“Mehercule! The Sun-Runner? Diocles?”
The snarling of dogs was suddenly loud in their ears. Branches snapped. The boar burst out of the thicket in front of them, two dogs hanging from its bristling neck, others snapping at its legs. Two hundred pounds of muscle balanced on tiny feet. It charged, bursting through the net that should have drawn tight around it and ran straight at Pliny. Where were the huntsmen? He crouched and tried to take it on the point of his spear but the beast flicked the weapon out of his hands with a toss of its huge head. Pliny threw himself on his stomach, pressed his face against the frozen earth, scrabbled with his fingers. The boar worked at him with its wet snout, grunting and snuffling, he could feel its steaming breath on his face and smell its stink. If it got those wicked, upcurving tusks under him-
“Patrone!” Zosimus had been given a javelin to carry-useless in his unpracticed hands. He threw it and missed, then snatched up a fallen branch and brought it down with all his strength on the animal’s shoulder. The boar turned and slashed at him, ripping open his belly, flinging him aside like a rag doll. Then Galeo was standing over the boar with Pliny’s spear in his hands. He thrust it down between its shoulder blades up to the cross piece and held on until the animal sank to its knees and fell over. He helped Pliny to his feet.
A moment later three of Diocles’ huntsmen appeared as if from nowhere. “Are you all right, Governor?” said one. “Looks like your companion is…well, too bad.”
Zosimus lay on the ground, clutching his belly, a grey bulge of intestine showing between his bloody fingers.
***
“Calpurnia, where are you going?” Suetonius had been alerted by one of the slaves and had followed her and Aulus out to the stable.
“Are you my jailer now?”
“No, of course not, but-”
“Then get out of my way.”
“Not until you tell me where you’re going.”
She made an angry gesture with her hand. “To the cave, then.”
“With the boy? Why?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“At least let me come with you.”
“So you can report on me to my husband?”
***
Marinus’ arms were bloody to the elbows. He had done what he could, gently replacing the large intestine, trimming the ragged flesh around the wound and bathing it with vinegar and verdigris, then suturing it with the complicated double stitching recommended for belly wounds. Zosimus lay on the blood-soaked bed, scarcely breathing.
“He won’t live, will he?” Galeo had just come into the room and leaned over the physician’s shoulder.
“Not likely.” Marinus wiped his face against his shoulder. Though it was cold in the room he was sweating. He had been working for an hour.
“Where’s the governor?”
“With Diocles, I think. Why?”
“Because I went back out to the woods and had a look at the nets. In the excitement nobody bothered to take them down. I know a little bit about boar hunting.”
“And?”
“And they were only tied to bushes at the bottom, not to the tree trunks as they should have been.”
Marinus answered with a wordless stare.
***
“Do drink some wine, Governor. And please sit down. You’re badly shaken, of course. Quite understandable.”
Diocles’ private study, which overlooked a spacious courtyard, was a virtual museum of Greek culture. Centuries-old Athenian vases sat on antique tables; busts of Plato, Socrates, and Homer stood on pedestals. On one wall hung ancient weapons and pieces of armor. He pointed to an ivory-hilted short sword in a jeweled scabbard. “Said to have belonged to Mithridates the Great. The bane of the Romans. He was a hero to us, you know.”
Pliny said nothing.
“Yes, well,” Diocles’ genial smile faded, replaced by a look of concern, “terrible business this morning. But boar hunting is a dangerous sport and no place for a scribe. You really shouldn’t have allowed him to go along. I expect you’re blaming yourself.”
“I’m blaming you! Where were your huntsmen, where were you when it happened?”
Diocles’ eyes narrowed. “I hope that isn’t an accusation of some sort? You asked to speak with me privately. Was it only to complain about my huntsmen?”
“Diocles, man, come out of there”-the distant, boisterous shout of one of the guests-“we’re waiting lunch for you.”
“I have more to accuse you of than that,” Pliny said. “You’re a thief and a murderer, Diocles. You were in league with the procurator and the banker Didymus to steal tax money. Tell me, how did you all come together? Balbus needed a place to hide the money he planned to steal and a way to invest it secretly. A crooked banker like Didymus was the obvious choice. And was Didymus already a member of your cult? Did he bring Balbus to you? How convenient for all of you. A cave, a meeting place where money could be distributed in return for favors, and all of you bound to one another in secrecy by the mystery of initiation, and poor Barzanes imagining all along that it was for the glory of his god! And you, Diocles, pretending to resent Roman rule while you profit from its corruption. How much of that money flowed into your coffers? And what did you give in return? The support of your faction? A docile city council that would ask no questions, make no complaints? Was my predecessor part of this too? I was sent here to clean up the financial mess in this province and who do I find at the heart of it? None other than you. I’m placing you under arrest. You will accompany me back to Nicomedia for trial.”
“Remarkable.” Diocles’ golden voice flowed like honey. He leaned back in his chair. “What an imagination you have. I wouldn’t have suspected it. I can see you aren’t well, Governor. I urge you not to excite yourself. An imbalance of the humors can affect the mind, produce strange fantasies. I think you should ask the emperor to relieve you at once.”
“You’d like to see the last of me, wouldn’t you? The cave of Mithras, where Balbus was going when he was killed, is only a few miles from here. In fact a certain Hypatius sold Barzanes the land. Hypatius, your father.”
“But this is absurd. I don’t know any Barzanes and we don’t sell land, with or without caves. I’m neglecting my other guests. If there’s nothing more-”
“I have the bill of sale to prove it, thanks to my secretary, who now lies dying. You used that religious zealot for your own ends, and finally you had him killed when you realized I had found him. You are the mysterious Sun-Runner that Balbus wrote to, complaining about Didymus. And Didymus has confessed to everything, even though he fears you. I know how you and your friends stole the money, how you invested in aqueducts, temples, and baths that would add to your glory as benefactors and philanthropists-although often enough, in your greed, you pocketed the money and never even finished the buildings. And I might never have uncovered any of this if Didymus hadn’t quarreled with Balbus. Didymus has given you up.”
“That greedy, stupid little man!” Now the golden voice grated like iron. The pretense of civility was gone. “I admit nothing, and you are bluffing, Governor. Didymus hasn’t named me and he won’t. Pancrates is a most useful man. Did you imagine he peddles his secrets only to you? I, too, was anxious to know who killed our friend the procurator. And I thought that you, with your power to summon witnesses, and that charlatan, with his network of informants, might discover the truth together. And you haven’t disappointed me. Naturally, Pancrates has kept me informed. You say Didymus has implicated me? Not true. Pancrates has just delivered to me a letter from him, vaguely threatening that he might talk if I don’t rescue him. But I will rescue him, you and I together, Governor. Let me suggest that you arrange to leave his cell door open one night and a carriage waiting, and I will see that he and his family are taken care of somewhere out of the province.”