Authors: Bruce MacBain
The hours wore on. Eventually, Pliny drifted off to sleep.
But not for long. He woke with a start to find the emperor’s lictors standing in his doorway again. This time they treated him more respectfully, but the summons was still peremptory. Refusal was not a choice.
Five hours later he was home again. Calpurnia wept with relief. Amatia gave him a penetrating look, but said nothing.
“Just a private interview,” he assured the women, smiling wanly. He would not tell them of the repetition of his previous night’s bizarre conversation with Domitian, the self-pitying complaints, the dark suspicions, the wild accusations, the lavish praise of Pliny and his uncle, which turned maudlin as the emperor drank more and more; his final escape when Domitian finally passed out on the floor. Or that this time he had had a run-in with Parthenius, who seemed to be lying in wait for him as he left. The chamberlain had tried to pump him. Pliny had shoved him roughly aside.
For the second night in a row Pliny lay in the dark, desperate with exhaustion, unable to close his eyes. He could not go through this again; could not put his frail wife through any more of it. As the first rays of dawn slanted through his window, he lit a lamp and sat down at his desk to shuffle aimlessly through the correspondence that had piled up there. And so it happened that his eye fell upon a letter from Calpurnius Fabatus, his wife’s grandfather. The old man wanted him to go up to Ameria to help him evaluate the condition of an estate he was thinking of buying. Since the courts and Senate weren’t in session surely dear Pliny could spare him a couple of days?
“
Accipio omen,”
Pliny murmured. “I accept the omen.” He wasn’t a policeman, had never claimed to be. It needed someone cleverer than him to solve this wretched case. He had done all he could. One thing he knew for certain: call it running away, call it hiding, but if he didn’t get out of Rome, clear his head, calm his soul, and, above all, escape from the emperor, he would soon go mad.
Chapter Twenty-three
The eighteenth day before the Kalends of Domitianus
[formerly October].
Day ten of the Games. The first hour of the day.
Pliny emerged from his bedroom wearing a traveling cloak and broad-brimmed straw hat. “Zosimus,” he called to his young freedman, “send the clients away with my apologies. You and I are going on a journey.” Zosimus was on easy terms with his patron but something in the set of Pliny’s mouth told him to ask no questions. “Boy,” Pliny beckoned a slave, “run to the hostler’s outside the Flaminian Gate and order a covered coach with a mule team and driver to be ready at once.”
At the sound of her husband’s voice, Calpurnia tottered into the room. Pliny spoke brusquely to her. An errand for her grandfather. Where? North. He would say no more. How long? Two or three days, he really couldn’t say.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Over miles of bumpy roads in your condition? I won’t hear of it, my dear. You’re best off here with Helen and Amatia to look after you. Here, I’ve written notes to the city prefect, the emperor, and to Martial. See that they’re delivered, will you?”
“But must you go today?” she persisted. “You don’t look well. You’re not yourself. What is the matter, you must confide in me.”
“Nonsense, I’ve had it in mind for some time.”
“You never said…” Tears suddenly overflowed her eyes.
“Really, Calpurnia, must I announce my every move ahead of time?” He turned from her abruptly and shouted up his bearers.
Awakened by the commotion, Amatia came out of her room. She put her arms around Calpurnia and held the girl tightly. “We’ll be fine on our own, won’t we darling? Enjoy your trip, Gaius Plinius, I’m sure you’ve earned a rest. By the way, last night while you were shut up in your office I received welcome news from home. A messenger sent ahead by my son-in-law just arrived by ship from Massilia. He has gathered the money for my initiation fee and will be arriving himself in just a few days. I’ll be able to make my devotions to the goddess and then I’ll no longer have to impose on your hospitality. You know the old saying, ‘After three days a guest and a fish begin to smell.’ And I’ve taken advantage of your kindness far longer than that.”
“Nonsense, dear lady. The advantage has been ours. You’ve done wonders for my wife. We will both miss you. I must say this messenger made remarkably good time.”
“And,” Calpurnia put in, “the poor man hurt himself on his journey, I think.”
“Oh, in what way?”
“He had a broken arm.”
* * *
The lumbering four-wheeler jounced over the paving stones of the Via Cassia, following the valley of the Tiber up into the Umbrian hills. Zosimus sat beside his master and unrolled a volume of Alexandrian lyrics, but before he had recited a dozen lines Pliny’s eyelids drooped. He was still sleeping when the setting sun lit their way into the courtyard of an inn where they would stop for the night.
* * *
Pliny was not the only one who had felt weary and oppressed that morning. Brooding in his bed, Lucius was prey to similar feelings. He had long since given up the morning
salutatio
since no one came any more. Deserted by the family clients, who smelled better pickings elsewhere, without friends or prospects, a virtual prisoner in his own house, he had nothing much to do but drink and sleep. As for those mysterious papers that his father had taunted him with, Lucius had long since given up the search. Clearly they weren’t in the house. For all his cunning, he had exactly nothing to show. The trial was not many days away and he would be lucky to escape with nothing worse than banishment for life, and that only because someone else—could it possibly have been the pitiful Scortilla?—had murdered the old bastard first.
These morose thoughts were interrupted by the knock of a trooper. Four tradesmen were at the door, dirty foreigners by the look of them. Should they be admitted? Lucius shrugged. He had nothing better to do. In an ill temper he pulled on a rumpled tunic and went out into the vestibule.
He looked sourly at the four characters, swarthy and bearded to the eyes, who loitered near the door. Three of them, he recognized. They were brothers, Syrians, whom his father had brought back with him from Judea and set up as rug dealers near the Forum. Lucius knew that his father had used these thugs to administer an occasional beating, or worse, to loosen a tongue; a regrettable, but necessary part of the informer’s trade. And because they would unavoidably hear things during these interrogations, Verpa had warned them not to learn Latin beyond a few basic words, not that they were likely to in the immigrant ghetto where they lived.
With them was another villainous character who introduced himself as Hiram, a friend of theirs. Hiram could speak Greek.
Lucius had been an indifferent student, his schoolboy Greek was rusty, but he could get by. “What do you want of me?” he asked curtly. “What’s in that box you’ve got with you?”
Hiram removed the soiled cloth in which it was wrapped and offered it for Lucius’ inspection. It was a doctor’s kit, made of sycamore wood, with a brass lock, which had been pried open, and a leather shoulder strap. Where had he seen this before?
Hiram explained: “It belonged to the man your father tortured to death with the help of my three mates, a job for which he agreed to pay ’em one thousand sesterces, their usual fee. I happened to make their acquaintance in a tavern last night and agreed to speak for ’em, since they’re shy of you.” Hiram’s gold tooth gleamed when he smiled. “If they don’t get their money they’ll make trouble.”
“Will they, indeed!” Lucius snatched the box—he expected it to be heavy, but it wasn’t—and lifted the lid. “It’s empty. Where are all the instruments, the drugs?”
“They sold the instruments on the street, the little bottles they threw away,” answered the gold tooth. “They had nothing in ’em but colored water and sand.”
“You don’t say? Well, the box alone is damned near worthless and I haven’t got a thousand in cash, so there!”
“The name on the bottom might mean something to you?”
Lucius turned the box over and read the inscription:
Iatrides son of Philemon,
carved in Greek letters. That gave him a start. The invalid woman’s physician had some such name as this. “What did this man look like? Heavy set? Bearded?” Lucius had scarcely noticed the doctor during the brief time that he and the lady had stayed with them, but, yes, it did seem like him. But why torture him? Turning the box over again, his ear caught a little rattle within it. He peered inside more closely. A pin embedded in a bit of cork lay on the bottom. Help me Hercules! It was the twin of the one that Pliny had shown them yesterday. Trying to conceal his excitement, he scowled and said, “I’ll have to know more details.”
The thugs jabbered away all at once, and Hiram translated. “They were told to waylay the man at a certain street corner where he always passed. They took him by cart, rolled up in a rug, to your little farm across the Tiber, where your father met them. They all went into the woods beyond the house and worked him over. He screamed a lot, but no one lives out that way. When they got to singeing his balls, he died on ’em. Weak heart, I’d say.”
“What did my father want from him? Did he say anything?”
Hiram consulted his companions. “They’re not paid to listen. They don’t understand much anyway. Your father wanted to know who this man was and why he was in his house. The man was harder to understand. He spoke Latin with an accent and he was, you know, screaming. He begged your father to be merciful. They understood the word ‘
clemens
.’ And something too about clothing—they think they heard
‘vestis.’
But maybe they heard wrong, these fellows ain’t very smart.” The three torturers, not understanding Hiram’s speech, smiled hopefully at Lucius.
“After the man died,” Hiram continued, “your father told ’em to bury him and the box—they can show you the spot if you like. He went back to the farmhouse for something to eat. While he was gone they hid the box under some straw in their cart, thinking it might be worth something.”
Lucius wasted no time in paying the Syrians off with some silver spoons, which were worth considerably more than a thousand sesterces. He wanted no trouble from them. No, indeed. He wanted time to think.
Clemens?
Of course! Not “merciful,” but Flavius Clemens, the God-fearer whom his father had denounced.
Vestis
he could make no sense of. Still, something connected this Amatia and her physician to the Clemens affair. Whoever they were, they weren’t what they seemed, and Verpa had found them out.
Lucius took the kit back to his room and sent a slave to fetch one of Scortilla’s cats. There were half a dozen in the house, all of them “sacred,” more of her Egyptian nonsense. He picked the animal up by its neck and pressed the pin into its blue-gray flank. It twisted and made strangling sounds, and in a moment it was dead. Satisfied with his experiment, he went looking for Valens. Pliny had warned him to cooperate and cooperate he would. His life might depend on it.
He found the centurion in the garden, not alone. A bosomy, unkempt woman was seated next to him on the bench beside the pool where three sun-burned, naked little boys were engaged in pushing one another’s heads under the water and shrieking at the top of their lungs.
“The family, sir,” Valens explained, looking a trifle apologetic. “Been after me for days to let ’em come over for a look round. Thought it wouldn’t do any harm.”
Lucius suppressed an urge to swear at the man. “I want you to go to the vice-prefect’s house and ask him to come here without delay. I have urgent news for him.”
“Now, sir?”
“Yes,
now.
And I want this rabble out of my garden.”
The centurion’s face darkened, and for an awful moment Lucius feared the man might hurt him. But his woman was up at once, dragging the children out, and Valens, tight-lipped, turned smartly and marched off.
He was back in half an hour. “Vice-prefect’s not at home, as it happens,” he said in his surliest tone of voice. “His wife says he’s left town and she doesn’t know where. Didn’t seem too happy about it either. Anything else you want done, you ask your own people.” He returned to the garden, now emptied of his family, drew his sword and set to sharpening it with vicious strokes against the edge of a stone bench.
Chapter Twenty-four
The seventeenth day before the Kalends of Domitianus.
Day eleven of the Games.
The white napkin, released from the praetor’s fingertips, fluttered down, simultaneously a horn sounded, the restraining rope dropped, and a dozen four-horse chariots shot out of the starting boxes. A roar rose from a quarter of a million throats. The drivers, distinguished by their team colors — green, blue, red, white, purple, and gold—stretched out almost horizontally over their horses’ backs, cracking their whips, twisting their bodies, turning their heads for brief seconds to see who was beside or behind them, searching for an opening to the left, closer to the barrier.
As they dashed around the first turn, a Green driver tried to foul one of the Reds by crowding him but wasn’t skillful enough and lost control of his own chariot, careening into the barrier. The chariot flipped up and over, throwing the driver out. His horses plunged on, dragging him, still tied to the reins, into the path of another team. The roar of the crowd redoubled. This was what they had come to see.
Martial and his four friends rose to their feet, screaming with the rest, although from high up in the cheap stands of the vast Circus Maximus it was hard to see what had happened. The surviving chariots disappeared around the turn and up the back stretch in a cloud of dust. They sat again on the benches, prodded by elbows in their ribs, knees in their backs.
“Purple’s going to carry off the honors today,” Priscus shouted in his ear over the rumble of voices. “The emperor’s team. That’s where I put my money.” They could just make out the distant figure of the emperor in the imperial box, swathed in the folds of his purple toga, surrounded by his courtiers, Parthenius, no doubt, among them. “Who’s your money on, then?”
But Martial wasn’t listening. The momentary excitement past, he had sunk back into his own thoughts, which, like those chariots, went round and round in an endless circle. Where was Pliny? Why had he left the city yesterday morning without warning, telling no one where he was going? He would have to meet Stephanus tonight at the
popina
, but what could he tell him? Stephanus. That man gave him the shudders with his cold eyes and sallow cheeks and that perpetually bandaged arm. And what if Parthenius refused to believe that Pliny hadn’t confided his plans to him? What if Parthenius dropped him after all this? He doubted that anything he had reported so far had really been of much interest to the grand chamberlain. It was that woman Amatia he seemed most interested in.
And there, Martial had simply drawn a blank. An ordinary and harmless provincial matron was all he saw. Rather reserved, rather sad, a bit foolish on the subject of religion. None of the gossip-mongers knew anything about her, naturally, since she hadn’t been in Rome more than a couple of weeks. But in that case, why did Parthenius care? And yet he did care. Which must mean that there was more to Amatia than he had guessed. The thought pounced on him like a cat leaping from cover upon an astonished mouse. Amidst the din of a mindless crowd, Martial’s mind suddenly gained clarity. The woman was lying to them. As simple as that. But what was he to do with this new idea? Martial, who had always thought himself so clever, so knowing, suddenly felt out of his depth, baited and hooked like a fish into betraying his friend and patron for reasons he couldn’t fathom.
He must tell Pliny, as he should have done in the first place. But how could he do so without confessing to his deal with Parthenius and all of his small betrayals over the past days? No, he couldn’t afford that. He would lose both Pliny
and
Parthenius as patrons.
Thirty years in Rome, grasping for a fame always just out of reach, had changed him into a man that he didn’t like any more. But “the die was cast,” as the Deified Julius had once famously said. There was no alternative now. He would go back to Pliny’s house tonight, play the dutiful client, make himself agreeable to the little wife, and see whether he could pry any information loose from the mysterious Amatia.
The chariots thundered past and Diadumenus, sitting beside him, clutched his arm and screamed, “On, the Greens!” in a transport of excitement, Martial tried hard to look attentive.
* * *
A second day’s journey by coach brought Pliny and Zosimus to the lovely hill town of Ameria, where they were met by the bailiff of the farm, who had brought saddle horses for them. The farm lay about four miles west of the town.
At a walking pace, they took their way through the rolling country, thick with oak and poplar. Away on their right, Mt. Soracte, a towering wedge of granite, soared above the hills; behind them on the distant horizon stretched the folded masses of the Apennines. In the deep shade of leafy trees the air was autumn crisp, while Rome, sixty miles below, still sweltered through the last days of summer. Rome. Pliny shook himself to drive the image from his mind; he would not think of Rome, not today. Though his purpose was “business,” he savored his illicit freedom like a truant schoolboy. How good it was just to have a horse between his legs again! He breathed deeply—more deeply, he felt, than he had in weeks.
They reached the farm toward evening. Pliny was ravenously hungry. The food was plain, but satisfying. After dinner he dictated a note to Calpurnia to tell her that he had arrived safely, though being careful not to say where. Then he went to bed and slept more soundly than he had in days, lulled by the croaking of the frogs.
The next morning he was up with the sun. He spent an hour with the bailiff, a good-natured and capable man, going over accounts and the rest of the day riding with him round the property. The farm pleased him; it was well worth the asking price—and Pliny was canny about such things. Barley and wheat stood high in the well-watered fields and the tenants were already at work with their sickles getting in the harvest. He stopped and talked with some, though he could barely understand their Umbrian patois. But they seemed to be prospering. What a delight to be here, rubbing soil between his fingertips, slapping a cow’s backside. Weren’t all Romans farmers at heart, born for this life!
But the next morning Pliny—Roman senator, respected lawyer, acting vice prefect, loving husband, expectant father—awoke feeling ill at ease. How long could he prolong this holiday? There was really nothing more to be done here. He had written his report to Fabatus, urging him to buy. What now? Must he return to Rome today? The thought depressed him.
But the bailiff, who was a repository of local lore, had thought of a small diversion for him. He described a certain lake in the neighborhood, sacred to the local folk. “Lake Vadimon it’s called, on t’other side Tiber and worth the seeing, your honor. Funny things happen in that lake. I’ll say no more,” he winked mysteriously, “but ye ought visit it before ye go.”
Pliny was happy to comply. Was not investigating marvels in his blood, after all? His uncle had, of course, been a prodigious collector of them, though he had never heard him speak of this one as far as he could recall. With directions from the bailiff, he and Zosimus mounted up, carrying a picnic lunch and a jar of the local wine in their saddle bags.
They struck off toward the Tiber, across fields and through dripping woods. Where the ground fell away sharply, they put their horses down the slope and splashed across the river, surprising an ox who had come down for its morning drink. A raw chill was in the air, making their horses’ nostrils steam. Here Father Tiber wound between high, narrow banks, overhung with willows, honeysuckle, and wild vine. They followed its twisting course downstream about five miles, then stopped in a clearing and ate their lunch. After resting, they continued on their way, took a wrong turning and got lost for a time.
But toward evening, at last, they came upon the lake. In fact, they smelled it before they saw it, so strong was the stench of its sulfurous water. Lake Vadimon was of moderate size and perfectly even all around, like a wheel lying on its side. Pliny and his young companion pushed through bulrushes waist-high down to the water’s edge, and Pliny knelt and cupped the water in his hand. It was whitish and thick to the touch, and tasted like medicine. And yet the cows drank it; he could see six or seven of them crowding down to the shore on the farther side.
“Patrone,” said Zosimus, “it’s a marvelously nasty place.” He batted at a cloud of gnats that hung about their heads. “But I can see no other marvels hereabouts.”
They were just turning to go. The air had been dead still, but suddenly a breeze sprang up, ruffling the water.
“Patrone!”
Pliny turned back and stared, rubbed his eyes and stared again. “Yes, I see! Extraordinary!”
As they watched in astonishment, a floating island of reeds sailed toward them across the lake. Upon it one of the cows, sensing itself adrift, lifted its head and bellowed in fright. Then more islands detached themselves from the shore and, driven before the breeze, glided here and there across the water. Wherever an island came to rest against the shore, it seemed to add to the solid land on that side, until it separated again and drifted on. What a trick was played upon their eyes! Solid land not solid at all. Whatever the explanation of this wonder, and Pliny could imagine none, it showed how easily the eye could be fooled.
And then, in a swift instant, as though the solution had been there all along, just waiting for this key to unlock it, the thought flashed like an arrow through his mind. “
Mehercule
,
that’s
how she did it!”
“Who, Patrone?” asked Zosimus, startled.
“Scortilla, of course!”
His inner eye saw the form of a murderess, not creeping through Verpa’s window; rather someone there all along, in plain view but unseen because she was a part of the background, just like these little islands. Amazing how Fate arranged things! He had come here to escape from the investigation and, by doing so, he had stumbled on the solution. Oh, but really! Could it be so? This notion, when you really thought about it, was even more outlandish than his earlier one. Pliny was quite surprised at himself. To have lived thirty-five years untroubled by an imagination, then suddenly to find himself embarrassed by one that flourished exuberantly like some strange, unwholesome plant! Is this what police work did to one? But everything fit. Scortilla and Lucius were accomplices. Their mutual hatred was all an act. One murder was used to conceal the other. And now he saw how it was done. All that remained was to prove it and the slaves would be saved.
As they left the lake, he knew already how he would put his theory to the test, and he was certain—his heart beating fast as he thought of it—certain that this time he could make Scortilla convict herself, because she was, though full of cunning, really quite a stupid woman. “And I will play her a trick that’ll drag the truth out of her lying throat!” He laughed aloud.
There was no time to lose. “Mount up,” he cried to Zosimus. “It’s back to the town to hire a fast two-wheeler and then to Rome! If we ride through the night, we’ll arrive before tomorrow’s dawn—just the right moment for what I have in mind.”