“Did he name the other ranks?”
“Yes, but in Greek. I didn’t know any of the words.”
“Go on with your story.”
“Well, he said we would meet the others there. They all approached the cave by different routes to avoid calling attention to themselves because the mysteries of Mithras were a deep secret. He warned me that I should never breathe a word to anyone. They would blindfold me, he said, bind my arms, aim an arrow at my heart, but then it would be all right and I would be raised up to the heavens and see the god. I didn’t want to. But he slapped my face, told me to stop whining. He was doing it for me, he said, to make me a man at last.”
Pliny exchanged glances with his companions.
“It’s the curse,” Aulus whispered. “You see how I am. I don’t leave the house because people spit and make the horns with their fingers when they see me. Even here, no one will drink from the same cup or eat from the same dish as me.”
“You’ve had it all your life?” Marinus asked.
“Since I was nine. If I’d had it as a baby they would have just left me on a rubbish heap and had done with it. I wish they had.”
“No, never!” Tears were streaming down Fabia’s cheeks. It was the first time Pliny had seen her cry. She had had no tears for her husband, but she was weeping now.
“They tried every way to get rid of it,” the boy continued. “Father took me to the temples of Asclepius at Pergamum and Smyrna, the temple of Isis in Rome. I had to smear myself with mud, bathe in an icy river, run around the temples barefoot in winter, wear evil-smelling things around my neck, drink-drink the blood of a dead gladiator, but I couldn’t, I threw it up. My father made me sleep outdoors on the ground, made me practice with a sword, slapped me, hit me with his vitis when my arm faltered. And finally, after I had a very bad fit, he decided to take me to this god in the cave. I just couldn’t stand any more.”
Pliny felt a tide of anger rise in him. His heart went out to this tortured child. “By Jupiter, If you suffered all that and lived you’re more of a man than most. Now I want you to listen to what my friend here has to say. This is Marinus, my physician.”
Marinus pulled his stool closer and looked at the boy gravely. “Your father loved you very much in his way,” he said, “but what he put you through is barbarous nonsense. What you have is called the ‘Sacred Disease’ but it is no more sacred than any other disease, as the great Hippocrates tells us. It is an affliction of the brain. I’ll put it as simply as I can. Veins lead up to the brain, the two biggest ones come from the liver and the spleen. These veins carry our breath to every part of the body. Now, there are impurities in the brain of the unborn infant which normally are purged before birth. But if this does not occur then the brain becomes congested with phlegm, which is one of the four bodily humors. If the cold phlegm flows into the veins, the sufferer becomes speechless and chokes, he gnashes his teeth and rolls his eyes-your symptoms exactly. This is all because the phlegm clogging the veins cuts off the air supply to the brain and lungs. The patient kicks when the air is shut off in the limbs, and cannot pass through to the outside because of the phlegm. Rushing upwards and downwards through the blood, it causes convulsions and pain, hence the kicking. The patient suffers all these things when the phlegm flows cold into the blood, which is warm. In time the blood warms the phlegm and the patient recovers his senses. There is no curse. Do you understand me?”
The boy sat up suddenly, wrenching away from his mother’s embrace. “Then there is a cure?”
“Ah, well,” Marinus stroked his beard. “That is more difficult. Diet sometimes helps. But honestly, at your age, a cure is unlikely.”
“Then it’s still a curse. How can I live like this?”
“Julius Caesar managed it rather well,” Suetonius struck in. “Had it all his life. Most people never suspected. I invite you to read my biography of him when it’s published. I’ll send you a copy.”
“But I’ve killed my father! That is the worst curse of all. What will they do to me?”
“Tell me,” said Pliny, “precisely what happened. Everything you can remember.”
“The sun was just coming up. We’d already ridden for two, maybe three hours up into the hills. I was cold, shivering. I begged my father to turn back but he wouldn’t listen. Then he said we should dismount and tie the horses to a tree and go the rest of the way on foot. He said the cave wasn’t far. “
“Do you know where it is?”
“No. The ground was steep and rocky. There was hardly a path that you could see. I was so frightened I could hardly stand up. I felt a fit coming on. Father grabbed my hand and dragged me along. I was crying and he was saying all these things about Mithras and how I would be a man he could be proud of. I broke away and started to run back. He came after me and threw me to the ground. We struggled and I picked up a rock and I hit him with it as hard as I could, here.” Aulus pointed the side of his head. “And then I fainted and that’s all I remember. When I woke up, the sun was low in the sky. And my father wasn’t there. I thought he had just left me. So I went home. I couldn’t find the horses. I had to go the whole way on foot and it was late at night before I got back. I expected him to be there and I was terrified of what he would do to me. But he wasn’t there. I must have wounded him mortally and he dragged himself off into the bushes to die. That’s where you found him, isn’t it?”
“And that’s what you told your mother?”
The boy nodded.
Pliny turned to Fabia. “And you kept his secret to save his life.”
“Should I have lost both of them?” she cried.
Pliny shook his head in amazement. “It’s the stuff of Greek tragedy, like something from the pen of Sophocles! Madam, I admire you-and I never expected to hear myself say that. Now listen to me both of you. We found Balbus buried, with his neck broken. There was no fracture of the skull. I don’t know who killed him or why, but Aulus is not guilty of his father’s blood.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“I once knew a woman,” Pliny said to Marinus, “who suffered from falling fits. Hysteria she said it was. When it came on her she looked just like Aulus.”
“Ah yes, similar symptoms but quite a different cause. Your woman friend had a wandering womb, or, at least, that’s the common theory. Aulus’ case is much more difficult. I feel for the lad.”
“I think telling him about the Divine Julius cheered him up a bit,” said Suetonius.
The three had just returned from Fabia’s. They sat in Pliny’s office, waiting for the others to join them.
“Where do you get these gems of knowledge?” Marinus said testily. “I suspect you make them up.”
Suetonius was about to protest when in trooped the swaggering Aquila; Nymphidius, limping on his arthritic knee; Caelianus with precise, small steps; and Zosimus, following some steps behind and looking, as always, as if he were entering a club to which he didn’t belong.
Pliny briefed them on the morning’s revelations.
“Extraordinary,” Nymphidius said. “Sacred Disease? Secret cult? In all my years I’ve never heard-”
“It does sound like fiction, doesn’t it?” Suetonius interrupted. “Which reminds me of a thought I had the other day. To capture this whole mystery-when we solve it, that is-in a work of literature, something quite original. A story where the reader doesn’t know the solution until the very end. I don’t believe it’s ever been done before. You, of course, would be the hero of the tale, Gaius Plinius. I would play a small part. I think it would sell-”
Pliny stared at him without blinking. “You will do no such thing.”
“Yes, well, just a passing thought.” Suetonius fell into a coughing fit.