Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven - Страница 118
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“Whatever it is, you’re well out of it, Lucius.”
“You never share your plans with me anymore. Ever since you returned from Junonia, you’ve shut me out. You hold meetings without me. You demolished the stands at the gladiator match without a word to me. I knew nothing in advance of Cornelia’s program to help the reapers.”
“If I’ve shut you out of my counsels, Lucius, I’ve done it for your own good. People no longer speak of us in the same breath. If you’re lucky, they’ll forget that you were once my strongest supporter among the Equestrians. You’re a businessman, not a politician, Lucius. You’re outside the Course of Honor. You pose no real threat to my enemies in the Senate. Why should you suffer my fate?”
“I’m your friend, Gaius.”
“You were also Tiberius’s friend, yet you never raised a finger to help him, or Blossius, for that matter.”
Lucius drew a sharp breath. Desperation brought out a petty, spiteful side of Gaius’s nature. “When Fortuna favored you, Gaius, I enjoyed the pleasures of your friendship. Fortuna may have turned her back on you, but I never will.”
Gaius shrugged. “Then come with me now.”
“Where?”
“To the Forum. There’s to be a protest against the motion to abandon Junonia.” Gaius seemed to receive a burst of fresh energy. He strode about the house, shouting and gathering his entourage. “Everybody, up on your feet! What are we waiting for? Enough idleness! Let’s head for the Senate House!”
On an impulse, Lucius stepped quickly into Gaius’s study and reached for a wax tablet and a stylus. Gaius was still the greatest orator of his generation. On this occasion, he might utter something that should not be forgotten. The metal stylus was a formidable instrument, elegantly made but quite solid and heavy in Lucius’s hand, and sharply pointed at one end.
The day was hot and oppressively humid, with thunder in the air.
As Gaius and his entourage approached the Senate House, they saw a tall, angular man leaving by a side door, carrying a shallow bowl. The man was Quintus Antyllius, a secretary to the consul Opimius. The bowl he carried was full of goat entrails. Before the start of each day’s business, the Senate witnessed a ritual sacrifice and the examination of the animal’s organs by an augur. The augury was done. Antyllius was disposing of the entrails.
As he passed by, Antyllius smirked at Gaius and his followers. “Get out of my way, street trash! Make way for a decent citizen.”
The insult pricked at the outrage Lucius normally held in check. Blood pounded in his temples. His face turned hot. “Who do you dare to call trash?” he demanded.
“This piece of dung.” Antyllius gestured at Gaius, using the bowl. Entrails sloshed out and spattered Gaius’s toga. Gaius wrinkled his nose and gave a start, which caused Antyllius to shriek with laughter.
Without thinking, acting purely on impulse, Lucius sprang forward. He plunged the metal stylus into Antyllius’s chest.
Men gasped. Antyllius dropped the bowl. Entrails spattered everywhere, causing the bystanders to scurry back. Antyllius clutched the stylus and tried to pull it from his chest, but the polished metal was too slippery with blood. The front of his toga turned red. He convulsed and fell backward, cracking his head on a paving stone.
Gaius gaped at the dead body, then at Lucius, unable to believe his eyes.
Someone in the street had witnessed the murder and ran inside to tell the senators. Soon they came rushing out, some from the main entrance, some from the side door, all converging on Gaius and his entourage. At their head was the consul Opimius. When he saw the body of Antyllius, his first expression was outrage. This was quickly followed by a look of barely suppressed elation.
“Murderer!” he shouted, glaring at Gaius. “You’ve killed a servant of the Senate while he was carrying out a sacred duty.”
“The man threw bloody entrails on a tribune of the plebs,” shouted Gaius. “Did you put him up to it?”
“You’re not a tribune any longer. You’re just a madman-and a murderer!”
Men on both sides began to shout insults. One of Gaius’s men ran to bring his supporters who were mustering at the front of the Senate House. When those men began to arrive, some of the senators thought they were being deliberately encircled. They panicked. Fistfights broke out.
A flash of lightning illuminated the scene with a garish light. Gaius screamed at his men to remain peaceful, but his words were swallowed by a deafening crack of thunder. A moment later, the sky opened. Hard rain pelted the crowd. Fierce winds whipped though the Forum. The rioters scattered and dispersed.
Raised on history books, Lucius remembered a tale from the city’s earliest days, and felt a shiver of dread. Romulus, the first king, had vanished in a blinding storm. Gaius had been accused of wanting a crown, and here was a storm the likes of which Lucius had never seen before. Lucius did not know the role that a previous Pinarius had played in the death of Romulus, but he knew that his mad, impulsive act had sealed the fate of Gaius Gracchus.
The next day, Lucius did something he had done only once before. He wore the family fascinum.
Occasionally, as a child, he had seen his mother wear it. When Lucius became a father, Menenia had ceremoniously passed the heirloom on to him; she explained its great antiquity and the little she knew of its origin, and she spoke of its power as a talisman to ward off evil. Lucius wore it on the day he received it, purely to please his mother, then put it away and forgot about it.
But that night, as the storm continued to rage, the fascinum appeared in his dreams, hovering before a great fire. When Lucius awoke, he searched for it among a tangle of castoff adornments he kept in a strongbox. He put the chain over his neck. The gold talisman, concealed beneath his tunic and toga, was cold against his breast. Lucius was not a particularly religious man, but if the fascinum possessed any protective powers whatsoever, of all the days of his life, this was surely the day to wear it.
To reach the house of Gaius in the Subura, Lucius had to cross the Forum. From the direction of the Senate House he heard echoes of shouting and weeping. A crowd was mourning Quintus Antyllius.
Gaius’s house was more crowded than he had ever seen it. The atmosphere was one of barely suppressed hysteria. There was a surprisingly buoyant sprit among the men who rushed madly this way and that, almost a sense of celebration. The last time Lucius had seen such a mixture of dread, anticipation, and camaraderie had been when he stood before the walls of Carthage with Tiberius, just before the final siege. There was a sense that a new world, for better or worse, was about to be born, and the knowledge that many among them would not be alive the next day to see it.
Gaius, standing among a group of reapers with scythes, saw him and waved him over.
“You came by way of the Forum?”
“Yes, but I stayed clear of the Senate House. I heard shouting, but I didn’t see-”
“Never mind.” Gaius’s tone was oddly aloof. “My surrogate eyes and ears run back and forth, bringing me fresh reports every few minutes. Quintus Antyllius has been laid on a bier before the Rostra. Various senators are competing to see which of them can deliver the most sanctimonious eulogy. The mourners weep and tear their hair. Meanwhile, I’m afraid some of my more eager supporters have gathered on the periphery. No violence yet, only some name-calling. Whenever the mourners cry ‘Antyllius!’ my men shout back ‘Tiberius!’ Of course, the corpse of my brother was dragged through the streets and dumped in the river. No one can accuse us of doing such a thing to Antyllius.”
“Gaius, what I did yesterday-it was unforgivable.”
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