Free Rubicon by Steven Saylor

all. "Did the Great One not explain that he coerced me into accepting this duty?"
    "No. I never ask after his methods. But you will help?"
    I thought of Davus and Diana, and Cicatrix in my home. "I'll do what I must to satisfy Pompey."
    Maecia nodded. "There's something ... something I couldn't tell Pompey."
    "A secret? Anything you tell me may end up in the Great One's ear. I can't promise you otherwise."
    She shrugged uncertainly. "If there's anything to be found out, Numerius has already suffered the consequences. I'm not even sure there's anything to it. A mother's suspicions ..."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Between Numerius and Pompey, everything may not have been as it seemed."
    "Numerius was the Great One's favorite, wasn't he?"
    "Yes, Pompey doted on him. And Numerius had always been loyal to Pompey. But in recent months ..." She had broached the subject herself, but seemed reluctant to pursue it. "In recent months ... as the situation with Caesar grew more tense, and the debates in the Senate became more acrimonious ... as it became evident that war might come, and soon— I began to think that Numerius might not be quite so loyal to Pompey as we all thought."
    "What made you doubt him?"
    "He was mixed up in something. Something he kept secret. There was money ..."
    "Money and secrets. Are you saying he was a spy?"
    "A spy ... or something worse." Now it was Maecia who could neither look me in the eye nor stand to look at her son.
    "What do you mean?" I said quietly.
    "I discovered a box in his room. It was full of gold coins— so heavy with gold I couldn't lift the box. We're not a rich family and never have been, in spite of our connections to Pompey. I couldn't imagine where Numerius had come by so much money."
    "When was this?"
    "About a month ago. I remember, it was the day one of the tribunes— Caesar's attack dog, Marc Antony— made that horrible speech against Pompey in the Senate, ridiculing his whole career, demanding amnesty for all the political criminals expelled from the city by Pompey's reforms. 'Every virtuous Roman in exile must be returned and given back his property, even if it takes a war to do it!' You see, a woman can follow politics."
    "More closely than many men, I'm sure. But the gold?"
    "That night, I asked Numerius where it had come from. I caught him by surprise. He was flustered. He wouldn't tell me. I pressed him. He refused. He spoke ... harshly to me. That was when I knew something was very wrong. Numerius and I never argued. We were always very close, from the day he was born. And after my husband died ... it was Numerius who reminded me most of his father, more than his younger brothers. It upset me very much that he had kept something secret from me. It worried me. The city in such a state, and Numerius somehow piling up money and refusing to explain, acting guilty when I questioned him ..."
    "Guilty?"
    "He said that I mustn't tell Pompey about the money. So you see, the money couldn't have come from Pompey. From whom, then? And why must it be a secret from Pompey? I told him I didn't like it. I said to him, 'You're doing something dangerous, aren't you?' "
    "What did he say?"
    "He told me not to worry. He said he knew what he was doing. Blind certainty! Every man on his father's side of the family is just the same. I've yet to meet a Pompeius who doesn't think he's indestructible."
    "Did you have any idea of what he was up to?"
    "Nothing specific. I knew Pompey had made him a confidential courier. Pompey trusted him. Why not? Pompey was in and out of this house all the time while Numerius was growing up; Pompey watched him grow from child to man. Numerius was always his favorite of the younger generation. But these days, everything is twisted and turned upside down. The young have no sense of what it means to be a Roman. Every man looks out for himself, not even putting family first. So much money pours in from the provinces, corrupting everything. Young men become