“What will Philaenis say if we question her?”
Argyrus’ eyes darted around the room. He was frightened now. “Philaenis will say whatever my sister tells her to say, damn her. I give her gifts but Sophronia owns her, the barbarian slut!”
“Watch your tongue!” Suetonius shot back, half rising out of his chair.
Pliny gave him a warning look. “Calm down, your sister hasn’t accused you of anything.”
“Then why am I here?”
“To clarify a few things for us. You would, of course, lose control of her money if she were to marry Balbus.”
“Marry him! Don’t make me laugh. She doesn’t want a husband. She poisoned her last one, you know. Oh, yes. Poor man developed a flux, turned yellow, and shriveled up and died screaming with pain. She hates men. Can’t stand to be controlled by anyone.”
Suetonius glowered at him. “Her husband drowned at sea.”
Argyrus attempted a laugh. “Is that what she told you?”
“Let us come back to the matter at hand,” said Pliny. “You can’t deny you had reason to resent Balbus’ attentions to her.”
“Doesn’t mean I killed him! Look at me. Do I look like I’d be a match for that man in a fight? Do I look like someone who skulks around in the woods in the middle of the night?”
Pliny looked at him sharply. “Who said anything about the woods?”
“Well-I mean, that’s what they said, isn’t it? Riding accident in the woods.”
“We said it was a riding accident, we didn’t say where.”
“You did-I mean, well it’s obvious, isn’t it? — ” Panic flickered in his eyes. His head swiveled from Pliny to Suetonius and back. “What are you going to do to me? Don’t torture me, I couldn’t stand it, I’m not strong. Please. I’ll-I’ll swear an oath on the altar of Zeus-anything!”
“What’s an oath to you?” Suetonius sneered.
Argyrus puddled the floor around his feet.
“No,” Pliny held up a hand, “no. I’m not going to torture you. Or keep you here.” Indeed, he couldn’t imagine this pathetic figure overpowering Balbus. “But I warn you not to leave the city and not to talk to anyone about this interview. You understand me? You can go.”
“And stay away from Sophronia,” Suetonius growled.
***
“All right but he could have hired assassins,” Suetonius argued. “I wouldn’t have let him go so easily.”
“And you, my friend,” Pliny replied, “are letting your emotions rule your head. Argyrus is a miserable character, but a murderer? Now that I’ve seen the man, I don’t know.”
They sat once again in Pliny’s office together with Nymphidius, Marinus, Aquila, and Zosimus. Servants had brought in their lunch on trays.
“You say he knew about the woods,” said Marinus.
“Yes, but it is a reasonable guess, isn’t it? Look, as far as motive goes, he’s the likeliest suspect we have, but as for means and opportunity?” Pliny shook his head.
“But then that applies to any suspect,” said Nymphidius. “We’ve been through this before. Who might have known where Balbus was and who was the other horseman?”
“The likeliest person to know where he was is someone who followed him from his home that morning,” Pliny replied. “And that brings us back to Fabia.”
“But only if she knew about his affair,” Suetonius reminded him. “Sophronia was pretty sure she didn’t.”
“And, of course, she’ll deny it if I ask her,” said Pliny wearily. “I’ve been remarkably unsuccessful in getting that woman to admit anything. I honestly don’t think I have the stomach to go back there again.”
“Well, where do we go from here then?” said Aquila.
Pliny looked around the table, hoping to see inspiration in some face. And found none. “There is still too much we don’t know. Why was he where he was? Where was he going? Someone, somewhere knows the answer. We need to dig deeper. Zosimus, my boy-” he smiled at the young man whose forehead still bore the mark of his recent wound, “our clew of thread has so far led us up against a blank wall. We need another clew.”
They talked a while longer to no purpose. Then, as the others got up to leave, Zosimus begged a moment to speak to Pliny privately.
“Patrone, I’m sorry to bother you with a personal matter when you have so much else on your mind, but it’s Ione.”
Pliny looked a question.
“I mean, well, she’s not herself these days. Irritable, cross with me and little Rufus, like something’s preying on her mind, and when I ask her she just turns away and won’t say anything. So I was thinking perhaps if you spoke to her?”
Pliny squeezed his shoulder affectionately. He was still feeling guilty about what had happened to his favorite freedman, though the wound luckily wasn’t as serious as it had looked when the soldiers carried him home that day covered in blood.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “She’s always been such a cheerful soul. But really wouldn’t it be better if Calpurnia spoke to her? Women tell each other things, you know, they don’t share with us men.”
“But they talk all the time, Patrone. Once even in the middle of the night, the mistress woke us up to talk to her. I don’t know what they said but when Ione came back to bed she was in a terrible state.”
“Really? In the middle of the night, you say? Well, I don’t know what I can do but I’ll have a word with ’Purnia about it.”
“Thank you, Patrone.”
***
That night
Pliny thrashes and struggles. His toga, wet and clinging, envelops him like a burial shroud, pinning his arms to his sides. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t break free. He is suffocating. He cries for help but they ignore him-Calpurnia and Ione, talking in low tones. What are they saying? He can’t make it out. Why don’t they hear him? Won’t someone help him? His heart is near bursting-
“Gaius, Gaius, wake up!”
With a wrenching effort he tore himself free of the dream. He was tangled in the damp sheet. It was moments before he could catch his breath and still his heart.
“Are you all right? I couldn’t wake you.” Calpurnia bent over him. “You’re soaking wet, shall I call Marinus?”
“No, no, I’m all right now. I was dreaming. What hour is it?”
“I don’t know-not yet dawn. There’s someone at the door with a message for you. He says it’s urgent.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Kalends of November
An elderly man was waiting for him in the antechamber, flanked by two sleepy-eyed door-slaves, who eyed him with resentment. He was one of the Night Watch, he said, whose job was to patrol the streets on the lookout for fires. He ducked his head to Pliny. “They’re dead, sir, all of ’em. The whole family, slaughtered like. The husband, the wife, the little-”
“Whose family, man?” Pliny peered into the Night Watchman’s frightened face.
“Glaucon, your honor. One of his servants come running out of the house as I was passing by. I went into the house with him and looked. Then I come here, not knowing where else-”
“Take me there.” Pliny called for his cloak and shoes and sent someone to rouse his chair bearers and Galeo, his senior lictor.
Glaucon’s was a large, handsome town house near the temple of Artemis, a short walk from the palace. The servants who met them at the door were gibbering with fear. They had been wakened in the middle of the night, they said, by groans and the sound of retching coming from the master’s bedroom. When they burst in, they found him dying; he took his last rattling breath as they watched. His wife was already beyond help. They ran to the children’s rooms-Glaucon had two young sons and a daughter-and found them dead as well; and Glaucon’s old mother, not dead, but unconscious and barely breathing.
Pliny sent Galeo back for Marinus and when the physician arrived they inspected the bodies together. The stink of vomit was everywhere. In the master bedroom, Glaucon lay on the floor in a puddle of it. He had kicked over a bedside table in his death struggle and the pieces of a smashed water jug lay beside it. His wife was half on, half off the bed, her mouth open as though in mid-scream, her lips blue, her shift rucked up around her waist, exposing her nakedness. They went to the children’s rooms. In one, two boys of about eight or nine-they looked like twins-lay clutching each other. In the adjoining chamber, a pretty girl of about thirteen had gotten as far as the doorway before she collapsed. Glaucon’s old mother lay in her bed, eyes closed and soaked with sweat. A servant girl sat beside her, bathing her face with a cloth.