Imperium

tapestry. His rapid footsteps faded and I was alone.
    To begin with I was blind, but gradually I became used to the weak glow of the oil lamp just behind my shoulder. When I put my eye to the tapestry I found that tiny spy holes had been bored through the thick material that gave me a complete view of the room. I heard more footsteps, and then abruptly my vision was obscured by the back of a wrinkled bald pink head, and Crassus’s voice rang out in my ears—so loud I almost stumbled forward in shock—calling genially to his visitors to follow him. He moved away and the shapes of other men passed by on their way to take their places: the loose-limbed Catilina; Hybrida, with his drinker’s face; Caesar, looking sleek and dandified; the impeccable Lentulus Sura; Mucius, the hero of the afternoon; and a couple of notorious bribery agents—these I recognized, together with various other senators who were seeking the tribuneship. They all seemed in an excellent mood, joking with one another, and Crassus had to clap his hands to get their attention.
    “Gentlemen,” he said, standing before them with his back to me, “thank you for attending. We have much to discuss and not long in which to do it. The first item on the agenda is Egypt. Caesar?”
    Crassus sat, and Caesar stood. He stroked back a stray sparse hair and tucked it behind his ear with his index finger. Very carefully, so as not to make a sound, I opened my notebook, withdrew my stylus, and, as Caesar started to speak in his unmistakably harsh voice, I started to write.

    IT IS, IF YOU WILL FORGIVE a little immodesty at this juncture, the most wonderful invention, my shorthand system. Although I concede that Xenophon had some primitive version nearly four centuries before me, that was more of a private aid to composition than proper stenography, and besides it was only suitable for Greek, whereas mine compresses the whole of Latin, with its large vocabulary and complex grammar, into four thousand symbols. And it does so, moreover, in such a way that the system can be taught to any willing pupil; in theory even a woman could become a stenographer.
    As those who have the skill will know, few things wreak greater havoc with shorthand than trembling fingers. Anxiety renders the digits as dexterous as Lucanian sausages, and I had feared my nervousness that night would be an impediment to a fast script. But once I was under way I found the process oddly soothing. I did not have time to stop and consider what I was writing. I heard the words—Egypt, colonists, public land, commissioners—without remotely comprehending their meaning; my ambition was merely to keep pace with their delivery. In fact, the greatest practical difficulty I had was the heat: it was like a furnace in that confined place; the sweat ran in stinging rivulets into my eyes and the perspiration from my palms made my stylus slippery to grip. Only occasionally, when I had to lean forward and press my eye to the fabric to check the identity of the speaker, did I realize the enormity of the risk I was taking. Then I experienced a sensation of terrifying vulnerability, made worse by the fact that the audience often seemed to be staring directly at me. Catilina in particular appeared fascinated by the scene on the tapestry which concealed me, and my worst moment of the night by far came right at the end, when Crassus declared the conference over. “And when we meet again,” he said, “the destiny of all of us, and of Rome, will have been changed forever.” The moment the applause was finished, Catilina rose from his seat and walked directly toward me, and as I shrank back against the wall, he ran his palm down the tapestry, barely a hand’s breadth from my sweating face. The way that bulge traveled before my gaze still has the power to wake me in the night with a shout. But all he wished to do was compliment Crassus on the workmanship, and after a brief discussion about where it had been purchased, and—inevitably with Crassus—how much it had cost, the two men moved away.
    I waited a long time and when at last I dared to look out through my spy hole, I saw that the room was empty. Only the disarrangement of the chairs proved that there had been a meeting at all. It took an effort to restrain myself from wrenching aside the tapestry and making a run for the door. But the agreement was that I would wait for Caelius, so I forced myself to sit hunched in that narrow space, my back to the wall,