“…therefore, Sir, if you will authorize the rebuilding of Nicomedia’s aqueduct and the refurbishing of the baths, I will see to undertaking these works at once. With respect to the Balbus investigation, I have to report-” Pliny paused, sighed. Zosimus, who sat at the foot of the dining couch with his stylus and tablets in hand, looked up questioningly.
What did he have to report to Trajan? That his procurator was mixed up with some barbarian religious fanatics? That more people had been murdered and he was no nearer the truth? How would all this sound in Rome? Like pure lunacy. Like incompetence.
The embers of Barzanes’ apartment were still smoldering. They had gone in this morning and uncovered his charred corpse-which told them nothing.
“Uncle Pliny, play Latrunculi with me. Please. You can be the soldiers this time.” Little Rufus climbed up beside him on the dining couch. Pliny had given him the board game of Soldiers and Brigands and he loved to spend time, when he could snatch a few minutes, to play with the child. At four, Rufus was an enthusiastic, if reckless, player.
Pliny tousled his hair and kissed him. “I’m afraid you’ll beat me again.”
“I will, I will beat you. I want a grape. Don’t eat ’em all.”
“Don’t bother master now, he’s busy,” Zosimus said, trying to sound like the stern father.
“Where’s his mother?” Pliny asked.
“With the mistress, I suppose. They spend so much time in the temples these days looking at statues and paintings Ione says she could write a book on the subject, if she could write.”
There was a knock at the dining room door. A servant entered followed by a figure that Rufus had never seen before. The child clapped his hand to his mouth and shrank back, trying to hide himself behind Pliny. The figure approached the couch with jerky steps like a puppet on strings. Its face was pinched and pale, its neck ropy, its arms and legs like sticks. Rufus began to whimper.
“Take him away, Zosimus.” Pliny handed the child to him with a swift motion. “And leave us for a while.”
“Aulus, what a pleasure to see you. Sit down here beside me.” Pliny made room for the boy on the couch. “What brings you here? You don’t leave home often, do you?”
Aulus sat stiffly, twisting his hands. “I–I haven’t told mother. I took a horse from the stable. Asked the way to the palace. They didn’t want to let me in until I told them whose son I am.”
“Well, I’m very glad to see you. Have you eaten? Try these, they’re very good.” Pliny handed the boy a plate of grapes. “Will you take some wine? What’s that you’re holding?”
“A letter, sir. No wine, it does things to my head.”
“A letter. What sort of letter?”
“I found it amongst a lot of papers in my father’s desk. I am the man of the house now, the paterfamilias. I have a right to sit at his desk, look at his papers.” He spoke with a fierce insistence as though he expected contradiction.
“And so you do.” Pliny took the rolled sheet of parchment from his hands.
“It’s in Greek, I can’t read it,” Aulus said.
“Your education has been neglected.”
The boy gave a helpless shrug. “The tutors always run away when they see how-how I am. But I can make out the letters. There’s the word leon in it. That means lion, doesn’t it? And so I thought-”
Pliny held up a hand to silence him and quickly scanned the page. Then he read it again more slowly, translating it aloud to Aulus.
“From the Heliodromus-that’s an odd word. What would that be in Latin? Cursor Solis-Sun Runner? Something like that. From the Sun Runner to the Lion, Greetings.You say the Persian has refused to repay you the money he owes you. That is a serious charge, I understand your anger. You demand that we expel him from our worship. This is a drastic step, not to be taken lightly. I have questioned him and he denies your charge, though I made him swear by Lord Mithras, who sees into every heart. I beg you to reconcile with him. You are both too important to our enterprise. I have not brought this matter to the Father and hope that will not be necessary. Farewell.”
Pliny set the letter down. “I thank you for bringing me this. You can’t imagine how important it is. It is dated only a few days before your father disappeared.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
“I don’t know what it all means, but I begin to glimpse the outlines of what must have happened. This Persian murdered a man called Glaucon, who, we think, murdered your father together with the Persian. You had just lost consciousness, you never saw them, but they were there on the path, waiting to ambush him. The motive, I see now, was a quarrel about money. The Father is, or rather was, the leader of the Mithras cult. He could have named the Persian and the Sun-Runner and all the others had he not died, quite conveniently, last night. All these men, including your father I’m sorry to say, were involved in an illicit cult, as you know. A cult riven by discord, leading to murder. What united them in the first place-this ‘enterprise’ to which your father and the Persian are so important-I don’t yet know, although I have my suspicions. I’m afraid that when we find out it will not reflect well on your father. Are you prepared for that?”
Aulus attempted a smile. “I have no reputation to lose. It will be hard on mother, I suppose.”
“How is she? How are things at home?” Pliny put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Hard. She cries a lot. Drinks a lot. She claims now that she never really believed I could have done such a terrible thing, but she was afraid I would be accused anyway if it was known that I was with him and there was no other suspect. Now she’s tormented with money worries. My father made a second will not long ago. Someone from the treasury brought over a load of papers from his office after he died. She finally got around to looking through them and found it. I thought she’d go mad, raving and screaming. It leaves most of his estate to some woman.”
Pliny was suddenly alert. “The woman’s name?”
“I don’t know, but they fought about him seeing her. It started a couple of months ago when a strange man came to the house when father was out. Why do you look at me so strangely? Have I said something wrong? I don’t mean to spy but I couldn’t help-”
“Can you describe this man. It’s important.”
“I hid when he came in but I got a glimpse of him. About your age, I think. Thinning hair. He had a sharp nose and not much chin, he was red in the face-it made him look a little like a ferret. Do you know him?”
“I do,” Pliny frowned. “Aulus, do you know the game Latrunculi? I fear I’ve just been sent back to square one.”
Chapter Thirty
Aulus looked at him with puzzlement.
“What did this man and your mother talk about?” Pliny asked.
“I couldn’t understand them, they spoke in Greek. Mother always says she doesn’t know but six words of Greek but she seemed to understand him well enough. And after he left she was furious, and when my father came home that night she attacked him, screaming and crying. He hit her across the head with his vitis. He did that when he was angry. After that they seldom spoke. The tension made me very nervous. What would I do without my parents, who would care for me? My fits started getting worse. That’s when my father decided to take me to the cave.” Aulus’ hands writhed and twisted in his lap.
Pliny’s brain was in a whirl. Argyrus and Fabia! Is it them after all? Did they plan the murder together, each for their own reason fearing Balbus’ marriage to Sophronia? Was it Fabia’s burly slave who was waiting for Balbus in the woods? Do Glaucon and the Persian actually have nothing to do with it? But surely she wouldn’t have arranged her husband’s murder for the very day that Aulus would be there to witness it? But what about Argyrus? Could he have been out there with Glaucon? Do those two know each other? Is Argyrus in the cult?