The Venus Throw (28 page)

“He wasn’t born in Rome?”

“Hardly. From some backwater up north; Verona, I think. Clodia met him the year Quintus was governor of Cisalpine Gaul and they were stuck up there.”

“Then there
is
a connection between Clodia and this man Catullus?”

“There used to be. That was finished before Catullus left Rome last spring. Finished on Clodia’s side, anyway. You think he was following you?”

“Yes. Any idea why?”

Clodius shook his head. “He’s a strange one. Hard to make out. No interest in polities; thinks he’s a poet. Clodia thought so too; half of his poems were about her. Women love that sort of crap, especially from fools like Catullus.
The sort who bleeds from love; a walking hemorrhage, and bitter about it too. I remember him reciting from this very stage one summer night, standing where the Ethiop is standing now, with the beautiful young poets and their starryeyed admirers gathered around, crickets chirping, moon above. He’d lull them with words like honey, then stir the pot and show them the worms at the bottom. Self-righteous, foul-mouthed, long-suffering. He even made one about me.”

“A poem?”

Clodius’s jaw tightened. “Not much better than the doggerel Milo’s gang comes up with, and considerably nastier. So he’s back? Clodia will hear from him soon enough, I imagine. If you catch him following you again, my advice is to give him a good blow to the jaw. He’s no fighter. His tongue is his weapon. Good for making insults and poems, and not for much else, according to my—according to those who have reason to know. Look, this little bit of food has only made me hungrier, and the sun’s getting low. I’m not leaving until I see Clodia. Stay and have a proper dinner with me.”

I hesitated.

“I told you, she may show up at any moment. She’ll want to know exactly what happened at the baths, from your lips. If I try to tell her, I’ll either get angry and choke or else laugh in all the wrong places.”

Slaves came to clear away the wine and cakes. I asked one of them to fetch Belbo from the foyer. He came lumbering down the steps, peering up at the monstrous statue of Venus with a proper expression of awe. Then he spotted the Ethiop across the way. The two of them flexed their shoulders, dilated their nostrils and exchanged suspicious glances.

“Yes, Master?”

“Take a message to Bethesda,” I told him. “Tell her I’ll be dining elsewhere tonight.”

“Here, Master?”

“Yes, here, at Clodia’s house.” I winced, realizing how
it would sound to Bethesda. If she only knew that I was dining alone with another man to the sound of singing eunuchs, with a giant Ethiop playing chaperon!

“And then shall I come back, Master?”

Before I could answer, Clodius raised his hand. “No need, Gordianus. I’ll see that you get home safely.”

He gave me a cool look, challenging me to show distrust. I shrugged and nodded. “No need to come back afterward, Belbo,” I said. “I’ll find my way home.”

Belbo cast a final suspicious glance at the Ethiop, then turned, craning his neck to take in the full, frightful splendor of the Venus as he walked up the steps.

Twilight fell. With a mad crescendo of tambourines and shrill piping, the chanting of the galli abruptly ceased. A serene silence followed.

“Well,” said Clodius, “I suppose even eunuchs have to eat. It’s a warm night. Now that the racket’s over, shall we stay in the garden to eat?”

Couches were brought, along with lamps. The dinner was simple but exquisite. Clodia’s pleasures apparently included those to be had from owning a fine cook. It was a meal to be eaten slowly and savored, accompanied by leisurely conversation.

“The galli!” said Clodius, sipping noisily at his fish soup. “What do you know about the cult of Cybele, Gordianus?”

“Not a lot. I sometimes see the galli in the streets on the days of the year when they’re allowed to go begging in public. I’ve heard the invocations to Cybele at the Great Mother festival. And of course I’ve met your sister’s friend Trygonion. But I’ve never heard anything like the music I heard here this afternoon.”

“The cult has been in Rome a long time, yet most people don’t know much about it. It’s an interesting story, how Cybele first came to Rome.”

The wine and food had put me at ease. I was almost able
to forget the glowering presence of the Ethiop, who stood cross-armed on the stage and watched us eat. “Tell me.”

“It happened back in the days when Hannibal was rampaging through Italy, and no one could drive him out. The College of Priests consulted the Sibylline Books, and found an oracle: if an invader should take root in Italy, the only way to expel him would be to bring the Great Mother goddess to Rome from her shrine in Phrygia. At that time King Attalus ruled Phrygia, and happened to be our ally. Still, the goddess herself had to be consulted. When her Phrygian priests put the question to her, she shook the earth and told them, ‘Let me go! Rome is a worthy place for any deity!’ So King Attalus agreed to make a gift of the statue of Cybele, along with the great black rock which fell from the sky at the dawn of time and first inspired men to worship her.”

“How do you know all this?” I said.

“Gordianus, you impious man. Don’t you know that I’m a member of the College of Priests? I’m privileged to look at the Sibylline Books. I sit on the committee that regulates the galli and the worship of the Great Mother. Which is fitting, since there’s a family connection going all the way back to Cybele’s arrival in Rome.”

“You mean the tale of Claudia Quinta,” I said.

“You know the story?”

“Only vaguely, and never as told by one of the great woman’s descendants.”

Clodius smiled. “The ship bearing the sky-stone and the statue of Cybele arrived at the mouth of the Tiber and sailed inland to Rome, attended by great crowds along the riverbank. But when the ship pulled alongside the dock to unload its divine cargo, it sprang a leak and began to founder. The dignitaries on the dock were thrown into a panic. Just imagine: a group of politicians out for a day of impressing the masses suddenly find themselves in the midst of a catastrophic omen—the Mother Goddess sent to save Rome
from Hannibal is about to sink into the Tiber! More honeyed wine?”

“Not for me.”

“A bit more, surely.” He gestured to one of the slaves to fill my cup. “Anyway, it was my ancestress Claudia Quinta who saved the day. Only the purest virgins and most upstanding wives were allowed to welcome the Great Mother to Rome, and there had apparently been some grumbling about letting Claudia Quinta take part in the ceremony. Something about her loose morals and the bad company she kept—does this sound like someone we know? But that day she was vindicated. She stepped forward and seized the mooring rope, and miraculously the ship began to rise again. Thus Cybele showed her divine approval of Claudia Quinta. The pious say this proved her purity. Of course, when you actually picture the scene—a woman reaching out and grasping a stick rope, the big boat bobbing up like a swollen wineskin—well, Claudia Quinta must have had an amazingly skillful touch.

“The mud-spattered sky-stone and the statue were unloaded from the ship and cleaned up—the ritual bathing of the statue is still a part of the annual festival. The Temple of Cybele was built here on the Palatine and dedicated with great ceremony, with Claudia Quinta as the guest of honor. Just as the oracle had promised, Hannibal was driven from Italy. And today, generations later, we have to put up with the singing of the galli here in Clodia’s garden!

“What must they have thought, our staid, dour ancestors, when they got their first look at the Phrygian priests who arrived with Cybele, with their outlandish costumes and jewelry, their long bleached hair and high, lisping voices? Or when they saw how the priests worshiped Cybele, with whirling dances and wild frenzies, and secret ceremonies in the middle of the night? Or when they learned that the consort of the Great Mother was a beautiful, castrated youth called Attis? Not the kind of consort to give a female much
pleasure, I should think. Perhaps Cybele prefers a woman with a skilled hand, like Claudia Quinta. I prefer Venus myself. There’s no ambiguity about what Venus wants from Adonis, is there?” He gazed up at the towering statue. “When they got a taste of what the Great Mother’s cult was
really
like, our stem, stiff-jawed ancestors must have felt rather queasy.

“But then, Rome has a way of gobbling up anything that lands on her plate and shitting it out as something acceptably Roman—art, customs, habits, even gods and goddesses. That is Rome’s genius, to conquer the world and adapt it to her convenience. The cult of Cybele was simply cleaned up for popular consumption. The Great Mother festival is just like every other festival, with plays and chariot races and animal shows in the Circus Maximus. None of those inscrutable rites that Cybele’s followers practice in the East—ecstatic riots by worshipers in the streets, all-night vigils of men and women together in the temple, the chosen faithful crawling through tunnels that drip blood. We Romans don’t care much for that sort of thing, whatever the religious pretext. And no mention, ever, of Attis! We’d rather not think about the castrated lover. So the official celebration of Cybele became another chance for state priests and politicians to put on plays and circuses for the people. Of course, what the galli and their inner circle of worshipers do behind closed doors is another matter . . . Oh, I don’t believe it!”

With a shiver of tambourines, the music had recommenced.

“They must have finished their dinner and now they’re at it again,” said Clodius glumly. “Do you suppose they eat like normal men?”

“Trygonion showed a hearty appetite the night he ate at my house.”

“When was that?”

“When he came with Dio, asking for my help. The night of the murder.”

“Ah, yes. When he talked the poor old man into playing dress-up with him. Clodia told me about it. Dio, going out in a stola—it’s too painful for me to imagine. That’s Trygonion, longing to be something he’s not and pulling others into his fantasy world.”

“The gallus seems to have a curious relationship with your sister.”

Clodius smirked. “Another example of Clodia’s questionable judgment. Like Catullus, like Marcus Caelius.”

“You’re not saying that she and Trygonion . . . ?”

“Don’t be stupid. But in some ways he’s no different from the men who’ve come and gone in this house with their balls intact: they all let Clodia treat them like slaves—for a while, anyway. We haven’t seen much of Trygonion lately. He’s busy preparing for the festival with the other galli. That might be him we hear now, blowing on his flute.” He frowned. “You don’t suppose Clodia could be over at the House of Galli, concocting some sort of entertainment for her party?”

“Her party?”

“Clodia always throws a party on the eve of the Great Mother festival. It’s the first social event of the spring. Three nights from now.”

“But that’s the opening day of the trial.”

“Purely by coincidence. One more reason to celebrate, if all goes well. This garden will be full of people, and up on the stage—well, every year Clodia has to outdo herself. Maybe this year Trygonion will play his instrument for us.” He laughed crudely. “I won’t be able to come. I got myself elected aedile this year, so I’m in charge of overseeing the official events of the festival—too busy for pleasure. I’ll probably have to miss the trial’ as well. Too bad. I should like to watch Caelitis squirm. I love a good trial.” His green eyes glittered. In the lamplight he looked uncannily like his sister. “I even enjoyed my own trial. You remember that, don’t you, Gordianus?”

“I wasn’t there,” I said cautiously. “But I think that everyone remembers the Good Goddess affair.”

He drank deeply of the honeyed wine. “From that ordeal I learned three things. First, never trust Cicero to back you up. Stab you in the back, more likely! Second, when bribing a jury, account for a comfortable margin of victory. You’ll sleep better the night before. I did.”

“And third?”

“Think twice before putting on women’s clothing, for whatever reason. It did me no good at all.”

“It did Dio no good either,” I said.

Clodius made a dry little laugh. “Perhaps you have a sense of humor after all.”

The older I get, the more easily I fall asleep without meaning to.

At the end of our meal Clodius got up, saying he had to relieve himself. I relaxed and closed my eyes, listening to the chanting of the galli. The pleasing phrase I had heard before recurred, and I followed it along until it seemed that I was floating on the strange music, rising above Clodia’s garden, levitating face to face with the monstrous Venus, then flying even higher. Rome was a toy city beneath me, moonlit, her temples made of little blocks. The music rose and fell, and I was carried along like a bubble on a wave, like a feather in a mist, until someone whispered in my ear: “If Marcus Caelius didn’t murder Dio,
who did?”

I woke with a start. The voice had been so clear, so close, that I was puzzled to find myself alone. The lamps had died. The sky above was spangled with stars. The garden was dark and quiet, except for the soft splashing of the fountain. Someone had put a blanket over me.

The blanket smelled of Clodia’s perfume.

Too much honeyed wine, I thought. Too much rich food. Yet I felt clear-headed and refreshed. How long had I slept?

I pushed away the blanket. The night was too warm for
it. I stood, stretched my arms and looked around, still not quite certain I was alone. But there was no one in the garden, except for the suppliant Adonis and the towering Venus, huge and black in silhouette. Her eyes glittered dully in the starlight. Again I had the unnerving feeling that the statue was about to come to life. I shivered and was suddenly eager to leave the garden.

At the top of the steps I paused to quietly call out—“Clodius? Clodia? Chrysis?”—but no one answered. The house was absolutely still. I might have been in an empty temple, shut up for the night. I walked through the hallway and the atrium, into the foyer. Surely there would be a slave at the door, perhaps the same old man who had let us in that afternoon.