Parthenius checked him with a raised hand. “Sit down.” The genial expression vanished as though the sun had gone behind a cloud. “It is very little I am asking of you, my dear Martial. Easy for you to do, and no danger whatever to your friend Pliny, I assure you. And the reward is very great, indeed. The emperor’s patronage. It’s the reason you came to Rome, isn’t it? You’ve been here now many years? You’re not getting any younger, my friend. If it doesn’t happen for you soon, it never will. I can make it happen. Only I. You only have to give a little to gain so much. Now what do you say, my friend? More wine?”
Martial sat down slowly. “And what, you expect me to come to the palace every day with these reports?”
In a game like this you sense the moment of hesitation, of weakness in your opponent. You know when you have won. Parthenius smiled blandly, adjusted a lock of silver hair at his temple, waited before he spoke. “Oh, no, no. Nothing so compromising to your honor. You will make notes. When you have something to communicate you will go to a certain popina in the shadow of the Claudian Aquaduct, where it crosses the Via Triumphalis. You may know the place, they serve a decent stew I hear. Go there at the third hour of the night. You will see a man with his left arm in a sling. You will sit on his left side on the bench and place your note in the sling. You never have to speak a word to him. Simplicity itself.” ???
Martial sat in the corner of a smoky tavern near the Circus Maximus, hunched over a flagon of cheap wine. Somehow, he had found his way out of Parthenius’ apartment, out of the palace. He didn’t ordinarily drink alone, but he poured the last drops from the flagon and called for another. He stared morosely at the scarred table top. He wanted to be very, very drunk. He wanted to be away from this city-what had that Christian lunatic called it?-this Babylon. He wanted not to betray the trust of his friend and patron. He wanted to be a better man than he knew himself to be.
Chapter Fifteen
The fifth day before the Ides of Germanicus. Day five of the Games.
The fourth hour of the day.
“May I sit down? I don’t mean to interrupt.”
“Oh, please.” Calpurnia put down the scroll she had been studying and made room on the stone bench under the pergola.
“There’s actually a breeze this morning,” Amatia said, turning her face toward it. “You have a lovely garden.”
The flower beds were ablaze with color. Bumblebees buzzed among the irises and lavender. A pair of warblers perched upon the head of Priapus and sang their song. “What were you reading?”
“Oh,” Calpurnia blushed, “just one of my husband’s speeches to the probate court. I memorize them-well, as much as I can, it pleases him.” “Goodness, child, what a wife you are!” Amatia laughed. “You mustn’t call me ‘child,’ I am a married woman.” “Of course you are; forgive me, Calpurnia. Still, you are so young. Do you have any friends your own age?” “Not really. All the other wives in our set are much older than me. And on their second or third husbands.” “Are you from Rome?”
“Oh, no, from the north, Comum, where my husband comes from. Our family properties adjoin. Two years ago he went home to visit his mother. I happened to be in the house. My grandfather, who has raised me since I was a child, had sent me there to be a companion to the old lady. Anyway, I was there when he arrived. His own wife had recently died of a long illness. But he was sweet to me. We talked, he told me all about Rome, the baths and the theaters and the tall buildings. And, of course, all about the courts and the cases he tries there. I’m afraid I didn’t understand much of that, being a country-bred girl, but it all sounded so grand. And then, before I knew it, he asked for my hand in marriage. I was speechless, terrified. What could he see in a simple girl like me? But he said it was my simplicity that he loved. That I would bring a breath of the North with me. My grandfather, of course, favored the match. And so here I am. I’m very lucky.”
Amatia was silent for a while. “But are you happy? Gaius Plinius sometimes seems more like your father than your husband.”
“Oh, he’s husband enough!” She risked a smile. “And as for a father, well, I hardly remember mine. So, that’s all right too. Oh, I know he fusses about things and some people say he’s vain-I’m not deaf or stupid, I hear things-but I do love him and I want very much to please him. And so…” She tapped her forehead with the scroll.
“So you memorize his speeches and set his poems to music.”
“And now, Martial’s as well. I was touched by his poem, weren’t you? I hope he’ll like what I’ve done with it. I confess, he frightens me a little.”
“Indeed, that man is a study in contradictions. But you, at any rate, are a good wife and a shrewd woman as well. If only Rome had more like you than of the other sort. Still, you must be bored sometimes and lonely.”
Calpurnia sighed. “The hours pass somehow. I read all sorts of things, Gaius likes me to be well-informed. What else is a wife to do after all, especially one in my condition? Tell me all about your home. Of course, I’ve read Caesar’s Commentaries, but I suppose Gaul is very peaceful now.” “Yes, well…” Amatia began. “Oh!” Calpurnia touched her abdomen. “He just kicked. Do you want to feel?” Amatia put out her hand. “I do feel it! He’ll be a strong boy.”
“I sacrifice everyday to Juno Lucina that he will. Sometimes I’m so afraid. My husband wants a son so badly. Soranus, my obstetrician, says I have the pica. I have vomiting, dizziness, headache. I must eat only soft-boiled eggs and porridge. And twice a day old Helen massages my abdomen with myrtle and oil of roses. Everything is forbidden to me-excitement, travel, crowds, and now even love-making.”
“Poor Calpurnia. We’re a fine pair of invalids. My births were all easy, thank the gods, but this hysteria that afflicts me now-that is something else.”
“And you believe Queen Isis will truly heal you? I know almost nothing about that cult. My husband doesn’t approve.”
“Indeed, I do not.” Pliny emerged from the tablinum, where he had spent the morning trying, without success, to draft a memorandum to the city prefect. “I have nothing against the goddess, mind you, but her rites are far too stimulating for Calpurnia in her present state. Waving those rattles around, dancing. Of course, if you want to go to the temple yourself, Amatia, my litter is at your disposal.”
The woman smiled up at him. “Alas, there is no point until I receive my dream and my money. I pray for the time to be short. My dear,” she turned back to Calpurnia, “do you know how to spin wool?”
The girl shook her head, her mother had died when she was a baby, no one had ever…
“I will teach you, just as I did my daughters. Pliny, be good enough to ask a slave to fetch wool and a distaff and spindle. You know, my dear, how it says on the tombstones of wives from the old republican times ‘lanam fecit- she made wool?’ In those days they really did. It was the highest praise a woman could receive. I find it calms the mind. So will you, my dear.”
Pliny beamed. He suddenly felt a great tenderness toward his young wife, and great gratitude toward Amatia. In just four days she seemed to have blended imperceptibly into the life of his family. She was, like himself, a provincial who valued the old Roman traditions as few Romans of the City did. And Calpurnia clearly loved her. It bothered him a bit that a woman of such obvious good sense would want to involve herself with those Isiac charlatans, but he supposed illness makes cowards of us all. Still, he felt that if Calpurnia had a sudden emergency, he could count on Amatia to keep a level head and know what to do. He was sorry, in fact, that she must eventually leave them.