“Patrone,” said Zosimus, “it’s a marvelously nasty place.” He batted at a cloud of gnats that hung about their heads. “But I can see no other marvels hereabouts.” They were just turning to go. The air had been dead still, but suddenly a breeze sprang up, ruffling the water. “Patrone!” Pliny turned back and stared, rubbed his eyes and stared again. “Yes, I see! Extraordinary!”
As they watched in astonishment, a floating island of reeds sailed toward them across the lake. Upon it one of the cows, sensing itself adrift, lifted its head and bellowed in fright. Then more islands detached themselves from the shore and, driven before the breeze, glided here and there across the water. Wherever an island came to rest against the shore, it seemed to add to the solid land on that side, until it separated again and drifted on. What a trick was played upon their eyes! Solid land not solid at all. Whatever the explanation of this wonder, and Pliny could imagine none, it showed how easily the eye could be fooled.
And then, in a swift instant, as though the solution had been there all along, just waiting for this key to unlock it, the thought flashed like an arrow through his mind. “ Mehercule, that’s how she did it!”
“Who, Patrone?” asked Zosimus, startled.
“Scortilla, of course!”
His inner eye saw the form of a murderess, not creeping through Verpa’s window; rather someone there all along, in plain view but unseen because she was a part of the background, just like these little islands. Amazing how Fate arranged things! He had come here to escape from the investigation and, by doing so, he had stumbled on the solution. Oh, but really! Could it be so? This notion, when you really thought about it, was even more outlandish than his earlier one. Pliny was quite surprised at himself. To have lived thirty-five years untroubled by an imagination, then suddenly to find himself embarrassed by one that flourished exuberantly like some strange, unwholesome plant! Is this what police work did to one? But everything fit. Scortilla and Lucius were accomplices. Their mutual hatred was all an act. One murder was used to conceal the other. And now he saw how it was done. All that remained was to prove it and the slaves would be saved.
As they left the lake, he knew already how he would put his theory to the test, and he was certain-his heart beating fast as he thought of it-certain that this time he could make Scortilla convict herself, because she was, though full of cunning, really quite a stupid woman. “And I will play her a trick that’ll drag the truth out of her lying throat!” He laughed aloud.
There was no time to lose. “Mount up,” he cried to Zosimus. “It’s back to the town to hire a fast two-wheeler and then to Rome! If we ride through the night, we’ll arrive before tomorrow’s dawn-just the right moment for what I have in mind.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The fifteenth day before the Kalends of Domitianus.
Day thirteen of the Games. Night.
Under a bright harvest moon a team of tired horses galloped along the Via Cassia between rows of tall poplars, drawing the light, two-wheeled gig toward Rome. Zosimus held the reins and urged the team on, while Pliny, beside him on the seat, fretted and devoured the road with his eyes. They would change the horses for fresh ones two or three more times before reaching the city. It was impossible to know the hour with any certainty. He could only pray they would be in time. ???
The eleventh hour of the night.
“I think we are all here. Anyone who is not we must treat as an enemy from this hour on. There’s no time now for second thoughts. Are we agreed?” Parthenius, all smiling blandness, looked from face to face, allowing none of them to avoid his eyes.
Here, in Corellius Rufus’ house, some of the conspirators were seeing others for the first time, astonished to find themselves together in the same room, and some of them secretly wishing they were somewhere, anywhere, else: Corellius himself, prostrate on his couch, his face etched with pain, his mouth set in a grim line; Titus Petronius, the Praetorian commandant, a big blustering man, but subdued now, cracking his knuckles to release tension; sleek Entellus, the emperor’s secretary for petitions, with two other imperial freedmen, the three of them sitting close together and trying not to look intimidated by the company they were in; Cocceius Nerva, his handsome, long-nosed face pale and drawn, drumming his fingers on the tabletop and exchanging worried looks with two other senators who were as nervous as he was; and finally the empress, Domitia Augusta, looking more manly than any of them, her large hands resting motionless on the arms of her chair and not a muscle in her body betraying the strain she must be feeling. She was dressed in a plain stola, without jewelry. She had arrived in a long, hooded cloak, and when she removed it, the bruises on her face were unmistakable even through her face powder.
All of them seemed to be waiting for Parthenius to speak again. This son of a Levantine slave, who had devoted his whole life to intrigue, was their unquestioned leader-and he knew it.
Inclining his head to the empress, he said, “I did not dare ask the Augusta to risk coming here tonight, but she insisted. Your Highness, please tell the women of your bedchamber how grateful we are for their help in smuggling you out of the palace. And now, let us begin.” He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. His stomach was torturing him but he wouldn’t allow it to show. “Our fortunes are at a crisis. Tomorrow is the fourteenth before the Kalends. By mid-day either the tyrant will be dead or we will. We have much to discuss, and little time, it will soon be sunup. For the benefit of some of you, let me review the sequence of events that has brought us to this point.”
“Wait!” the Praetorian commandant lurched to his feet, crossed the tablinum and ripped back the curtain that gave onto the garden. Half a dozen of his Guardsmen in civilian clothes had taken up positions there. There were still more at the front of the house.
“All quiet, Sir,” their officer reported. The commandant went back to his seat. He had already taken the precaution of cancelling all leaves, and his officers had been alerted to attack the City Battalions if they rallied to the emperor.
Parthenius drew a breath and began again. Over the past months, he explained, he had orchestrated the tyrant’s mounting terror. “We wanted to drive him mad, encourage him to even greater outrages which would eat away at his still considerable support in some quarters. I have sent people to report lightning strikes in every part of Italy. With the help of my colleagues in the palace, we arranged a series of parlor tricks all designed to unnerve him. His morbid imagination did the rest. Not long ago I procured a soothsayer to prophesy the date of his death: tomorrow at the fifth hour of the morning. The unfortunate man paid with his life, but that is no matter. And our campaign of terror has succeeded. Don’t be fooled by the image he displays at the Games. I happen to know that he has scarcely slept in days.
“When I and the empress first combined to plot his overthrow, we knew the importance of horoscopes in molding public opinion and lending nerve to a potential replacement. The empress wished Clemens to succeed, and so we prepared a horoscope predicting his imperial destiny. We gave it to him so that he could produce it at the crucial moment. This was a calamitous mistake. The horoscope can be traced to us. In fact, I composed it myself in my own hand. Foolish, I admit. Two months ago our plans came crashing down. Out of the blue, that snake Verpa astonished everyone by accusing Clemens and his wife of atheism and Jewish practices. We had known nothing of this mania of theirs. We were completely routed, terrified that the conspiracy would come to light. We held our breath and waited for the ax to fall, but it didn’t. Clemens went quietly to his death, his wife was banished to a desolate island, and the incriminating horoscope seemed to have vanished.