After a moment Clodia drew back and took his hands in hers. Where her gown had become wet from being pressed against his body, the silk was even more transparent and was molded to her like a second skin. She turned her head, saw me gaping and laughed. The man did likewise, as if he were her mirror image.
"But darling," she said, squeezing his hands and giggling like a girl, "why didn't you simply come in through the tent flap? What on earth were you doing out in the water with the others? And when did you join them? How could I not have noticed?"
"I only just arrived," he said, with a laugh deeper than Clodia's but uncannily similar. "I thought it would be fun to slip in among your admirers and see if I could attract your notice. Which I didn't, apparently!"
"But I was distracted, darling, by something very important!" She nodded toward me and affected a sober expression. The teasing tone had returned to her voice. She was performing again, but for whom? "It's about Dio, darling, and the trial. This is Gordianus, the man I told you about. He's going to help us punish Marcus Caelius."
The man turned his beaming smile on me. I recognized him now, of course. I had seen him at a distance in the Forum on many occasions, haranguing his mob of followers or keeping company with the great powers of the Senate, but never naked and wet with his hair slicked back. How very much like his sister Publius Clodius looked, especially when one saw the two of them together, side by side.
Chapter Eleven
I remember something you used to tell me, Papa, when I was starting out on my own: 'Never accept a commission without obtaining
some sort of retainer, no matter how small.' " Eco cocked his head and gave me a penetrating look. "What is your point?" I said.
"Well, when you left Clodia's horti this afternoon, was your purse heavier than when you arrived?" This was his way of asking if I had accepted Clodia's commission to investigate the murder of Dio- how typical of Eco to get directly to the heart of the matter!
Despite the summerlike warmth of the day, darkness had fallen early; it was still the month of Martius, after all. By the time I left Clodia's horti, shortly after her brother's arrival, the sun was already sinking, turning the Tiber into a sheet of flaming gold. It was twilight by the time Belbo and I reached home, trudging back across the bridge, through the shut-down cattle markets and back up the Palatine. Night fell, with a slight chill in the air. After a hurried meal with Bethesda and Diana, despite the tiredness of my legs I again set out with Belbo across the city to take counsel with my elder son.
We sat in the study of the house on the Esquiline Hill, which had once been my house and my father's before that. Now it belonged to Eco and his brood. His wife Menenia was elsewhere, probably trying to put to bed the squabbling twins, whose high-pitched screams of laughter occasionally rent the cool evening air.
I had just described to Eco my interview with Clodia, up to the arrival of her brother and my departure shortly thereafter.
"When I left the lady's horti," I said, "my purse was substantially heavier."
"So you did accept her commission?" I nodded.
"Then you do believe that Marcus Caelius murdered Dio?" "I didn't say that."
"But you'll be looking for evidence to convict him." "If such evidence exists."
"Clodia's reasons for suspecting him seem to me tenuous, at best," said Eco. "But then, you've begun investigations with less to go on and still managed to dig up the truth."
"Yes. But to be honest, I'm a little uneasy about the whole affair."
"I should think so!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Papa, everyone knows that Caelius and Clodia were lovers. And Caelius and Clodius are political allies and drinking partners, or used to be. For that matter, there may have been something more than friendship between the two of them. Or the three of them, I should say."
"You mean the three of them in one bed?"
Eco shrugged. "Don't look surprised. A woman like Clodia-well, you said yourself that there wasn't a piece of furniture in the tent except for her couch."
"So?"
"Papa! You assumed that you were meant to stand. From what I've heard, the woman is more hospitable than that. If there was no chair, only a single couch, perhaps that meant that you were invited to recline."
"Eco!"
"Well, from the dress you say she was wearing-" "I should have been less descriptive."
"You should have taken me along with you. Then I could have seen for myself."
"You're well into your thirties now, son. You should be able to think of something besides sex."
"Menenia never complains." He grinned.
I tried to make a grunt of disapproval, which came out sounding more like a hum of curiosity. Eco had chosen a black-haired beauty not unlike Bethesda for his wife. In how many other ways was she like Be-thesda? I had wondered about this from time to time, in the perfectly natural way that a man of my years ponders the younger generation and their goings-on. Eco and Menenia… naked Clodius and his sister in her transparent gown…
At just that moment, one of the twins let out a scream from elsewhere in the house. I was jolted from my reverie, rudely reminded that physical pleasure can have consequences.
"We stray from the subject," I said. "I told you I felt uneasy about accepting this commission from Clodia, and you said, 'I should think so.' "
"Well, it all seems rather unsavory, don't you think? Perhaps even suspicious. I mean, there's an odd smell to it. Look, Papa, all you really learned about Caelius from your interview with Clodia is that he borrowed some money from an older, richer woman-under false pretenses, to be sure-and failed to repay her. Oh, and that he happens to carry a knife on his person, which is technically illegal inside the city walls but done by most people with any common sense these days. Until very recently these two were lovers, and now she's after evidence to convict him of murder. What are we to make ofthat? Caelius was her brother's confidant, and now the two Clodii accuse him of being a hired assassin for King Ptolemy, or for Pompey, which is the same thing. Why, Clodius is Caelius's landlord-Caelius lives in that apartment just up the street from you."
I shook my head. "Not anymore. Clodius kicked him out." "When?"
"A few days ago. I didn't know about it until today when Clodius told me himself-standing there naked in the tent, dripping wet, nonchalantly discussing his real estate with me. Funny, the gallus and I walked by the place on our way to Clodia's house and when I saw that all the shutters were closed on such a warm day, I thought Caelius must be inside sleeping off a hangover. Instead it turns out that the apartment is empty. Caelius has gone back to live at his father's house on the Quirinal Hill-where he'll undoubtedly stay, until his trial is finished."
"Then they're definitely bringing charges against him?"
"Oh yes, charges have already been filed. But not by Clodius."
"Then by whom?"
"Can you guess?"
Eco shook his head. "Marcus Caelius has too many enemies for me to hazard a guess."
"The charges were filed by the seventeen-year-old son of Lucius Calpurnius Bestia."
Eco laughed and mimed with his outstretched arm. " 'Judges, I do not point the finger of guilt-I point at the guilty finger!' "
"So you know that story?"
"Of course, Papa. Everyone knows about Caelius accusing Bestia of poisoning his wives. I only regret that you and I were gone visiting Meto when that trial took place. I heard about it secondhand from Menenia."