There was a skittering sound, like a knife skipping over stones, and something sharp jabbed my side. I honestly believed, with the kind of faith reserved for the purist vestals, that my knife had somehow come skidding back to me, simply because I willed it to. I might have reached for it had I not been using both arms in a failing attempt to hold Glaucia off me. I stared into his eyes, fascinated by the sheer hatred I saw there. Suddenly he looked up, and in the next instant there was a stone the size of a bread loaf somehow attached to his bandaged forehead, as if it had popped out of his brain, like Minerva from Jupiter's brow. It stayed there, as if glued to the spot by the blood that abruptly oozed about the connection — no, the stone was held there by the two hands that had brought it crashing down. I rolled up my eyes and saw Tiro upside-down against a blue sky above.
He did not look happy to see me. He kept hissing something at me, over and over, until my hand (not my ear) finally apprehended the word knife. I somehow twisted my arm in an impossible backwards bend, snatched my knife from where Tiro had kicked it and snapped it upright before my chest. There is no word in Latin, but there should be one, for the weird sensation of recognition I felt, as if I had done the exact thing once before. Tiro lifted the heavy stone and brought it down again on Glaucia's already smashed forehead, and the giant collapsed like a mountain on top of me, impaling his exploding heart upon the full length of Eco's blade.
'Suffer this wickedness no longer to stalk abroad in the land' a distant voice was crying. 'Banish it! Deny it! Reject it! It has delivered many Romans to a terrible death. But worse than that, it has robbed our spirits. By besieging us with cruelty hour upon hour, day after day, it has benumbed us; it has stifled all pity in a people once known as the most merciful on earth. When at every moment in all directions we see and hear acts of violence; when we are lost in a relentless storm of cruelty and deceit; then even the kindest and gentlest among us may lose all semblance of human compassion.'
There was a pause, and then a great echoing thunder of applause. Confused and covered with blood, I thought for a moment that the cheering must be for me. The walls of the latrine did, after all, look something like the walls of an arena, and Glaucia was as dead as any dead gladiator. But gazing up I could see only Tiro, who was straightening his tunic with a look of exasperation and disgust
'I wasn't there for the summation!' he snapped. 'Cicero will be furious. By Hercules! At least there's no blood on me.' With that he turned and disappeared, leaving me buried beneath a great quivering mass of dead flesh.
Cicero won his case. An overwhelming majority of the seventy-five judges, including the praetor Marcus Fannius, voted to acquit Sextus Roscius of the charge of parricide. Only the most partisan Sullans, including a handful of new senators who had been appointed directly by the dictator, cast votes of guilty.
The crowd was equally impressed. Cicero's name, along with bits and pieces of his oration, was spread all over Rome. For days afterwards one might walk by the open windows of a tavern or a smithy and hear men who had not even been there repeat some of Cicero's choice jabs at Sulla or exclaim at his audacity in attacking Chrysogonus. His comments on farm and family life, his respect for filial duty and the gods were noted with approval. Overnight he gained a reputation as a brave and pious Roman, an upholder of justice and of truth.
That evening a small celebration was held in the home of Caecilia Metella. Rufus was there, glowing and triumphant and drinking a bit too much wine. So were those who had sat with Cicero at the bench of the accused, Marcus Metellus and Publius Scipio, along with a handful of others who had assisted the defence behind the scenes in some way. Sextus Roscius was given a couch at his hostess's right hand; his wife and eldest daughter sat demurely in chairs behind him. Tiro was allowed to sit behind his master so that he could take part in the celebration. Even I was invited and given my own couch to recline upon and assigned my own slave to fetch dainties from the table.
Roscius may have been the guest of honour, but all conversation
revolved around Cicero. His fellow advocates cited the finer points of his oration with gushing praise; they picked at Erurius's performance with devastating sarcasm and laughed out loud recalling the look on his face when Cicero first dared to utter the name of the Golden-Born. Cicero accepted their praise with genial modesty. He consented to drink a modicum of wine; it took very little to bring a flush to his cheeks. Throwing aside his usual caution and no doubt famished from fasting and exertion, he ate like a horse. Caecilia praised his appetite and said it was a good thing he had made a victory party possible, or else all the delicacies she had ordered her staff to prepare in advance — sea nettles and scallops, thrushes on asparagus, purple fish in murex, figpeckers in fruit compote, stewed sow's udders, fattened fowls in pastry, duck, boar, and oysters ad nauseam — would have ended up being dumped in a Subura alley for the poor.
I began to wonder, as I sent my slave after a third helping of Bithynian mushrooms, if the celebration was not a little premature. Sextus Roscius had won his life, to be sure, but he still remained in limbo, his property in the hands of his enemies, his rights as a citizen cancelled by proscription, his father's murder unavenged. He had eluded destruction, but what were his chances of reclaiming a decent life? His advocates were in no mood to worry about the future. I kept my mouth shut, except to laugh at their jokes or to stuff it with more mushrooms.
All night Rufus gazed at Cicero with a passionate longing that seemed invisible to everyone but me; after witnessing Cicero's performance that day, how could I belittle Rufus's unrequited ardour? Tiro seemed quite content, laughing at every joke and even making bold to add a few of his own, but every now and then he glanced towards Roscia with pain in his eyes. Roscia steadfastly refused to look back. She sat in her chair, stiff and miserable, ate nothing, and finally begged her father and her hostess to excuse her. As she hurried from the room she began to weep. Her mother rose and ran after her.
Roscia's exit set off a peculiar contagion of weeping. First it struck Caecilia, who was drinking faster than anyone else. All night she had been vivacious and full of laughter. Roscia's exit plunged her into a sudden funk. 'I know,' she said, as we listened to Roscia sobbing from the hallway, 'I know why that girl weeps. Yes, I do.' She nodded tipsily. 'She misses her dear, dear old grandfather. Oh, my, what a sweet man he was. We must never forget what really brings us together here on this night — the untimely death of my dearest, dearest Sextus. Beloved Sextus. Who knows, had I not been barren all these years…' She reached up and blindly fussed with her hair, pricking her ringer on the silver needle. A bead of blood welled up on her fingertip. She stared at the wound with a shudder and began to cry.
Rufus was instantly at her side, comforting her, keeping her from saying something that might embarrass her later.
Then Sextus Roscius began to weep. He struggled against it, biting his knuckles and contorting his face, but the tears would not be stopped. They ran down his face onto his chin and dripped onto the sea nettles on his plate. He sucked in a halting breath and expelled it in a long, shuddering moan. He covered his face with his hands and was convulsed with weeping. He knocked his plate to the floor; a slave retrieved it. His sobs were loud and choking, like a donkey's braying. It took many repetitions before I recognized the word he cried out again and again: 'Father, Father, Father…'