The Blood of Caesar, page 12
part #2 of Pliny the Younger Series
“Because I matter to them.” Her voice seemed stronger, more alive, than it had since my uncle’s death. “Naomi was a great comfort to me while you were in Syria. We discovered we have so much in common. She has only the one son, but she lost a daughter when the girl was an infant, just as I did. We’ve calculated that both of our little girls would have been eighteen now. Then Naomi lost her husband and was taken in by her brother, just as I was. Now she’s lost her brother, as I did, violently and unexpectedly. You may not have thought about it, but you and Phineas have lived very similar lives as well.”
I drew back in shock. “How can you compare my life to a slave’s?”
“It’s true,” she insisted. “Phineas lost his father when he was three, the same age you were when your father died. He was raised by his uncle, as you were, like a son. Now his uncle has died tragically, just as yours did.”
“Mother, people die and families take care of one another. The law expects them to. This story must be repeated a thousand times over every year. Why should an imaginary parallel arouse any sympathy in me for this ... Phineas?” I forced the crude sound through my lips.
She fixed her eyes on me. “Because I know you have a good heart, Gaius. You are your father’s son, and you were raised by my brother. Two finer men never lived. Your uncle died trying to save people from Mt. Vesuvius. You’ve told me he is your exemplar.”
I looked to Tacitus for help, but he was focusing all his attention on opening a mussel with a knife. “What do you expect me to do, Mother?” I finally said.
“Find out who killed Menachem.” Her voice was soft and all the more compelling. “Naomi and Phineas are powerless to do anything. Does that mean they can’t know what happened to someone they loved? They’re slaves, yes, but they’re also human beings. Don’t they have the right to know?”
When did she become a Stoic philosopher? I wondered. But she was only urging me to do something I wanted to do for my own reasons.
“All right, I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Thank you, dear. And, Cornelius Tacitus, will you help him? I know this could be a dangerous business.”
“I promise I’ll do my best, lady Plinia, to keep your Gaius out of trouble.”
I almost threw a piece of bread at him.
“Thank you,” my mother said. “Thank you both.”
We talked for a bit longer about the events of the last few days. My mother pressed me to explain why Domitian had come to our house. Even as I evaded her questions, I wondered again if there was any connection between that visit and Menachem’s death, especially in light of what I now knew about the mason’s relationship with Regulus and his visits to Nero’s Golden House, but I did not voice my concern.
The day’s exertion finally did overtake my mother. With her head cradled on her arm, she dropped off to sleep. If she hadn’t been snoring gently, I might have worried about her.
“Get Ni ... Naomi,” I told Aurora. “Tell her to come to my mother’s room to prepare her for bed.”
“Yes, my lord.” She seemed to know whom I meant. I wondered how long this change of names had already been in effect in the women’s part of the house. The transition would be easy to make. Someone who had a cold would pronounce both names about the same.
When I picked up my mother to carry her to her bedroom, she felt as light as a child in my arms.
Naomi was waiting for me in my mother’s room. She didn’t say anything until I had laid my mother on the bed. Then she dropped to her knees. “My lord,” she said in a hushed voice, “thank you for your kindness to my son earlier this evening. You had every right to punish him. He has a rebellious spirit, I know. I’ve tried to teach him to appreciate how kind you and your uncle have been to us, but—”
I took her hands and pulled her to her feet. I don’t like people kneeling in front of me as though I were some sort of god. “This isn’t necessary. Just take good care of my mother. I do want to talk with you some more about today’s events. For now, you tend to my mother. And, again, I am sorry for the loss of your brother.”
“Thank you, my lord. Thank you.”
I leaned over and kissed my mother on her forehead.
* * * *
Tacitus was ready to leave when I returned to the garden.
“Would you be willing to join me on a trip tomorrow?” I asked. “Just for the day.”
“Certainly, as long as it gets me out of the house. As the old poet Semonides said, ‘You cannot enjoy any day when you must spend it, from beginning to end, with your wife.’ Where are we going?”
“Out to Musonius’ villa.”
“All that way? Why?”
“He’s the only person named in Agrippina’s letter that we know is still alive. And he’s the only person we know who met Agrippina and had some connection to a relative of hers. I want to ask him some questions in confidence.”
After Tacitus left I sat under the trellis in the garden a while longer, sipping some wine, looking at the bust of my uncle, and trying to find any pattern that would make sense out of all that had happened over the past couple of days. My slaves came out to clear the table. Not wanting to be disturbed, I told them to leave it until morning, so they extinguished the torches and lamps and wished me a good night.
Because of the heavy clouds that still hung over the city, there was no light from the moon or stars. The darkness that surrounded me in my garden was as dense as the darkness engulfing me in this search for a missing, possibly non-existent, book. There was one difference, though. I could walk across my garden in the dark without bumping into anything because I knew it so well. But everywhere I turned in the search for Agrippina’s unedited memoir, I seemed to trip over some problem or question, like a hidden tree root. Had Titus forged the letter Domitian showed me? Did the letters on the back of it mean anything? What had Maxentius—or Menachem—seen in Nero’s Golden House that made him a threat to Domitian? Had Domitian arbitrarily killed him? And why was my own scribe coming out of Regulus’ house?
The only theme I could find emerged from the mocking words of the seer Tacitus’ wife had consulted: If you go up the Palatine Hill, your life will never be the same.
It was late, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I went to bed, so I sat under the trellis, quiet and still, for so long that I lost track of time. Eventually I heard the voices of people going home from a dinner party. Then two nightwatchmen, the vigiles, passed on their rounds, chatting quietly, marking the end of the first watch of the night.
As soon as the watchmen’s voices had faded, a figure in a hooded cloak emerged from the front of the house and hurried across the garden. I had my mouth open to call him to a halt, if it was a man. Then I decided it was more important to know where this person was going. Servants do sneak out. Every master knows it. Even if we post guards, we can’t stop them, since the guards are likely to turn a blind eye, if they aren’t the ones sneaking out themselves. It’s usually harmless, resulting in nothing more serious than an inconvenient pregnancy somewhere in the neighborhood. But, given my present state of anxiety, if one of my servants was sneaking out, I wanted to know who, and I wanted to know where he was going and why.
The figure kept to the edge of the garden, where the shrubbery was thicker, and crouched down, moving with the assurance of someone who knew the path well. He opened the door in the back wall of the garden, paused as he checked to make sure the street was empty, then went out and eased the door shut.
I climbed the trellis and boosted myself up so I could see over the back wall, which is almost twice my height. The figure was walking up the hill, toward Regulus’ house.
Dropping to the ground and picking up the knife Tacitus had used to open the mussels, I let myself out the rear door. For a moment I feared I had already lost sight of the figure. The way his cloak and hood blended into the walls, and with everything turning gray due to the lack of moonlight, I had to peer intently to pick him out.
As I took the first few steps, something felt odd. Then I realized this was the first time I had ever been out of my house in Rome without an escort of my slaves or clients. In some districts I would have been dead by now. Once the sun goes down the streets of Rome belong to people who have no regard for law, no respect for life or property. Traveling in a group is the only way to guarantee one’s safety.
But I was alone, absolutely alone. I gripped the knife tightly.
The hooded figure paused near one of the servants’ doors at the back of Regulus’ house. Someone, also wearing a cloak and hood, came out, kissed him, and took his hand. Judging by the blonde hair peeking out from under the hood, I assumed the second figure was a woman.
So that was all it was—a clandestine flirtation with a servant from another house. I might as well go home. The risk of being out on the streets alone at night wasn’t worth spying on one of my servants and his paramour. I could roust someone at home and put him on guard at the back door so I could learn the identity of the man in the hood. Tomorrow morning I would chastise him soundly and that would be the end of it, until he sneaked out again. I almost laughed at myself for being worried about something so insignificant in the midst of all the other questions confronting me.
But a voice inside me said, This isn’t just any other house. Someone in your house is involved with someone from Regulus’ house.
As the two figures climbed farther up the hill I followed them, pressing myself so close to the walls of the houses that I felt like I was part of the graffiti I was rubbing against. I kept them in sight until they reached an entrance to the Gardens of Maecenas. The woman kissed the man again, put her hand on his crotch, and laughed—a low, hungry noise. Then I lost sight of them as they entered the Gardens.
Maecenas, the friend of Augustus, established these Gardens over a century ago. Occupying about half of the top of the Esquiline and open to everyone, they provide a cool, pleasant spot where even the poorest citizens can find some relief from the heat and crowding of the city. When I entered the Gardens I was immediately aware that the hooded couple weren’t the only people there. I gripped my knife more tightly as I heard rustling and whispering in the bushes around me.
The couple found a relatively private spot near the old city wall, which runs through the Gardens. I crouched behind a statue of Priapus—appropriately enough—and watched.
The woman kept her back to the man. He put his arms around her, almost as though he was taking her captive, then removed her cloak. Underneath it she was nude. With one hand he cupped her breasts while the other hand ran down her stomach. He kissed her neck, and I could hear her moaning. He pushed her to the ground. Breathing heavily, she fell on her knees and elbows. Because of the shrubbery, the lower part of her body was all I could see. The pale skin of her slender hips and legs stood out against the dark wall behind her. The man threw off his own cloak and I saw my scribe, Glaucon, ready to mount the woman.
The women in my own household consider Glaucon quite handsome. He does not appear to be as old as he is, and he wears his hair foppishly long on his neck and just over his ears. Apparently his admirers formed an even wider circle. This might account for some of the arrogance the man displays, a characteristic which seems to make him even more appealing to women. If he were not Dymas’ son, I would have little patience with him.
I was relieved to see that he was involved in nothing more sinister than some surreptitious coupling. But was this all there was to it? If he had this kind of connection—I immediately regretted my own choice of words—how could I be sure he wasn’t involved with Regulus’ household in some other way? Could he be one of Regulus’ spies?
Those were questions I would rather consider in the safety of my own home. The furtive noises I heard around me seemed to be passing the word, He’s alone. He can’t defend himself.
I walked back down the hill as quickly as I could. I would have run, but someone running on pavement makes too much noise. When I reached my house I pulled on the door, but it held fast. I yanked it again. It was barred!
Demetrius, faithful steward that he is, must have made a final check of the doors before going to bed. What could I do now? I couldn’t pound on the door and waken someone. To do that would be to admit I had been out spying on one of my slaves. I would never have any authority in my household once they heard about that. My only consolation was that Glaucon was going to be surprised, too. He must have been counting on everyone being asleep so no one would notice the door being left unbarred for a short while.
Or he knew some other way in.
As I considered how I might gain entry to my own house I heard a noise behind me. Before I could react, something collided with me. A heavy, hairy arm grabbed me around the chest, pinning my arms, and a filthy hand clamped over my mouth. “If you squawk,” a man’s deep voice snarled, “I’ll snap your scrawny neck.”
The strength in the hand made me believe he could do it. I tightened my grip on my knife and struggled briefly. The man almost lifted me off the ground.
“So, you sneak out of the master’s house and they lock the door on you.” He laughed viciously in my ear and tightened his grip, almost squeezing the breath out of me. “They’ll miss you tomorrow, but nobody’ll know where you went, ’cause you didn’t tell anybody you was goin’, did you? You’ll fetch a nice price. Pretty young one like you. Did you have fun watchin’ them two?” He moved his left arm lower, reaching for my crotch. “I hope you enjoyed it, lad, ’cause they’ll take a knife to you and before long you’ll be spreadin’ your cheeks just like her ladyship back there. And your voice will be as high as hers.”
The man was taller than me. I could feel his chin on the back of my head. As the arm around my chest moved lower, he had to relax his grip on my right arm. The hand stopped when it ran across the equestrian stripe sewed onto my tunic. He gripped it and pulled it up to where he could see it over my shoulder. That let me glimpse his face out of the corner of my eye. It was a brutal face, made even uglier by the patch he wore over his right eye.
“May the gods help me!” he gasped. “I thought you was a slave. What’s a lord doin’ runnin’ around in the streets by himself at night?”
I wanted to make him an offer. If he would let me go and help me get into my house, I would forget the whole incident. But his hand clamped tighter over my mouth.
“No choice now, though. I have to kill you.”
He started to twist my neck, but, in his instant of hesitation, I threw my arm over my shoulder, plunging the knife into him with all the force I could gather. I didn’t care where it struck him. He made a gurgling noise and pulled me down to the pavement with him as he collapsed.
For a moment his arms locked more tightly around me, then began to loosen. When I pushed him off of me I could feel my tunic sticking to me. I pulled it off and found it soaked in my urine and the villain’s blood, spurting from the wound in his neck. He twitched a few more times, then went limp. I wiped the blood off my arm and off the knife and dropped my tunic beside him. I would have dropped the knife, too, but it had my initials carved in the handle.
By the gods! What was I to do now? Locked out of my own house, standing naked in the street, with a man dead by my own hand at my feet.
I ran my hands over the wall of my house. If some of my servants were in the habit of sneaking out at night, they must have a way of getting back in. They couldn’t always rely on the door being unbarred.
At the point where my house joined my neighbor’s, I found it. My neighbor’s house protruded beyond mine about the span of a hand. The surface of his wall and mine at that point was rough enough to offer a few toeholds, and one of the vines in my garden had grown over the wall. With the knife in my teeth I managed to scale the wall, work my way over to the trellis and climb down it into my garden.
I dropped the knife back on the table with the other dirty dishes, alarmed at how much clatter it made. Suddenly I knew I had to wash myself. I could feel that bastard’s hands all over me, and his blood. At this hour the bath was out of the question. I was sure to wake somebody if I went in there, so I ran to the piscina, plunged in and submerged myself several times.
Then I grabbed what was left of the wine from dinner, went to bed and lay there shivering uncontrollably until the wine ...
* * * *
“My lord.” Demetrius’ voice was loud, almost as loud as the pounding in my head. “My lord, forgive me, but you’re needed in the garden.”
Still naked, I opened the door only far enough to peer around it. The sun wasn’t fully up yet. “What is it?”
“There’s been some trouble in the street behind the house, my lord. The Urban Cohorts are here to talk to you about it.”
“To me? Why do they want to talk to me?” I’d better start playing innocent from the first moment.
“I don’t know, my lord. But they insist on seeing you.”
“All right, just a moment.” I closed the door and fumbled in the dark to find a tunic. This will be the end of me, I thought. Arrested for murder. What will happen to my mother? I used the chamberpot. I didn’t want to soil another garment.
The captain of the Cohort for our region of the city stood at my back door, accompanied by four other members of the guard. Over his arm he had draped a bloody, urine-stained equestrian’s tunic. My tunic. I willed myself to stay calm.
“Good morning, sir,” the captain said. “I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I need to ask if anyone in your household knows anything about the murder of this ruffian.” He stood aside so I could see the body lying in the street. I forced myself to glance at it with as much surprise and disgust as I could muster. The size of the pool of blood surrounding him did genuinely amaze me.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He called himself the Cyclops,” the captain said, “because of his size and that patch over his eye. He was one of the worst villains in Rome, capable of anything.”
As I could testify. “Do you know when this happened?”
