"So another slave is murdered, and by accident! And nothing will be done," Bethesda said moodily.
"Not exactly. Panurgus was valuable property. The law allows his owners to sue the man responsible for his death for his full market value. I understand that Roscius and Chaerea are Is each demanding one hundred thousand sesterces from Flavius. If Flavius contests the action and loses, the amount will be doubled. Knowing his greed, I suspect he'll tacitly admit his guilt and settle for the smaller figure."
"Small justice for a meaningless murder."
I nodded. "And small recompense for the destruction of so much talent. But such is the only justice that Roman law allows, when a citizen kills a slave."
A heavy silence descended on the garden. His insight vindicated, Eco turned his attention to the leather ball. He tossed it in the air, caught it, and nodded thoughtfully, pleased at the way it fit his hand.
"Ah, but Eco, as I was saying, there is another gift for you." He looked at me expectantly. "It's here." I patted the sack of silver. "No longer shall I teach you in my own stumbling way how to read and write. You shall have a proper tutor, who will come every morning to teach you both Latin and Greek. He will be stern, and you will suffer, but when he is done you will read and write better than I do. A boy as clever as you deserves no less."
Eco's smile was radiant. I have never seen a boy toss a ball so high.
The story is almost done, except for one final outcome.
Much later that night, I lay in bed with Bethesda with nothing to separate us but that gossamer veil shot through with silver threads. For a few fleeting moments I was completely satisfied with life and the universe. In my relaxation, without meaning to, I mumbled aloud what I was thinking. "Perhaps I should adopt the boy…"
"And why not?" Bethesda demanded, imperious even when half asleep. "What more proof do you want from him? Eco could not be more like your son even if he were made of your own flesh and blood."
And of course she was right.
THE TALE OF THE TREASURE HOUSE
"Tell me a story, Bethesda."
It was the hottest night of the hottest summer I could ever remember in Rome. I had pulled my sleeping couch out into the peristyle amid the yew trees and poppies so as to catch any breeze that might happen to pass over the Esquiline Hill. Overhead the sky was moonless and full of stars. Still, sleep would not come.
Bethesda lay on her own divan nearby. We might have lain together, but it was simply too hot to press flesh against flesh. She sighed. "An hour ago you asked me to sing you a song, Master. An hour before that you asked me to wash your feet with a wet cloth."
"Yes, and the song was sweet and the cloth was cool. But I still can't sleep. Neither can you. So tell me a story."
She touched the back of her hand to her lips and yawned. Her black hair glistened in the starlight. Her linen sleeping gown clung like gossamer to the supple lines of her body. Even yawning, she was beautiful-far too beautiful a slave to be owned by a common man like myself, I've often thought. Fortune smiled on me when I found her in that Alexandrian slave market ten years ago. Was it I who selected Bethesda, or she who selected me?
"Why don't you tell a story?" Bethesda suggested. "You love to talk about your work."
"Now you're wanting me to put you to sleep. You always find it boring when I talk about my work."
"Not true," she protested sleepily. "Tell me again how you helped Cicero in resolving the matter of the Woman of Arretium. Everyone down at the market still talks about it, how Gordianus the Finder must be the cleverest man in Rome to have found the solution to such a sordid affair."
"What a schemer you are, Bethesda, thinking you can flatter me into being your storyteller. You are my slave and I order you to tell me a story!"
She ignored me. "Or tell me again about the case of Sextus Roscius," she said. "Before that, great Cicero had never defended a man charged with murder, much less a man accused of killing his own father. How he needed the help of Gordianus the Finder! To think it would end with you killing a giant who came out of the Cloaca Maxima while Cicero was giving his speech in the Forum!"
"I would hate to have you for my biographer, Bethesda. The man was not exactly a giant, it was not exactly I who killed him, and while it happened in the public latrine behind the Shrine of Venus, the giant-that is, the man-did not come out of the sewer. And it wasn't the end of the affair, either!"
We lay for a long moment in the darkness, listening to the chirring of the crickets. A shooting star passed overhead, causing Bethesda to mutter a low incantation to one of her strange Egyptian animal-gods.
"Tell me about Egypt," I said. "You never talk about Alexandria. It's such a great city. So old. So mysterious."
"Ha! You Romans think anything is old if it came before your empire. Alexander and his city were not even a dream in the mind of Osiris when Cheops built his great pyramid. Memphis and Thebes were already ancient when the Greeks went to war with Troy."
"Over a woman," I commented.
"Which shows that they were not completely stupid. Of course they were idiots to think that Helen was hiding in Troy, when she was actually down in Memphis with King Proteus the whole time."
"What? I never heard such a thing!"
"Everyone in Egypt knows the story."
"But that would mean that the destruction of Troy was meaningless. And since it was the Trojan warrior Aeneas who fled Troy and founded the Roman race, then the destiny of Rome is based on a cruel joke of the gods. I suggest you keep this particular story to yourself, Bethesda, and not go spreading it around the market."
"Too late for that." Even in the darkness, I could see the wicked smile on her lips.
We lay in silence for some moments. A gentle breeze stirred amid the roses. Bethesda finally said, "You know, men such as you are not the only ones who can solve mysteries and answer riddles."
"You mean the gods can do so as well?"
"No, I mean that women can."
"Is that a fact?"
"Yes. Thinking about Helen in Egypt reminded me of the story of King Rhampsinitus and his treasure house, and how it was a women who solved the mystery of the disappearing silver. But I suppose you must already know that story, Master, since it is so very famous."
"King Rhampsi-what?" I asked.
Bethesda snorted delicately. She finds it difficult sometimes, living in a place as culturally backward as Rome. I smiled up at the stars and closed my eyes. "Bethesda, I order you to tell me the tale of King Rhampsi-whatever and his treasure house."
"Very well, Master. King Rhampsinitus came after King Proteus (who played host to Helen), and before King Cheops."
"Who built the great pyramid. Cheops must have been a very great king."
"An awful king, the most hated man in all the long history of Egypt."
"But why?"
"Precisely because he built the great pyramid. What does a pyramid mean to common people, except unending labor and terrible taxes? The memory of Cheops is despised in Egypt; Egyptians spit when they say his name. Only visitors from Rome and Greece look at his pyramid and see something wonderful. An Egyptian looks at the pyramid and says, 'Look, there's the stone that broke my great-great-great-great-grandfather's back,' or, 'There's the ornamental pylon that bankrupted my great-great-great-great-granduncle's farm.' No, King Rhampsinitus was much more to the people's liking."
"And what was this Rhampsinitus like?"
"Very rich. No king in any kingdom since has been even half so rich."
"Not even Midas?"