Roman Blood by Steven Saylor Read Free Book Online

would open a conversation with a total stranger with a gambit such as this:
    "Tell me something, Gordianus the Finder—have you ever considered murdering your father?"
    31

    FOUR
    W H A T must my face have looked like? I suppose I gave a start, winced, looked askance. Cicero saw all and smiled in that demure way that orators smile whenever they successfully manipulate an audience. Actors (I have known more than a few) feel much the same sort of satisfaction, the same thrill of power. The herdsman reveals the truth to Oedipus, and with a single word elicits gasps of shock and dismay from a thousand throats, all responding on cue. Behind his mask the herdsman smiles and makes his exit.
    I pretended to gaze with an abstracted air at some nearby scrolls; I could see from the corner of my eye that Cicero still watched me, intent on gauging my every reaction. Orators think they can control everyone and everything with their words. I strained to bleed every hint of expression from my face.
    " M y father," I began, and then had to pause to clear my throat, hating the interruption, for it seemed a sign of weakness. " M y father is already-dead, esteemed Cicero. He died many years ago." The mischief in his eyes receded. He frowned.
    " M y apologies," he said quietly, with a slight bow of his head. "I meant no offense."
    " N o n e was taken."
    " G o o d . " After a suitable interval the frown vanished. The look of 32

    mischief returned. "Then you won't mind if I pose the same question again—purely as a hypothetical matter, of course. Suppose then, only suppose, that you had a father you wished to be rid of. How would you go about i t ? "
    I shrugged. " H o w old is the old man?"
    "Sixty, perhaps sixty-five."
    " A n d how old am I—hypothetically speaking?"
    "Perhaps forty."
    " T i m e , " I said. "Whatever the complaint, time will take care of it, as surely as any other remedy."
    Cicero nodded. "Simply wait, you mean. Sit back. Relax. Allow nature to take its course. Yes, that would be the easiest way. And perhaps, though not necessarily, the safest. Certainly, it's what most people would do, confronted with another person whose existence they can hardly bear—especially if that person is older or weaker, especially if he happens to be a member of the family. Most especially if he happens to be one's father. Bear the discomfort and be patient. Let it be resolved by time.
    After all, no one lives forever, and the young usually outlive their elders."
    Cicero paused. The yellow gauze gently rose and fell as if the whole house exhaled. The room was flooded with heat. "But time can be something of a luxury. Certainly, if one waits long enough, an old man of sixty-five will eventually expire on his own—though he may be an old man of eighty-five before that happens."
    He rose from his chair and began to pace. Cicero was not a man to orate while sitting still. I would later come to see his whole body as a sort of engine—the legs deliberately pacing, the arms in motion, the hands shaping ponderous gestures, the head tilting, the eyebrows oscillating up and down. None of these movements was an end in itself. Instead they were all connected together somehow, and all subservient to his voice, that strange, irritating, completely fascinating voice—as if his voice were an instrument and his body the machine that produced it; as if his limbs and digits were the gears and levers necessary to manufacture the voice that issued from his mouth. The body moved. The voice emerged.
    "Consider," he said—a tilt of the head, a subtle flourish of the hand—
    "an old man of sixty-five, a widower living alone in Rome. Not at all the reclusive type. He's quite fond of going to dinners and parties. He loves the arena and the theater. He frequents the baths. He even patronizes—I swear it, at sixty-five!—the neighborhood brothel. Pleasure is his life. As 33

    for work, he's retired. Oh, there's money to spare. Valuable estates in the countryside,