“Halt!” Pliny commanded, after they had gone a block or two. A street urinal stood before them. He had never deigned to use one before: common, smelly, unbecoming the dignity of a Roman senator.
“Something wrong, sir?” inquired Valens.
“Not at all, centurion, kindly wait a moment.” Pliny hitched up his tunic, unlimbered, and pissed-grandly, expansively, like a mountain torrent in the Piedmont-yes, even poetically-until he could not squeeze out another drop. He gave a contented sigh.
Valens couldn’t contain a furtive smile. “Feel better, sir?”
“Immensely, centurion. Let us proceed.”
At his front door, Valens handed him over to his slaves, hastily roused from bed. “No salutatio this morning, be off with you,” the centurion growled at a knot of sleepy clients, already gathered outside the door. “Have a good sleep, sir, and don’t worry about that filthy little cinaedus. We’ll find him.”
Still foggy with drink, Pliny allowed himself to be undressed and put to bed. If he had been less drunk, he might have noticed Calpurnia’s tear-streaked face peering from behind her bedroom door.
If he had been less drunk, he might also have noticed a man with a bandaged arm who watched from across the street as he entered his house.
Chapter Seventeen
The third day before the Ides of Germanicus. Day seven of the Games.
The third hour of the day.
Gaius Plinius moaned. He had a throbbing, behind his eyes, a vile taste in his mouth, and a troubled soul. He had sent the door slave off to fetch a basin of water and, moments later, his darling Calpurnia, her under lip quivering, had appeared with it in her own hands and meekly set it down on the wash-stand. She shot him a reproachful look and fled without saying a word.
He scoured his teeth fiercely with pumice and honey, which might expunge the sour taste of cheap wine, but the taste of guilt, never. What had come over him? Drunk as an owl! Rutting with some whore in the bushes! Could a brief association with vulgarians have brought him to this! If Martial should ever, ever mention this night again, he swore to himself, he would terminate their friendship at once.
It was all Verpa’s fault, of course. Damn the man for getting himself murdered! Today was almost the half-way point of the Games, time was running out, and he had accomplished nothing toward saving those sorry slaves from their fate.
He had begun to sense the tension among his own slaves too. They who had known nothing but kindness from him and who were always permitted to be lively and at ease, were now ominously silent. As always, by some mysterious telepathy, they knew what was going on and what would happen if Ganymede were to be caught alive and made to confess. That kind of crime, inspired by a slave’s sexual jealousy, allowed no appeal to extenuating circumstances. Ganymede and the whole familia would be hideously tortured and executed. Even Pliny’s beloved Zosimus avoided his eyes now and stumbled so much in his lunchtime recitation of Greek poetry that Pliny became quite vexed and sent him away.
What did they really think of him-these men and women who made his comfortable life possible? Could one of them be planning to kill him for some slight, some grudge, without betraying the slightest sign? He was shocked to find himself entertaining the idea even for a moment. But, once thought, it could not be unthought.
To distract himself, Pliny retired to his tablinum and worked all morning on his accounts and correspondence, which had piled up shockingly. The tenants on his Tuscan property were in arrears again, the architect whom he had commissioned to build a temple of Ceres on one of his estates had submitted his bill. Then there were papers to be drawn up manumitting his old nurse and giving her a small piece of land where she could spend her last days.
About midday, a slave came to announce that Centurion Valens awaited him in the atrium.
“Make your report, centurion,” said Pliny, as brisk and businesslike as he could manage. He would tolerate no familiarity from the man because of last night. But Valens’ manner was quite correct. Standing at attention and looking straight ahead he reported no success. “That little fellator has gone to earth somewhere, sir.”
A moment later, Martial arrived, exuding bonhomie. “Up, are we?” he called jovially. Pliny froze him with a look, which the poet understood at once. In a more subdued manner, he inquired if there was any news of Ganymede. “No? I’m not surprised. Combing the city, in my opinion, is useless even with the prefect’s entire force. He’s probably far from Rome by now.”
“I disagree,” Pliny said. “If he’s the murderer, I’m convinced that someone-Lucius-put him up to it. Now he’ll be waiting for Lucius to help him.”
The poet sprawled in a chair with his chin in his hand. “So you think he’s hanging about nearby?”
“I do. Where would you…?”
“I beg you, Gaius Plinius, do not ask me again to imagine myself as an ignorant adolescent male prostitute.” The two men glared at each other in silence.
“Hold on!” Pliny burst out suddenly. “A male prostitute! Martial, Valens, do you recall Lucius’ words to him just before he escaped?”
“‘Fear nothing’-some such platitude,” answered the poet.
“No, after that. Wasn’t it, ‘Eros protects his own?’ Ganymede told me he had been purchased by Verpa from a brothel called the Temple of Eros. It fits.”
“It was a signal?” said Martial, sitting up straight. “Lucius was telling the boy where to hide-in his old bordello? Pliny, permit me to say that you are a genius.” Pliny allowed himself a pained smile. “Perhaps dissipation is good for the brain, after all.” “I’ve always found it so,” the poet agreed modestly. “Now,” said Pliny, “if we only knew where this Temple of Eros was.”
“Unfortunately,” replied the poet, “there are probably a dozen or more in the city, they’re all named either that or the Garden of Priapus, though I reckon I know where one or two of them are.”
“Martial, once again we are indebted to your peculiar expertise,” said Pliny dryly.
Valens interrupted these mutual congratulations. “It’ll take days to search them all with the men I’ve got.”
“Then I’ll ask the prefect to assign you more men.” Pliny reached for parchment and pen and scribbled a note to Aurelius Fulvus. “Anything else now?”
Valens looked at his feet. “Well, sir, there was a personal matter, but I’ll ask you another time.”
“No, no go on.”
“Well, sir, I want to make a will. Haven’t much to leave but my family situation’s a bit complex. Common-law wife, bastards, that sort of thing. I want ’em to be cared for if anything should happen to me. Wondered if you could recommend me a lawyer that won’t charge too much.”
“Wise man. No one should live a single day without a will. But why at this particular time?”
“I don’t know, sir. Just a feeling I’ve got. Lot of tension in the Castra Praetoria, sir, between us and them. I mean there always is, but there’s something in the air lately. The way they swagger about, like something’s going to happen soon. All the lads are a bit nervous.”
“You don’t say.” Pliny and Martial exchanged worried glances.
“Well, my dear Valens, you just find Ganymede for me and I’ll write you a will free of charge such as any client of mine would be proud to have. How will that suit you?”
“Why, sir, thank you, sir.”
For the first time, Valens allowed himself a smile of genuine feeling. Pliny wasn’t sure how it had happened but the two men had become, if not friends, at least allies. “Get busy then. Every bordello in Rome is registered at the Prefecture. You’ll find them all there.” “Well, I’ll lend our brave centurion a hand,” said Martial, “just to make sure he doesn’t mix business with pleasure.” “Not my idea of pleasure,” growled Valens as he lumbered out of the room, followed by the poet.
But Valens paused on the threshold and came back. “I nearly forgot, I’ve another matter to report on, this time with a bit of success. It’s about that missing doctor of the lady’s. We put his description about and a sausage seller in the Forum claims to have seen him. Says he passed that way several times around midday with his doctor’s kit slung over his shoulder. Says he bought hot sausages from him. But the last time he saw the fellow, three bearded men, foreigners he thinks, ran up to him and started jabbering about an accident nearby, something like that. Iatrides tried to get past them, but quick as a wink they mobbed him and hustled him into a shop. A minute later, out come our three foreigners with a rolled carpet on their shoulders, tossed it into a waiting cart and off they drove.” “The same three men, he’s sure of this? And it never occurred to this damned sausage seller to report what he’d seen?” “None of his business, says he.” “When did this happen, does he remember that?” “It was the third day before the Nones.” “Verpa died that very night!” “So he did, indeed, sir.”