Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗

“Not at all, cousin Quintus! I’m very grateful that you remembered my interest in the matter, and that you went to so much trouble to make these available to me.” In fact, in the excitement of his work for Claudius, Kaeso had completely forgotten the discussion about the poisonings, but it would hardly do for him to say so. Did his cousin intend for him to sit here in the library, examining the documents? Kaeso did not have time; he was eager to get home so that he could perform a task which Claudius had assigned to him, recalculating the measurements for a section of the aqueduct. “Would it be possible for me to take this with me, so that I can peruse the contents at my leisure?”

Quintus frowned. “Usually, I would never allow any of these documents to leave my possession. Some contain sensitive information. Many are irreplaceable. But…why not? I ask only that you be very careful with them, and return them in due course. Hopefully, they’ll give you some insight into the challenges and responsibilities of holding a magistracy. A life of public service can be very demanding, but also very rewarding. You must think of your future, Kaeso, beyond this work you’re doing for the censor.”

“This is very kind of you, cousin. I shall look at them tonight.”

As it turned out, laboring under the flickering light of a hydra-headed lamp that hung from the ceiling of his room, Kaeso worked much too late that night to bother looking at the documents from Quintus. He finally fell into bed, exhausted.

But he did not sleep well. Perhaps his head was too full of numbers. Perhaps the disapproval of his cousin weighed on him more heavily than he realized.

In his dream, Kaeso was back in the vestibule of his cousin’s house, alone except for the wax busts of the ancestors in the niches. Suddenly, each of the effigies blinked at once. The disembodied heads turned to stare a him, scowling, then began to speak. Their voices were sarcastic and hateful.

“He’s not one of us.”

“Who is he?”

“Where did he come from?”

“Who knows what sort of blood flows in his veins?”

“He might be the offspring of a Gaul!”

“The foul product of a rape!”

“Pollution!”

“Corruption!”

“Filth!”

“The blood of the noble Fabii can be traced back for centuries, but this creature comes from nothing!”

“He’s like a fly that rises from a dung heap!”

In his dream, Kaeso ran from the room. He found himself in the Forum. His father was leading him onto the Rostra. A great multitude had gathered before the platform to hear him speak, but when he opened his mouth, only nonsense came out. The crowd began to laugh and jeer at him. Their heads were made of wax, like the effigies of the Fabii.

He ran from the Rostra, to the house of Appius Claudius. The censor greeted him warmly, oblivious to Kaeso’s distress. He unrolled a map which showed the course of the aqueduct. The line to Gabii ran off the map, into a gray nothingness.

“But where are the springs?” said Kaeso.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Claudius. “I know where the water will come from. What I don’t know, young man, is where you come from!” Suddenly the censor was glowering at Kaeso, looking as stern and disapproving as the effigies in Quintus’s vestibule.

Kaeso woke. His body was covered with cold sweat.

His reading lamp was still lit. In his exhaustion, he had forgotten to extinguish the tiny flames that danced upon the projecting tongues of each of the hydra’s heads. Desperate for any distraction, he reached for the dossier his cousin Quintus had given him. He pulled out the documents, rubbed his eyes, and began to read.

The tale of the poisonings and the ensuing investigation was told in bits and pieces. The fragmentary nature of the material only made it more fascinating, like a puzzle with many pieces. Grateful for anything to make him forget his nightmare, Kaeso perused the documents far into the night.

In the months that followed, Kaeso’s life settled into a comfortable pattern. He worked very hard under the tutelage of Appius Claudius, learning everything he could about every aspect of the great road, which men were calling the Appian Way, and about the water channel, which men had dubbed the Appian Aqueduct. There was no task, high or low, in which he did not take part, from digging trenches to calculating the volume of water that could pass through a given section of the aqueduct in a given amount of time.

He even managed to learn the Greek alphabet and a few rudiments of the language, but whenever Claudius set him the task of translating a passage in Greek about hydraulics or engineering, the complexity of the language continued to stymie him. “One thing is clear,” said Claudius in exasperation one day, “there cannot be a drop of Greek blood in you!” The comment was entirely innocent, but set off a fresh cycle of nightmares that haunted Kaeso’s sleep.

At night, after a long day of working hard with his body and his mind, Kaeso looked forward to eating a hearty dinner with his parents, relaxing for a while in the garden, and then spending an hour or so reading the documents that Quintus had loaned to him. He found it strangely relaxing to sift through the confessions of the poisoners, the lists and memoranda scribbled in Quintus’s hand, the official decrees of the Senate and the consuls, and the various other pieces of evidence. An obscure reference in one document would lead him to search out another, and then another which he might already have read, but had not fully understood without the later knowledge that came from further research. The puzzle-like nature of the material amused and engaged him. From seemingly unrelated bits and pieces, an increasingly coherent picture of events began to emerge, like the creation of a mosaic from odd bits of stone.

Over and over, and utterly fascinated, he read the statements given by the women.

“I did it because my husband slept with another woman,” said one.

“I did it because the shopkeeper looked at me the wrong way,” said another.

“My brother and I had always quarreled,” said one. “I was tired of quarreling.”

And another: “I did it because my two sisters had done it to their husbands, and I did not want to feel left out.”

The notorious Sergia had performed a great deal of experimentation with various plants and other substances, making notes on how the poisons could be extracted, which of them were more or less reliable, the symptoms they caused, the time they required to take effect, and how they worked in combination. Sergia had also made detailed sketches of numerous plants, to serve as guides for her servants when she dispatched them to find specimens growing in the wild.

Typical of Sergia’s notes was her entry about aconitum, illustrated by a drawing of the flowering plant:

Aconitum. A white powder derived from the plant called Pluto’s helmet, because the purple flower, which grows in upright clusters, is shaped like a warrior’s helmet with a high crest and cheek plates. The plant is knee-high to hip-high and grows in the shade of trees, in moist soil. A Greek merchant tells me that his people call it the Queen of Poisons. Legend says the plant first sprang from the saliva of the three-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of the underworld. All parts of the plant appear to be toxic, but most especially the roots, from which the white powder is derived. Ingestion causes death. The powder may also kill a woman if it comes into contact with her genitals. Very quick to act-death may occur within ten minutes, and almost certainly within four hours. The victim quickly experiences numbness and tingling in the mouth and throat, both of which feel parched; also there is a severe burning sensation from throat to abdomen. Tingling spreads to the hands and feet and then the whole body. The skin and extremities feel cold and clammy to the touch, yet at the same time the victim may feel as though his limbs are being flayed. Legs become weak. Sight and hearing grow dull, but the victim will be clearheaded until the moment of death. Muscles twitch and convulse. Pulse weakens. Pupils dilate. The slightest exertion results in a fatal swoon.