IV

Dinner that night was not a success. Bethesda is not a bad cook, but cooking is among the least of her skills; cooking was certainly not the reason I bought her at the slave market in Alexandria those many years ago. A slave no longer — when she became pregnant with Diana I manumitted and married her — she was quite skilful in managing the labour of others, and to her I could leave the running of the household with complete confidence… except in the matter of the kitchen, where the egos of cooks were always colliding with her own. With Congrio lent to Claudia, Bethesda had taken advantage of the opportunity to exercise full sway in the kitchen.

Alas, her genius, so far as it went, was with simple foods such as she had served me in my leaner years (leaner in every sense), and particularly with fish, which were always to be had in quality and abundance at the markets in Rome, either freshly caught in the Tiber or brought upriver from the sea. At the farm good fish were harder to come by, and so, with a guest from the city to entertain, Bethesda had chosen to attempt something extravagant with the provisions on hand. She had overreached herself The celery and calf s brains with egg sauce was not up to Congrio's standards, and the asparagus stewed in wine might have succeeded had she chosen a less assertive vintage. (Such pretentious judgments about food I learned from the late Lucius Claudius.) The carrots with coriander were passable, and the potted peaches stewed with cumin at last provided a triumph I could sincerely compliment — which was a mistake.

'Congrio potted the peaches’ she remarked tersely. 'I merely

instructed one of the slaves to simmer them with the olive oil and cumin.'. -

?Ah — and your instructions were impeccable’ I said, kissing my fingertips. Bethesda raised a dubious eyebrow.

'I’ll take some more,' said Meto, gesturing to the serving slave.

'Actually, the whole meal was delicious,' insisted Marcus Caelius. "There aren't many Roman matrons who could personally oversee every course of such an ambitious meal in the absence of their cook. To find such culinary excellence here in the countryside is a delight.' The words sounded false to my ear, but Bethesda was suddenly glowing; it was the fancy beard that charmed her, I thought. 'But you need not strive to impress Catilina when he stays here,' added Caelius. 'He's a man of adaptable tastes. He can discriminate between two vintages of Falernian wine blindfolded, or drink from the jug kept for slaves with equal relish. Catilina says, "A man's palate was meant to experience every possible flavour, or else a tongue is good only for talking." '

This struck me as vaguely obscene; Bethesda must have caught the implication as well, for she now seemed even more charmed by our guest. Was it this that irritated me, or the fact that Caelius seemed to take my acquiescence for granted?

'I think we should retire to the library,' I said 'We still have business to discuss, Marcus Caelius.'

Meto looked up expectantly and began to rise from his couch. 'No,' I said,'stay and finish your peaches.'

'You have some very fine works in your collection,' said Caelius, trailing his eye over the scrolls in their pigeonholes and fingering the little labels that hung from them. 'I see you're particularly fond of collecting plays. So is Cicero. I suppose on occasion he passes on his duplicates to you. I had plenty of time to look through your library this afternoon, and I was impressed by all the volumes inscribed, "From Marcus Tullius Cicero, to his friend Gordianus, with warm regards—" '

'Yes, Caelius, I'm well acquainted with the contents of my own library. I remember where each volume came from.'

'Books are like friends, are they not? Steadfast, unchanging, reliable. There's a comfort in that. Pick up a volume you put away a year ago, and the words will be the same.'

'I take your meaning, Caelius. But is Cicero really the same man now that he was a year ago? Or seventeen years ago, when I first met him?'

'I don't understand.'

'The news from Rome arrives here sporadically and secondhand, and I listen to it with only one ear, but it seems to me that Cicero the consul has turned out to be rather more reactionary than was Cicero the aspiring advocate. The man of the people who bravely spoke out against Sulla now seems quite at home serving the interests of the same handful of rich families whom Sulla served.'

Caelius shrugged. 'This is all beside the point, isn't it? I thought you were sick of politics. That's why I chose to talk about friendship, instead.'

'Caelius, even if I were eager to do as you ask, I would hesitate. How old are you?' Twenty-five.'

'Quite young. I take it you have no wife and children yet.' 'No.’

"Then you probably don't understand why I hesitate to allow a man like Catilina into my house, no matter what the circumstance or pretext I left Rome partly because I was sick of the constant violence and danger. Not because I feared for my own safety, but because there are others I must consider and protect Before I adopted him, my elder son Eco was a child of the streets; he could always fend for himself, and now he's a man and on his own. But my younger son Meto is quite different; clever and resourceful, yes, but no t nearly as canny or resilient as Eco. I've shared as little of the dangerous part of my life with him as I could. And you've seen my little gid, Diana. She needs protection most of all'

'But we're not asking you to do anything dangerous, Gordianus, only—'

'You sound as sincere now as when you complimented Bethesda's dinner.'

Caelius gave me his heavy-lidded look. I think he was used to getting his way by using charm alone and could not quite account for my obstinacy.

I sighed ‘What precisely is it that Cicero wants of me?'

To his credit, Caelius showed no hint of smugness at this concession. His face became quite grave. 'I spoke to you this afternoon of a looming threat to the state. You discounted my words as mere rhetoric, Gordianus, but the facts are plain enough. The threat is Catilina. You may despise the pomposity and corruption of what passes for politics in Rome nowadays, but believe me, the anarchy Catilina would bring would be far more terrible.'

'You're beginning to speechify,' I warned.

Caelius smiled gradgingly. 'Stop me when I do that. To be clear, then: Catilina, as you know, is running for consul again. He cannot possibly win, but that won't stop him from trying, and from stirring up: as much, trouble as he can, using the campaign as a vehicle to foment disorder and discontent in the city. He has two plans. The first is predicated on his victory. If he should win the consulship—'

'You just said that was impossible.'

'I was speechifying, Gordianus; I told you to stop me if I did that. On the very slight chance, then, that Catilina should win the election, it will be taken as a sign that the electorate is irreparably fragmented. Cicero's consulship will have been a momentary respite of sanity before the storm. The Senate will erupt. There will be riots and murders in the streets. Very likely there will be civil war, the various politicians and great families are already aligning themselves. In such a conflict Catilina will inevitably lose, if not quickly, then when Pompey brings his troops back from the East. And if Pompey has to be called back to restore order, what is to stop Pompey from becoming dictator? Consider that possibility.'

Against my will, I did. After Catilina, Pompey as dictator was the ruling oligarchy's worst nightmare. Such an eventuality would mean either the end of the Republic or yet another civil war; men like Crassus and the young Julius Caesar would not let power elude them without a struggle.