The Blood of Caesar, page 13
part #2 of Pliny the Younger Series
“The vigiles said he wasn’t here when they made their first rounds. They found him a short while ago and came to get us. We need to know if anyone in your house knows anything about the matter.”
My mother, her shadow Naomi, and a number of my other slaves and freedmen were gathered in the garden by now. I turned to them. “Did anyone see or hear anything last night? Any sounds of a struggle? If you heard anything at all, it’s important to let the Cohorts know. Don’t be embarrassed if you were doing something you shouldn’t have been. No one will be punished.”
For my own sake I needed to know if any of them had an inkling of what I’d done.
They all shook their heads and looked at one another. Glaucon stood at the back of the crowd. How odd, I thought. He had to step over the body to climb up that wall, and yet he isn’t betraying a thing. I hope I look that calm. And I knew I would never be able to trust him again. If he could conceal this, he could conceal anything.
I turned back to the captain. “I’m afraid we can’t help you. Is there anything else?”
“Well, sir, there is the matter of this tunic.” He held up the garment. “It’s got the equestrian stripe on it, and you are equestrian, aren’t you, sir?”
“Yes, and so is someone in every house on this street.” I wondered if there was anything about my blood or my urine that might enable him to identify it as mine. But that was ridiculous. Blood is blood, and urine is urine. I couldn’t let myself panic. If I could remain calm for a few more minutes, the Cohorts would be gone.
“I was just wondering, sir, if the owner of this garment might be missing. It appears to belong to a smaller man. I don’t think the man who wore this could have killed the Cyclops by himself. There must have been others involved in whatever happened out here last night.”
Some of my anxiety eased when I heard him drawing such an erroneous conclusion. I wasn’t even tempted to brag that I’d done it alone. “That makes sense. And the tunic could have been stolen out of a bath house.” As long as he was on the wrong path, why not urge him to go a little farther along it, a little farther away from me?
He nodded. “Well, that’s certainly true. Happens a lot, doesn’t it? Still, sir, do you mind if I ...?” He stretched out the putrid garment, holding it by the shoulders and almost touching me with it. “That gives me some idea of the size of at least one of the fellows involved. But we don’t know if all the blood on this came from the Cyclops.”
“I’m the only one in my house who wears the stripe, and I’m fine, as you can see.” I held out my arms. “No scratches, no injuries of any kind.” As long as he didn’t look at my upper leg, which I had scraped badly in my scramble over the wall.
“Yes, sir. I see that. As soon as we search the house, we’ll be on our way.”
“Search the house? Why ...?”
“We have our orders, sir. We’re to search all the houses on this street.” He raised his voice to everyone in the garden. “All of you, go to your rooms now. Leave your doors open and stay there until we tell you you can leave. Sir, if you’ll just take a seat over there”—he pointed to the exhedra—“we’ll be done and out of your way as quick as we can.”
I stumbled to a couch. What could they be looking for, except the murder weapon? And that was right here on my table. Could I move it before anyone noticed it? I ran an eye over the table, then gasped in disbelief.
The knife was gone!
No, it couldn’t be. I dropped it right on top of the dirty dishes last night. Everything else was still there, right down to the mussel shells. But the knife was gone.
I wanted to get down on my knees and look under the table and the couches, but that would just attract the Cohorts’ attention. When none of them were looking at me, I scanned the ground under the table and the other couches. The knife simply wasn’t here. But it had to be here!
One of the Cohorts approached the exhedra, saluted me, and did a perfunctory search “I’ll need you to stand up, sir, so I can look under your couch.”
I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me, but I managed to move to another of the couches while the soldier ran his hand over and under the one I’d been sitting on. He lifted the pillow, patted it, and dropped it back in place.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
All I could hear was a voice in my head screaming, Where is that accursed knife?
Looking in bushes, the Cohort worked his way across the back of the garden toward my mother’s room.
“My lady,” he said, “please step out here.”
My mother complied and the soldier began tossing the blankets on her bed and pawing his way through her chest.
Running over to my mother’s side, I said, “Must you do that?”
“It’s orders, sir,” the soldier said without stopping. “Other squads are doing the same to every house on this street.”
Next came Naomi’s room. While I was in Syria Mother had given the slave woman the unusual privilege of a room next to her own. The soldier stood at the door and motioned for Naomi to come out, but she remained sitting on her bed.
“Forgive me for not getting up,” she said, placing a hand on her stomach, “but I am in my monthly.”
What happens to women each month is as much a mystery to me as the changing appearance of the moon. Roman men are taught to avoid contact with them at that time, and our women are taught to seclude themselves for a few days until the business is over.
The soldier hesitated. “I’ve at least got to ... look around in here,” he said. “Those are our orders: search every room.”
That was what he proceeded to do, looking in the small chest and in a box Naomi kept near the door. The whole time he kept himself as far away from her bed as he could.
It took almost an hour for the Cohorts to search the entire place. It would take my servants the rest of the day to clean up. Finally the captain gathered his men at my back gate. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, sir. If anyone in your house does recall anything pertinent, please let me know. We’re eager to reward the person who rid the city of this vermin.” He and his men turned to leave.
I didn’t believe he really meant to offer a reward, but I knew this was my last chance to confess what I had done. And what had I done, except defend myself against a vicious criminal? I had no choice. If I had hesitated for an instant, the man would have killed me. How could any court find me guilty? I’m no cold-blooded killer. I’ve never even had the heart to order one of my slaves whipped. But in a Roman court, anything might happen. I would have to admit why I was out in the streets alone at night.
As soon as Regulus heard that I suspected my scribe of having some sinister connection with him, he would probably prosecute me. For that matter, the Cyclops might have been one of Regulus’ men. Could that be why they were searching? Had Regulus used his influence with Domitian? If Regulus got involved, he could twist the whole situation around until I became the assailant and the Cyclops an innocent victim of my murderous rage. I once heard Regulus boast that his technique in court was to grab his opponent by the throat, like a hunting dog, and not let go until he brought him down.
No, I would not take that risk. There were no witnesses, no evidence—except for a missing knife—that I had done anything. The Cohorts were on their way out the door, satisfied that I knew nothing about the incident. If I could maintain my composure until they were gone, I would leave it at that.
Demetrius closed and bolted the door. I let out a slow breath and said, loudly enough for everyone in the garden to hear, “When you put the gardeners to work today, have them prune that vine over in the corner.”
“How far back do you want it cut, my lord?”
“All the way to the ground.”
IX
WHEN TACITUS ARRIVED for our trip out to Musonius’ villa the whole house was still buzzing with the news of the dead man found in the street. By then the story had him spurting blood the way Vesuvius spewed molten rock. The Urban Cohorts had carted the body away and I had set some of my slaves to scrubbing the street. I just wished I could wash the incident out of my memory that easily. But Tacitus wouldn’t let me.
“Why would they search your whole house?” he asked again as he watched my servants restoring order.
“They said they were searching all the houses on this street.”
“For someone who rid Rome of a villain like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. But neither does anything else that has happened to me in the last few days.
As we got a bite to eat before setting out, I scanned the exhedra for the missing knife. Even as addled as I was last night, I knew I had put it right on this table, on top of the other dishes.
“You seem distracted this morning,” Tacitus said.
“It’s all the uproar about that man being killed.”
“That’s understandable. In this part of town a dead body on your doorstep is unusual. I imagine in the Subura it would be a rare morning when you didn’t find one. And can you picture some fellow, stripped of his tunic, running from the scene? That story will be all over town by midday. I wonder if it’s anyone we know. Don’t you find that amusing?”
The horses I had rented arrived later than promised, so it wasn’t until mid-morning that Tacitus and I, accompanied by half a dozen of our slaves, were riding along the Via Flaminia. The road, one of Rome’s oldest, follows the Tiber north toward the Apennines. With the rain of the last few days the river glistened and the fields of wheat and other grains on either side of the road looked fat and well-watered.
But I hardly noticed the scenery. Not even helping Tacitus compose his speech—his first in a Roman court in over a year—could take my mind off of the man I killed last night, and the missing knife with my monogram on it. If there was anyone I ought to be able to talk to about what I’d done, it should be Tacitus. The jokes he’d made earlier, though, seemed to seal my lips. Would I ever be able to tell anyone what had happened? Did someone—the person who took the knife—already know?
Like a schoolboy memorizing a passage from Virgil, I kept going over the incident, hearing every word the Cyclops said. Most of it still chilled me. One thing puzzled me. Why had he referred to the slave woman Glaucon was servicing as ‘her ladyship’? I doubted a thug like that was capable of sarcasm.
“My lord, we’re approaching the tenth milestone,” one of my slaves observed.
That reminded me that I had to put aside my worries about last night and concentrate on my reason for this trip. Musonius never talked much about this villa, but he had once mentioned it was near the tenth milestone. What he had failed to mention was the two other villas within sight of that milestone. The inhabitants of the first house where we stopped directed us to Musonius’. His wasn’t actually on the Flaminia but about a mile west of it on a side road.
We turned off the side road onto a smaller sandy road, little more than a path, which wound for another half a mile or so through carefully tended olive groves. Unlike the other homes around it, Musonius’ appeared to be a true villa rustica, a working farm, not a pampered escape from a luxurious domus in Rome. Servants looked up from their tasks. I couldn’t understand the puzzlement, almost apprehension, I read in their faces. Several of them turned and ran as soon as they laid eyes on us.
“They don’t look pleased to see us,” Tacitus said.
I nodded. The servants on my estates are always happy to see visitors from the city. Their arrival promises a break in routine, more festive meals, a chance to catch up on gossip.
“They act like we’re invading the place,” I said.
“I wonder where they’ll set up their defenses,” Tacitus said.
We met the defenders when we came around a bend. A dozen men stood across the road, armed with swords and spears. As soon as we drew our horses to a halt, more men rushed out of the olive groves and blocked the way behind us.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I demanded. “I’m a friend of Gaius Musonius.”
The oldest man in the group facing us stepped forward. Though not particularly large, he had the stance of a former centurion. His hair, black with some gray salted in, was cut in the short legionary style. “Friend or not, sir, you were not invited to come out here.”
“Yes, I’m sorry to intrude, but I need to talk to Gaius Musonius.”
“He’ll be returning to Rome on the kalends of August. He’ll be happy to entertain you at his house in the city.”
“This matter can’t wait that long.”
“I have my instructions, sir. Gaius Musonius does not wish to have visitors on this estate.”
“Could you at least take a message to him, to see if he will talk to us? If I may ask him a few questions, then we’ll be on our way back to Rome.”
“I’m sorry, sir. He does not wish to have visitors here, for any reason. Now, I must ask you and your party to leave.”
He took my horse’s reins and tried to turn him around. The animal reared. I grabbed his mane and squeezed my knees against his sides, holding on for dear life. The other horses nickered, on the verge of bolting. None of my slaves are skilled riders.
Tacitus, the best rider among us, reached over, took my horse’s reins, and said something to calm him. When I had him under control again, I said to the centurion, “If you do not take a message to Gaius Musonius, I will tell him in August that you turned me away. When he hears what I wanted to ask him about, he will probably come out here the very next day and have you flogged for your incompetence.”
“I am a free man and a citizen, sir. But Gaius Musonius does not treat even his slaves that harshly.”
“If you turn me away, I promise you, you’ll feel his wrath, however he may express it.”
The man turned to the fellow next to him, hoping for guidance, I guess. Finding none in that blank round face, he searched for it on the ground, with his head down. Finally he looked back up at me and said, “Who are you, sir, and what is your message?”
“I am Gaius Pliny. My message is for Musonius only.” I signaled for the slave who was leading the horse that carried our supplies to come closer to me. Drawing a wax tablet from the bag, I wrote two words: Rubellius Plautus. Then I tied the cover over the tablet and sealed the knot with a bit of the wax and my ring.
The centurion took the tablet from me and gave it to one of the younger men behind him. “Maccius, carry this message to the house.”
Maccius, a wiry boy in his late teens with sweat already running from his curly black hair, nodded and set off running.
“He’s the fastest among us,” the centurion said. “He’ll be back shortly.”
While we waited, the centurion withdrew far enough from us to make it clear he had no intention of entering into a conversation. I wanted to dismount, but, with no mounting stone in sight, getting back on my horse would prove difficult, so I stayed put.
Tacitus guided his horse close to mine and leaned over to me. “We had an easier time getting into Domitian’s house,” he said.
“Then we had an invitation,” I reminded him.
“But I’ve never known a Roman of our class to be so hostile to guests. There is a certain degree of hospitality expected, even when a stranger shows up at your door.” He glanced around, jerking his head toward the men blocking the road behind us. “I don’t like this at all.”
“I agree. If it were anyone but Musonius, I’d be afraid we weren’t getting out of here.”
“I’m wondering why the Musonius you claim to know in Rome is so different from Musonius on his country estate. Why go to all this trouble unless you have something to hide? Something big.”
We heard Maccius’ footsteps pounding on the road before we saw him. He caught his breath and reported something to the centurion, who glanced at us in surprise, then stepped toward us and drew himself up straight.
“Gaius Musonius will allow you to come to his house. You must stay with us as we escort you. Your slaves will be taken to the servants’ quarters.”
I nodded my assent, not that our house slaves would likely resist, but Archidamos, the biggest and boldest of them, might. I made sure I caught his eye and nodded my head.
The two dozen or so men on foot surrounded us, cutting Tacitus and me off from our servants. We advanced about a quarter of a mile. When we came in sight of a house, the slaves were turned aside by the men walking with them. Tacitus and I proceeded to the house and drew our horses to a halt in front of it.
The place gave an impression of venerable age. If it were mine, I would have had the plaster patched and whitewashed several years ago. Sitting on a slight rise, it was a typical two-story Roman house, four sides enclosing a courtyard, but on each end of the house a two-story wing projected forward about ten paces with a portico joining them. Four steps led from the portico down to our level.
Musonius stood in the center of the portico, with a look on his face that betrayed uncertainty and displeasure. I’d never known him to be anything but affable. He wore a rough, unbleached tunic with no equestrian stripe or other decoration on it. Against the tan cloth his white hair and philosopher’s beard stood out much more than they did against the bleached garments he wore in Rome.
As I dismounted, Musonius stepped forward. His gait seemed slow, like that of a man in pain. “Gaius Pliny! This is most ... unexpected.” He might as well have said ‘unwelcome.’ His voice, usually so mellifluous and warm, conveyed that message clearly in its tightness.
“I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you, Gaius Musonius,” I said as we embraced. “There is something I need to ask you about. I didn’t feel it could wait until you returned to Rome.”
“So I gathered from your message. Before we engage in such a serious conversation, though, may I know the identity of your companion?”
I introduced Tacitus.
“Agricola’s son-in-law?” Musonius said in my ear. “Have you brought him here to hide him from Domitian?” I gasped at his candor. “He’s welcome if you have. Now, let’s eat in the courtyard while we talk.”
