The Triumph of Caesar by Steven Saylor Page B

heavy bronze doors swung open. I stepped into the Carcer, and the doors clanged shut behind me.
    The chamber, perhaps twenty paces in diameter, had stone walls and a vaulted stone roof. The only natural light and ventilation came from a few small windows high in the wall facing the Forum, which were crisscrossed with iron bars. The place stank of human excrement and urine, as well as the odor of putrefaction; perhaps there were dead rats trapped in the walls. Even on a warm day such as this, the place was dank and chilly.
    The warder, a grizzled bull of a man, insisted on seeing my pass again. He scowled at the pass, then at me. "Shouldn't be doing this," he muttered. "If the dictator finds out . . ."
    "He won't find out from me," I said. "And I presume the dictator's wife has paid you quite well enough to keep your mouth shut."
    He grunted. "I can hold my tongue. No one will know you were here—as long as you don't do anything stupid."
    "Like try to help the prisoner escape? I'm sure that's impossible."
    "Others have tried. And failed." He smiled grimly. "But I was thinking more along the lines of helping him escape his fate."
    "By dying, you mean? Before Caesar has the chance to execute him?"
    "Exactly. In this case, a dead Gaul is a useless Gaul. You wouldn't try to pull a trick like that, would you?"
    "You've seen the seal I carry. What more do you want?"
    "Your word as a Roman."
    "As a Roman who sneaks behind Caesar's back and consorts with others who do the same?"
    "Loyalty to Caesar isn't necessarily the same as loyalty to Rome. You don't have to be Caesar's lackey to have a sense of honor as a Roman."
    I raised an eyebrow. "Who would have guessed? A Pompeian is in charge of the Tullianum."
    "Hardly! I don't shed tears for losers. Couldn't do this job, if I did. Just swear by your ancestors that you're not up to something."
    "Very well. By all the Gordianii who came before me, I swear that I have no intention either to harm or to help Vercingetorix."
    "Good enough. And don't get yourself killed! I wouldn't be able to explain that either."
    "Killed? Isn't the prisoner chained?"
    The warder lowered his voice. "Druid magic! They say he can cast the evil eye. I never look him in the face. I put a bag over his head whenever I have to go down there and slosh his feces down the drain hole."
    With that pleasant image in my mind, I sat on a wooden plank attached to a thick, padded rope; it was like a crudely made swing that a boy might hang from a tree branch. The warder handed me a small bronze lamp with a single wick, and then, using a winch, he slowly lowered me though a hole in the floor. This was the only entrance to the Tullianum.
    As my head passed below the rim of the hole, I descended into a world that was darker, danker, and even more foul smelling than the room above. An odor of mold, sweat, and urine filled my nostrils. The dim lamplight faded to darkness before it could reach the surrounding walls. Below me, as I slowly descended, I heard the scurrying of rats. I looked down. I couldn't see the floor. For a moment I almost panicked; then I caught a glimmer of reflected lamplight on the glistening wet stone floor that drew nearer and nearer until my feet made contact.
    "All steady?" the warder called down from above. "No, don't look up at the hole! You'll get vertigo. Besides, the light will blind you. Close your eyes for a bit. Let them adjust."
    Closing my eyes was the last thing I intended to do in that place. I stepped away from the rope, holding it to steady myself, and raised the lamp so as to illuminate the chamber without dazzling my eyes. Slowly I began to perceive the dimensions of the place. It seemed larger than the chamber above, but perhaps that was an illusion of the darkness.
    Huddled against a wall, I saw a human figure. The lamplight reflected dully off the chains binding his wrists and ankles. He wore a filthy, ragged tunic. His hair and beard were long and tangled. When he turned his face toward