towards the dimly glowing atrium, tightly hugging himself as if to contain his fury.
'Well, Tiro?'
'It still seems impossible,' he said softly, shaking his head. 'Perhaps I'm mistaken. It's only, when you said it had to be someone in this room who betrayed you, I thought to myself, not me, I've told no one, and then I realized I had told Roscia…'
'Just as you told her all about me on the day I first interviewed Sextus Roscius,' I said.
'Yes.'
'And the very next day Mallius Glaucia and another of Magnus's thugs came to my house to frighten me off the case, killing my cat and leaving their message in its blood. Yes, it seems to me quite likely that your Roscia is the leak in our vessel.'
'But how? She loves her father. She would do anything to help him.'
'This is what she tells you?'
'Yes. That was why she was always pressing me with questions about the investigation, asking what Cicero was doing to help her father. Sextus Roscius always made her leave the room when he talked business and wouldn't tell her or her mother anything. She couldn't stand not knowing.'