Lustrum

quiet.
    I was woken by fists pounding on the front door. I sat up with a start. I could only have been asleep for a few moments. The distant hammering came again, followed by ferocious barking, shouts and running feet. I seized my tunic and pulled it on as I hurried into the atrium. Cicero, fully dressed, was already descending the stairs from his bedroom, preceded by two guards with drawn swords. Behind him, wrapped in a shawl, was Terentia, with her hair in curlers. The banging resumed again, sharper now – sticks or shoes beating against the heavy wood. Little Marcus started howling in the nursery. 'Go and ask whoit is,' Cicero told me, 'but don't open the door,' and then, to one of the knights: 'Go with him.'
    Cautiously I advanced along the passage. We had a guard dog by this time – a massive black and brown mountain dog named Sargon, after the Assyrian kings. He was snarling and barking and yanking on his chain with such ferocity I thought he would tear it from the wall. I called out, 'Who's there?'
    The reply was faint but audible: 'Marcus Licinius Crassus!'
    Above the noise of the dog I called to Cicero: 'He says it's Crassus!'
    'And is it?'
    'It sounds like him.'
    Cicero thought about it for a moment. I guessed he was calculating that Crassus would cheerfully see him dead, but also that it was hardly likely that a man of Crassus's eminence would try to murder a serving consul. He drew back his shoulders and smoothed down his hair. 'Well then, if he says it's Crassus, and it sounds like Crassus, you'd better let him in.'
    I opened the door a crack to see a group of a dozen men holding torches. The bald head of Crassus shone in the yellow light like a harvest moon. I opened the door wider. Crassus eyed the snarling dog with distaste, then edged past it into the house. He was carrying a scruffy leather document case. Behind him came his usual shadow, the former praetor Quintus Arrius, and two young patricians, friends of Crassus who had only lately taken their seats in the senate – Claudius Marcellus and Scipio Nasica, whose names had featured on the most recent list of Catilina's potential sympathisers. Their escort tried to follow them in but I told them to wait outside: four enemies at one time was quite enough, I decided. I relocked the door.
    'So what's all this about, Crassus?' asked Cicero as his old foestepped into the atrium. 'It's too late for a social call and too early for business.'
    'Good evening, Consul.' Crassus nodded coldly. 'And good evening to you, madam,' he said to Terentia. 'Our apologies for disturbing you. Don't let us keep you from your bed.' He turned his back on her and said to Cicero, 'Is there somewhere private we can talk?'
    'I'm afraid my friends get nervous if I leave their sight.'
    'Are you suggesting we're assassins?'
    'No, but you keep company with assassins.'
    'Not any longer,' said Crassus with a thin smile, and patted his document case. 'That's why we're here.'
    Cicero hesitated. 'All right, in private, then.' Terentia started to protest. 'Don't alarm yourself, my dear. My guards will be right outside the door, and the strong arm of Tiro will be there to protect me.' (This was a joke.)
    He ordered some chairs to be taken to his study, and the six of us just about managed to squeeze into it. I could see that Cicero was nervous. There was something about Crassus that always made his flesh crawl. Still, he was polite enough. He asked his visitors if they would like some wine, but they declined. 'Very well,' he said. 'Sober is better than drunk. Out with it.'
    'There's trouble brewing in Etruria,' began Crassus.
    'I know the reports. But as you saw when I tried to raise the matter, the senate won't take it seriously.'
    'Well, they need to wake up quickly.'
    'You've certainly changed your tune!'
    'That's because I've come into possession of certain facts. Tell him, Arrius.'
    'Well,' said Arrius, looking shifty. He was a clever fellow, an old soldier, low-born, and Crassus's creature in all matters. Hewas much mocked behind his back for his silly way of speaking, adding an 'h' to some of his vowels, presumably because he thought it made him sound educated. 'I was in Hetruria up till yesterday. There are bands of fighters gathering right across the region. I hunderstand they're planning to hadvance on Rome.'
    'How do you know that?'
    'I served with several of the ringleaders in the legions. They tried to persuade me to join them, and I let them think I might – purely to