Chapter Eight
Valens stepped out and returned a moment later with Pollux and a second soldier to guard him, even though the man was shackled hand and foot. Ignoring Lucius, he gazed steadily at Pliny. There was nothing servile in his manner. Valens lifted the man’s tunic with the point of his sword, exposing his nakedness.
“Well, the old boy’s a Jew, all right.”
Pollux stood as still as a statue but Pliny saw his jaw muscles quiver. Valens was no weakling but this man could have broken him in half.
“Leave the man alone, centurion,” Pliny snapped. “There’s no call for that.”
He reminded Pliny of a Greek statue he had once seen of a boxer, not in triumph but in defeat: battered, scarred, sad-eyed and infinitely weary. This fellow could have posed for it. He looked to be in his late fifties, his hair and beard grizzled. His shoulders were huge, his big-knuckled hands hung at his sides, gnarled from years of being wrapped in the cruel iron-studded thongs that boxers fought with.
“How did your father come to own this man?” Pliny asked Lucius.
“He served in Judaea during the revolt; legate of the Fifth Macedonica under Vespasian. Pollux here was a Zealot fighter. Thousands of them were crucified, others sent to the mines. My father brought him home, trained him as a boxer, and used to hire him out for private shows. He’s been in our familia since before I was born. After some years he begged to stop fighting, lost his heart for it I suppose. My father made him his bedroom slave instead.” “Why would your father entrust his life to a former rebel? “Why do some people keep pet panthers? It’s the kind of man my father was.” “You speak Latin, man?” Pliny addressed Pollux. The slave inclined his head ever so slightly. “The night your master was killed when did you take up your post?” “Always at the fifth hour.” “And was your master already in the room?” The slave nodded.
“Speak when I ask you a question!” Pliny felt unaccustomed anger rising in his chest. This turbulent race with their single god who refused to live peaceably within the Empire like everyone else. Surely, they deserved what had happened to them. “He was inside,” answered Pollux. Valens snarled at him, “You’ll address the vice prefect as ‘sir.’” “And you were outside the door all night,” Pliny continued, “and yet you heard nothing?” “Nothing.” A pause. “Sir.”
“I can have you tortured, you know.” But there were slaves, Pliny knew, who would go to the rack before they would betray their master, and one look into that brutal, battle-scarred face told him that Pollux would not yield to torture, at least not to any degree of torture that Pliny had the stomach to inflict. Anger gave way to a feeling of helplessness.
“Take him back, centurion. I’ll question him again later.”
He turned back to Lucius. “What’s your opinion of Pollux’s loyalty?”
Lucius gave his characteristic gesture of indifference. “My father saved the fellow from crucifixion and promised him his freedom one day in return for good service. And as far as I know, that’s what he got.”
“Until now, that is,” said Valens. “I’ll have the truth out of that brute in short order-”
“What are you saying?” Pliny turned on him. “That Pollux came in here, butchered his master, drew the candlestick on the wall, dropped the dagger by the bed-all making it plain that this was an act of Jewish vengeance-and then went back and calmly took up his post again outside the door until morning?” At last he’d scored a point against this overbearing soldier. Valens frowned at the floor and said nothing.
There was a hint of a smile on Lucius’ lips.
Pliny turned back to the young man. “Is there anything else here we’ve overlooked? Think carefully. Any other way into this room besides the door?”
“Well, the window, but I hardly think… Wait, though, the shutters were open. Yes, I’m sure they were. And that wasn’t my father’s habit, even on the hottest nights. He dreaded night vapors.”
The single window was barely a foot wide by two feet high. This part of the house was raised on a tier of columns, topped by a course of overhanging eaves that surrounded the garden at the rear. Pliny crossed to the window and peered out. Ivy grew thick around the window frame.
“We’ll go down to the garden, centurion.”
They all trooped downstairs and looked up at Verpa’s bedroom. Strands of ivy spiraled up the columns producing a striking and pleasing effect, but they could see plainly at the base of the column nearest Verpa’s window that the tendrils were torn and loose, used as handholds.
Valens scratched his jaw. “Seems an impossible climb, sir, getting around that overhang and up to the window. And what man of normal size could have squeezed through it? It was clearly designed to give the slaves who were kept there a little air, but no means of escaping.”
“Maybe a trained assassin…,” Lucius said, looking thoughtful. “Not impossible. I’ve heard from my father what those Judean Zealots were like. And if Pollux was his accomplice? I mean, telling him which window, signaling when the time was right, and then guarding the door in case anyone came by?
Pliny was silent for a moment. It sounded fantastic, yet who could say that Jewish assassins hadn’t made their way to Rome, where the filth of all the world eventually collected.
A thought occurred to him. “Are there other Jews in the familia?”
“Don’t know, really. We’ve got slaves from everywhere.”
“There’s one way to find out, sir,” said Valens, eager to regain his authority. “None of them will sacrifice to our gods. Why don’t we put them to the test? I mean, if you agree, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t think…” Lucius began, but Pliny cut him off. “No, my centurion’s right-again.” Pliny was beginning to feel distinctly annoyed at this competent officer. “We may as well know the worst. What images of the gods have you?”
“Dozens, look anywhere in the house. We’ve an altar too, quite nicely carved.”
“Show my men. Bring one of every deity out into the garden, we’ll do it there. And have you an image of Our Lord and God?”
Lucius replied that they kept a small bust of the emperor in the lararium together with their household gods so that they could venerate it everyday.
“Put it with the others and fetch wine and incense. In the meantime, centurion, show me to the slave quarters.”
A rank stench of bodily waste, sweat and terror assaulted Pliny when the door was unbolted. And this, after only two days of confinement. What would it be like after fifteen-if any of the slaves were still alive by then? With a wail of shrieking protestations they cried out that they knew nothing of any plot to murder Master. On their lives, they would have told if they did. And why would anyone do such a thing to Master? Good, kind Master.
Here was the blood and bones of the household, Pliny reflected. They were Levantines, Nubians, Dacians, and Germans. They were litter bearers, torch bearers, bodyguards, and private bully-boys; doorkeepers, footmen, and messengers; valets, butlers and barbers; lady’s maids, dressers, bath women, hair curlers, and masseuses; scullions, chefs, pastry cooks, waiters, cup bearers, and tasters; keepers of the silver, the unguents, the pearls; short-hand writers, hour callers, name rememberers, bed partners of both sexes, musicians, mimes, dancers, and reciters of poetry. Among them also were children, for Verpa permitted his slaves to cohabit on payment of a fee. Pliny saw backs and shoulders seamed with the marks of old floggings and more than one face branded like a felon’s to serve as a warning to the rest. And now, by order of the city prefect, all wore iron collars on which were inscribed the words, “I’m running away-seize me.” The collars were linked together with chains.