Chapter VIII
I descended the steps of the temple, wincing at the pains that enveloped my body like a cloud. I might have persuaded Asklepiodes to lend me a litter and some slaves, but I was determined to walk lest I grow too stiff to move at all. I crossed the bridge to the riverbank. This was the old wooden bridge. The fine stone bridge that now stands there was built the next year by the Tribune Fabricius. In the city, the celebration was still in full roar. Applause greeted me wherever I showed my bandaged head, and red-dripping wineskins were held out to me by the score, but I only sipped at a few, just enough to ease my way to my house. I wanted a dear head that evening. It took a great effort of will, because I desired nothing more than to drink until my pains were forgotten and lose all my cares in the city's festal mood. I was weary of murders and intrigues and scheming politicians and generals.
Ladies wearing the brief tunic and feminine toga of the courtesan offered themselves to me freely, but my mind was so fixed upon a single woman that I was not even tempted. Infatuation is a terrible thing. Musicians wound through the streets playing flutes and cymbals, and behind them danced women in the fashion of Bacchantes; their hair unbound and dressed only in animal skins or flimsy chitons open down one side. This was a Greek custom frequently forbidden by the aediles or the Censors, but it had been a few years since the last censorship and the aediles had more important concerns, anyway. A vendor handed me a flat loaf wrapped around a heap of thin-sliced lamb, fried onions and olives, all of a delightful greasiness. This I devoured hungrily, for I had had nothing since breakfast and I knew I would have to drink with Catilina and his cronies or else be suspect. It was so good that, when another vendor offered me a broad fig-leaf heaped with grilled sausages. I accepted that too. These needed something to wash them down, so I next took a cup of unfermented apple juice at a stall, along with a handful of figs and dates.
Women rubbed themselves against me for luck and 1 did not complain. Men tried to do the same and I did complain. I was hero for a day, but for a day only. The Roman people are infinitely distractable, and I would be forgotten by the next day.
I reached home pleasantly stuffed and let my elderly house slaves fuss over me for a while. They might treat me like a hero for as much as two days, or perhaps even three, if I did nothing to offend them in the meantime. Cassandra wanted to strip the fine bandages from my head and try her favorite poultice on me, but I preferred to trust Asklepiodes's more professional treatment.
When the sun drew low to the west, I donned a decent tunic and opened my arms chest. Inside were my swords, my field armor and my parade armor, my daggers and my caesti. I took a sheathed pugio and thrust it beneath my tunic, under the girdle. Then I took up a caestus . I had won the boxing gloves in a long-ago game and I had stripped one of its complicated straps, leaving only the thick, bronze bar that went over the knuckles. With its half-inch, pyramidal spikes it was just the thing to give an assailant a truly memorable punch. I tested it to make sure the single strap was still snug against my palm and then tucked it beneath my tunic on the other side, where I could reach it easily with my left hand.
I did not fear trouble from Catilina or his men, but it was likely that Clodius and his men might be prowling the city and he was unstable enough to attack me on sight. I would have to watch out for Clodius until someone else should enrage him. That would not be long.
Clodius acquired enemies the way Caesar picked up votes.
Leaving word that I would return late, I left my house and entered the darkened streets. The revelry had quieted some, but not entirely, by any means. It is seldom truly quiet in the Subura, but by this time most of the roistering had moved indoors, although in the open squares and courts of some neighborhoods, tables had been erected and the dwellers of the local insulae sat back, picking their teeth contentedly. The day's sacrifices had provided plenty of meat and the harvest was in, so fruits and vegetables were plentiful and cheap. Fall was usually a good time in Rome, unless the harvest had been bad. Then it would become necessary to squeeze the provinces.
I reached Orestilla's house without encountering Publius or his myrmidons. The janitor let me in and I went into the atrium. A cheer went up at my arrival. Catilina rose and took my hand.
"Well done, Decius, well done!" His arm around my shoulders, he turned to face the others and gestured grandly. "Here is our hero, at last. We've been awaiting your arrival, Decius."
There were a dozen men present, and all of them rose from their seats to congratulate me. Some of them I knew already: Curius, Cethegus Sura, Laeca, the twin beards, Thorius and Valgius. The latter two showed the trophies of their vigorous efforts on my behalf that morning. Thorius sported a bandage around his head, although it was not as artistic as my own. Valgius had a pair of black eyes, nearly swollen shut. There was a bulky, balding man in the tunica laticlavia with the narrow red stripe; an eques. The rest bore no marks of distinction.
"Decius," Catilina said when the balding man approached, "this is Publius Umbrenus, a prominent businessman with interests throughout Gaul." So this was the mysterious financier who had been speaking with the Allobroges.
"I knew your father in Gaul," Umbrenus said. He had the false heartiness of an auctioneer.
The others were introduced, but I had little oppor tunity to absorb more than their names: Publius Gabi nius Capito, Lucius Bestia, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior and Lucius Statilius were all of the equestrian order, although they had purposely attended in common tunics. They were living proof that not every eques was a wealthy businessman, for these were as ragged and hungry a pack of ne'er-do-wells as one could ask for. Some were ruined entrepreneurs like Umbrenus, others had never reach high enough to achieve ruin.
There were others, but the rest were not from Rome. They were minor nobles from various Italian municipia and coloniae. I no longer remember their names, although they are to be found in the court records. I remembered 'what Milo had said about malcontents. It gave me cause to reassess the fairly rosy picture I had of the empire's condition. In truth, only the city of Rome itself was relatively tranquil. Everywhere else there was discontent and unrest.
Amid the backslapping and embracing, Catilina's brows went up at a faint clink from under my tunic. I displayed my weapons for their admiration.
"I wasn't taking any chances on encountering Clodius this evening," I told them. Several of them grinned and exposed the grips of daggers or short swords beneath their tunics.
"You won't find anyone here who's squeamish about carrying arms," Catilina chuckled. "But you needn't have bothered yourself about Clodius. He's safe at home, being nursed by his beloved sister and complaining piteously of his wounds. He says that only serpents are in the habit of biting men on the heel."
"Hence your new name around town," Cethegus said, "Metellus the Viper."
"I like the sound of that," I said.
"I heard one of his sycophants at the baths this evening," said Laeca, toadying it up superbly. "He was declaiming some new verse he'd cobbled together, likening Clodius to Achilles, wounded in the heel by a coward." He laughed loudly and falsely. "As if the man who carried the head of the October Horse from the Forum to the Subura single-handed could be accused of cowardice!"
"You'll be the talk of Rome for some time to come, Decius," Catilina said.
"And forgotten next time I stand for office," I said, remembering my role.
"But then, that's why we're all here," Catilina said. "We are all fed up with the fickleness of the electorate. They were spoiled by the Gracchi and have been growing worse ever since." He paused while the others made grumbles of agreement. "Now, I would never want to see us return to monarchy, but things were best when decisions were made by the Senate and the Centuriate Assembly, all solid men of property and military experience, patrician and plebeian both. Now they hand out citizenship to anyone, even freedmen." Then he remembered the non-Romans present and added, hastily, "And on top of that, our demagogues have robbed the municipia and coloniae of their old rights of self-government without giving them a commensurate place in the government." That was the sort of mistake Caesar never would have made. Catilina just wasn't a born politician.