The lot which gave the province of Roman Africa to Spurius Postumius Albinus was drawn on New Year’s Day; not twenty-four hours later, he nailed his colors to the mast, and they were the colors of Prince Massiva of Numidia.
Spurius Albinus had a brother, Aulus, ten years younger than himself, newly admitted to the Senate, and eager to make a name. So while Spurius Albinus lobbied strenuously yet behind the scenes for his new client Prince Massiva, it fell to Aulus Albinus to escort Prince Massiva through all the most important public places of the city, introducing him to every Roman of note, and whispering to Massiva’s agents what sort of gift would be appropriate to send to every Roman of note Massiva met. Like most members of the Numidian royal house, Massiva was a well-set-up and good-looking Semite with a brain between his ears, capableof exerting charm, and lavish in the distribution of largesse. His chief advantage lay not in the undeniable legitimacy of his claim, but rather in the Roman delight of a divided camp; there was no thrill in a united Senate, no spice in a series of unanimous votes, no reputations to be made in amicable co-operation.
At the end of the first week of the New Year, Aulus Albinus formally presented the case of Prince Massiva to the House, and, on his behalf, claimed the throne of Numidia for the legitimate branch. It was Aulus Albinus’ s maiden speech, and a good one. Every Caecilius Metellus sat up and listened, then applauded at the end of it, and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was delighted to speak in support of Massiva’s petition. This, he said, was the answer to the vexed question as to what to do about Numidia—get it back on the right path with a lawful king at the reins, not a desperate pretender whose bloodline was not good enough to unite the whole country behind him, and who had established his tenure of the throne by murder and bribery. Before Spurius Albinus dismissed the meeting, the Senate was making noises indicating it was very ready to vote in favor of dismissing the present King, and replacing him with Massiva.
“We’re up to our necks in boiling water,” said Bomilcar to Jugurtha. “All of a sudden I’m not being invited to dine anywhere, and our agents can’t find any ears prepared to listen.”
“When is the Senate going to vote?” asked the King, his voice calm and steady.
“The fourteenth day before the Kalends of February is the next meeting scheduled for the House—that is seven days from tomorrow, sire.”
The King straightened his shoulders. “It will go against me, won’t it?”
“Yes, sire,” said Bomilcar.
“In that case, it is pointless my trying to continue to do things the Roman way.” Jugurtha was visibly growing in size, an awful majesty swelling him now that had been kept hidden since he came with Lucius Cassius to Italy. “From now on, I will do things my way—the Numidian way.”
The rain had cleared, a cold sun shone; Jugurtha’s bones longed for the warmer winds of Numidia, his body longed for the friendly and unavaricious comfort of his harem, his mind longed for the ruthless logic of Numidian plain dealing. Time to go home! Time to start recruiting and training an army, for the Romans were never going to let go.
He paced up and down the colonnade flanking the gigantic peristyle-garden, then beckoned to Bomilcar and strode with him to the center of the open air, by the loudly splashing fountain.
“Not even a bird can hear us,” he said then.
Bomilcar stiffened, prepared himself.
“Massiva must go,” said the King.
“Here? In Rome?”
“Yes, and within the next seven days. If Massiva is not dead before the Senate takes its vote, our task will be that much harder. With Massiva dead, there can be no vote. It will buy us time.”
“I’ll kill him myself,” said Bomilcar.
But Jugurtha shook his head violently. “No! No! The assassin must be a Roman,” he said. “Your job is to find the Roman assassin who will kill Massiva for us.”
Bomilcar stared, aghast. “My lord king, we’re in a foreign country! We don’ t know where or how, let alone who!”
“Ask one of our agents. Surely there’s one we can trust,” said Jugurtha.
That was more concrete; Bomilcar worked at it for some moments, nipping at the short hairs of his beard beneath his bottom lip with strong teeth. “Agelastus,” he said at last. “Marcus Servilius Agelastus, the man who never smiles. His father is Roman, he was born and bred here. But his heart is with his Numidian mother, of that I’m sure.”
“I leave it to you. Do it,” said the King, and walked away down the path.
*
Agelastus looked stunned. “Here? In Rome?”
“Not only here, but within the next seven days,” said Bomilcar. “Once the Senate votes for Massiva—as it will!—we’ll have a civil war on our hands in Numidia. Jugurtha won’t let go, you know that. Even if he were willing to let go, the Gaetuli wouldn’t let him.”
“But I haven’t the faintest idea how to find an assassin!”
“Then do the job yourself.”
“I couldn’t!” wailed Agelastus.
“It has to be done! Surely in a city this size there are plenty of people willing to do murder for a good sum of money,” Bomilcar persisted.
“Of course there are! Half the proletariat, if the truth is known. But I don’t mix in those circles, I don’t know any of the proletarii! After all, I can’t just approach the first seedy-looking fellow I see, clink a bag of gold at him, and ask him to kill a prince of Numidia!” moaned Agelastus.
“Why not?” asked Bomilcar.
“He might report me to the urban praetor, that’s why!”
“Show him the gold first, and I guarantee he won’t. In this city, everyone has his price.”
“Maybe that is indeed so, Baron,” said Agelastus, “but I for one am not prepared to put your theory to the test.”
And from that stand he would not be budged.
*
Everyone said the Subura was Rome’s sink, so to the Subura Bomilcar went, clad inconspicuously, and without a single slave to escort him. Like every visitor of note to Rome, he had been warned never to venture into the valley northeast of the Forum Romanum, and now he understood why. Not that the alleys of the Subura were any narrower than those of the Palatine, nor were the buildings as oppressively high as those on the Viminal and upper Esquiline.
No, what distinguished the Subura at first experience was people, more people than Bomilcar had ever seen. They leaned out of a thousand thousand windows screeching at each other, they elbowed their way through presses of bodies so great all movement was slowed to a snail’s pace, they behaved in every rude and aggressive manner known to the race of men, spat and pissed and emptied their slops anywhere they fancied they saw a space open up, were ready to pick a fight with anyone who so much as looked at them sideways.
The second impression was of an all-prevailing squalor, an appalling stench. As he made his way from the civilized Argiletum to the Fauces Suburae, as the initial stretch of the main thoroughfare was known, Bomilcar was incapable of taking in anything beyond smell and dirt. Peeling and dilapidated, the very walls of the buildings oozed filth in runnels, as if the bricks and timber of which they were made had been mortared with filth. Why, he found himself wondering, hadn’t they just let the whole district burn down last year, instead of fighting so hard to save it? Nothing and no one in the Subura was worth saving! Then as he penetrated deeper—careful as he walked not to turn off the Subura Major, as the main street was now called, into any of the gaps between the buildings on either side, for he knew if he did, he might never find his way out again—disgust was replaced by amazement. For he began to see the vitality and hardiness of the inhabitants, and experience a cheerfulness beyond his comprehension.
The language he heard was a bizarre mixture of Latin and Greek and a little Aramaic, an argot which probably couldn’t be understood by anyone who didn’t live in the Subura, for certainly in his extensive wanderings around the rest of Rome, he had never heard its like.
There were shops everywhere, foetid little snack bars all apparently doing a thriving trade—there was obviously money around somewhere—interspersed with bakeries, charcuteries, wine bars, and curious tiny shoplets which seemed (from what he could ascertain by peering into the gloom within) to sell every kind of thing from pieces of twine to cooking pots to lamps and tallow candles. However, clearly food was the best business to be in; at least two thirds of the shops were devoted to some aspect of the food trade. There were factories too: he could hear the thump of presses or the whir of grinding wheels or the clatter of looms, but these noises came from narrow doorways or from side alleys, and were hopelessly fused with what appeared to be tenement dwellings many storeys high. How did anyone ever survive here?
Even the little squares at the major crossroads were solid people; the way they managed to do their washing in the fountain basins and carry pitchers of water home astounded him. Cirta—of which city he as a Numidian was inordinately proud—he at last admitted was no more than a big village compared to Rome. Even Alexandria, he suspected, might have its work cut out to produce an ants’ nest like the Subura.
However, there were places in which men gathered to sit and drink and pass the time of day. These seemed to be confined to major crossroads, but even of that he couldn’t be sure, unwilling as he was to leave the main street. Everything kept happening very suddenly, in snatches of scenes that opened up before him and closed in a fresh throng of people, from a man beating a laden ass to a woman beating a laden child. But the dim interiors of the crossroads taverns—he didn’t know what else to call them—were oases of relative peace. A big man in the pink of health, Bomilcar finally decided he would find out nothing more illuminating until he ventured inside one. After all, he had come to the Subura to find a Roman assassin, which meant he must find a venue where he could strike up a conversation with some of the local populace.
He left the Subura Major to walk up the Vicus Patricii, a main street leading onto the Viminal Hill, and found a crossroads tavern at the base of a triangular open space where the Subura Minor merged into the Vicus Patricii; the size of the shrine and the fountain told him this was a very important compitum, intersection. As he dipped his head to pass under the low lintel of the door, every face inside— and there must have been fifty of them—lifted and turned toward him, suddenly stony. The buzz of talk died.
“I beg your pardon,” Bomilcar said, bearing unafraid, eyes busy trying to find the face belonging to the leader. Ah! There in the far left back corner! For as the initial shock of seeing a completely foreign-looking stranger enter wore off, the rest were turning to look at this one face—the face of the leader. A Roman rather than a Greek face, the property of a man of small size and perhaps thirty-five years. Bomilcar swung to look directly at him and addressed the rest of his remarks to him, wishing his Latin were fluent enough to speak in the native tongue, but forced to use Greek instead.
“I beg your pardon,” he said again, “I seem to be guilty of trespass. I was looking for a tavern where I might be seated to drink a cup of wine. It’s thirsty work, walking.”
”This, friend, is a private club,” said the leader in atrocious but understandable Greek.
“Are there no public taverns?” Bomilcar asked.
“Not in the Subura, friend. You’re out of your ken. Go back to the Via Nova.”
“Yes, I know the Via Nova, but I’m a stranger in Rome, and I always think one cannot get the real flavor of a city unless one goes into its most crowded quarter,” said Bomilcar, steering a middle course between touristy fatuousness and foreign ignorance.
The leader was eyeing him up and down, shrewdly calculating. “Thirsty as all that, are you, friend?” he asked.
Gratefully Bomilcar seized upon the gambit. “Thirsty enough to buy everyone here a drink,” he said.
The leader pushed the man sitting next to him off his stool, and patted it. “Well, if my honorable colleagues agree, we could make you an honorary member. Take the weight off your feet, friend.” His head turned casually. “All in favor of making this gent an honorary member, say aye?’’
“Aye!” came the chorus.
Bomilcar looked in vain for counter or vendor, drew a secret breath, and put his purse on the table so that one or two silver denarii spilled out of its mouth; either they would murder him for its contents, or he was indeed an honorary member. “May I?” he asked the leader.
“Bromidus, get the gent and the members a nice big flagon,” said the leader to the minion he had unseated to make room for Bomilcar. “Wine bar we use is right next door,” he explained.
The purse spilled a few more denarii. “Is that enough?”
“To buy one round, friend, it’s plenty.”
Out chinked more coins. “How about several rounds?”
A collective sigh went up; everyone visibly relaxed. The minion Bromidus picked up the coins and disappeared out the door followed by three eager helpers, while Bomilcar held out his right hand to the leader.
“My name is Juba,” he said.
“Lucius Decumius,” said the leader, shaking hands vigorously. “Juba! What sort of name is that?”
“It’s Moorish. I’m from Mauretania.”
“Maura–what? Where’s it?”
“In Africa.”
“Africa?” Clearly Bomilcar could as easily have said the Land of the Hyperboreans; it would have meant as much— or as little—to Lucius Decumius.
“A long way from Rome,” the honorary member explained. “A place far to the west of Carthage.”
“Oh, Carthage* Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Lucius Decumius turned to stare into this interesting visitor’s face intently. “I didn’t think Scipio Aemilianus left any of you lot alive,” he said.
“He didn’t. Mauretania isn’t Carthage, it’s far to the west of Carthage. Both of them are in Africa, is all,” said Bomilcar patiently. “What used to be Carthage is now the Roman African province. Where this year’s consul is going—you know, Spurius Postumius Albinus.”
Lucius Decumius shrugged. “Consuls? They come and they go, friend, they come and they go. Makes no difference to the Subura, they don’t live hereabouts, you comprehend. But just so long as you admit Rome’s the top dog in the world, friend, you’re welcome in the Subura. So are the consuls.”
“Believe me, I know Rome is the top dog in the world,” said Bomilcar with feeling. “My master—King Bocchus of Mauretania—has sent me to Rome to ask the Senate to make him a Friend and Ally of the Roman People.”
“Well, what do you know?” Lucius Decumius remarked idly.
Bromidus came back staggering under the weight of a huge flagon, followed by three others similarly burdened, and proceeded to dispense liquid refreshments to all; he started with Decumius, who gave him a wallop on his thigh that hurt.
“Here, idiot, got no manners?” he demanded. “Serve the gent who paid for it first, or I’ll have your guts.”
Bomilcar got a brimming beaker within seconds, and lifted it in a toast. “Here’s to the best place and the best friends I’ve found so-far in Rome,” he said, and drank the awful vintage with feigned relish. Ye gods, they must have steel intestines!
Bowls of food also appeared, pickled vinegary gherkins and onions and walnuts, sticks of celery and slivers of carrots, a stinking mess of tiny salted fish that disappeared in a trice. None of it could Bomilcar eat.
“Here’s to you, Juba, old friend!” said Decumius.
“Juba!” the rest chorused, in high good humor.
Within half an hour Bomilcar knew more about the workingman’s Rome than he had ever dreamed of knowing, and found it fascinating; that he knew far less about the workingman’s Numidia did not occur to him. All the members of the club worked, he discovered, learning that on each successive day a different group of men would use the club’s facilities; most of them seemed to get every eighth day off work. About a quarter of the men in the room wore the little conical beanies on the backs of their heads that denoted they were freedmen, freed slaves; to his surprise, Bomilcar ascertained that some of the others were actually still slaves, yet nonetheless appeared to stand in the same stead as the rest of the members, worked in the same sorts of jobs for the same pay and the same hours and the same days off— which seemed very strange to him, but obviously was normal in the eyes of everyone else. And Bomilcar began to understand the real difference between a slave and a freeman: a freeman could come and go and choose his place and kind of work as he wanted, whereas a slave belonged to his employer, was his employer’s property, so could not dictate his own life. Quite different from slavery in Numidia. But then, he reflected fairly, for he was a fair man, every nation has its different rules and regulations about slaves, no two the same.
Unlike the ordinary members, Lucius Decumius was a permanent fixture.
“I’m the club custodian,” he said, sober as when he had sipped his first mouthful.
“What sort of club is it exactly?” Bomilcar asked, trying to eke out his drink as long as he could.
“I don’t suppose you would know,” said Lucius Decumius. “This, friend, is a crossroads club. A proper sodality, a sort of a college, really. Registered with the aediles and the urban praetor, blessed by the Pontifex Maximus. Crossroads clubs go back to the kings, before there was a republic. There’s a lot of power in places where big roads cross. The proper compita, I’m talking about, not your little piddlyarse crossings of lanes and alleys. Yes, there’s a lot of power in the crossroads. I mean—imagine you were agod and you looked down on Rome—you’d be a bit muddled if you wanted to chuck a thunderbolt or a dollop of plague, wouldn’t you? If you go up onto the Capitol you’ll get a good idea of what I mean—a heap of red roofs as close together as the tiles in a mosaic. But if you look hard, you can always see the gaps where the big roads cross, the compita like we’ve got outside these here premises. So if you were a god, that’s where you’d chuck your thunderbolt or your dollop of plague, right? Only us Romans are clever, friend. Real clever. The kings worked out that we’d have to protect ourselves at the crossroads. So the crossroads were put under the protection of the Lares, shrines were built to the Lares at every crossroads even before there were fountains. Didn’t you notice the shrine against the wall of the club outside? The little tower thingy?”
“I did,” said Bomilcar, growing confused. “Who exactly are the Lares? More than one god?’’
“Oh, there’s Lares everywhere—hundreds—thousands,” said Decumius vaguely. “Rome’s full of Lares. So’s Italy, they say, though I’ve never been to Italy. I don’t know any soldiers, so I can’t say if the Lares go overseas with the legions too. But they’re certainly here, everywhere they’re needed. And it’s up to us—the crossroads clubs— to take good care of our Lares. We keep the shrine in order and the offerings coming, we keep the fountain clean, we move broken-down wagons, dead bodies—mostly animals—and we shift the rubble when a building falls down. And around the New Year we have this big party, the Compitalia it’s called. It only happened a couple of days ago, that’s why we’re so short on money for wine. We spend our funds and it takes time to save more.”
“I see,” said Bomilcar, who honestly didn’t; the old Roman gods were an insoluble mystery to him. “Do you have to fund the party entirely among yourselves?”
“Yes and no,” said Lucius Decumius, scratching his armpit. ‘ ‘We get some money from the urban praetor toward it, enough for a few pigs to roast—depends on who’s urban praetor. Some are real generous. Other years they’re so stingy their shit don’t stink.”
The conversation veered to curious questions about life in Carthage; it was impossible to get it through their heads that any other place in Africa existed, for their grasp of history and geography seemed to consist of what they gleaned from their visits to the Forum Romanum, not so far from their clubhouse in distance, but a remote place nonetheless. When they did visit the Forum Romanum, it was apparently because political unrest lent it interest and imparted a circusy flavor to Rome’s governing center. Their view of Rome’s political life was therefore somewhat skewed; its high point seemed to have been during the troubles culminating in the death of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus.
Finally the moment arrived. The members had all grown so used to his presence they didn’t notice him, and they were besides fuddled from too much wine. Whereas Lucius Decumius was still sober, his alert inquisitive eyes never leaving Bomilcar’s face. Not mere chance that this Juba fellow was here among his inferiors; he was after something.
“Lucius Decumius,” said Bomilcar, leaning his head so close to the Roman that only the Roman could hear, “I have a problem, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me how to go about solving it.”
“Yes, friend?”
“My master, King Bocchus, is very rich.”
“I’d expect he’s rich, him being a king.”
“What worries King Bocchus is his prospect of remaining a king,” said Bomilcar slowly. “He’s got a problem.”
“Same problem as yours, friend?”
“Exactly the same.”
“How can I help?” Decumius plucked an onion out of the bowl of assorted pickles on the table and chewed at it reflectively.
“In Africa the answer would be simple. The King would simply give an order, and the man who constitutes our problem would be executed.’’ Bomilcar stopped, wondering how long it would be before Decumius caught on.
“Aha! So the problem’s got a name, has he?”
“That’s right. Massiva.”
“Sounds a bit more Latin than Juba,” Decumius said.
“Massiva is a Numidian, not a Mauretanian.” The lees of his wine seemed to fascinate Bomilcar, who stirred them into swirls with his finger. “The difficulty is, Massiva is living here in Rome. And making trouble for us.”
“I can see where Rome makes it difficult,” said Decumius, in a tone which lent his remark several different meanings.
Bomilcar looked at the little man, startled; here was a brain of subtlety as well as acuity. He took a deep breath. “My share of the problem is made more perilous because I’m a stranger in Rome,” he said. “You see, I have to find a Roman who is willing to kill Prince Massiva. Here. In Rome.”
Lucius Decumius didn’t so much as blink. “Well, that’s not hard,” he said.
“It’s not?”
“Money’ll buy you anything in Rome, friend.”
“Then can you tell me where to go?” asked Bomilcar.
“Seek no further, friend, seek no further,” said Decumius, swallowing the last of his onion. “I’d cut the throats of half the Senate for the chance to eat oysters instead of onions. How much does the job pay, like?”
“How many denarii are in this purse?” Bomilcar emptied it upon the table.
“Not enough to kill for.”
“What about the same amount in gold?”
Decumius slapped his thigh hard. “Now you’re talking! You have got yourself a deal, friend.”
Bomilcar’s head was spinning, but not from the wine, which he had been surreptitiously pouring on the floor for the last hour. “Half tomorrow, and half after the job is done,” he said, pushing the coins back into the maw of the purse.
A stained hand with filthy nails arrested him. “Leave this here as evidence of good faith, friend. And come back tomorrow. Only wait outside by the shrine. We’ll go to my flat to talk.”
Bomilcar got up. “I’ll be here, Lucius Decumius.” As they walked to the door he stopped to look down into the club custodian’s ill-shaven face. “Have you ever killed anyone?” he asked.
Up went Decumius’s right forefinger against the right side of his nose. “A nod is as good as a wink to a blind barber, friend,” he said. “In the Subura a man don’t boast.”
Satisfied, Bomilcar smiled at Decumius and walked off into the congestion of the Subura Minor.
*
Marcus Livius Drusus, who had been consul two years before, celebrated his triumph halfway through the second week of January. Assigned the province of Macedonia for his governorship in the year he was consul and lucky enough to have his command prorogued, he pursued a highly successful border war against the Scordisci, a tribe of clever and well-organized Celts who perpetually harassed Roman Macedonia. But in Marcus Livius Drusus they encountered a man of exceptional ability, and went down heavily. The result had been more beneficial than usual for Rome; Drusus was lucky enough to capture one of the largest Scordisci strongholds and find secreted within it a considerable part of the Scordisci wealth. Most governors of Macedonia celebrated triumphs at the ends of their terms, but everyone agreed Marcus Livius Drusus deserved the honor more than most.
Prince Massiva was the guest of the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus at the festivities, and so was given a superb seat inside the Circus Maximus, from which vantage point he watched the long triumphal parade pass through the Circus, marveling as he discovered at first hand what he had always been told, that the Romans had real showmanship, knew better than any other people the art of staging a spectacle. His Greek of course was excellent, so he had understood his pretriumphal briefing, and was up from his seat ready to go before the last of Drusus’s legions were out the Capena end of the vast arena. The whole consular party exited through a private door into the Forum Boarium, hurried up the Steps of Cacus onto the Palatine, and redoubled its pace. Steering the straightest course possible, twelve lictors led the way through almost deserted alleys, the hobnailed soles of their winter boots grinding against the cobblestones.
Ten minutes after leaving their seats in the Circus Maximus, Spurius Albinus’s party clattered down the Vestal Steps into the Forum Romanum, heading for the temple of Castor and Pollux. Here, on the platform at the top of the steps of this imposing edifice, both consuls were to seat themselves and their guests to watch the parade come down the Via Sacra from the Velia toward the Capitol; in order to avoid insulting the triumphator, they had to be in position when the parade appeared.
“All the other magistrates and members of the Senate march at the head of the parade,” Spurius Albinus had explained to Prince Massiva, “and the year’s consuls are always formally invited to march, just as they’re invited to the feast the triumphator gives afterward for the Senate inside the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. But it isn’t good form for the consuls to accept either invitation. This is the triumphator’s great day, and he must be the most distinguished person in the celebrations, have the most lictors. So the consuls always watch from a position of importance, and the triumphator acknowledges them as he passes—yet they do not overshadow him.”
The prince had indicated that he understood, though his extreme foreignness and his lack of exposure to the Romans limited his understanding of the overall picture he was having explained to him. Unlike Jugurtha, he had clung to non-Roman Africa all his life.
Once the consular party arrived at the junction of the Vestal Steps with the Via Nova, its onward progress was hindered by massive crowds. Rome had come out in its hundreds of thousands to see Drusus triumph, that astonishing grapevine which penetrated even into the meanest streets of the Subura having assured everyone that Drusus’s triumph was going to be among the most splendid.
When on duty carrying the fasces within Rome, the lictors wore plain white togas; today their garb rendered them more anonymous than usual, for Rome going to a triumph whitened itself, every last citizen clad in his toga alba instead of just a tunic. In consequence the lictors had trouble forcing a passage for the consular party, which slowed down as the crowds pressed in. By the time it arrived alongside the temple of Castor and Pollux it had virtually disintegrated as a unit, and Prince Massiva, attended by a private bodyguard, lagged behind so badly that he lost all contact with the rest.
His sense of exclusivity and his un-Roman royalness stirred him to outrage at the familiar, disrespectful attitude of the hundreds thronging all around him; his bodyguards were elbowed aside, and he himself for a short moment lost sight of them.
It was the short moment Lucius Decumius had been waiting for; he struck with unerring accuracy, swift and sure and sudden. Crushed against Prince Massiva by a spontaneous surge of the crowd, he slid his specially sharpened dagger under the left side of the royal rib cage, turned it immediately upward with a brutal twist, let the haft go once he knew the blade was all the way in, and had slipped between a dozen bodies long before the first blood began to flow, or Prince Massiva knew enough to cry out. Indeed, Prince Massiva did not cry out; he simply fell where he was, and by the time his bodyguard had collected itself enough to shove people aside until they could surround their slain lord, Lucius Decumius was halfway across the lower Forum heading for the haven of the Argiletum, merely one droplet in a sea of white togas.
A full ten minutes passed before anyone thought to get the news to Spurius Albinus and his brother, Aulus, already installed upon the podium of the temple and unworried by Prince Massiva’s nonappearance. Lictors rushed to cordon off the area, the crowd was pushed elsewhere, and Spurius and Aulus Albinus stood looking down at a dead man and ruined plans.
“It will have to wait,” said Spurius at last. “We cannot offend Marcus Livius Drusus by disturbing his triumph.” He turned to the leader of the bodyguard, which in Prince Massiva’s case was composed of hired Roman gladiators, and spoke to the man in Greek. “Carry Prince Massiva to his house, and wait there until I can come,” he said.
The man nodded. A rude stretcher was made from the toga given up by Aulus Albinus, the body rolled onto it and borne away by six gladiators.
Aulus took the disaster less phlegmatically than his older brother; to him had fallen the bulk of Massiva’s generosity so far, Spurius feeling he could afford to wait for his share until his African campaign saw Massiva installed upon the throne of Numidia. Besides which, Aulus was as impatient as he was ambitious, and anxious to outstrip Spurius age for age.
“Jugurtha!” he said through his teeth. “Jugurtha did it!”
“You’ll never get proof,” said Spurius, sighing. They climbed the steps of the temple of Castor and Pollux and resumed their seats just as the magistrates and senators appeared from behind the imposing bulk of the Domus Publicus, the State-owned house in which lived the Vestal Virgins and the Pontifex Maximus. It was a short glimpse only, but within half a moment they hove clearly into view, and the great procession rolled downhill to where the Via Sacra ended alongside the sunken well of the Comitia. Spurius and Aulus Albinus sat looking as if they had nothing on their minds beyond enjoyment of the spectacle and respect for Marcus Livius Drusus.
*
Bomilcar and Lucius Decumius met with noisy inconspicuousness, standing side by side at the counter of a busy snack bar on the upper corner of the Great Market until each was served a pasty filled with a savory loaf of garlicky sausage, and then moving very naturally aside to stand biting delicately into their goodies, which were very hot.
“Nice day for it, friend,” said Lucius Decumius.
Wrapped in a hooded cloak which concealed his person, Bomilcar let out his breath. “I trust it remains a nice day,” he said.
“This is one day, friend, that I can guarantee is going to end up perfect,” said Lucius Decumius complacently.
Bomilcar fumbled beneath his cloak, found the purse holding the second half of Decumius’s gold. “You’re sure?’’
“Sure as a man whose shoe stinks knows he’s stepped in a turd,” said Decumius.
The bag of gold changed hands invisibly. Bomilcar turned to go, heart light.
“I thank you, Lucius Decumius,” he said.
“No, friend, the pleasure’s all mine!” And Lucius Decumius stayed right where he was, biting with relish into his pasty until it was gone. “Oysters instead of onions,” he said out loud, starting up the Fauces Suburae with a happy spring in his step and the bag of gold safely next to his skin.
Bomilcar left the city through the Fontinalis Gate, hurrying faster as the crowds diminished, down onto the Campus Martius. He got inside the front door of Jugurtha’s villa without encountering a person he knew, and flung off his cloak gladly. The King had been very kind this day and given every slave in the house time off to see Drusus triumph, and a present of a silver denarius each as well. So there were no alien eyes to witness Bomilcar’s return, only the fanatically loyal bodyguards and Numidian servants.
Jugurtha was in his usual place, sitting on the loggia one floor up, above the entrance from the street.
“It’s done,” said Bomilcar.
The King gripped his brother’s arm strongly. “Oh, good man!” he said, smiling.
“I’m glad it went so well,” said Bomilcar.
“He’s definitely dead?”
“My assassin assures me he is—sure as a man whose shoe stinks knows he stepped in a turd.” Bomilcar’s shoulders heaved with laughter. “A picturesque fellow, my Roman ruffian. But extraordinarily efficient, and quite nerveless.”
Jugurtha relaxed. “The moment we hear for certain that my dear cousin Massiva is dead, we’d better call a conference with all our agents. We have to press for the Senate’s recognition of my tenure of the throne, and for our return home.” He grimaced. “I mustn’t ever forget that I still have that pathetic professional invalid half brother of mine to contend with, sweet and beloved Gauda.”
*
But there was one who did not appear when the summons came for Jugurtha’s agents to assemble at his villa. The moment he learned of the assassination of Prince Massiva, Marcus Servilius Agelastus sought an audience with the consul Spurius Albinus. The consul pleaded through a secretary that he was too busy, but Agelastus stuck to his intention until in desperation the overworked secretary shunted him into the presence of the consul’s younger brother, Aulus, who was galvanized when he heard what Agelastus had to say. Spurius Albinus was called, listened impassively as Agelastus repeated his story, then thanked him, took his address and a deposition to be certain, and dismissed him courteously enough to make most men smile; but not Agelastus.
“We’ll take action through the praetor urbanus, as legally as we can under the circumstances,” said Spurius as soon as he was alone with his young brother. “It’s too important a matter to let Agelastus lay the charge—I’ll do that myself—but he’s vital to our case because he’s the only Roman citizen among the lot if you exclude the mysterious assassin. It will be up to the praetor urbanus to decide exactly how Bomilcar will be prosecuted. Undoubtedly he’ll consult the full Senate, seeking a directive to cover his arse. But if I see him personally and give it as my legal opinion that the fact of the crime’s being committed inside Rome on a day of triumph by a Roman citizen assassin outweighs Bomilcar’s noncitizen status—why, I think I can allay his fears. Especially if I reinforce the fact that Prince Massiva was the consul’s client, and under his protection. It’s vital that Bomilcar be tried and convicted in Rome by a Roman court. The sheer audacity of the crime will force Jugurtha’s faction in the Senate to keep quiet. You, Aulus, can ready yourself to do the actual prosecuting in whichever court is decided upon. I’ll make sure the praetor peregrinus is consulted, as he’s normally the man concerned with lawsuits involving noncitizens. He may want to defend Bomilcar, just to keep things legal. But one way or another, Aulus, we are going to finish Jugurtha’s chances to win Senate approval for his cause—and then see if we can’t find another claimant to the throne.”
“Like Prince Gauda?”
“Like Prince Gauda, poor material though he is. After all, he’s Jugurtha’s legitimate half brother. We’ll just make sure Gauda never comes to Rome to plead in person.” Spurius smiled at Aulus. “We are going to make our fortunes in Numidia this year, I swear it!”
But Jugurtha had abandoned any idea of fighting according to Rome’s rules. When the urban praetor and his lictors arrived at the villa on the Pincian Hill to arrest Bomilcar on a charge of conspiracy to murder, for a moment the King was tempted to refuse outright to hand Bomilcar over, and see what happened after that. In the end he temporized by stating that, as neither the victim nor the accused was a Roman citizen, he failed to see what business it was of Rome’s. The urban praetor responded by stating that the Senate had decided the accused must answer charges in a Roman court because there was evidence to indicate that the actual assassin procured was certainly a Roman citizen. One Marcus Servilius Agelastus, a Roman knight, had furnished much proof of this, and had sworn on oath that he himself had first been approached to do the murder.
“In which case,” said Jugurtha, still fighting, “the only magistrate who can arrest my baron is the foreign praetor. My baron is not a Roman citizen, and my place of abode— which is also his—is outside the jurisdiction of the urban praetor!”
“You have been misinformed, sire,” said the urban praetor smoothly. “The praetor peregrinus will be concerned, of course. But the imperium of the praetor urbanus extends as far as the fifth milestone from Rome, therefore your villa is within my jurisdiction, not the foreign praetor’s. Now please produce Baron Bomilcar.”
Baron Bomilcar was produced, and hied off at once to the cells of the Lautumiae, where he was to be held pending trial in a specially convened court. When Jugurtha sent his agents to demand that Bomilcar be released on bail—or at least that he be confined in the house of a citizen of good standing rather than in the tumbledown chaos of the Lautumiae—the request was refused. Bomilcar must remain resident inside Rome’s only jail.
The Lautumiae had started existence several hundred years earlier as a quarry in the side of the Arx of the Capitol, and now was a haphazard collection of unmortared stone blocks which huddled in the cliff side just beyond the lower Forum Romanum. It could accommodate perhaps fifty prisoners in disgracefully dilapidated cells owning no sort of security; those imprisoned could wander anywhere they liked within its walls, and were kept from wandering out of it only by lictors on guard duty, or, on the rare occasions when someone truly dangerous was imprisoned, by manacles. Since the place was normally empty, the sight of lictors on guard duty was a great novelty; thus Bomilcar’s incarceration rapidly became one of Rome’s most widely disseminated news items thanks tothe lictors, who were not at all averse to gratifying the curiosity of the passersby.
*
The lowliness of Lucius Decumius was purely social; it most definitely did not extend to his cerebral apparatus, which functioned extremely well. To gain the post of custodian of a crossroads college was no mean feat. So when a tendril of the gossip grapevine thrust its feeler deep into the heart of the Subura, Lucius Decumius put two of his fingers together with two more, and came up with an answer of four fingers. The name was Bomilcar, not Juba, and the nationality was Numidian, not Mauretanian. Yet he knew it was his man at once.
Applauding rather than condemning Bomilcar’s deceit, off went Lucius Decumius to the Lautumiae cells, where he gained entrance by the simple expedient of grinning widely at the two lictors on door duty before rudely elbowing his way between them.
“Ignorant shit!” said one, rubbing his side.
“Eat it!” said Decumius, skipping nimbly behind a crumbling pillar and waiting for the grumbles at the door to subside.
Lacking any military or civil law-enforcement officers, Rome habitually obliged its College of Lictors to provide members for all kinds of peculiar duties. There were perhaps three hundred lictors all told, poorly paid by the State and therefore very dependent upon the generosity of the men they served; they inhabited a building and small piece of open land behind the temple of the Lares Praestites on the Via Sacra, and found the location satisfactory only because it also lay behind the long and sprawling premises of Rome’s best inn, where they could always cadge a drink. Lictors escorted all the magistrates owning imperium and fought for the chance to serve on the staff of a governor going abroad, since they then shared in his share of the spoils and perquisites of office. Lictors represented the thirty divisions of Rome called curiae. And lictors might be called upon to assume guard duty at either the Lautumiae or the Tullianum next door, where those condemned to death waited scant hours for the strangler. Such guard duty was about the least desirable task a lictor could be given by the head man of his group of ten. No tips, no bribes, no nothing. Therefore neither lictor was interested in pursuing Lucius Decumius inside the building; their job description said they were there to guard the door, so that was all they were going to do, by Jupiter.
“Yoohoo, friend, where are you?” yelled Decumius in a voice loud enough to be heard by the bankers in the Basilica Porcia.
The hairs on Bomilcar’s arms and neck rose; he leaped to his feet. This is it, this is the end, he thought, and waited numbly for Decumius to appear escorted by a troop of magistrates and other officials.
Decumius duly appeared. But quite alone. When he saw Bomilcar standing stiffly by the outside wall of his cell (which contained an unbarred and unshuttered opening quite large enough for a man to crawl through—that Bomilcar hadn’t was evidence of his utter mystification at the way Romans thought and acted, for he could not believe the simple truth—that prison was a concept alien to the Romans), Decumius smiled at him jauntily and strolled into the doorless room.
“Who squealed on you, friend?” he asked, perching his skinny body on a fallen block of masonry.
Controlling his tendency to shake, Bomilcar licked his lips. “Well, if it wasn’t you before, you fool, it certainly is now!” he snapped.
Eyes widening, Decumius stared at him; a slow comprehension was dawning. “Here, here, friend, don’t you worry about things like that,” he said soothingly. “There’s no one to hear us, just a couple of lictors on the door, and that’s twenty paces off. I heard you got arrested, so I thought I’d better come and see what went wrong.”
“Agelastus,” said Bomilcar. “Marcus Servilius Agelastus!”
“Want me to do the same to him I did to Prince Massiva?”
“Look, will you just get out of here?” cried Bomilcar, despairing. “Don’t you understand that they’ll start to wonder why you’ve come? If anyone caught a glimpse of your face near Prince Massiva, you’re a dead man!”
“It’s all right, friend, it’s all right! Stop worrying—no one knows about me, and no one cares a fig that I’m here. This ain’t no Parthian dungeon, friend, honest! They only put you in here to throw your boss into fits, that’s all. They won’t care a whole lot if you do a moonlight flit, it’ll just brand you guilty.” And he pointed to the gap in the outside wall.
“I can’t run away,” said Bomilcar.
“Suit yourself.” Decumius shrugged. “Now, what about this Agelastus bird? Want him out of the way? I’ll do it for the same price—payable on delivery this time; I trust you.”
Fascinated, Bomilcar came by logical progression to the conclusion that not only did Lucius Decumius believe what he said, but he was undoubtedly correct to do so. If it hadn’t been for Jugurtha, he would now have availed himself of that moonlit escape; but if he yielded to the temptation, only the gods knew what might happen to Jugurtha.
“You’ve got yourself another bag of gold,” he said.
“Where’s he live, this fellow who—judging by his name, anyway—never smiles?”
“On the Caelian Hill, in the Vicus Capiti Africae.”
“Oh, nice new district!” said Decumius appreciatively. “Agelastus must be doing all right for himself, eh? Still, makes him easy to find, living out there where the birds sing louder than the neighbors. Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you straightaway. Then when your boss gets you out of here, you can pay me. Just send the gold to me at the club. I’ll be there to take delivery.”
“How do you know my boss will get me out of here?”
“Course he will, friend! They’ve only chucked you in here to give him a fright. Couple more days and they’ll let him bail you out. But when they do, take my advice and go home as fast as you can. Don’t stay around in Rome, all right?”
“Leaving the King here at their mercy? I couldn’t!”
“Course you can, friend! What do you think they’ll do to him here in Rome? Knock him on the head and chuck him in the Tiber? No! Never! That’s not how they work, friend,” said Lucius Decumius the expert counselor. “There’s only one thing they’ll murder for, and that’s their precious Republic. You know, the laws and the Constitution and stuff like that. They might kill the odd tribune of the plebs or two, like they did Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, but they’d never kill a foreigner, not in Rome. Don’t you worry about your boss, friend. My bet is, they’ll send him home too if you get away.”
Bomilcar gazed at Decumius in wonder. “And yet, you don’t even know where Numidia is!” he said slowly. “You’ve never been to Italy! How do you know then the workings of Roman noblemen?”
“Well, that’s different,” said Lucius Decumius, getting up from his stone and preparing to depart. “Mother’s milk, friend, mother’s milk! We all drink it in along with mother’s milk. I mean, aside from windfalls like you coming along, where else can a Roman get a thrill except in the Forum when there’s no Games? And you don’t even have to go there in the flesh to get the thrill. It comes to you, friend. Just like mother’s milk.”
Bomilcar held out his hand. “I thank you, Lucius Decumius. You are the only completely honest man I’ve met in Rome. I’ll have your money sent to you.”
“Don’t forget, now, to the club! Oh, and”—his right forefinger went up to touch the right side of his nose—”if you’ve got any friends need a bit of practical help solving their little problems, let ‘em know I take on a bit of outside contracting! I like this line of work.”
*
Agelastus died, but since Bomilcar was in the Lautumiae and neither of the lictors thought to connect Decumius with the reason for Bomilcar’s imprisonment, the case Spurius and Aulus Albinus were preparing against the Numidian baron weakened. They still possessed the deposition they had extracted from Agelastus, but there was no doubt his absence as chief witness for the prosecution was a blow. Seizing the opportunity the death of Agelastus afforded him, Jugurtha applied again to the Senate for bail for Bomilcar. Though Gaius Memmius and Scaurus argued passionately against its being granted, in the end Baron Bomilcar was released upon Jugurtha’s handing over fifty of his Numidian attendants into Roman custody; they were distributed among the households of fifty senators, and Jugurtha was made to give over a large sum of money to the State, ostensibly to pay for the upkeep of his hostages.
His cause, of course, was irreparably damaged. However, he had ceased to care, for he knew he had no hope of ever obtaining Roman approval of his kingship. Not because of the death of Massiva, but because the Romans had never intended to approve his kingship. They had been tormenting him for years, making him dance to their tune, and laughing at him behind their hands. So, with or without the consent of the Senate, he was going home. Home to raise an army and begin to train it to fight the legions which were bound to come.
Bomilcar fled to Puteoli the moment he was set free, took ship there for Africa, and got away clean. Whereupon the Senate washed its hands of Jugurtha. Go home, they said, giving him back his fifty hostages (but not his money). Get out of Rome, get out of Italy, get out of our lives.
The King of Numidia’s last sight of Rome was from the top of the Janiculum, which he made his horse climb simply so he could look upon the shape of his fate. Rome. There it lay, rolling and rippling amid its sudden cliff faces, seven hills and the valleys between, a sea of orange-red roof tiles and brightly painted stuccoed walls, the gilded ornaments adorning temple pediments throwing shafts of light in glitters back into the sky, little highways for the gods to use. A vivid and colorful terracotta city, green with trees and grasses where the space permitted.
But Jugurtha saw nothing to admire. He looked for a long time, sure he would never see Rome again.
“A city for sale,” he said then, “and when it finds a buyer, it will vanish in the twinkling of an eye.”
And turned away toward the Via Ostiensis.