"You're right," I said. Even standing outside the house, I caught a whiff of the odor of putrefaction that was beginning to emanate from the body in my vestibule. "I shall organize a procession for tomorrow. We'll have him cremated outside the Esquiline Gate."
Bethesda nodded, satisfied that her point had been taken, and stepped aside to allow me to enter.
The odor was stronger in the vestibule, but not overpowering. Nonetheless, I could see how my wife, being at home all day, had reached her limit.
"Did anyone come to pay their respects while I was out?"
"No visitors."
"Ah, well, I'm not surprised. With all these preparations for Caesar's triumphs beginning tomorrow, I suppose everyone's too busy. Only Fulvia came, then, and she didn't even know Hieronymus; her condolences were merely a pretext to question me. Ah, Hieronymus." I gazed down at his face. "You amused them, seduced them with your charm, spied upon them… and now, it seems, they've forgotten about you."
"No visitors," Bethesda repeated, "but some messengers did come. They brought these." She bent down to fetch a few pieces of parchment that had been tossed haphazardly in the corner near the door, as if they were bits of refuse. Bethesda had little respect for the written word. There was also a wax writing tablet among the messages.
"Bethesda, these are notes of condolence. They were brought for Hieronymus. You should have laid them upon his bier."
She raised a skeptical eyebrow and shrugged.
"I suppose I'm lucky you didn't burn them."
"Won't they be burned tomorrow, along with Hieronymus?"
"Yes, but only after I've read them."
"Who are they from, then?"
"This one's from Cicero. He told me he'd sent a message. 'The laughter and erudition of our learned friend from Massilia will be sorely missed in these trying times,' and so on."
"And the others?"
"Here's one from Antony. Cytheris added a note. She says she wants to provide the singers and mimes for the funeral procession; friends of hers, I imagine. And these others…"
I scanned the names of the senders. They were all persons whose names appeared in Hieronymus's reports. These were the people he had visited, whose trust he had sought to cultivate with an eye toward uncovering any threat they might pose to Caesar. Did the fact that these people had sent condolences make them any more or less suspicious? Surely the person responsible for Hieronymus's death would have sent condolences along with everyone else.
Here was a note from Caesar's young grandnephew, Octavius, who was about to turn seventeen; he included an epigram in Greek, probably from a play, though I didn't recognize it. Here was a note from the sculptor Arcesilaus, with whom many years ago I had shared cherries from the garden of Lucullus; it was his statue of Venus that was to adorn the new temple built by Caesar. Here was a note from a new playwright in town, Publilius Syrus, who paraphrased the last lines of Ennius's epitaph for Scipio, from which Cicero had recited earlier: "If any mortal may ascend to the heaven of immortals, for you let the gods' gate stand open."
And here, upon a very heavy piece of parchment rimmed with an embossed border of a repeating lotus leaf pattern, was a note from the queen of Egypt:
To Gordianus, with fond remembrance of our meeting in Alexandria. I have discovered that the late Hieronymus of Massilia was a member of your household, and it is to you I should send a message of condolence. Now you are here in Rome, and so am I. We live in a very small world. But the realm of the afterlife, where I shall reign as Isis in splendor, is vast and eternal. May our mutual friend be guided there swiftly to enjoy his reward.
I laid the notes amid the flowers piled upon the bier. Still in my hand was the wax writing tablet.
I untied the strings of the wooden cover panel. The reusable wax surface contained not a message of condolence, but two questions, below each of which space had been left to scratch a reply. I felt a bit like a pupil being handed a test by his tutor. The name of the sender was not included, but the tablet obviously came from Calpurnia. The first question read:
To whom have you spoken? Reply using initials only.
That was done easily enough. The second question read:
Have you discovered anything to indicate that he should not take part in tomorrow's event? Send your reply at once.
In other words, had I discovered anything to indicate an immediate danger to Caesar? I considered how to answer. If something untoward occurred, Calpurnia might hold me accountable, even if Caesar was unharmed. But I had discovered no clear and present danger to Caesar. "No," I wrote. The word looked small and inadequate amid the blank space she had left for my reply.
I rose before daybreak the next morning. The family, appropriately garbed in our darkest clothing, gathered to share a simple meal of mourning, consisting of black bread with black beans.
Had it been entirely up to me, I would have given Hieronymus the simplest possible ceremony. But since Cytheris, with her connections in the performing world, had volunteered to provide the traditional mourners, musicians, and mimes, as well as some sturdy young slaves to carry the bier, it would have been churlish to refuse her offer. Amazingly, the entire troupe showed up on time. It was a good thing Bethesda had prepared extra food, since they all expected to be fed.
An hour after daybreak, our little procession set out. We took a roundabout route, walking up and down the streets of the Palatine so as to pass by various houses where Hieronymus had been an invited guest. If the inhabitants were not awake before we passed by, the screeching mourners and the musicians with their rattles, flutes, horns, and bells surely roused them from bed. Pedestrians paused and curious onlookers peered from windows to watch the mime, trying to guess whom he was impersonating. The fellow had met Hieronymus only once at one of Cytheris's parties, but he was remarkably gifted; wearing one of Hieronymus's favorite tunics, he produced an uncanny simulation of my friend's posture, gait, hand gestures, facial expressions, and even his laugh.
One passerby, after watching the mime for a moment, made a typical comment: "Hieronymus the Scapegoat? Is that him on the bier? Didn't know he was dead!" Such recognition was a testament to the mime's talent and to the impression Hieronymus had made on a surprising number of people. I was amazed at how many men and women seemed to have known him. Walking at a slow gait with the rest of the family behind the musicians and the funeral bier, I found myself staring at every stranger who paused to watch the procession, wondering if Hieronymus's murderer was among them.
Eventually we descended the western slope of the Palatine and crossed the Sacred Way at a point well away from the Forum. Had Hieronymus been a Roman man of affairs, a pass through the Forum would have been mandatory, but I decided to forego the area, where huge crowds were already gathering for the Gallic Triumph. We avoided the narrow, noisome streets of the Subura as well, and instead ascended the slope of the Esquiline through the Carinae district. Cytheris had requested that the funeral cortege pass before the House of the Beaks.
The performers knew who was paying them; as we approached the house, the moaning and shrieking and the drumming and fluting rose to an earsplitting crescendo. At the same time, the passable portion of the street narrowed considerably. True to his word, Antony was holding an auction in front of the house to sell off some of Pompey's possessions. The auction had not yet begun, but numerous objects had already been laid out for preview on makeshift tables.