The Roman Conspiracy Read online

  for

  James R. Mitchell

  my father

  Characters

  Spurinna (Aulus Lucinus Spurinna) The Narrator

  Hercna Aunt of Aulus Lucinus Spurinna

  Manlius Leader of old soldiers in Etruria

  Homer Greek slave, originally from Athens and secretary to Spurinna

  Volturcius Landowner from Faesulae in Etruria, lives in Rome

  Caesar (Julius Caesar) Up-and-coming politician in Rome

  Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) One of Rome’s two Consuls, Protector of Spurinna family

  Tullia Daughter of Cicero

  Fulvia Friend of Tullia

  The Druid (Brennus) One of the ambassadors of the Allobroges

  Pantolemos Hired philosopher at house of Volturcius

  Catiline Roman politician, leader of a conspiracy against the Senate

  Flaccus Brave young Tribune, leader of a troop of Roman cavalry

  Pomptinus Irresponsible young Tribune, with Flaccus, leader of a troop of Roman cavalry

  Antonius One of Rome’s two Consuls, commander of Roman army

  Contents

  1. Death at Dusk

  2. I Take the Road to Rome

  3. The Consul’s Daughter

  4. Homer’s Secret

  5. What I Found with the Golden Dolls

  6. Conspiracy for Murder

  7. Siege and Speech

  8. The Unlikely Magician

  9. Trickery and Treason

  10. In the Hall of Justice

  11. Encounter at the Bridge

  12. The Battle for Rome

  Acknowledgments

  Death at Dusk

  ulus, there is no question of your going to Rome. You have not finished your studies.”

  That was my Aunt Hercna’s voice. It was also her straightforward style. She was pacing up and down the room (well, not pacing – no Roman lady would ever pace, but the closest thing to it) and frowning at me. But she was also running out of excuses.

  “The harvest has hardly begun. It’s five days’ ride, and who will go with you? I cannot spare the supervisor, not with all these troubles. And think of how expensive it is in the city. Everyone says so. And your uncle is sick, think of him here without you, and … and you haven’t finished your studies!”

  Her problem was that these were all the reasons why I had to go. If I did not, if no one went, the harvest, the land, my studies, my uncle’s well-being – suddenly they were all threatened. But it was not my place to point that out again. My aunt was torn. Maybe she thought I only wanted to see the gladiators at the Circus.

  And just maybe, on that afternoon, she thought correctly.

  The “troubles” on our land had been growing for about a year, though I had been off at school in the town, Faesulae, and I hadn’t paid much attention. First there had been complaints from our tenant farmers, saying that crops were disappearing from their fields. They thought there might be an evil spirit. But my Aunt Hercna (who handled all the management of our land) found out that it was the old soldiers from the hill farms who were responsible for taking the best pumpkins and lettuce from our people. She caught one of the thieves and punished him. After that, in June, there was some real violence between the old soldiers and our farmers. Threats were traded back and forth and the hall of our house was full of worried tenants almost every day. Even though their new enemies had wrinkles and gray hair, the tenants said, the fact was, these old soldiers had discipline, and they had a leader too, named Manlius. In July, the soldiers had killed one of the bolder tenants, when he tried to stand up to them.

  It had to stop, the tenants said. Who knew how far this Manlius would go? Why wasn’t my uncle doing anything to stop him? He was their Protector; he had influence in Rome; couldn’t he stop it, somehow? What good was a Protector who didn’t help the little man? We, in turn, had our own Protector in Rome. Why, the tenants asked, didn’t he help us help them? That was what a Protector was for, they said, to stand up in court and make the speech that tenants couldn’t make and to pray to the gods the right way, so they would listen. To trade a favor with another powerful Protector. To uphold the Law. At least, to do something.

  Now it was nearly November, and the old soldiers were making matters worse. Even my uncle was worse. His illness had left him in bed most of that year, and now he was asleep most days and in pain when he was awake. He couldn’t deal with the old soldiers, or negotiate, or even write to his friends in the city. His Greek secretary wrote the letters and he signed them, but no answer ever came. Between Romans, business of this sort was done face to face, not with ink and wax.

  Things might have continued like this, and I might never have gone to Rome or found myself arguing with my aunt that day, if Manlius had not appeared that very morning at our house. He had men with him, and the men had weapons. He had a red blotch on his neck that bloomed each time he spoke angrily, which was all the time.

  “Come now,” Manlius began, throwing back his cloak after the barest formalities. “Come now, it can’t be that we don’t understand one another. We’re as many as you on the slopes, pulling our plows in the rocks, and uphill too. So there’s something to be said for sharing, don’t you think? Sharing out the good land?”

  Manlius stood in the middle of our hall, next to the marble statue of my grandfather. He planted his hands on his hips, glaring round, looking first at his followers and then at us. Despite his farmer’s cloak, he was every inch the grim old sergeant. He wore his years of army life well, and his voice still had the ring of command, even as he tried to speak politely. I stood facing him, six inches shorter and not yet wearing a grown man’s toga, just my boy’s striped one. Aunt Hercna sat in a chair beside me and wore a veil. My uncle was asleep. Officially, Manlius addressed me, but he knew full well that he was really speaking to my aunt. She was in charge, and she too had a will of iron.

  Aunt Hercna indicated the swords our visitors were wearing, and I said, “Are you farming with your blades? Plows would do better.”

  Manlius scowled at me. “These instruments aren’t rusty like our plows, and we don’t scrape them on stony fields, I can tell you. It was these we used to get our allotments, out in the East with the General, and by the good gods you know as well as I that we can use them again to get new allotments.” He was referring to the old General, now gone, who had given the soldiers farms in our valley, back in my father’s day. The land was their reward for being in his army out in Asia. Now they were threatening to take “new allotments” – our Tenants’ farms, which it was our duty to defend.

  “You’ve seen the documents. Those lands aren’t yours,” I answered, once my aunt had whispered to me.

  “This dear lady is handy with a pen, like the Greek here,” replied Manlius, looking to my uncle’s secretary, “and no doubt when the time comes they’ll both be handy for writing new documents for us. That’ll make it quite official,” he said, laughing. “What use there will be for you and your tongue, we’ll have to see.”

  My aunt could not let this pass. “What do you mean? Will you attack us?” she cried, breaking her silence. “No rebel can last long against the Roman Law, you fool. And the law in this valley is in the hands of the Spurinnas,” she added, meaning our family, “and our own Protector lives in Rome.”

  “I’m a fool, am I?” shouted Manlius. “Well, here’s more foolishness for you! You’re not the only one with friends in the city, and our friends don’t wait for law courts and judges. If you won’t share, we’ll start sharing you out among ourselves – the whole lot of you, these farms, this house, these fields – and we could use some slaves! No, by Hercules, you won’t recognize this valley in six months!” he finished. He tried to laugh, though h
e was far too worked up to manage it. The blotch on his neck glowed as red as fire.

  With that, and one last insult from Manlius that we “didn’t even have a man in the house, just some child with a boy’s striped toga,” the morning interview ended, and the old soldiers had left with more sneers and insults. I could not see how it could have gone worse. But my aunt was satisfied, even proud of me.

  “You did rightly, Aulus, answering as well as he did. We have no choice. At least the farmers will not say the Spurinnas gave them up because they were afraid of a gang of highway robbers!”

  Obviously, my aunt still hoped the letters from my uncle would reach our Protector in the city. Cicero was his name, and he was a very influential man, one of Rome’s two Consuls. He had known my father, Aunt Hercna said, and he wouldn’t forget our family, even if he was also a very busy man. I had my doubts, and I voiced them at the sixth hour, when we ate lunch.

  “Why not send me instead of writing?” I asked. “I know the facts, and I’ll convince him. They say I look like father, and maybe that will help. Cicero can send his men to deal with Manlius.”

  The idea of my going didn’t sit well with my aunt, however. Even though she was a stern woman when it came to business and running our land, she found my presence reassuring. I might be dressed like a boy, but while I was there she had at least one ally. So we argued for an hour, until she repeated with great authority, “Aulus, there is no question of your going to Rome. You have not finished your studies.”

  With that I was sent off to continue those studies. I had come home from Faesulae to help with the harvest, but the feud with Manlius had thrown all that into confusion, so instead of directing the slaves in the fields, I was studying in my room. But it was Greek grammar and somehow, after the first wrangle with Manlius and the second with Aunt Hercna, I couldn’t concentrate. So I slipped down the back stairs to the cabbage field. It was my favorite spot for my favorite sport – throwing the javelin.

  I had a straw dummy there, propped against the trunk of the oak tree, as a target. The dummy and the special set of three javelin-heads had been a joint birthday present from the groom and the blacksmith, old slaves from my father’s time. I had shaped the wooden javelin shafts myself – that was my end of the bargain – and, after eight months of practice, my grip, my throwing motion, and my follow-through (the important part) were so natural I didn’t even think about them any more. I just picked a point on the target dummy and – thunk – usually came pretty close, from thirty yards. By Hercules, looking at my right shoulder – thunk – you could tell it was bigger than the left one, much stronger. One for the chest now – thunk – and spot on target, quite good! Then the inevitable walk to pick up the javelins, hanging limply from the dummy. And then to begin again. Normally it was relaxing; but this time I threw the shafts quick and fast, for I was imagining Manlius’ ugly face there on the straw dummy.

  “If it comes to a fight,” I thought, “I could get him, right in front of the house, and that might turn the tide in the battle.”

  By the time it was dusk and almost the hour for the supper bell, I began to feel sore. Just as I was walking up to the trunk for the fiftieth time, I froze in my tracks. Someone was screaming in the house, a high-pitched woman’s scream. Before I could move, it pierced the air again, this time accompanied by the sobbing voices of many women. They were howling, shrieking with grief. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.

  Homer, my uncle’s Greek secretary, came scrambling round the house, calling out my name. “Master Aulus, sir! Where are you? Young master!” He trampled through the cabbages and came straight for me as best he could (he was not very athletic). I had never seen him with such an expression of incomprehension on his face. “Master Aulus,” he panted, “Your uncle – sir, your uncle is dead.”

  I Take the Road to Rome

  hen the funeral pyre was cold, the slaves gloomily gathered my uncle’s ashes. My aunt placed the urn in the tomb of his ancestors, beside his brother’s – my father’s. The soothsayer pronounced some phrases in the old tongue, Etruscan. “Ikan netsuis alpnu Cnevus aplus turuce,” he intoned. He was the only one who understood. The rest of us only spoke Latin, the modern language.

  My aunt and I were dressed in white, for mourning, and our eyes were red. It had been a terrible night. I had not slept much. Gray clouds covered the sky. The air seemed to weigh heavily on us as we trudged slowly back to the house along a lane of dark cypress, with our tenants in procession.

  The funeral wasn’t the last ceremony that day, however. My uncle’s death left me as the only male member of the family – the heir – and my aunt and Homer, after a quick glance at the accounting records, told me it was essential that I inherit the family property without delay. So right after the funeral I had to go through the coming-of-age ceremony – out of season, and rather before I’d planned to. I was supposed to have waited for the manhood festival next Spring. My voice was already breaking, though, to some extent.

  There was something exhilarating about wrapping the full, plain, unornamented toga around myself, leaving the boy’s striped garment behind forever. Suddenly it was my job to pour the offering in front of the family shrine, standing where my uncle had always stood. And the tenants, who were on hand as witnesses, hailed me in the hall as “Aulus Lucinus Spurinna, keeper of the peace, Protector of the valley, upholder of the law.” Some of them looked skeptical, but most seemed glad to intone those words. I had the same name as my grandfather, Aulus Lucinus Spurinna, and his days were remembered as peaceful and prosperous times.

  Officially, I was now a man; secretly I felt younger than ever before.

  My uneasiness through all these rituals, gestures, and formalities was increased by the fact that Homer, the Greek secretary, kept fidgeting the whole time, even when I was performing the offering at the shrine. He even tried to speak once, which was absolutely forbidden during the ceremony, especially for slaves, but my aunt caught him and gave him a withering look that closed his mouth like a trap. After that he confined himself to trying to signal me urgently with his hands. I ignored him. No doubt there was important administrative work to deal with, but wasn’t that his job? After I had greeted all the tenants, wished them well, and bade them farewell, I had to receive the pledge of loyalty from each of the household slaves – cook, groom, maids, blacksmith, gardener, swineherd, and all the rest. And there was Homer, last in the line, and looking very anxious.

  “Sir, if I could have a word with you …”

  “Aren’t you going to pledge me your loyalty too?” I asked.

  “Oh, right! Yes, sir! Yes. And if I could add to that by just showing you …”

  I turned away. He and Aunt Hercna had already put me through two grueling ceremonies that day, and I wasn’t ready for a third. No doubt Homer wanted me to approve next month’s wine shipment or something.

  I went out the back door, still in my new toga, and walked away from the house. The smell of bleach was still strong in the white wool that covered me, but as I went up the hill path the familiar scent of the pine trees replaced it. It was hard to believe how much had happened in one day. But I looked over our land and felt happy, then melancholy, and then happy again, all in an instant. I loved the familiar vista of the farmers’ cottages and their high, full crops; of the creek wending its way past the tall pillars and high roof of our house; of the evening rumble of wheels on the distant road; of the remote range of hills, the hills of home whose outlines were etched in my memory. I was sad to be leaving, and yet happy again, for at last I was going – I didn’t know where. To Rome of course, but who knew where else?

  Yes, I had decided to take the road to Rome. Now that I was head of the family, my aunt couldn’t prevent me. I had decided to fight for our land. Not with the javelin, as I’d thought. There was no stopping soldiers with that, not when they came to steal our food, enslave the tenants, take the tenants’ wives, and burn our house. Manlius would certainly be back, and soon enough,
inventing an empty reason to destroy us. I almost cried out in anger to think of Aunt Hercna left to beg from door to door – could that happen? And what would happen to me, last of the Spurinnas? Obviously, they would see to it that I joined my father and my uncle.

  No, the tenants might have thought it was just tradition when they hailed me as “upholder of the law,” but I was serious. I would do it. I would take the case to our Protector, and then I would make Manlius eat his words. In the morning, I would ride to Rome.

  Aunt Hercna looked different when she saw me and Homer off at dawn the next morning. Homer had volunteered to go with me, and since he knew more about my uncle’s politics than anyone, I had no objection. Aunt Hercna gave me some silver coins; but when she kissed me goodbye, I barely felt it. She had been weeping again. Perhaps she was just too sad to try and stop me. We mounted our beasts, the white mare for me and the donkey for Homer, waving ’til the path from the house turned a corner at the well and began to run down to the Roman highway.

  For the first few miles we rode in silence. Homer seemed less eager to talk, confident perhaps that the five days of travel would leave him plenty of time for discussions. My uncle had bought Homer in Athens a dozen years ago, and he’d been his secretary ever since. Although he must have felt my uncle’s death as keenly as my aunt, he whistled a Greek tune as the sun rose high. His saddlebags were bursting with documents and letters, scrolls, wax tablets and ink, and a writing plume. All this apparatus jostled and rustled as the donkey trotted.

  Presently we joined the Cassian Road, the old Roman stone road that cut straight and true through the hills, and we turned south. The town of Faesulae rose now on the slope to our left, but my school was invisible in the mass of red roof tiles. I was glad to be out riding beneath the bright sky, instead of sitting inside with my teacher, but I felt slightly sick to think that Manlius was the reason for my freedom. And before long the silence of the morning, Homer’s whistling, and the documents’ rattling got to me.