The emperor and empress dined with the gods at their table. Pliny, sitting not far away, stole cautious glances at them. Domitia Augusta sat as still as a statue herself; her face betrayed no emotion. Very different was her husband’s. His sullen, red-rimmed eyes seemed never at rest. He had gone through the long morning’s ritual of sacrifice and prayer like a sleep-walker. Now his lips were moving. Was he talking to his wife-or to Minerva, who had deserted him in his dreams? Was he, perhaps, begging Jupiter for his life? Was he insane?
Pliny turned back to his food without relish. At last, the emperor and his entourage stood up. Slaves ran up to drape him in his triumphal toga, purple stitched with golden stars, and placed a laurel wreath on his head. His lictors, bearing the ceremonial bundles of rods and axes on their shoulders, shouted for the crowd to clear the way.
The emperor would mount his golden chariot now and lead a procession of chariots representing the six racing teams, each liveried in its distinctive color, to the Circus Maximus-that immense oval, nearly half a mile long, ringed by tier upon tier of stands, capable of containing a full fourth of the city’s population. Today the races would begin and continue everyday until the end of the Games.
Pliny would join in the procession but then slip away as soon as possible. He regretted having missed most of the theatrical performances during the first week of the Games. He had no such regrets about missing the races. Almost unique among his countrymen, he found them inexpressibly tedious. How the Roman populace could rouse itself to a fever pitch of excitement over the Blues and the Greens, the Reds and Whites, the Golds and Purples, as if it made a particle of difference which team won, was quite beyond him.
But his musings were interrupted by a shocking occurrence. One of the Vestal Virgins, only a child, broke away from the others and streaked toward the emperor. What was she shouting? Something about her mother? The girl threw herself sobbing against Domitian’s legs, holding onto his toga. He raised his hand to slap her, and would have, only the empress pulled her away just in time and handed her to an older Vestal who had raced after her.
And then it struck Pliny-the thing that had bothered him at the sacrifice on the very first day of the Games. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it then. Now there was no doubt. One of the six Vestals was missing.
He had no more time to ponder this now. To the blare of trumpets and thunder of drums, the charioteer cracked his whip and the four white horses of the imperial equipage started forward. As they turned into the avenue that led down to the Circus, an immense crowd surged forward, shouting the emperor’s name in rhythmic acclamations led by trained cheerleaders. Domitian, their Lord and God, raised his right arm in salute. But, at the same time, he steadied himself, gripping the chariot’s handhold with a white-knuckled fist. The rolling waves of sound made him visibly wince, so tightly-strung were his nerves. His features were frozen in a bloodless mask. He looked like a man face to face with death. If the soothsayers were right then this adoring crowd could not shelter him, the steel-clad ranks of Praetorian spearmen could not shield him. If those soothsayers were right, then in five more days, at the fifth hour of the day, his doom would find him.
The gilded chariot, flanked by twenty-four lictors passed on its way. Then followed, in turn, troops of noble youths on horseback, garlanded litters bearing statues of the gods on high, and the leaping priests of Mars, pirouetting to the music of flutes and lyres. Next, in a riot of color and noise, came the chariots of the competing teams, each charioteer pelted with flowers by women in the crowd who shouted their love. And after them the spectators formed one single mass, an immense stream of humanity surging toward the Great Circus.
Gaius Plinius, his mind sorely perplexed, signaled for his litter bearers.
Calpurnia had slept late that morning, drugged by Soranus’ potion. She awoke in a panic. Where was her husband? But Helen ran into assure her that all was well. Master was attending the ceremonies on the Capitolium and would be home for lunch. Helen helped her dress and comb her hair and then walked her out in to the garden to enjoy the fresh morning air. She saw Amatia sitting on the stone bench under the pear tree, facing away from her. She called “good morning,” but her friend did not seem to hear her. Calpurnia sat down beside her and touched her shoulder. Amatia turned to face her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I miss my daughters,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-two
The sixth hour of the day.
Before Pliny, who was longing for a bath and a long nap, reached home, one of Valens’ men intercepted him in the street. “Something to do with a monkey, sir. Centurion says you should come at once.”
Minutes later, Pliny and his officer knelt on the floor in Verpa’s bedroom, peering at the small shape, hideously twisted in death, of Iarbas’ monkey. Lucius, who had followed them upstairs, watched silently from the doorway.
“I reckon he got himself locked in here the other day, after we were here,” Valens said. “A slave found him this morning. I haven’t let anyone touch him. You see how he’s clawed his throat.”
Pliny nodded. There were bloody tufts of fur under the animal’s nails.
“Now take a look at this, sir.”
Pliny bent closer. There, on the wrinkled palm of one small hand was a livid welt from which protruded a bit of cork. Grasping the cork warily between his thumb and forefinger, Pliny withdrew a tiny needle from the wound. Suddenly his exhaustion was forgotten. The thing must have been shaken out of the bedclothes when the bed was stripped and lay here on the floor for days until the monkey found it. Clearly whatever killed this animal killed Verpa too. But he would want Diaulus’ confirmation.
Wrapping the little corpse up in a towel and the needle separately in a napkin, and putting both in a shoulder bag, he rushed off to find the doctor. This proved to be not so easy. The embalming workshop in the temple precinct was locked and shuttered. Pliny accosted some minor priestling who was passing by and enquired after “Nectanebo.” To Pliny’s surprise the man dropped to his knees and begged for mercy. It was only then that Pliny, mildest of men, realized how he must look to this fellow. He was still corseleted, helmeted, and armed with his sword from the morning’s ceremony. An unaccustomed sense of power suddenly welled up in him. So this was how soldiers felt when they confronted cowering civilians. Just these bits and pieces of metal made all the difference. It was a heady feeling.
Nectanebo, it seemed, had been summarily fired by Alexandrinus. Word was that he was practicing medicine again in a storefront shop in the Subura.
Feeling invincible in his breastplate and swaggering like a real trooper, Pliny made his way down into that insalubrious quarter of noisy taverns and odorous alleys that buzzed with flies and cheap commerce. After a few inquiries, one ragged inhabitant was able to point out the doctor’s place of business.
He found the little man full of grievance and eager to talk. Indeed, the swelling on the monkey’s paw resembled the one on Verpa’s mentu-, er that is, membrum virile. What sort of poison produced it, he couldn’t say; he was an anatomist, not a pharmacist. But Diaulus had other information to impart, and no reason now to respect the secrets of his former employer, damn him. Twice in the past few nights, both before and after the reading of Verpa’s will, he had observed the Priest of Anubis together with a thin lady who walked with Scortilla’s unmistakable lurching gait.