Part Four

Nunquam

XXXV

We departed for Rome before daybreak on the day after the Kalends of December. The wind, bracing but not bitter, was at our backs, and our horses were full of spirit. We made excellent time and arrived at the Milvian Bridge when the sun was strongest.

Traffic was light, especially compared to the jam of horses and wagons we had encountered on our last trip. Even so, a knot of people had gathered at the nearer end of the bridge. I thought at first that tradesmen selling wares had attracted the crowd, but as we drew nearer I saw that the only commodity being traded was conversation, much of it quite animated. The men were of various classes — local farmers and freedmen, as well as a few well-dressed travellers attended by their slaves.

As we drew nearer, I signalled to the slave who drove the cart carrying Bethesda and Diana to stop beside the road. Meto and I dismounted and walked into the crowd. Several men were talking at once, but the voice that carried above the rest belonged to a farmer in a dusty tunic.

'If what you say is true, why didn't they kill them on the spot?' the farmer said.

His remarks were addressed to a merchant, a man of some wealth, to judge from the rings on his fingers and the coterie of slaves around him, all of whom were more finely dressed than the farmer. 'I only repeat what I heard before I left the city this morning,' the merchant said. 'Business takes me north; otherwise I would have stayed to see what transpires this afternoon. It's rumoured that Cicero himself may address the people in the Forum—'

'Cicero!' The farmer spat. 'Chickpeas turn my stomach sour.'

'Better that than a barbarian's knife in the stomach, which is what these traitors had in mind for you,' snapped the merchant.

'Bah, a bunch of lies, as usual,' said the farmer.

'Not lies,' said another man, who stood just in front of me. 'The man from the city knows what he's talking about. I live in that house just over there, on the river. The praetor and his men spent the night under my roof, so I should know. They waited in ambush, then trapped the traitors on the bridge and arrested them—'

'Yes, you told us your story already, Gaius. Certainly, soldiers arrested some men from Rome, but who knows what it really means?' demanded the angry farmer. 'Just wait and see, the whole thing is another scheme concocted by Cicero and the Optimates to bring down Catilina.' Several others joined him with a chorus of angry shouts.

'And why not?' demanded the merchant. As the crowd grew more animated, his slaves drew around him in a protective ring, like trained mastiffs. 'Catilina should already be dead. Cicero's only fault is that he didn't have the fiend strangled while he was still in Rome. Instead, he continues with his plots, and you see where it's led — Romans plotting with barbarians to stage their revolt! It's disgraceful.' This set off a round of jeering from the farmer's contingent, and an equally vociferous response from those who agreed with the merchant,

I touched the shoulder of the man called Gaius, who claimed to live nearby. 'I've just come from up north,' I said. '"What's happened?'

He turned around and peered at us with eyes puffy from lack of sleep. His chinless jaw was grizzled and his hair unkempt. 'Here,' he said, 'let's step away from the crowd. I can't hear myself think! I've told the story a hundred times already this morning, but I'll tell it again.' He sighed in mock weariness, but I could see he was only too happy to recount his tale to anyone who hadn't yet heard it. The men in the crowd were too busy arguing to listen to him any longer. 'Are you headed into the city?'

'Yes.'

"They'll all be talking about it there, have no doubt. You can tell them you heard the facts from a true witness.' He looked at me gravely to see that I grasped the importance of this.

'Yes, go on.'

'Last night, long after I was in bed, they came banging on my door.'

'Who?'

'A praetor, he said he was. Imagine that! By the name of Lucius Flaccus. On a mission from the consul himself, he said. Surrounded by a whole company of men all wrapped up in dark cloaks. And all carrying short swords, like the men in the legions do. He told me not to be afraid. Said they'd be spending the night in my house. Asked to put his horses away in my stable, so I sent a slave to show his men. Asked if there was a window where he could keep an eye on the bridge. Asked if I was a patriot, and I told him of course I was. Said if that was true, then he knew he could trust me to keep quiet and out of the way, but gave me a piece of silver anyway. Well, that's customary, isn't it, to pay something when soldiers put themselves up in the house of a citizen?'

'But these men weren't soldiers, were they?' said Meto.

'Well, no, I suppose not. They weren't dressed like soldiers, anyway. But they came from the consul. The Senate passed a decree last month — you must have heard about it — charging the consuls to protect the state by whatever means are necessary. So it's not a big surprise to see armed men being sent around by the consul, is it? Of course, I never thought I'd find myself in the middle of it!' He shook his head, smiling faintly. 'Anyway, the praetor stations himself at the window and opens the shutters — well, lean forward a bit and you can see it from here, how that side of my house looks out over the river and the bridge. He sent one of his men to bring him a bit of burning wood from my brazier, then held it up in the window and waved it. And do you see that other house just opposite mine, across the river? From a window in that house someone else waved a bit of flame in answer. So they had men hidden away in houses on both sides of the bridge, don't you see? An ambush for somebody. I could see that myself, even without being told.'

He paused and peered at us, making sure we had absorbed the full drama of the situation. 'Yes,' I said, 'go on.'

'Well, the night drew on, but I couldn't sleep, of course, and neither could my wife or children. But we couldn't have any light, so we sat in darkness. The praetor never left the window. His men huddled together, wrapped up in their cloaks, talking to each other in low voices. It was some time between midnight and dawn when we heard the clatter of hooves on the bridge — it was a clear, cold night with hardly a sound besides the water in the river, and the noise on the bridge carried like drumbeats. Quite a few horses, it must have been. The praetor went stiff at the window, watching, and the men sucked in their breaths. I stood across the room, but I could see over the praetor's shoulder. That bit of fire appeared again at the window across the way. "This is it!" said the praetor, and the men were on their feet in an instant, with their swords already drawn. I just stood back and flattened myself against the wall to keep out of their way as they rushed out of the door.

'There was quite a racket on the bridge then, enough to wake the lemures of the drowned — men rushing onto the bridge from both ends and the clatter of horses in the middle, along with shouts and curses, some of it in that awful tongue the Gauls use.'

'Gauls?' said Meto.

'Yes, some of the men on the bridge were Gauls, from the tribe of the Allobroges, as the praetor told me afterwards. The others were Romans, though they don't deserve the name. Traitors!'

'How do you know this?' I said.

'Because the praetor Lucius Flaccus told me. After the ambush, he was quite proud of himself, flushed with excitement, I guess, after all that waiting, and then—' He clapped his hands. 'To have it all over so fast, just as he wanted, I suppose. Not a drop of blood was shed; at least you can't see any on the bridge this morning. The traitors were pulled from their horses, disarmed and bound. Once it was all over, Flaccus thanked me and slapped me on the back and told me I had done my part to save the Republic. Well, I told him I was proud, but I'd be even prouder if I knew what had happened. "It will be on everyone's tongue soon enough," he said, "but why shouldn't you know before the rest? These men we've just arrested are part of a conspiracy to bring down the Republic!"