The Venus Throw (40 page)

“Outrageous,” she finally muttered. “What you say is utterly outrageous. Where do I begin? It’s absurd. It’s mad. Has Caelius somehow gotten to you? Or Cicero? Why have you turned against me, Gordianus?”

“I told you in the beginning, my only interest was to find Dio’s killer. I won’t be used as a tool to help satisfy your spite against an ex-lover. I suppose you’re accustomed to
using men and having them enjoy it, but I have no appetite for that sort of thing, Clodia.”

“Yes, I could tell that from the beginning.” Her voice was low and weary. Though my back was turned, I sensed her approach. I felt her warm breath against the back of my neck. “That’s why I never tried to use that sort of persuasion with you. You’d only have seen through it, resented it. You’re an unusual man, Gordianus. I’m not used to such strength, such integrity—yes, just as Cicero said. Lucky Bethesda! So I never considered seducing you, Gordianus. I rejected the thought, knowing it would only offend you. Even though I was tempted, more than once . . .”

I took a deep breath and turned to face her. The expression on her face was dejected, poignant, utterly convincing. “Clodia. You are a remarkable woman. You never give up, do you?”

I expected a flash of anger or the hint of a smirk, but her expression only became more perplexed, more pained. “Remarkable!” I whispered.

I stepped past her, suddenly anxious to leave, thinking that I might yet do something I would later regret. But the doorway was filled by a tall, imposingly muscular young man who stood with his arms crossed, wearing only a tiny loincloth. Catullus’s lampoon was uncannily, unerringly accurate. Even as he made a point of blocking my exit, Egnatius the Spaniard had a grin on his face.

“Who is this worm?” he said. “Should I smash his face in?”

“Shut up, you fool,” growled Clodia. “Get out of his way.”

Egnatius stepped aside. As I passed I wrinkled my nose. It was stale wine I smelled, but I pretended otherwise. “Is that urine on your breath?”

The Spaniard’s grin finally cracked.

B
elbo was waiting for me outside the front door. Without a word I started walking down the street, then realized I had no idea where to go. Going home to Bethesda was out of the question. I might have imposed on Menenia, but what would my daughter-in-law have thought if I came begging for a place to sleep in the middle of the night? If only Eco would come back . . .

Suddenly Belbo grunted and pulled me aside. His alarm was caused by a figure who stood concealed in the shadows of a doorway. Poor Belbo thought the man might be a thief or killer. I knew better.

I shook my head, partly in disgust, partly in relief. “Catullus! Don’t you have any better place to be at this time of night?”

“No. And neither do you, apparently.” He stepped from the doorway to show a face that looked as haggard and pained as my final glimpse of Clodia’s face. We stared at each other in the moonlight. “I hope I don’t look as wretched as you do,” said Catullus.

“I was about to say the same thing to you.”

He managed a crooked smile. “What shall we do?”

“Wait for the sun to come up, I suppose.”

“And until then? Where shall we go?”

“Where else?”

The Salacious Tavern was doing great business on the eve of the festival. We were lucky to find places to sit.

“I don’t like the look of this place, Master,” said Belbo.

“Ah, but some of the girls seem to like the looks of you, big fellow,” said Catullus. Belbo looked around uncertainly.

“I don’t suppose we’ 11 run into Marcus Caelius and his friends again.” I surveyed the crowd through the amber haze of lamplight and smoke.

“Here? In the middle of his trial?” Catullus barked a laugh. “Not likely. Don’t you imagine he’s home with papa and mama, humming funeral dirges and looking through his wardrobe for something suitably shabby to wear tomorrow? ‘Oh, Papa, I know I’m supposed to look downtrodden, but can I help it if I look stunning in everything?’ ”

Even Belbo cracked a smile. Wine was brought. Catullus drank greedily and wiped his mouth. “What were you doing in her house tonight, wearing nothing but an old sleeping tunic?”

“Catullus, please! No more of this nonsense about her . . . and me.”

“Then why?”

“There was some unfinished business between us.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It couldn’t wait.”

He snorted, then called to the serving slave for more to drink.

I swirled the untouched wine in my cup. “If Caelius is guilty of all those crimes against the Alexandrian envoys, isn’t that enough? Why would she feel compelled to manufacture new charges against him? You know her better than I do. Would she actually poison herself in order to make others think that Caelius had poisoned her?”

“You’re distracting me with riddles,” grumbled Catullus.

“It’s Clodia who’s driven us both to distraction.”

“Lesbia!” he insisted.

I stared at my wine and felt queasy. “If I’m going to drink any of this, I’ll need to cut it with plenty of water.”

“Well, then, we’ll have the man fetch you some fresh water from the Appian aqueduct!”

“You mean the one that
her
ancestor built for us?” I said.

“Exactly!” Catullus smirked. “Then we can head out on one of the roads her ancestors so thoughtfully laid down for us—”

“And pour a libation to a god in one of the temples they erected for us.”

Catullus laughed. “I see she’s given you the grand speech about the feats of her ancestors and their incomparable largesse. Rome would still be a pigsty beside the Tiber if it hadn’t been for all those Appius Claudii at the dawn of history.”

“So Clodia—Lesbia—seems to think.”

“But I’ll wager she didn’t tell you about the Appius Claudius who tried to rape Verginia.”

“No. A scandal?”

“Well, it’s not one of those edifying ancestor legends the Clodii like to repeat to every stranger they meet. But the story’s just as true, and it tells more about Lesbia than all that crowing about aqueducts and roads.”

“Tell me.”

Catullus paused to hold out his cup to the serving slave, but provided such a wobbly target that the wine spilled all over the floor.

“Perhaps you’ve had enough,” I said.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“What I need is a bed under my back.”

Catullus burped and nodded. “Me, too.”

“Where are you staying in the city?”

“I keep some rooms in a place up on the Palatine. Just a bed and some books. Do you want to go there?”

“You’d share your bed with me?”

“You wouldn’t be the first!” Catullus laughed. “Bring
along your slave to play watchdog. He can sleep on the floor in the anteroom and start barking if he hears you cry ‘rape!’ ”

Catullus’s place on the Palatine was as sparsely furnished as he had said. Against one wall was a large sleeping couch. Against the other was a pigeonhole bookcase filled with scrolls.

He saw me squinting at the little tags in the dim lamplight. “Greek poetry, mostly,” he explained, taking off his toga. “Books and bed. All a man needs. Anything more would only distract from the experience.”

“Of reading the books?”

“Or using the bed.” He slipped into a tunic and fell back onto the sleeping couch. “Come on, there’s room enough for two. Though I warn you, I’ m drunk enough that I might attack you.”

“I’ m an old man with stiff joints and a grizzled beard.”

“Yes, but you smell irresistible.”

“What?”

“You smell of her perfume.”

“And you stink of wine, Catullus. Better than urine, I suppose.”

“What?”

I told him briefly of my encounter with Egnatius, thinking it would amuse him that I had been able to use something from his poem for my own parting shot, not realizing until I was well into the story that telling it was a mistake.

“Then he’s with her right now,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Egnatius and Lesbia. Damn them both!”

“You started telling me a story at the tavern,” I said, thinking to distract him.

“A story?”

“A scandal about one of her ancestors. An Appius Claudius. Not the builder of the temple, or the aqueduct—”

“Oh yes, the one who tried to rape Verginia. The only ancestor they
don’t
like to talk about. Yet he exemplifies the
current generation better than any of those virtuous paragons on their pedestals. You asked me if she would do something as mad as poisoning herself, just to spite a lover. Of course she would. It’s in her blood.”

“Her blood?”

“Here, I’ll tell you the story. This was long ago, in the first days of the republic, after the kings had been thrown down but before the patricians and plebeians found a way to live together in peace. The chronology’s rather vague to me—I’m a poet, not a historian!—but at some point a group of ten strongmen managed to seize control of the state. They called themselves decemvirs and set off a reign of terror. For the good of Rome, of course—to solve the current crisis, in response to the growing emergency, et cetera, et cetera.”

“And Appius Claudius was one of these decemvirs?”

“Yes. Now there was also in Rome at this time a beautiful young girl named Verginia, the daughter of Verginius. She was a virgin, betrothed to a rising young politician. But one day Appius Claudius happened to see her on her way to the girls’ school in the Forum and fell head over heel in lust for her. He followed her everywhere, in the streets and markets, trying to lure her away from the watchful eyes of her nurse, determined to seduce her. But Verginia was a virtuous girl and wanted nothing to do with the lecher. She spurned him outright, but the more she rejected him, the more determined he was to have her.

“Finally he hatched a scheme to get his hands on her, if only for long enough to give her a poke. He waited until her father was away on military duty, then gave instructions to one of his lackeys, a man named Marcus. One morning, when Verginia was entering the Forum with her nurse to attend the girls’ school, Marcus and some of his men seized her. The people around were shocked and wanted to know what was happening. Marcus said that the girl was his slave and he was reclaiming her. People knew perfectly well that Verginia was the daughter of Verginius, but they also knew
that Marcus was Appius Claudius’s lackey, and they were afraid of him, so when he made such a show of blustering about justice and the law and his rights they allowed him to take Verginia off to the tribunal to decide the matter legally.

“Of course the sole presiding judge was none other than the decemvir Appius Claudius. His lackey Marcus recited a preposterous story: that Verginia was not Verginius’s daughter at all—she was actually the daughter of one of his own slaves and had been stolen from his house as an infant and palmed off on Verginius as his own flesh and blood. Marcus claimed he could produce the evidence for all this later. The point was that the girl was actually a slave, his slave, and he was reclaiming her as was his legal right.

“Up on the tribunal, Appius Claudius pretended to consider all this as if he’d just heard it for the first time, when of course he was the author of the plot. You can imagine him moving his lips along with Marcus as the man recited the lines Appius had written for him! Finally he declared that only a formal hearing could determine the girl’s status. Verginia’s friends explained that her father was away on military duty, but could be back in Rome the next day. Appius Claudius agreed to hear the case then. In the meantime, he ruled, the girl would remain in the custody of Marcus. Verginia shrieked! The crowd shouted in protest and the girl’s nurse fainted dead away, but Appius Claudius pointed out that according to the law Marcus couldn’t be made to hand the girl over to the custody of anyone but her father, and since Verginius was not present, she would therefore have to remain in Marcus’s custody until such time as her father arrived to claim her. Verginia would be in Marcus’s hands—in Appius Claudius’s power—for the whole night to come. Can’t you see the fox licking his chops up on the tribunal, playing with himself beneath his toga?

“The ruling was crazy, and there was plenty of muttering and indignation, but nobody ventured to speak openly against
it. That’s how cowed the people were under the rule of the decemvirs. Marcus started to leave the court, hustling the weeping Verginia along with him.