Chapter IX
"Asklepiodes, you must let me kill you," I said. The physician looked up from his desk, where he was writing on one of his innumerable medical texts. He was always his own scribe when he worked on his first draft.
"That is a bit much to ask, even of your physician."
"It will only be temporary," I assured him.
"Temporary death, while a relative commonplace in mythology, is seldom met with in the mundane world." He set down his reed pen and frowned at me. "Just what is it you are suggesting?"
We were in the Temple of Aesculapius, on the island. The back of the temple was devoted to quarters, libraries and offices for the priests and physicians, along with lecture halls and gardens for growing medicinal plants.
"It won't be real at all," I insisted. "We just have to fake your death. It will only be for a few days."
"Never fear, Decius," he said soothingly. "It is quite common for wounds such as you have recently experienced to cause delirium."
"I am not delirious, and I feel excellent, except for being in agony."
"Then perhaps some explanation is in order. First, though, I must examine your wounds and re-dress them. Get out of your clothes and one of my servants will remove your bandages." I complied and Asklepiodes looked me over in great detail. You would have thought he intended to buy me.
"You are coming along nicely," he said when he was finished and the slave was renewing the bandages.
"There is no sign of infection in the wounds. Your skin and muscle tone are as healthy as ever, although I detect the signs left by venereal labors of some magnitude. It seems you were serious about finishing your strenuous day with a lady."
"It was the longest day of my life," I said, sinking upon a chair, now back in my clothes. "It began with a horse race and then a battle and it ended rapturously with the most beautiful woman in Rome, but in between there was plotting with men of evil intent. Murder, treason and arson were among the subjects discussed."
His eyes brightened. "Criminal doings! At last, you become interesting. Tell me all about it." The man absolutely thrived on skulduggery. I told him most of what I knew and suspected, because it is not wise to withhold information from one's physician. He nodded and chuckled at every horrible revelation. Well, he was a Greek.
"Oh, this is exciting!" he said when I was done. "I cannot tell you how bored I have been here, treating a lot of sick people. This will give me a chance to exercise some ingenuity. Let me see, how shall we go about it? Might you fling me from the Tarpeian Rock, leaving my shattered body covered in blood and bruises? No," he answered himself, "that would call for jagged shards of bone thrusting out through the skin, a difficult thing for me to simulate. Perhaps you could strangle me. The facial discolorations will be challenging and I can construct a swollen wax tongue of great verisimilitude to protrude between my dead, blue lips."
"I am known as a rather direct man," I told him, "of traditional Roman pugnacity. My fellow conspirators will expect a simple stabbing or throat-cutting."
"I shall concoct convincing lacerations and become a most realistic corpse. Shall I be found murdered tomorrow morning?"
"That would be convenient," I said. "Are you sure you can carry it off?"
"No one will ever suspect. By combining my own talents with the Roman fear of touching dead bodies, the illusion will be complete. My patron, Statilius Taurus, is in Capua, so my funeral obsequies can be delayed for days while my servants summon him, supposedly." He looked around him with satisfaction. "I'll hide out here in my quarters for a few days. It should be very restful and I can catch up on my writing. My servants are utterly discreet. You are sure this is quite legal?" he asked with some anxiety.
"Sanctioned by the Praetor Metellus himself. And I shall be calling on the Consul Cicero soon to apprise him of my findings."
"I would suggest you do that very soon," Asklepiodes advised. "It will do little good if you delay until the conspirators kill him." That seemed to be most reasonable advice.
I rose. "I'll leave you now. I look forward to news of your death."
"Try not to grieve," he said.
I went to the Temple of Saturn without attracting notice. My celebrity had already staled. Such is the nature of glory. I spent a profoundly boring but restful day amid the wealth of the empire. I attended the baths, bandages and all, and pondered my next move. I resolved to call upon Cicero that evening.
As I was leaving the bath, I encountered my father entering amid a knot of his cronies. I greeted them all and received their congratulations for my performance at the festival, then steered my father aside for a private talk. We went to one of the niches that lined the walls of the atrium and stood beneath a statue of Bellona.
"What do you want? Be brief," he said in his usual solicitous fashion.
"How is the situation with Hortalus?" I asked.
"He is enjoying his retirement too much, but I think he'll decide to stand for Censor. He knows there is no rush and I suppose he's waiting for half the Senate to go out to his country house in a mass and beg him to come out and save the Republic or some such." I told him what Crassus had said and he nodded, pleased. "I knew that this marriage-tie with the Crassi would be wise. I wish my niece Caecilia would hurry up and produce a grandchild for Marcus. He's not so bad, you know, despite his obscene obsession with accumulating money." The only way in which Marcus Crassus differed from most of his contemporaries in regard to money was his expertise in acquiring it. That, and his extraordinary honesty about it. There was supposed to be something unaristocratic about money. It was beneath the dignity of a wellborn man. What it meant in practice was that you robbed provinces when you could and left the money-grubbing to your freedmen.
"Has Hortalus had… oh, visitors, that you know of?" This was incredibly lame, but I could not think of a good way to phrase it. Father and Hortalus were great friends and Father would probably know if any of Catilina's men had approached the old fraud.
"What? Visitors?" He fixed me with a withering glare and I knew I had misstepped. "What sort of man does not have visitors? Quintus Hortensius Hortalus is one of the most distinguished men of his generation. Of course he has visitors! What are you getting at?"
I decided to get off that subject and ask something that had been troubling me but that I had not thought to ask him about.
"Father, were my mother and Orestilla close friends?"
He was startled by the change of subject, but years of legal practice had made him nimble on his mental feet, if I may use an awkward metaphor.
"You mean the wife of Sergius Catilina? Not that I know of. They must have known each other, attended the rites of Bona Dea, that sort of thing. All Senators' wives know one another, but I never heard that Servilia was especially close to Orestilla, as she was with Antonia the Younger and Hortensia. Orestilla's a scandalous woman, anyway. Why do you ask? What are you up to, you young reprobate?"
"All shall be made clear in time, Father," I assured him. "I am working on a delicate matter of crucial importance to the state."
He was utterly unimpressed. "I shall be pleasantly surprised to learn that you have been working on anything at all. Have you any further excuse for detaining me?" I had none and he left. It would never have occurred to him to inquire about my injuries. He probably thought that bandages were effeminate. No doubt I should have just left my wounds open and dripped on the pavement, in manly Old Roman fashion.
It was still early in the afternoon and I did not want to be seen going to Cicero's house. As I descended the steps of the public bath I noticed one of the monuments that seem to spring up overnight in Rome, like mushrooms. It was one of several that Crassus had erected to himself. To Crassus, modesty was for men who had good reason to be modest. This one commemorated his victory over Spartacus. Monuments to that event were considered by most Romans to be in extremely poor taste. Everyone loved commemorations of a foreign victory, but a slave rebellion was best forgotten. His real monument had been the six thousand crosses he had erected along the Via Appia between Rome and Capua, where the rebellion had begun. Gawkers from Rome and the towns along the road had gone out for days to witness the mass execution. The record for longevity was held by a burly Gaul who had taken eight days to die.