While they waited for Valens to return with the box, Lucius described his visit from the Syrians. “I went with Valens to our farm across the Tiber and it didn’t take us long to find the grave. Nasty sight. Poor fellow had been dead two weeks or more but you could see what they’d done to him. And it was him all right. The one calling himself Iatrides. My father must have wanted something out of him very badly indeed. Apparently he said the word ‘clemens’ and, as the Syrian understood it, ‘vestis,’ whatever sense that makes.
Valens returned with the box and handed it to his chief. “You’ll find his name on the bottom, sir. And you’ll find something interesting inside.”
Pliny reached in and brought out the bit of cork with its deadly needle.
“It works,” said Lucius, “I tried it on a cat. I suppose Iatrides planned to use it on himself if it came to that, but he didn’t get the chance.” Pliny let the object fall back into the box. A cold sweat had broken out on his body.
Scortilla looked up and wiped her paint-smudged face with the back of a bony wrist. There was anger again-even triumph-in her voice. “You officious dunce! Don’t forget that there was another woman in this house the night Verpa died-but, of course, she’s above suspicion, so endearing, so helpless. Not like me.”
Pliny’s leaving, like his arrival, was quick and unceremonious. He glowered at Zosimus and repulsed the young man’s questions as they rode through the dawn-lit streets toward his home. Vestis? He thought. Or Vestalis? No. He recoiled from the thought. But a tightness gripped his chest.
Chapter Twenty-seven
He was met at the door by Martial. “You’re back! Just thought I would come by in case-”
“Yes, well, go home now. State business, not for your ears.” Pliny brushed past the poet, almost knocking him over. He was about to call for Amatia when, instead, Soranus emerged from his wife’s room, closing the door behind him.
The physician was a young Greek, not yet thirty years old, with a brisk, confident manner. He wasn’t well known in Rome, though he had come highly recommended from his native Ephesus. His face was half hidden behind a massive black beard, which he hoped added authority to his youthful face. He had a pair of intelligent, owlish eyes. He blinked them at Pliny. “Not to worry,” he said. “Bit of an emergency last night-bleeding and pain. I trust you had a good reason for leaving her alone.” There was an edge to his voice. “The fetus is alive, I can detect its heartbeat through this little tube of mine. You owe a debt of gratitude to your house guest, Amatia. While I was attending another case, she stayed with your wife, comforted her, wouldn’t let anyone else touch her, so say the servants.”
Pliny felt his conviction ebbing away. He pursed his lips. This was going to make what he had to do even harder. He looked into Calpurnia’s bedroom. She was very pale. Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled wanly at him. If there was reproach in her eyes, he could not afford to think about that now.
“We rejoice at your return.” Amatia approached him from the far side of the atrium. Her hair was disheveled and the circles under her eyes were darker than ever, the skin around them finely wrinkled. “Your trip was a success?” Pliny knew it was no idle question, but she didn’t dare press him. “A success? Yes, madam, in ways I wouldn’t have wished for.” “Madam?” She measured him with her eyes. “We’re not usually so formal, are we?” If he prolonged this he would lose his courage entirely.
“Thank you for attending my wife, I’m very grateful. We have something to discuss. Come with me into the tablinum and shut the door.” He turned and she followed him. When they were alone, he said, “Lady, do you recognize this?” He produced the medical kit from under his traveling cloak. She shook her head, no. He turned the box over, exposing Iatrides’ name inscribed on the bottom. He didn’t have to ask again; her face told him everything. She groped behind her for a chair and sat down heavily.
“Your friend was murdered, I regret to say, quite brutally. Tortured to death by Ingentius Verpa. Now I ask you, why would Verpa do that?” Amatia sucked in her breath; it made a high-pitched wheezing sound like a child with pneumonia. But Pliny was relentless. “Forgive me, lady. I must play the role of policeman, not friend, although I hope I am your friend.” He went to his desk, opened the small strongbox and brought out the needle that had killed Iarbas’ monkey. He held it in front of her face. “Do you recognize this? We found it in Verpa’s room. It’s what killed him. There’s its twin in Iatrides’ box. Now, madam, what do you have to say to me?”
Before he could put out a hand to catch her, she was on the floor, her arms and legs thrashing violently, her teeth clenched, sweat pouring out of every pore, the veins at her temples bulging.
“Soranus!”
The physician had been about to take his leave. He rushed in, tossing his cloak aside. “By Apollo!” He fumbled in his kit and produced a bottle of some liquid. “Help me force her jaws open.” This was no easy thing but at last they were able to get a few drops down her throat. “A mild sedative,” the doctor explained. Gradually, the convulsions subsided and her body grew limp. They carried her to her room and laid her on the bed. Pliny had never seen her as bad as this. But there was no pretending here.
“She suffers from hysteria,” he told Soranus. “We must find something with a stink for her to inhale.”
“Nonsense.” The physician frowned with authority. “Even the great Hippocrates could talk rubbish sometimes. The womb scampers around like a kitten chasing a ball? I don’t believe it. Some day I shall write a treatise on the subject.”
“Have you seen many cases, then?”
“Well, actually, no. One doesn’t come across these things every day. And so I would be most grateful, sir, if you would permit me to examine the lady while she is at rest.”
“Saving her modesty, of course,” Pliny warned.
“Oh, absolutely. I will avert my eyes; I can tell a great deal by touch alone. I’ll just get my kit and then if you’ll leave us for a few minutes?”
A quarter of an hour later, the doctor emerged, frowning in puzzlement. In his hand he held a contraption such as Pliny had never seen before. It was made of bronze and comprised four prongs whose distance from each other could be adjusted by means of a screw-threaded handle and crossbar mechanism. Soranus set it on the table between them. “A speculum of my own design,” he explained. “I call it the dioptra. It allows me to look through the cervix.”
To Pliny’s eye it looked like some dreadful instrument of torture. “You examined her with that thing!”
The physician looked a bit sheepish. “Well, just a peek, sir. I mean, in the interests of science. And I can state with confidence that the lady’s womb is precisely where it should be. In one way, however, the traditional wisdom has proven to be true. It’s no wonder she suffers from hysteria. It’s a very common effect of sexual deprivation in a passionate woman. It is, in short, a virgin’s disease. And this lady, sir, is a virgin, astonishing as that sounds.”
Pliny felt his heart flutter. But hadn’t he already guessed?
“Well, ah, I mean, was a virgin,” the doctor blinked rapidly, “that is, I fear I inadvertently did her a little damage. I mean, how was I to know?”
“You what? Out! Out of my house, you butcher!”
Pliny, on his feet, his hands balled into fists, watched the physician’s disappearing back. He felt as though all the air had suddenly been let out of him.
“Husband, I heard you shouting.” Calpurnia tottered unsteadily toward him. “How can our dear Amatia be a virgin if she is the mother of five daughters?”
Pliny could only shake his head silently. The implications were just beginning to sink in. Amatia and Verpa. He tried to erase the picture from his mind but couldn’t. A shudder of dread -something from deep in the racial memory-ran through him. A Vestal Virgin polluted by man’s touch and by death. “Go back to bed, dear.” “But-” “Go back to bed!”