"The war has begun, Decius," Catilina said. "We are all as good as declared public enemies now. Our names on a paper will mean nothing… Unless you feel you have some reason for refusing to sign."
"Not at all," I said, snatching up the reed pen and signing my name. I carefully used my title and my formal name, signing as Quaestor Decius Caecilius son of Decius grandson of Lucius great-grandson of Lucius Metellus. I wanted to ensure that no one could alter my name to implicate my father. Catilina glanced at my signature and made a satisfied sound. He scattered sand on the wet ink and shook it off, then rerolled the scroll, "Lucius," I said, "you must sent Orestilla and Aurelia away to someplace safe until this is over." He just looked at me absently, as if he had his mind on more important things.
"Orestilla?" he said, coming back from wherever his mind had wandered. "I've sent them both to a house in the country. They'll be safe until I can send for them."
"What will you do now?" I asked, relieved. "I intend to watch the excitement," he said, grinning. Now he sounded like the old Catilina. Whatever had unnerved him, he was shaking it off. "I will make some public speeches, pointing out the advantages of a change in government. Never fear, there will be plenty of popular support for me when the swords are drawn." This was the first I heard that he counted on much popular support.
I thought of this as I walked home that night. It was not only dark but chill, rainy and suitably miserable. As I splashed through puddles and dodged disgruntled dogs, I reflected on the fickleness of the Roman electorate. Although Rome and the empire as a whole were richer than ever, the body of poor citizens was also unprecedentedly great. There were many crushed by debt, with little hope of relief. The labor market was flooded with cheap slaves and even skilled craftsmen could only manage a living wage. The situation was worse in some rural areas, where slave-worked latifundia had crowded out and impoverished the free farmers, and the people, had no access to a public dole.
Under such circumstances, many might grasp at a chance for a better condition. The rabble could easily be swayed by demagogues and opportunists, never thinking far enough ahead to see what they were being led into.
And there was the simple fact of boredom. Times had been quiet, Rome was victorious, life was a pallid round of work, games, public holidays, religious festivals and sacrifices. In a word: dull. There were many, and not just among the urban poor, who missed the bad old days, when the mobs and private armies of Marius and Cinna, of Sulla and all the others had fought in the streets, when a common city-dweller might kill a Senator with impunity, when the houses of the rich were sacked and torched in the name of one tyrannical warlord or other. They had been heady times until their great harvest of misery brought people to their senses.
But the temptation was always there, to revel in the swinishness of civil rapine and butchery, the mob glutting itself on blood and loot, heedless of the hangover that follows every great debauch. And what did they care? Civic participation in government had become little more than a hollow shell, now that a professional army did all the fighting and a few dozen families supplied most of the statesmen and slaves did most of the work. What did the people care whether a Cicero or a Catilina lorded it over them? Even a temporary respite from their misery would be desirable. That, and a little excitement.
Cato opened my door with his usual sour looks and words. "Late again. Not only that, but this woman came calling for you this evening, and she insisted on waiting. She's in the atrium."
Puzzled and dripping, I went in. A heavily veiled woman rose at my entrance. No quantity of veils could hide that shape. "Aurelia!" I gasped.
She threw back the veils that covered her face. I would have embraced her but Cato made a scandalized sound. "Go to bed, Cato," I ordered. Grumbling, he left the atrium. Then I could hear his voice and his wife's coming from their quarters.
"Decius," Aurelia said, "don't you think you should dry yourself?"
I looked down at myself. Every fiber I wore water onto my tiled floor. More water dripped from my hair. My dagger, I decided, was probably getting rusty.
"I think there are some towels in my bedroom," I said, "Wait here."
I went to my room and stripped off my clothing, snatched up a towel and began drying myself vigorously, As I rubbed at my hair I discovered that there was an extra pair of hands working the towel.
"Do you mind if I help?" Aurelia asked.
"Your impatience is flattering," I told her. I turned and saw that she had already loosened her clothing. I needed only a few moments to finish the task, then she wore only her pearls. I was baffled by her presence there on that particular night, but my need for her drove all questions from my mind. She covered my lips with hers and we sank onto my narrow, bachelor's bed. Our ingenuity made up for the inadequacy of the furniture and the oil in my lamp was as exhausted as I was before I had breath to spare for questions.
"Catilina said that you and your mother were safe in the country," I said. I lay on my back and she lay half-across me, her cheek and both hands on my chest.
"I came back," she said. "I could not stay away from you."
As deeply as I wished to believe this, I could not but note that she had successfully stayed away from me for quite a while. Had she been sent to spy on me? To make sure that I reported to no one tonight? But Catilina and his followers acted with such desperate recklessness that such a precaution seemed alien to them.
"The city is too dangerous for you now," I insisted. "How much do you know of your stepfather's plans?"
She stretched. "Enough to know that he will soon be the ruler of Rome. What of it?"
"Within a few days he will be declared a public enemy by the Senate," I said. "When that happens, no member of his family will be safe. There will be blood in the streets again, Aurelia."
She stifled a yawn. "There is always blood in the streets. Usually it's common blood. A little noble blood is about to flow. Is that something to get excited about?"
"It is if the blood is yours," I said, then added "or mine."
"You mean you aren't anxious to throw your life away for your new Consul?" She snuggled closer against me and slid a leg over my hip.
"The whole idea behind a coup," I told her, "is to get someone else to sacrifice himself for your own advantage. That's what we are all in this for, after all. I could die heroically serving in some foreign war, without risking disgrace. I joined your stepfather's cause in order to reach high office without having to wait for fifty elder Metellans to die first."
"That's my Decius," she said. "The others are fools, just cattle to be sacrificed, but you know what this rebellion is truly about. Of all my stepfather's followers, only you have real intelligence."
"Followers are there to be used," I said. "But what of the men even Catilina must defer to?" Even here I could not stop probing for information. With my left hand I stroked her spine, but this was not merely a caress. I was feeling for the involuntary tension that would precede a lie.
"What do you mean?" she asked sleepily.
"He told me that Crassus supported him." It was a wild try, but I was desperate for any sort of confirmation of my suspicions.
"He told you that?" she said, waking up. "Then you truly stand high in his estimation. I thought he had kept that secret from his closest companions."
It was true. I had it at last but not, as Cicero demanded it, in writing. And there was admiration in her voice. I was an even more important man than she had thought. I knew about Crassus.
She yawned again. "He told you about meeting with Crassus last night?"
"No," I said, my scalp tingling. "The others were present."
"Crassus came to my mother's house last night, after dark. They went into one of the rooms and closed the door. It sounded like they were arguing." Her voice drifted off.