Free Roman Blood by Steven Saylor Page B

so delicate. The Goddess will be very angry. . . ."
    "I don't see how he could make the same mistake twice. Do you think he does it on purpose?" We were seated in Caecilia's reception room, a high, long hall with skylights above and open doors at either end to admit the breeze. The walls were painted in the realist fashion to reproduce a garden—green grass, trees, peacocks, and flowers on the walls, blue sky above. The floor was green tile. The ceiling was draped with blue cloth.
    " N o , don't answer that. I know what you'd say, Cicero. But Ahausarus is far too valuable to be gotten rid of, and too delicate to punish. If only he weren't so scatterbrained."
    There were four of us seated around a small silver table set with cool water and pomegranates—Cicero, myself, Caecilia, and the young Rufus, who had arrived ahead of us but had known better than to enter Metella's sanctum, preferring to wait in the garden instead. Tiro stood a short distance behind his master's chair.
    Metella was a large, florid woman. Despite her age she appeared quite robust. Whatever color her hair might originally have been, it was now fiery red, and probably white beneath the henna. She wore it piled high on her head, wound in a tapering coil held in place by a long silver pin.
    The pointed tip poked through on one side; the needle's head was decorated with carnelian. She wore an expensive-looking stola and much jewelry. Her face was covered with paint and rouge. Her hair and clothing reeked of incense. In one hand she held a fan and beat the air with it, as if she were trying to disperse her scent about the table.
    Rufus was also redheaded, with brown eyes, flushed cheeks, and a freckled nose. He was as young as Cicero had indicated. Indeed, he could have been no more than sixteen, for he still wore the gown that all minors wear, whether male or female—white wool fitted with long sleeves to deflect the eyes of the lustful. In a few months he would put on the toga of manhood, but for now he was still a boy by law. It was obvious that 52

    he idolized Cicero, and equally obvious that Cicero enjoyed being idolized.
    Neither of the nobles showed any discomfort in accepting me at their table. Of course, they were seeking my help in a problem with which neither of them had any experience. They showed me the same deference a senator may show to a bricklayer, if the senator happens to have an archway about to collapse in his bedroom. Tiro they ignored.
    Cicero cleared his throat. "Caecilia, the day is very hot. If we have dwelt long enough on our unfortunate intrusion into your sanctuary, perhaps we can move on to more earthly matters."
    " O f course, Cicero. You've come about poor young Sextus."
    "Yes. Gordianus here may be of some help to us in unraveling the circumstances as I prepare his defense."
    " T h e defense. Oh, yes. Oh, dear. I suppose they're still out there, aren't they, those awful guards. You must have noticed them."
    " I ' m afraid s o . "
    "It's such an embarrassment. The day they arrived I told them flatly I wouldn't stand for it. Of course it didn't do any good. Orders from the court, they said. If Sextus Roscius was to abide here, it would have to be under house arrest, with soldiers at every door, day and night. 'Arrest?' I said, 'As if he were in a prison, like a captured soldier or a runaway slave? I know the law very well, and there is no law that allows you to hold a Roman citizen in his own home, or the home of his patroness.' It's always been that way; a citizen accused of a crime always has the option to make his escape if he doesn't want to face trial and he's willing to leave his property behind.
    " S o they sent for a deputy from the court who explained it all very smoothly—it couldn't have been smoother if it had come from your own lips, Cicero. 'Right you are,' he says, 'except in certain cases. Certain capital cases.' And what did he mean by that, I wanted to know. 'Capital'
    he said, 'as in decapitation—cases