Free Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) by Steven Saylor

Well, then – will you take the case, or won’t you?’
    ‘I will.’
    Cicero clapped his hands and sprang to his feet. ‘Good. Very good! We’ll leave for Caecilia’s house right away.’
    ‘Now? In this heat? It’s just past noon.’
    ‘There’s no time to waste. If the heat is too much for you, I could summon a litter – but no, that would take too long. It isn’t far. Tiro, fetch us a pair of broad-brimmed hats.’
    Tiro gave his master a plaintive look.
    ‘Very well, then, fetch three.’

VI
     

     
     
     
    ‘What makes you think she’ll even be awake at this hour?’
    The Forum was deserted. The paving stones shimmered with heat. Not a soul was afoot except for the three of us stealing like thieves across the flagstones. I quickened the pace. The heat burned through the thin soles of my shoes. Both my companions, I noticed, wore more expensive footwear than my own, with thick leather soles to protect their feet.
    ‘Caecilia will be awake,’ Cicero assured me. ‘She’s a hopeless insomniac – so far as I can tell, she never sleeps at all.’
    We reached the foot of the Sacred Way. My heart sank as I gazed up the steep, narrow avenue that led to the imposing villas atop the Palatine. The world was all sun and stone, utterly without shade. The layers of shimmering heat made the summit of the Palatine seem hazy and indistinct, very high and far away.
    We began the ascent. Tiro led the way, oblivious of the effort. There was something strange about his eagerness to come along, something beyond mere curiosity or the desire to follow his master. I was too hot to puzzle over it.
    ‘One thing I must ask of you, Gordianus.’ Cicero was beginning to show signs of exertion, but he talked through them, like a true stoic. ‘I appreciated your candour when you spoke your mind in my study. No one can say you are less than an honest man. But hold your tongue in Caecilia’s house. Her family has long been allied with Sulla – his late fourth wife was a Metella.’
    ‘You mean the daughter of Delmaticus? The one he divorced while she lay dying?’
    ‘Exactly. The Metelli were not happy about the divorce, despite Sulla’s excuses.’
    ‘The augurs looked in a bowl of sheep entrails and told him his wife’s illness would pollute his household.’
    ‘So Sulla claimed. Caecilia herself would probably take no offence at anything you might say, but you can never tell. She’s an old woman, unmarried and childless. Given to strange ways – such as happens when a woman is left to her own devices too long, without a husband and family to occupy her with wholesome pursuits. Her passion these days is for whatever Oriental cult happens to be new and fashionable in Rome, the more foreign and bizarre, the better. She’s not much concerned with mere earthly matters.
    ‘But it’s likely there’ll be another in the house with keener ears and sharper eyes. I’m thinking of my good young friend Marcus Messalla – we call him Rufus, on account of his red hair. He’s no stranger to Caecilia Metella’s house; he’s known her since he was a child, and she’s almost like an aunt to him. A fine young man – or not quite a man yet, only sixteen. Rufus comes to my house rather often, for gatherings and lectures and such, and he already knows his way around the law courts. He’s quite eager to help in Sextus Roscius’s behalf.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But his family connections make him dangerous. Hortensius is his half brother – when Hortensius dropped the case, it was young Rufus he sent to my door to beg me to take it on. More to the point, the boy’s older sister is that same young Valeria whom Sulla recently took to be his fifth wife. Poor Rufus has little affection for his new brother-in-law, but the marriage does put him in an awkward position. I would ask that you restrain yourself from slandering our esteemed dictator in his presence.’
    ‘Of course, Cicero.’ When I left the house that morning I had never