“No one’s said anything to me about it.”
“Yes, well just possibly the prefect doesn’t think it’s any of your business!”
That stung. “Search the house,” Pliny barked at Valens. From top to bottom. Search Verpa’s bedroom. The tablinum is too accessible. If these papers were important, I’ll wager he hid them some place more private.”
A few minutes later, Valens reported that a locked drawer in Verpa’s bedside table had been broken open with some sort of tool, leaving gouges on the wood. The drawer, however, was empty.
“Another puzzle,” Pliny said glumly to Martial. “And one we’ll never solve. I’ll mention it to the prefect. But the main thing is that we’ve got our murderer, and that was all I set out to do. Centurion, place Lucius under house arrest and guard him well.”
Three things remained to be done. The first was to inform the city prefect of his success. The thought of going there himself was too distasteful. He scribbled a note and handed it to one of the troopers.
The second was to inform Scortilla. He found her in her apartment. “Ganymede and Lucius?” Her voice cracked, broke into a high-pitched cackle. Her eyes glittered. With what-relief, triumph, stark madness? He asked her about the missing papers but got nothing but a blank stare. How he loathed this woman! He left quickly.
The third, was to address the slaves. He had avoided visiting them lately; their misery was more than he could bear. But now he had a purpose. As the door swung open, the stench of urine and sweat hit him like a blow to the belly. “Valens,” he gasped, “this is an atrocity! I want this place cleaned up and the slaves let out in batches for a wash and some exercise.”
“Yes, sir.”
Watched by forty pairs of dull and sunken eyes, Pliny sucked air behind his hand and stepped into the big room. “Humble friends, hear me! The murderers have been exposed! Ganymede and Lucius conspired together to murder your master. The rest of you are entirely innocent. The Roman Games close in just eight days. This case will go to trial soon after, and I promise you that your imprisonment will end on that day. Be patient only a little longer!”
Like one writhing mass, they crawled to him on their bellies. Croaking voices cried out, “You are our god!” Filthy hands touched his feet, caught at the hem of his cloak. Overcome, Pliny fled.
At home Pliny announced his triumph to the family, sparing no detail of Lucius’ diabolical ingenuity and his own clear-sighted penetration. He had suspected Lucius from the start! Of course, he couldn’t have solved the matter so quickly without the collaboration of his friend Martial. He threw an arm around him.
The poet, with uncharacteristic modesty, smiled but said nothing. Pliny’s slaves ran to kiss his hands in gratitude for their fellows. Calpurnia sang his praises. To Amatia the news seemed like a tonic. Her pale cheeks took on color, she became positively gay and drank a glass of wine. Before dinner was served, Martial excused himself, pleading fatigue, and left them all in high spirits. ???
The third hour of the night.
Martial walked along the Via Triumphalis to the arch which carried the Claudian Aquaduct. The popina was a narrow, low-ceilinged establishment where big copper cauldrons of stews and chowders sat in holes cut in the stone counter top. The poet had no appetite, but he took a wooden bowl and spoon and was served a steaming mess of stringy meat and vegetables by a woman whose forearms were the size and color of hams. He threw a coin on the counter. He scanned the room. The place was not crowded. Some young men played a noisy game of dice in one corner. Others, a group of working men in leather aprons, sat together at a table and shoveled food mechanically into their mouths, not talking. It was a moment before he noticed the solitary figure at the back. The man sat hunched over his plate, cutting his meat clumsily with one hand, for the other was pressed to his side in a sling. Martial slid onto the bench beside him.
Who was this fellow and what had he to do with the exalted Parthenius? Martial did as he had been instructed: took from his pouch a waxed tablet on which he had scratched a few hasty lines and tucked it into the man’s sling, trying to touch him as little as possible. The man never looked up. So, Parthenius would learn that Lucius was the murderer of his father; that Verpa had possessed a couple of papers, one of which might be a horoscope, but no one could find them; that Pliny was satisfied he had solved the case; and that Amatia, the lady from Lugdunum, was, as far as he could tell, in good health and good spirits. He had tried pumping her without success. If something about her bothered him it was too insubstantial to be put into words. And that was that. May the grand chamberlain be glad of it. Martial moved the food around in his bowl. He still had no appetite. Finally, he couldn’t resist the urge to speak. “Who are you, friend?” “No one you know.” The voice, husky and barely audible. “I know a lot of people.” “Not me.” “How did you hurt your arm? I broke my ankle once-damned long time to mend.” Silence. “What’s this all about, then? What do you do for Parthenius?”
The silence continued for several minutes. At last, the poet pushed his bowl away, got up and, in an even darker mood than when he arrived, left.
Stephanus sat and chewed his food without relish. He disliked this business as much as the poet did. But, where Martial was baffled and torn, he, Stephanus, was clear. He had once been chief steward in a great house. Born a slave, then freed by his master, he had risen to command a small army of slaves, seeing that everything was just so, that the finest wines and delicacies were always in plentiful supply, that the kitchen served dishes that were the envy of other houses. And his master and mistress knew his worth and treasured him. Those poor souls. Too late for the noble Clemens, but if he could help his mistress, at least, to regain her liberty, her house, her children-well, for that he was ready to risk his life. ???
That night, Gaius Plinius Secundus, acting vice prefect of Rome, composed himself for sleep with a feeling of satisfaction not to be described. Tomorrow was Verpa’s funeral. He would go, and bring Martial with him. Why not witness the last chapter of this sad farce? His friend would certainly find matter in it for a wicked verse or two.
Chapter Nineteen
The day before the Ides of Germanicus. Day eight of the Games.
The third hour of the day.
The air in Verpa’s atrium was heavy with incense and mystery. Pliny mopped his face. None of the sycophants and legacy hunters who had attended the reading of the will were present now, and Lucius was nowhere to be seen, but the place was filled with officiants from the temple in their tightly wound, ankle-length linen gowns. A tall, broad-shouldered priest, his head covered with the black and gold jackal mask of Anubis, recited the Names and Powers of Queen Isis, Lady of the House of Life, Daughter of Kronos, Star of the Sea, and chanted her sacred story. How the evil Typhon had slain and dismembered her brother-husband Osiris and scattered his limbs and how the grieving goddess had gathered them and breathed life into them, so guaranteeing blessed immortality to all who believed in her.
Meanwhile priestesses on either side of him stamped their feet and jingled their bronze rattles. In an alcove, a dozen hired female mourners, bare-breasted and disheveled, ululated around the painted coffin. And all this to send Sextus Ingentius Verpa into the blessed hereafter that Isis promised her initiates.
Later, a team of mules would draw the casket, followed by this howling, chanting horde, out to the family crypt on the Via Appia beyond the city.
Pliny found the whole thing appalling. Quite un-Roman. In the days of the old Republic the government had repressed this alien cult, tearing down Iseums as fast as they sprang up. One Roman consul took an ax in his own hands to splinter the temple’s door when the workers hung back. Later, the Deified Augustus banned the cult repeatedly from Rome. It was, after all, the religion of his archenemy, Cleopatra; and Tiberius had thrown Isis’ statue into the Tiber and crucified her scandalous priests. But the mad Caligula added her worship to the state cults, and subsequent emperors, even the sensible Vespasian, all paid her honor.