“Our Lord and God,” he answered, breathing heavily, “prefers a more intimate room tonight, as we are so small a party. Come this way, please.”
Obediently they went through a door and down a succession of sloping corridors that turned and twisted until they had lost all sense of direction. And it seemed as if at every turn the corridor grew dimmer, dustier, quieter. Conversation died until there was only the shuffle of sandals and the wheezing and puffing of their guide to relieve the silence.
“And just down these steps, my lords and ladies…” A flight of worn stone steps descended into a well of darkness. No, this was all wrong. There was no dining room in the bowels of the palace. The guests bunched together, turned round and found their retreat blocked by a dozen Praetorians who had come up silently behind them. Women turned to their husbands with wild, questioning looks. Pliny caught the city prefect’s eye, but his superior’s face, controlled through years of practice, told him nothing.
“Before you, honored friends, gapes the Portal of Hades, the bourn from whence no man returns. Your Lord and God commands you to join him tonight in the realm of Pluto, his brother god.” Parthenius delivered this speech with the voice and gestures of an actor on the stage. Pliny breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he had not brought Calpurnia, though she had begged and pouted.
The Praetorians took a menacing step forward, hands resting on the hilts of their swords. Among the guests, hearts froze but faces remained under control. It was crucial not to show fear, not to betray the smallest doubt about the emperor’s good will. A frightened man was a guilty man.
“I’ll lead the way,” Atilius Regulus called out. “Hercules wasn’t afraid to visit Hades, and I think I’m as good a man as he!” The rest of them took up his light-hearted tone as best they could. There was simply nothing else to do.
“I pray I don’t meet my first husband down there,” cackled Arulena Rustica, the much-married wife of a general.
“I think I’ll just stay there until my creditors go away” cried the gourmand Gavius Apicius, who had squandered a king’s ransom on oysters.
Their lips twisted in desperate hilarity, the guests descended, half-stumbling, into the black pit. One elderly senator turned and tried to claw his way up again, but was borne down by the weight of the others. At the foot of the stairs, moved by invisible hands, a door swung inward on screeching hinges
“Nice dog, Cerberus!” joked someone, but there was no laughter.
They were plunged into darkness. Suddenly Pliny could not breathe, and the blood pounded in his temples. Whichever way he turned, other bodies pressed against him. He had no idea where the stairs were. The air stank of burnt charcoal. It was obvious they were in the furnace room which, in wintertime provided currents of hot air to warm the floors above.
Then a line of tiny lights appeared in the blackness. As Pliny watched spellbound, the lights advanced in a double column, drew nearer, divided and formed a circle around the huddled guests. When they were just an arm’s length away, he saw in astonishment that each was a candle held by a little boy, who was entirely naked and black.
“Your name, master?” whispered a little candle-bearer. The accent was of the Roman streets, not Africa-the child’s color was painted on.
Pliny croaked a reply. In the crepuscular glow of the gathered candles, rows of chairs could just be made out, and beside each a dark object of some sort, standing about waist high. The child took his hand and led him to a chair. The candle dipped and gave its light to an oil lamp on a stand, the sort of lamp that hangs in tombs. Then pointing to the slab-shaped thing beside the chair, the child commanded Pliny in a piping voice to read his fate. All around him other demon-children were doing likewise and other guests were helplessly obeying. Pliny heard their gasps and stifled cries and a rising commotion of angry and frightened voices. He examined the thing, touched it. It was a plank in the shape of a gravestone and on it was carved his name.
From somewhere a double-flute began to play a funeral dirge and the naked boys, gliding like phantoms, performed a weird circle dance, weaving patterns in and out with their glowing candles. Now black-clad servants appeared, carrying tables with trays on them which they set before each place. Pliny peered at his. Black dishes containing black fruits and flowers-offerings to the dead. When a hand touched his shoulder he nearly leapt straight out of his chair. But it was the city prefect. “Ready to do your duty,” Fulvus whispered into his ear, and then moved away.
Now, over the shrilling of the flute, a disembodied voice began to chant Homer’s dismal verses which describe the pitiful, squeaking shades of the dead. There was no mistaking that voice. Frightened whispers hissed around him.
“Tell him, Publius, for the sake of the children!”
“It’s a trick, shut up!”
“ Tell him!” Other voices: “We adore your image every day at sunrise, Caesar!” “We shut our doors to our son and his republican friends.” “We rejoiced when the criminals, Senecio and Priscus, were put to death.” “And when you drove the rabble of philosophers from the city.”
“O, Lord and God, spare us,” a woman beside Pliny sobbed. “We never hid the traitor, Musonius, in our house, never! Torture our slaves, they’ll tell you who…”
Her husband clapped his hand over her mouth, but not before Pliny recognized her voice. He recognized them all, and in that instant, realizing why he was here, he groaned with shame. More guests leapt to their feet, upsetting the lamp stands and “tombstones” with a clatter, and all trying to be heard at once. They were innocent. They swore it on their children’s heads. But they knew who his secret enemies were, if he would only spare their lives…!
Then one voice made itself heard above all the others. “Hush, all of you! Silence, I say! Caesar, this excellent joke is worthy of your divine wit. Why, our friends who are not here tonight will feel themselves slighted when we tell them what fun we’ve had! But I fear some of your guests, and particularly the ladies, are taking it entirely too seriously. It would be unkind to encourage them further. I, for one, am hungry and want my dinner.” The speech ended with a forced laugh.
Old Cocceius Nerva, thought Pliny. An ornament of the Senate for more than forty years. Smooth, adaptable, a friend of the dynasty or, at least, not an enemy. He had never, before tonight, been remarkable for courage, but this was a brave thing he was doing.
There followed a tense silence which lasted until Pliny thought he could not bear it another moment, and then a trap door opened above them, letting in a shaft of light, and the distinguished lords and ladies, the flower of Rome’s aristocracy, made an unseemly dash for the stairs.
Above ground, the Praetorians were gone and Parthenius, smiling blandly, congratulated them all on their return from dead. But his hooded eyes said something else. Pliny stole a look at his companions. Women, bewigged and bejeweled, tried to repair tear-streaked makeup. The men avoided each other’s eyes, but all gazed at the tall, stooped figure of Nerva, their savior.
As though nothing were amiss, Parthenius, clasping his hands and smiling wetly, led them back the way they had come to the entrance to “Jupiter’s Banquet Hall” for the real dinner. Here, servants in white livery removed their shoes and led them in groups to their tables. Pliny noted that he, the city prefect and the informer Regulus, their companion of the evening, were each placed at a different table-to continue eavesdropping, of course. Pliny felt sick to his stomach and prayed that his face did not give him away. Had things come to this? A dynasty that had started off so fair? He would march into the prefect’s office tomorrow at daybreak and resign his post.
It had been only that morning, coming on the heels of the excitement over Verpa, that a message had arrived from the Prefecture.