VI
After Fulvia's departure, I sent a message to Calpurnia, telling her I wanted to be admitted to visit Vercingetorix in his cell the next day. She sent a message back to me before sunset. Apparently she had been able to arrange my visit at a moment's notice-and without Caesar's knowledge, since she cautioned me to tell no one, lest he learn of it. The extent of her authority continued to surprise me.
It occurred to me that Calpurnia was the woman Fulvia wished to become. How could that happen, as long as Caesar was alive?
That night at dinner with the family, I recounted some of my conversation with Antony and Cytheris but kept to myself anything that might embarrass (or simply displease) Calpurnia should it spread beyond my house. It was not that I doubted the discretion of my loved ones, but in my experience, words once uttered have a way of taking flight, as if acting on their own volition. I was struck again at Rupa's suitability to act as my companion and bodyguard. He heard all but could repeat nothing.
My body was weary. I would have slept with the sun, but restless thoughts kept me awake. The prospect of meeting the leader of the Gauls on the last full day of his life filled me with trepidation. The interview would almost certainly be unpleasant, in one way or another, and I found myself wishing I could avoid it altogether.
Unable to sleep, I left my bed. The night was warm. Crickets thrummed in the garden. I stepped into my library, lit a lamp, and did my best to peruse the difficult handwriting of Hieronymus. Previously, I had intentionally skipped over the entries having to do with Cicero, assigning them a low priority. For one thing, I had no wish to read about Cicero-if Hieronymus had thought me a windbag, what in Hades had he made of Cicero?-and for another, it seemed to me that Cicero was the unlikeliest of assassins. But Fulvia's reference to him had piqued my curiosity.
Over the years, my relations with the great lion of the Roman law courts had been mixed. Over thirty years ago, I ferreted out the truth for Cicero when he took on his first major case, defending a man accused of parricide in the gloomy days when Sulla's shadow covered Rome. I nearly got myself killed more than once in the course of that investigation, and Cicero had faced considerable danger as well, daring to take on one of the dictator's most dangerous henchmen in the court. His surprising success had redounded to the enduring benefit of us both.
But Cicero's meteoric rise in the political arena had revealed a darker side of his character. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice the reputations and even the lives of his rivals to attain success, though he was careful to do so by using (some would say twisting) the law. As he grew in fame and power, I hardened my heart toward Cicero. But when men like Caesar and Pompey elbowed him off the political stage, their terrifying ruthlessness made Cicero, even at his worst, look benevolent. My feelings about him had softened, but I had never quite patched up the strained relations between us.
Could Cicero be the menace to Caesar?
When civil war loomed, Cicero had wavered between Caesar and Pompey for as long as he possibly could, and would have avoided choosing either side had such an option been possible. Ultimately he sided with Pompey and the old establishment and fought against Caesar at Pharsalus. After a resounding victory, Caesar saw fit to pardon Cicero. Since then, the great orator, whatever his true feelings about the new dictator, had kept his mouth shut.
I could no more easily picture Cicero as a conspirator that I could picture Antony, for different reasons. If Antony was too brash and outspoken, Cicero was too cautious and indecisive. And, to his credit, he was a true defender of the republican virtues of debate, compromise, and consensus; a man like Cicero would pursue every possible legal channel, no matter how tortuous or tenuous, rather than resort to violence. But had not Caesar's victory closed all political and legal avenues of challenge to his authority? What was a true republican to do when faced with the prospect of a dictator for life?
These were strange days. If Calpurnia could fall under the spell of a haruspex, if Antony the man of action could wile away his days in a drunken stupor, if an Alexandrian dancer could take up residence in Pompey's house, could Cicero become a murderous conspirator?
What had he been up to in my absence and since my return to Rome? What had Fulvia been hinting at? Having kept so completely to myself, I truly had no idea. When I read the details in Hieronymus's report, my jaw dropped.
Could it be true? Marcus Tullius Cicero, the most pious advocate in Rome (now that Cato was dead), the defender of staid virtue and old-fashioned family values, had divorced his wife of more than thirty years and married his ward, a girl named Publilia-who was only fifteen!
Strange days, indeed! I laughed out loud, imagining Cicero married to a teenager. This I would have to see with my own eyes.
Laughter released the tension in me. Suddenly I was very sleepy. I extinguished the lamp and stumbled to bed, where Bethesda huffed and sighed and spooned her body to accommodate me beneath the thin coverlet.
The first Roman prison, called the Carcer and located at the foot of the Capitoline Hill above the Forum, was built hundreds of years ago by Ancus Marcius, fourth king of Rome. According to legend, it was the sixth king, Servius Tullius, who excavated a subterranean cell in the Carcer, which forever after bore his name: the Tullianum.
This dreadful word evoked dankness; darkness; an inescapable pit; a place of hopeless, helpless waiting for death. Yet it was also a word that politicians and military men uttered with pride, for the Tullianum had been the final destination of many of Rome's fiercest enemies over the centuries, where they met their end at the hands of a Roman executioner.
It had been the practice, begun by the kings, to parade their captives in a triumphal procession, stripped of all insignia and symbols of worldly status-sometimes stripped naked entirely-the better to demonstrate the utter humiliation of their defeat and the contempt of their conquerors. After being paraded for the amusement of the Roman populace, less important captives were destined for slavery. The more important were strangled in the Tullianum. Afterward, their bodies were thrown down a flight of steep steps to the Forum, so that the crowd could view their corpses.
As I made my way with Rupa across the Forum, heading for the Tullianum, all around us we saw preparations for the Gallic Triumph to be held the next day. Along the parade route, reviewing stands with awnings were being erected to accommodate important personages, and areas where vendors usually hawked their wares were already being cleared to make room for the anticipated crowds. From atop the Capitoline Hill I could hear the echo of workers shouting amid a din of hammering and creaking wood; a bronze statue of Caesar had been installed across from the Temple of Jupiter, and the scaffolding around it was being removed for its official unveiling the next day.
At the western end of the Forum, with the steep slope of the Capitoline looming above us, we came to a flight of steps carved out of the stone. Two guards stood at the foot of the steps. I produced the pass I had received from Calpurnia-a small wooden disk with the seal of her ring impressed in red wax-and they let us pass without speaking a word.
The narrow steps ascended steeply. Behind us, the Forum was a jumble of columns, rooftops, and public squares. At some distance to the northeast, in a newly developed area adjacent to the Forum, I could see the glittering, solid marble Temple of Venus erected by Caesar in honor of his divine ancestress and the patroness of his victories. The temple had just been completed; it faced a vast open square surrounded by a colonnaded portico that was still under construction, with the pedestal in place for a monumental equestrian statue of Caesar. The Temple of Venus was to be dedicated on the last day of Caesar's four triumphs, providing a divine climax to the celebrations of his earthly conquests.