The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Twelve

The mounted column, with Pliny at its head, left the city at the ninth hour of the day, taking the road, at a walking pace, north-east up into the foothills. According to the leather merchant, who now guided them, the village lay about eighty stades—ten Roman miles—away. With luck they should reach it by nightfall. Suetonius and Zosimus had urged him to wait until tomorrow before setting out, but Pliny would not be delayed any longer than it took to gather supplies for an overnight journey and bid a hasty farewell to Calpurnia. A dozen cavalry troopers, commanded by Aquila, and a lumbering wagon for their tents went with them.

The sky had been overcast all day and now the wind rose, thunder rumbled in the mountains, and a slanting rain drove in their faces. Shrunk inside their traveling cloaks, they urged their horses on. The ground rose steadily. Soon the paved, poplar-lined road dwindled to a dirt track and then to a barely visible forest path, dark with the shade of overhanging trees. In these dense woods of fir and oak and beech, branches shuddered in the wind and whipped at their faces, dripping ferns and bracken soaked their knees. The horses’ hooves sank fetlock deep in a wet carpet of fallen leaves. Their nostrils steamed in the watery air.

The temperature dropped steadily as the day waned. Pliny shivered and felt the breath congeal in his lungs. His uncle had died from a weakness of the lungs. It was a deadly family infirmity that he had inherited. Maybe he should listen to the others and turn back, the weather might clear tomorrow. But then the leather merchant’s wife might have time to warn her kinsmen. No. Press on.

***

Calpurnia stood in the middle of the dining room, supervising the fresco painters who were reproducing her sketches on the wall panels. The shutters shook as gusts of wind hurled the rain against them. Ione, at her side as always, studied her with an appraising eye.

“’Purnia, this is your chance.”

Calpurnia pushed back a tendril of hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Add more cinnabar, Lysias, I want a deeper red there.”

“It’s been nearly two weeks since you’ve seen Agathon. Four days since his slave brought you the letter begging to see you. Have pity on the boy. You could go to him today.”

Calpurnia turned on her savagely. “Stop this! I should have you whipped for talking like this.”

Ione regarded her steadily. “If it makes you feel better.”

“I threw the letter away and that’s the end of it.”

“If you say so.”

“Ione, please. I can’t. I can’t. Lysias, go away, take the others with you, we’ll start again tomorrow. Ione, you’re like Nemesis luring me to my doom.”

“I don’t know about that, I’m not an educated woman, but I know something about love.”

“Love! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I see you pining away before my eyes. My husband notices. So does yours.”

“By the gods, what would you have me do?”

“Only what you did before. Drink wine, laugh together, draw your pictures, maybe a small philema or two.” The Greek word for ‘kiss’ sounded somehow more innocent. “Nothing wrong in that.”

Calpurnia groped for a chair and sank into it with her face in her hands. She drew in a long breath through her nostrils and let it out slowly. “Could I? Could I, really?”

Ione pulled her mistress’ hands away and looked in her eyes, luminous with tears. “Poor ’Purnia. How long will you punish yourself like this? Come with me, now. I’ll bathe you and fix your hair and dress you—your saffron gown and the silver sandals, your amethyst earrings. I’ll make you so beautiful for him.”

The palace in which they lived was an ancient pile that sprawled over half an acre and much of it was empty and unguarded. At dusk they slipped out a door in an unused wing. Wrapped in their cloaks, the two women ran through the dark, rain-lashed streets. Calpurnia felt herself moving as in a dream, helpless as though some other will than her own were animating her.

“Hey, you there, stop!” A figure lurched out from the shadow of a doorway and blocked their path. “Come on, ladies, I pay you good. I like two at a time.” Dressed in dripping rags, the figure staggered toward them. They rushed past him, spilling him into the gutter. “Filthy whores!” he shouted after them. “Filthy whores!” They hurried on, missing a turn in the dark, groping their way back, coming at last to the steps that led up the hillside to the town house, treacherous in the dark and wet. Calpurnia slipped, bruising her knee. But the pain was nothing, she was at his door now. His door! Moments passed while she pounded on it. At last the housekeeper answered her knock and recognized her.

Leaving Ione in the entrance hall, Calpurnia followed the old woman into the megaron.

“Callirhoe!” Agathon turned in surprise and opened his arms wide. “I never hoped to see you again! You nearly missed me, I was just—”

“Going out?” She recognized his best cloak and tunic, smelled the scent in his oiled hair. “To spend the night drinking with your friends? I’m sorry, this was a mistake, I’ll go.” She heard the shrill accusation in her voice—like some shrewish wife. Of course, he had his own life. What did she think?

He stood back and smiled his crooked smile. “You’ve saved me from an evening of dissipation with dull companions, for which I thank you. Don’t be angry. It’s you who have avoided me, you know. What has changed your mind?”

What could she say? That she was a desperate, foolish woman? That her own maid had persuaded her to do what she knew she mustn’t? That she loved him to distraction and was past caring what happened? All she could do was look at him with pleading eyes.

Agathon saw her confusion. He took her hand and drew her down onto a chair and sat beside her. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here. Baucis,” he turned to his housekeeper, “bring us wine and something to eat. Give the excellent Ione something too. I see her lurking there in the doorway.”

Calpurnia drank off her cup in one draught and poured another. She needed it for courage. She had made up her mind.

“Steady now,” Agathon laughed. “I don’t want to have to carry you home tonight.”

“I needn’t go home tonight.” It was the merest whisper.

He raised an eyebrow. “Your husband’s away again?”

She nodded.

“For how long this time?”

“I don’t know.”

“And so you…?” He drew closer to her. “Are you sure, my love? Are you quite sure?”

She filled her hands with his hair and kissed him with a passion that was close to anger.

And now he had picked her up, and now he was carrying her up the stairs to his bed chamber, and now his breath was on her cheek, his weight pressing on her, his hands under her gown…

“May as well finish off this wine, then.” Baucis eased her old bones down onto Agathon’s chair and motioned Ione to the other one. “Not a wise woman, your mistress. She’s laying up a store of misery with that one. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”

“We women are never wise,” Ione smiled over her wine cup.

“And you’re playing a risky game too, my girl. This could all come crashing down on your head.”

“I’m only a servant, I do what I’m told.”

The old woman leaned close and gave her a searching look. “I’ve been a house slave all my life and I’ve seen more than one pretty young thing like you come to grief. They meddle in their masters’ affairs for many reasons—idleness, wantonness, ambition, jealousy, vengeance. I wonder which is yours.”

Ione met her gaze with a face like a mask, revealing nothing. “You think too much, old woman.”

***

They descended on the village at nightfall like an attacking army. Pliny was no soldier, he left such things to Aquila, who only knew one way to deal with barbarians. The village was a haphazard sprawl of thatched huts, huddled around a muddy clearing and surrounded by a flimsy palisade of wattles. The troopers burst through, yelling and brandishing torches, kicking in doors and dragging people out. Amid the screams of women and children, the bleating of goats, and the honking of geese, they shouted commands in Latin to frightened, uncomprehending faces.

Eventually, they identified the village headman, a skeletal old man who looked ready to fall down with fright. The leather merchant, who was looking unhappier by the minute, pointed out the two men, a father and son, who had brought him the saddle. They were hanging back in the crowd, trying not to be noticed: it was obvious why the Romans were there. Pliny and his officers crowded into the headman’s hut to be out of the rain while the troopers stationed themselves around the palisade. The headman understood a few words of Greek and the leather merchant spoke a little of the country people’s dialect. In this way Pliny interrogated the two.

While out hunting, they said, they had found two tethered horses in a wooded clearing. They saw no sign of the riders, they hadn’t killed them, they swore it by all their gods. When they saw the horses, they couldn’t believe their good fortune—these were fine animals, especially the grey with the beautiful saddle. Yes, the horses were here, with the one saddle which wasn’t so fancy. They were sorry. They begged for their lives.