Part 13 (1/2)

Pompey grunted, motioning to the torturers who stood by the broken bodies of the conspirators. ”A pity. These creatures named him as their leader, but they know nothing of the details I wanted. They would have told us by now.”

Julius looked at the men and repressed a shudder at what had been done to them. Pompey had been thorough and he too doubted the men could have held anything back. Three of them lay as still as the dead, but the last rolled his head toward them with a sudden jerk. One of his eyes had been pierced and wept a s.h.i.+ning stream of liquid down his cheek, but the other peered around aimlessly, lighting up as he saw Julius.

”You! I accuse you!” he spat, then cackled weakly, dribbling blood over his chin.

Julius fought against a rising gorge as he caught sight of small white shards on the stone floor. Some of them still had the roots attached.

”He has lost his mind,” he said softly and, to his relief, Pompey nodded.

”Yes, though he held out the longest. They will live long enough to be executed and that will be the end of it. I must thank you both for bringing this to the Senate in time. It was a n.o.ble deed and worthy of your ranks.” Pompey looked at the man who would stand for the position of consul in only two months.

”When my curfew is over, I suppose the people will rejoice at being saved from b.l.o.o.d.y insurrection. They will elect you, don't you think? How can they not?”

His eyes belied the light tone and Julius did not look at him as he felt the man's gaze. He felt shamed by all of it.

”Perhaps they will,” Cra.s.sus said softly. ”We three will have to work together for Rome. A triumvirate will bring its own problems, I am sure. Perhaps we should-”

”Another time, Cra.s.sus,” Pompey snapped. ”Not now, with the stink of this place in my lungs. We still have a Senate meeting at sunrise and I want to visit the bathhouse before that.”

”Dawn is here now,” Julius said.

Pompey swore softly, using a rag to wipe his hands clean. ”It's always night down in this place. I am finished with these.”

He gave orders to the torturers to have the men cleaned and made presentable before turning back to Cra.s.sus. As Julius watched, dark sponges were dipped in buckets and the worst of the blood began to be sluiced away, running in stone gutters along the floor between his legs.

”I will set the execution for noon,” Pompey promised, leading them up the stairs to the cool rooms above.

The gray light had taken on a reddish tint as Julius and Cra.s.sus stepped out into the forum. The rain pounded on the stones, rebounding in thousands of tiny spatters that drummed in the emptiness. Though Julius called his name, Cra.s.sus walked quickly away into the downpour. No doubt a bath and a change of clothes would remove some of the sickly pallor from his skin, Julius thought. He hurried to catch up with the consul.

”Something occurred to me when I was destroying the rebels gathered in your name,” Julius called, his voice echoing.

The consul stopped dead at that, looking around. There was no one close.

”In my my name, Julius? Catiline led them. Did his followers not murder your soldiers in the street?” name, Julius? Catiline led them. Did his followers not murder your soldiers in the street?”

”Perhaps, but the house you showed me was a modest one, Cra.s.sus. Where would Catiline have gathered enough gold to pay ten thousand men? Very few in this city could have paid for such an army, don't you think? I wonder what would happen if I sent men to investigate his accounts. Would I find a traitor with huge reserves of hidden wealth, or should I look for another, a paymaster?”

Cra.s.sus could know nothing of the burnt papers Brutus had found at the house, and the spark of worry Julius saw was all he needed to confirm his suspicions.

”It strikes me that such a large force of mercenaries, coupled with riots and fires in the city, could well have worked with only Pompey's legion to guard Rome. It was not an empty offer they made you, Cra.s.sus, do you realize? The city could well have been yours. I am surprised surprised you were not tempted. You would have been left standing on the heap of corpses, and Rome might have been ready for Dictators.h.i.+p.” you were not tempted. You would have been left standing on the heap of corpses, and Rome might have been ready for Dictators.h.i.+p.”

As Cra.s.sus began to reply, Julius's expression changed and his mocking tone became hard.

”But without warning, another legion is brought home from Spain and then?? Then you must have been in a very difficult position. The forces are set, the conspiracy is in place, but Rome is guarded by ten thousand and victory is no longer guaranteed. A gambling man might have risked it, but not you. You are a man who knows when the game is over. I wonder when you decided it was better to betray Catiline than see it through? Was it when you came to my home and planned my campaign with me?”

Cra.s.sus put a hand on Julius's shoulder.

”I have said I am a friend to your house, Julius, and so I will ignore your words-for your own good, I will.” He paused for an instant. ”The conspirators are dead and Rome is safe. An excellent outcome, in fact. Let that be enough for you. There is nothing else that should trouble your thoughts. Let it go.”

Ducking his head against the rain, Cra.s.sus walked away, leaving Julius staring after him.

CHAPTER 14.

Cold gray clouds hung low in the sky over the vast crowd waiting in the Campus Martius. The ground was sodden underfoot, but thousands had left their houses and work to walk to the great field and witness the executions. Pompey's soldiers waited in perfect, s.h.i.+ning ranks, showing no sign of the labor that had gone into constructing the prisoners' platform or laying out a host of wooden benches for the Senate. Even the ground had been covered with dry rushes that crackled underfoot.

Children were held aloft by their parents to get a glimpse of the four men waiting miserably on the wooden platform, and the crowd talked quietly amongst themselves, feeling something of the solemnity of the moment.

As noon had approached, the Senate had left their deliberations in the Curia and walked together to the Campus. Soldiers of the Tenth had joined Pompey's men in closing the city, pressing wax seals against the gates and raising the flag on the Janiculum hill. With the Senate absent, the city was kept in a state of armed siege until their return. Many of the senators glanced idly at the distant flag on the hill to the west. It would remain as long as the city was safe, and even the execution of traitors would be halted if the flag was pulled down to warn of an enemy approach.

Julius stood with the damp folds of his best cloak wrapped tightly around him. Even with the tunic and heavy toga underneath it, he s.h.i.+vered as he watched the miserable men his actions had brought to that place of death.

The prisoners had no protection from the biting wind. Only two could stand and they were hunched in pain, their chained hands pressed in mute misery against the wounds of the night. Perhaps because death was so close, those two gulped at the cold air, filling their lungs and ignoring the sting of their exposed skin.

The tallest of the pair had long dark hair that whipped and veiled his face. His eyes were swollen, but Julius could see a glint almost hidden by the bruised flesh, the feverish brightness of a trapped animal.

The one who had raved at Julius in the prison house was sobbing, his head wrapped in a cloth. A dark coin of blood had appeared in the material, marking the place his eye had been. Julius shuddered at the memory and took a tighter grip on his cloak, feeling the icy metal of one of Alexandria's clasps touch his neck. He glanced at Pompey and Cra.s.sus, standing on the bed of rushes laid over the mud. The two consuls were talking quietly and the crowd waited for them, their eyes bright with antic.i.p.ation.

Finally, the two men stood apart. Pompey caught the eye of a magistrate from the city, and the crowd shuffled and chattered as the man ascended the platform and faced them.

”These four have been found guilty of treason against the city. By order of consuls Cra.s.sus and Pompey and by order of the Senate, they will be executed. Their bodies will be cut apart and their flesh scattered for the fowls of the air. Their heads will be placed on four gates as a warning to those who threaten Rome. This is the will of our consuls, who speak as Rome.”

The executioner was a master butcher by trade, a powerfully built man with close-cropped gray hair. He wore a toga of rough brown wool, belted to hold in his swelling waist. He did not rush, enjoying the gaze of the crowd as it focused on him. The silver coins he would receive for the work were nothing to the satisfaction he took from it.

Julius watched as the man made a show of checking his knife, running a stone down its length one last time. It was a vicious-looking blade, a narrow cleaver as long as his forearm with the tang set in a st.u.r.dy wooden handle. The spine was almost a finger wide. A child laughed nervously and was shushed by her parents. The long-haired prisoner began to pray aloud, his eyes gla.s.sy. Perhaps it was his noise, or just a sense of showmans.h.i.+p, but the butcher came to him first, laying the cleaver alongside his neck.

The man flinched and his voice grew sharper, the air hissing in and out of his lungs in sharp jerks. His hands shook and his pale skin was wax-white. The crowd watched fascinated as the butcher took a handful of his hair in his hand and bent the head slowly to one side, exposing the clean line of the neck.

The man's voice was deep and low. ”No, no? no,” he muttered, the crowd straining to hear his last words.

There was no fanfare or warning. The butcher adjusted his grip in the man's hair and began to cut slowly into the flesh. Blood sprayed out, drenching them both, and the condemned man raised his hands to scrabble weakly at the blade as it ate at him, back and forth with terrible precision. He made a soft sound, an ugly cry that lasted only a moment. His legs collapsed, but the butcher was strong and held him up until his cleaver sc.r.a.ped against bone. He pulled it back then and with two quick chops he was through and the head tore clear, the body falling loose. Muscles still fluttered in the cheeks and the eyes remained open in a parody of life.

In the crowd, hands covered mouths in shuddering pleasure as the body slipped bonelessly from the platform onto the rushes below. They stood on tiptoes and jostled for a view as the butcher held the head to show them, blood running down his arm and staining his toga almost black. The jaw flopped open with the movement, revealing the teeth and tongue.

One of the other prisoners vomited over himself, then cried out. As if at a signal, the other two joined him, wailing and pleading. The crowd were roused by the noise, jeering them and laughing wildly with the break in tension. The butcher shoved the head into a cloth bag and turned slowly to reach down to the man nearest him. He closed his heavy fist on an ear and dragged the screaming figure to his feet.

Julius looked away until it was finished. As he did so, he saw Cra.s.sus turn his head, but ignored the gaze. The crowd cheered each head as it was held up to them, and Julius watched them curiously. He wondered if the events Cra.s.sus paid for gripped them half as much as this day's entertainment.

They were his people, this crowd stretching darkly over the wet ground of the Campus Martius. The nominal masters of the city, sated with vicarious terror and cleansed by it. As it ended, he saw the faces ease as if some great weight had been lifted. Husbands and wives joked together, relaxing, and he knew there would be little work in the city that day. They would pa.s.s through the great gates and head for wineshops and inns to discuss what they had seen. The problems of their own lives would become less important for a few hours. The city would slip into the evening with none of the usual rush and hurry of the streets. They would sleep well and wake refreshed.

The lines of Pompey's men opened to let the Senate through. Julius rose with the others and made his way back to the gates, watching as the seals were cracked and a bar of light appeared between them. He had two cases to prepare for the forum court and his sword tournament was only days away, but like the crowd of citizens, he felt strangely at peace when he thought of the work to come. There could be no striving on such a day, and the damp air tasted clean and fresh in his lungs.

That evening, Julius stood and rapped his knuckles on the long table in the campaign house. The noise fell as quickly as good red wine would allow, and he waited, looking around at those who had come with him in the race for consul. Every person at the table had risked a great deal in their public support of him. If he lost, they would all be made to suffer in some way. Alexandria could find her clients disappearing with a single word from Pompey, her business ruined. If Julius was allowed to take the Tenth to some distant post, those who went with him would be giving up their careers, forgotten men who would be lucky to see the city again before retirement.