Furies (29 page)

“Thank you, but no. I appreciate your counsel.”

Shimon-Petrus patted his arm. “Troubling times. I wish you good fortune. But a word of advice from an old man. Take care with the questions you ask. Some words can turn to poison before they even leave your mouth.”

The sun was beginning to set over the western harbour, the ships bobbing in the golden waters, the Lighthouse towering above, its fiery eye gleaming like a second sun in the sky. Capito was dressed in a splendid tunic of a coppery sheen and a splendid ivory toga that Aculeo could only envy, for his own tunic, albeit his best one, was fraying at the edges while his toga had been repaired three times already – and Xanthias’ fingers were not as nimble as they had once been. The prospect of standing out like a country peasant at Ralla’s symposium was disconcerting to say the least.

“Aculeo,” Capito said, greeting him with the slightest of nods.

“I’m pleased you were able to extend an invitation, Magistrate. You have my gratitude.”

“Fuck your gratitude. I’ve enormous doubt about the wisdom of my assent, given your obsessions about this evening’s host.”

“Can a man not simply seek a night of socializing?”

The Magistrate rolled his eyes towards the heavens. “It’s bad enough for you to strain the limits of what influence I might have without you treating me like a pot-headed fool. Tell me what you suspect at least or I’ll leave you on your own to explain your attendance to Ralla.”

Aculeo hesitated at first. He’d been as vague as he could in his note to Capito about why he wanted to accompany him to the symposium that evening but clearly the man’s patience had run out. And so as they made their way along the still busy Canopic Way past the crossroads at the Street of the Soma, the palm trees rustling in the evening breeze that swept along the broad and picturesque colonnade, Aculeo revealed what little he knew and what more he suspected. The evening air smelled of the Egyptian Sea, an evocative mix of brine and sweet acacia.

When he was done, he felt a knot of doubt twist in the pit of his stomach. Capito kept his silence.

“Those tablets Iovinus had,” Capito said at last. “Any idea what might be on them?”

“No. Something important though – enough to draw him out of hiding. And get him murdered. Do you think me deranged then?”

“Worse,” Capito sighed. “I fear you might be right. Which makes my bringing you here tonight an even stupider idea than it seemed before.”

“I’m not about to confront the man in his own home.”

“See that you don’t, or may Jupiter squeeze himself between your hairy cheeks.”

They followed the winding street into Lagos, the exclusive deme where Ralla lived. It offered a fine view, the Lighthouse on Pharos, the Brucheion palaces and the neat, glistening gridwork of seemingly endless white-washed buildings that stretched toward the sea, awash in the orange-red glow of a dying sunset.

They came at last to Ralla’s villa. The high garden walls were lit with glowing lanterns covered with pink, green and blue cloth. The evening air was laced with the smell of roasting lamb and strains of lyre music, pounding drums, jangling cymbals, singing and laughter. The pathway beyond the gatehouse circuited the front garden, leading towards a wide entrance hall bordered by tall columns of white and grey-veined Himmatean marble. They could hear the whisper of laughter from deep within the garden, the shadows of people moving along the many tributary pathways that branched away from the main path.

Lucius Albius Ralla, dressed in an exquisite black tunic and silver-bordered toga, greeted his guests as they arrived, his face already flushed with drink. “Magistrate Capito,” he said, “you do me honour, sir.”

“Such a gracious invitation, Ralla, it is my sincere pleasure,” Capito said, embracing the other man, kissing his cheek. Could he truly be behind it all then? Aculeo wondered. Ralla looked an ordinary enough man, almost frail with his pale, slender limbs, rounded belly and watery brown eyes. Could he have ordered Iovinus’ murder? And what of Myrrhine? Or Neaera?

“You know Tarquitius Aculeo I trust,” Capito continued. “I hope you don’t mind me extending the invitation to him.”

The banker’s eyes flashed towards Aculeo, measuring the man. “Of course,” Ralla said. “Aculeo, a pleasant surprise to see you again.”

“The pleasure’s mine,” Aculeo said with a forced smile. “I’m looking forward to a splendid evening.”

“And I hope to surpass your expectations. Please make your way inside. Ah, Vestorius, you do me honour sir,” Ralla said, moving away to greet another guest.

Capito and Aculeo walked down the elaborate fauces towards a set of broad marble steps leading up into the triclinium. “Satisfied?” Aculeo asked.

“The evening’s only just begun.”

A pair of pretty young girls approached them bearing garlands of myrtle entwined with white narcissus. They were dressed as traditional Egyptian dancing girls, with translucent linen kilts, their pubescent breasts barely covered with elaborate necklaces, their eyes painted with kohl, and plaited black wigs atop their heads, crowned with fragrant perfume cones. They draped the sweet-smelling garlands around the men’s necks. A third girl, lovely with dark skin and almond-shaped eyes, anointed the two guests with perfumed oil, touching a drop of it on their foreheads while a fourth girl washed their feet with scented water.

The triclinium was a spacious room with a dozen finely crafted couches placed in a squared-off circle around the perimeter on a low platform, with a swill-channel running down the middle. The room, lit with coloured lanterns and a smoking hearth fire, had a compluvium cut into the high ceiling where the smoke spiralled up to escape into the starry sky. The decorations were outrageously gaudy, the walls covered in garish murals of what appeared to be the heroic exploits of Aeneas and his men. Many of the couches were already occupied by other guests. Aculeo spotted a pair of familiar faces – the sophists Zeanthes and Epiphaneus.

Zeanthes smiled warmly. “Aculeo, my dear friend,” the sophist said. “What a delightful surprise to see you again. Come join us.”

Aculeo and Capito settled on a pair of empty couches next to the sophist. “I must admit, Ralla’s symposia are always among the finest in Alexandria. Still, you’ll both be a breath of fresh air amongst all the stuffy types that usually attend this sort of thing. Such as Epiphaneus and myself.”

The other sophist sniffed in annoyance. He looked relatively well-groomed and sober compared to the last time Aculeo had seen him. The haunting sound of aulos, the double-reeded flutes, filled the air, played with admirable skill by pretty young girls who wandered between the couches. A few handsome youths wandered through the room as well, playing their lyres. In front of each couch were small wooden tables filled with platters of food – figs, cold roasted swan, broiled eel and great reed baskets of bread.

Two young men entered the andron. Aculeo recognized them from outside the gates of Ralla’s symposium – a plump, moon-faced boy dressed in an expensive looking pale blue tunic and a thick rope of gold chain about his neck, and a small, rodent-like man who seemed to laugh uproariously at everything the portly one said. They were much younger than the other guests, in their early twenties at most. The moon-faced boy gazed at Aculeo, then turned away, bored.

“Who are they?” Aculeo asked.

“The little one is Asinius Camillus, I believe,” Capito said. “The other is
Avilius Balbus
.”

“
Avilius
?
As in the Prefect Avilius Flaccus?”

“His son, yes.”

The youth Camillus grabbed a passing flute girl by the wrist and pulled her close, interrupting her play. The girl looked frightened, uncertain what to do. Flaccus the younger brayed in laughter as the other guests did their best to ignore the situation and carry forth with their conversations.

Gurculio arrived then, along with his retinue of Viator and Vibius. The moneylender, dressed in a garish yellow tunic and scarlet-edged toga, scanned the triclinium, widening his eyes slightly when he spotted Aculeo, then took an empty couch near Capito.

“Let us offer a libation for the health of the Emperor Tiberius, may he bestow honour and pleasure on our evening together,” Ralla proclaimed, his voice grating as stones clattering on a clay-tile roof as a slave brought forth an amphora and set it in the centre of the mensa. Ralla poured some of the unmixed heavy black wine into a cup, drank from it then passed the cup to one of the flute girls, who brought it to each of the guests in turn.

Aculeo tasted it, thick and sweet, and passed the cup back to the girl. She was quite pretty and wore a peplos of a silvery gauze, revealing the shadows of her young breasts and the slenderness of her waist beneath. She glanced at him in recognition, then bowed her head. Tyche, he realized – her lip still swollen, her cheek still discoloured beneath her makeup. And there was Panthea standing at the edge of the triclinium, watching. Her harelipped slave stood a few steps away from her. He briefly caught Aculeo’s eye, then looked away.

After the food was done, slaves moved in to take away the tables and sweep the floor of bones, shells and discarded fruit. They brought forth large bowls of warm, fragrant water and fine cotton towels for the guests to wash their faces and hands. Ralla then signalled one of his slaves and a large amphora was carried out to the middle of the chamber.

“A fine fragrant wine of Lesbos,” Ralla announced, “aged in my cellars for many seasons, in honour of our honoured guest, the esteemed sophist Zeanthes of Araethyrea.”

“Also aged for many seasons,” a young poet named Hipparchus said to much laughter. The poet’s face was painted with white lead, his lips and cheeks rouged like a woman’s.

“Make sure you mix it well this time, if you will,” grumbled Epiphaneus. “It was far too thick last time, gave me a raging headache for days.”

“Much like Hipparchus,” Zeanthes rejoined.

Aculeo watched Ralla carefully as the man settled onto the central couch. A slave girl poured the amphora into a deep ceramic krater, then added a measure of water, swirling the mixture around before pouring it into a jug. Tyche carried the jug around the circle, pouring wine into each man’s cup. The other girl continued to mix kraters of wine until there were five in all.

“Five kraters, Ralla?” one of the guests howled in surprise. “Are you trying to kill us all?” Ralla laughed, waving off the man’s complaint as he downed his first cup and held it out for more.

The first of a dizzying number of delicacies to be brought forth that evening, a gold platter of pheasants stuffed with sugared grapes and olives, accompanied by a silver platter of peppercakes and beestings pudding, made from the milk of new mother cows. The slaves brought the platters to each diner’s small tables in turn, then went back to ready the next course.

“Did anyone attend this morning’s lecture by that Skeptic fellow, Varialus?” Epiphaneus asked.

“The fellow with a big mole on his chin?” Hipparchus said with a frown. “I thought he was Neo-Platonic.”

“No, definitely Skeptic. And he’s from Crete of all places.”

“Now that’s a hideous place, bad wine, lots of flies and no culture at all.”

“How in the world could Skepticism have become so popular of late, and fools like Varialus be received with such acclaim?” Epiphaneus grumbled.

“Ah, there you go,” Hipparchus said archly. “Always wondering when you’ll be cast out of the Museion like nightsoil from an overflowing chamber pot.”

“If I am, so be it. At worst I shall have to return to teaching some backwards merchant’s squawling little brats in Phaleron or some such blightful place. There as here I’ll serve no master except my own ideas. The rest of you can rot in Tartarus for all I care.”