Free Venus in Pearls by John Maddox Roberts

Venus in Pearls
John Maddox Roberts
    There are worse things than being a dictator's flunky. Being a dictator's enemy is one of them. Thus, when Julius Caesar had a mission for me to perform, I was always more than happy to undertake it as long as it didn't mean killing anyone I really liked. Not that Caesar ever asked me to do anything so distasteful. It was just that, had he asked, I probably would have complied, within reason. There were a number of men in Rome I would not have minded putting from Caesar's path.
    But Caesar was not vengeful, nor vindictive by the standards of the powerful and ambitious men of that time. Indeed, his death came about because he neglected to kill a few men he really should have.
    Usually, though, he wanted me to do things suited to my peculiar talents. It always amused him to see how I solved the problems he set me. Then he would regale his dinner guests with a witty recounting of my deeds.
    I was getting a reputation as Caesar's performing dog, but it was a reputation I could live with. Young Herod, Antipater's son, once quoted to me a prophet of his people who said that a living dog is better than a dead lion. At the time I thought this was a rather craven philosophy, but now that in old age I contemplate the dead lions of my past, I see the wisdom in those words.
    Come to think of it, young Herod is now old Herod, a king in fullest command of his nation although a client of Rome, and sitting atop a whole heap of dead lions.
    I received my orders at the end of a grueling senate meeting. These meetings were once leisurely affairs characterized by long, soporific speeches and attended only by those with nothing better to do, save when important issues occupied everyone's attention or at election time. This agreeable routine changed when Caesar took power. He had work for everybody, ambitious projects to accomplish and a whole empire to set in order after a destructive civil war. Not to mention that he had nearly doubled the size of that empire and the new territories had to be administered.
    We kept our traveling kits packed in those days because you went to the Curia in the morning knowing that, before lunch, Caesar might dispatch you on an embassy to Parthia, or to Massilia to build a new aqueduct, or to Egypt to wheedle more grain from Cleopatra, or to take command of an army and go conquer India. And woe to the senator who failed to show up at the Curia without a good excuse. I witnessed the following incident personally.
    We had taken our seats amid the usual buzz of conversation, which stilled when Caesar entered preceded by his twenty-four lictors. He seated himself in the curule chair and scanned the House. There were perhaps four hundred of us present that morning, the rest mostly absent with the legions or on foreign missions. Instantly Caesar knew that a man was missing. 'Where is Aulus Fimbria?" he demanded.
    A friend of the man stood. "Caesar, Aulus Fimbria died in the night."
    "Died?" Caesar said scornfully. "He was healthy enough yesterday."
    "Nevertheless, Caesar, this very morning his widow told me that he had expired of some unknown ailment."
    Caesar took a sharply pointed bronze stylus from the scribe who sat by him and handed it to a lictor. "Go to the house of Aulus Fimbria and poke him with this," he ordered. "If he twitches, haul him in here."
    An hour later the lictor returned and reported that Fimbria was indeed dead. '"I'll let him off this time," Caesar muttered. The lesson was not lost on us.
    But on this particular day all senators in residence were accounted for. Caesar spent the morning naming men to various commissions, instructing the senate concerning his foreign policy decisions, and generally behaving in the highhanded fashion that suited him so well. He got no argument. By that time the senate was made up of his supporters and his former enemies who were so relieved to be alive that they had to be restrained from voting him divine honors.
    Toward the middle