"Yet, priest of Amun, we have been told the youth Antinous prevailed upon you to perform such magic? We have a witness to your conversation in our written testimony. The youth had seen your magic in action, and requested your special powers be used for his own purpose? This was in the company of Caesar too, we have been told?"
Clarus was becoming tense at the direction the deposition was taking. It veered too close to Caesar's person.
"But I refused him! I said No!" the magus objected. "And then Great Pharaoh intervened to refuse both of us to even discuss the matter! Caesar had spoken! The matter was final!"
Suetonius zeroed in for his coup-de-grace, he thought.
"Nevertheless, Priest, you had sufficiently remarkable prescience to summon priests at Memphis and Thebes to this place, including the very faraway Oracle from Siwa," Suetonius charged, "plus an entire embalming team including Cronon, a Greek painter of funerary portraits from Fayum. They were obliged to travel long distances to this place in anticipation of the youth's death?"
Suetonius felt pleased with himself in this proposition. The assembly rustled with murmurings.
Pachrates rose to the fullest height of his diminutive race, his eyes ablaze.
"You take liberties with our sacred mission, Inspector! This is not so, I tell you!"
Suetonius had struck an open nerve.
Hadrian interrupted this exchange wearily. With a dismissive wave of one hand, he spoke.
"Suetonius Tranquillus, you should be told how the priests and personnel you list were summoned here on my command two months ago. These people are engaged with the planning of our new city of Hadrianopolis. You will hear more about this project shortly.
Pachrates is an honored advisor to us for this purpose. His understanding of the local customs is comprehensive, so he advises us how the various communities of Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians can live in harmony at Hadrianopolis someday. There was no conspiracy in his summons to his artisan compatriots, Inspector. It was on my own authority he did so. Leave it alone, Tranquillus."
Caesar had spoken. Pachrates resumed his usual confident manner.
"I welcome your words, my lord, however there is more to explore," Suetonius continued bravely, if doggedly. His leap of intuition had failed; he moved on.
"We think we know those around us, but we don't really know them at all. There are several undercurrents flowing among us here, tides which might carry us in unwanted directions. Antinous may have been swept along by more than the Holy River's currents."
"Be plain, Inspector. No riddles," Hadrian sniped. His appearance was growing haggard.
Suetonius stepped out in a dangerous direction.
"Take the women among us, for example, Caesar. Julia Balbilla, princess of Commagene and gentlewoman companion to our Great Augusta, your wife, has been outraged by the recorded revelation how her astrologer grandfather in the time of Nero advised his emperor to kill his own counselors.
Her notorious ancestor, Balbillus the Wise, interpreted a comet in the sky to foretell that Nero would die. Rich with the mystical lore of the Orient, Balbillus advised Nero to nominate substitute deaths instead. He put it into Nero's head he should kill the eminent men-of-state of his era to deflect the omen's risk. So the notorious Piso and Vinicius Conspiracies against Nero were invented to fulfill this goal.
It was a most successful strategy, it seemed. Many innocents died cruelly and their families and slaves with them. Their rich properties were confiscated by Nero into his own coffers. It was a winning play for both Nero and Balbillus."
"What has this to do with the death of Antinous?" Hadrian snapped.
"On occasions as you know, Caesar, your Bithynian companion was a guest in the Augusta's household. He and Julia Balbilla, as well as the empress with her retinue, shared playful conversation over wine and snacks. It doesn't strike me as too far-fetched to predict the grand-daughter of Balbilla the Wise could suggest to an impressionable youth how a substitute death was a feasible project for the lad. After all, we already know the youth was intent on some form of recompense, some form of self-sacrifice. Balbilla suggested; Antinous considered; Antinous died. The youth fulfilled his purpose."
Suetonius was going out far on a shaky limb, causing Clarus to perspire even further.
Julia Balbilla and others of the Augusta's attendants seethed beneath their elegant silks.
"Recompense, you say? Substitute? What on earth could inspire such a distasteful proposal, Inspector," Hadrian protested.
"My lord Caesar, your Court is not insensitive to the frisson which prevails between the respective Imperial households. Perhaps the irregular death of the young man could be construed as a slight upon your own integrity? Perhaps Antinous was goaded to commit an act of self-sacrifice, an act which would inevitably cast a shadow across your own virtue. Such a shadow may have political consequences, or at least be the result of revenge?"
Balbilla was aghast. She was about to vehemently remonstrate against the accusation when the Augusta spoke for the first time. Vibia Sabina's voice and forceful manner resonated around the chamber. Her speech possessed a timbre more redolent of a military commander than a demure wife.
"Hold your tongue, Tranquillus, or I'll find a way for you to lose it!" she boomed. "Once again you commit laesa majestas in my presence. You are insufferable! How dare you accuse my household of some malevolent conspiracy against the youth Antinous," Sabina proclaimed for all to hear. "It may not be known to you, but the youth Antinous acted as a useful balm between my husband and I. He was attentive to communication between our households and regularly performed the duties of an appreciated herald between contending parties with great distinction. He is a great loss to our continuing rapport. His rare diplomacy in these activities will be sorely missed. You err in your assumptions, scandal-monger historian!"
The assembly hushed. Clarus by now was alarmed for his own safety. Sweat trickled down his forehead and across his jaw.
Hadrian again interrupted.
"I instructed you, Special Inspector, not to involve the empress in your enquiries. You have no authority there; my wife is above your station, yet you have heard her view. What are you trying to say, Tranquillus, tell us or I must dismiss you immediately!"
Suetonius's internal machinery shifted its grinding cogs towards some other purpose.
"Great Caesar, there is a pattern to this Court's behavior which impacts upon the events of the past few days," Suetonius explained. "A climate exists among us which leads to these possibilities. But I'll move elsewhere in my presentation if it is your will."
His voice softened to a less accusatory tone.
"Another among us is the freedwoman, Thais of Cyrene. Until a year or so ago Thais was the property of Antinous's household assigned as a language tutor. Prior to departing Rome on this expedition Thais's status as a slave was manumitted by vindicta before a magistrate. She was relinquished as his property. She is no longer a slave. She is a freedwoman.
Recently, some weeks after the dissolution of the lad's eromenos relationship at Alexandria, Thais and Antinous became intimate. Very intimate. No previous intimacy had been expressed between them — "
While the biographer was introducing Thais, Hadrian had revived from his languor. His ears pricked up at the account of her involvement with Antinous.
"— Thais believes she might now be pregnant due to the young man's attentions," the Special Inspector intoned quietly.
The assembly rustled in sotto voce while Thais was seriously discomforted.
"However, Thais has many reservations about the manner of Antinous's death. Perhaps she will tell us why. Describe your last words with Antinous, Cyrene."
Suetonius turned to the dark young woman standing nearby. With her eyes firmly planted on the figure upon the bier, Thais groped to stammer a response. Suetonius nodded encouragingly.