Roma - Saylor Steven - Страница 77
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Quintus shook his head. “What a sight! What a sound! The death throes of more than twenty women, there before our eyes! Not all the potions were the same, and their effects differed. Some of the women were seized by violent convulsions. Others stiffened and died with a hideous grimace. I was a young man, but I had already fought in several battles—I had killed men and seen men killed—yet I had never witnessed anything as strange and terrifying as the death of those women by their own hands!”
Kaeso gazed at his cousin wide-eyed. The details of the mass poisonings were completely new to him. Kaeso found the tale at once thrilling and repulsive. “Was that the end of it, cousin Quintus?”
“Far from it! The friends and servants of those dead women had much more to tell us. As more women were implicated, we realized that the scale of the conspiracy was larger than anyone could have imagined. In the end, more than one hundred and seventy women were found guilty, and all were put to death. The murder of so many upstanding citizens, the shocking investigation, the executions—all cast a shadow of despair across the city. The truth was too appalling for some to accept. There were those who said I went too far, that my judgment was faulty, that I allowed wicked people to falsely accuse the wives and daughters of their enemies. Well, even the gods are not infallible! I believe my investigation was thorough and impartial, and that no other man could have done better. In any event, the poisonings stopped, and the citizens of Roma rewarded me with election to higher office in the years that followed.”
Kaeso shook his head. “I had no idea the crimes were so widespread, and so bizarre. I’d heard only vague rumors before.”
“I’m not surprised. When the wretched affair was over, people did their best to forget it.”
“But why did those women commit such crimes?”
“The reasons they gave were as varied as the poisons they used: greed, revenge, spite, jealousy. Having committed murder once, many of the women seemed unable to resist doing so again. It was as if a kind of madness spread among them, a homicidal contagion, a compulsion to kill. The root cause of that madness, no one could determine. The only certain cure was death. I put an end to the plague of poisonings, and since that time, it has never recurred.”
“What a fascinating story!”
“Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely! I should like to know even more. Who were those women? What were their names? Whom did they kill, and why, and when, and—”
Amused and a little flattered by his young cousin’s enthusiasm, Quintus emitted a good-natured grunt that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Well, young man, as it happens, I kept a very thorough dossier of materials relating to my investigation—for my own protection, if nothing else, so that if called upon later I could show exactly what evidence I had obtained and the circumstances under which I obtained it. All the details are there—names, dates, even the recipes the women used to concoct their various poisons. Quite a few of them were able to read and write, and some of them kept copious notes about the poisons and their effects.”
“Would you allow me to see that dossier, cousin?”
“Certainly. Do you know, no one has ever asked to see it before. And yet, that investigation is now a part of the family’s history, a part of Roma’s history.”
“It shouldn’t be forgotten,” said Kaeso.
Quintus nodded. “Very well. Those materials must be somewhere among my memorabilia. When I have time, I shall locate them, and let you have a look.”
Later that night, alone in his room in his father’s house, Kaeso prepared for bed. By the flickering light of a single lamp, he removed his toga without assistance; getting out of the garment was much easier than putting it on. He carefully folded the toga and placed it on a chair. He stripped off his undertunic and loincloth, and stood naked except for the gift his father had given him that morning, the fascinum which hung from the chain around his neck.
Among the other gifts Kaeso had received that day was a small mirror. A slave had already hung it on the wall. The mirror was round, made of polished silver, and decorated around its border with images engraved in the metal. The images depicted the exploits of Hercules. No doubt the giver, a colleague of Kaeso’s father, had thought the mirror would make a particularly appropriate coming-of-age gift for a young Fabius, as the Fabii considered themselves to be descended from Hercules; but the reflection of his own face, surrounded by images of the demigod, only reminded Kaeso that he was not really a Fabius by blood, only by adoption.
Kaeso stood naked before the mirror and gazed at his shadowy reflection. “Today you are a man, Kaeso Fabius Dorso,” he whispered. “But who are you? Where did you come from? Your grandfather was a foundling among the rubble; was he begotten by a god, or a Gaul? Will you live and die and never know the secret of your origin—or is there an oracle who can answer your question?”
He touched the amulet at his chest. The gold of the fascinum caught the lamp’s flickering light, and Kaeso was dazzled by its reflection in the mirror.
The next morning, Kaeso donned his toga again to pay a formal call upon a man he had never met.
Appius Claudius—the seventh of that name in the line descended from Attus Clausus—blinked in disbelief when his secretary announced his first visitor of the day. “The young Fabius?” he said. “Are you sure you heard the name correctly?”
The slave nodded.
Claudius pursed his lips and stroked his beard, which was still more black than silver. “Very well, show him in. I’ll meet him here in the garden. Turn away all other visitors until we’re done.”
If anything, the garden of Appius Claudius, with its splashing fountain surrounding a statue of three Muses and its terraces of roses, was even more magnificent than the garden of Quintus Fabius. Kaeso was duly impressed, but not surprised. If any man was as powerful and respected in Roma as his cousin Quintus, that man was Quintus’s longtime rival, Appius Claudius.
“I believe that congratulations are in order, young man,” said Claudius, standing to greet him. “Your toga suits you well.”
In fact, Kaeso had dressed himself that morning without the help of a slave, and had not quite succeeded in making the garment hang correctly. He was glad to take the chair which Claudius offered. Sitting disguised the awkward folds of his toga.
“Thank you for receiving me, Censor.” Kaeso addressed his host by the title of the prestigious office he held. In many ways, the censorship was an even higher magistracy than the consulship, and its exalted rank was signified by the purple toga that the censor alone could wear. The censor had the power to fill vacancies in the Senate. He also kept the rolls of citizenship. He could add men to the list, or, with just cause, strike them from it. The censor’s list determined the division of citizens into voting units, a tool the patricians had long used to their advantage. By manipulating the list, the censor could influence the course of elections.
Appius Claudius had also used the powers of his office to gain complete control over two public works projects of unprecedented vastness. This was the reason Kaeso had come to see him.
“If I look a bit surprised, you must understand that it’s been a very long time since any man named Fabius has cast a shadow in this garden,” said Claudius, who smiled as readily as Quintus scowled. Kaeso had heard that the man’s charm was his most notable quality; when the Fabii said this, it was not a compliment. “Whenever a political question arises, it seems that your cousin Quintus leans in one direction and I lean in the other. The two of us can never seem to meet, either on policy or in the flesh.”
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