The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Twenty-six

“I once knew a woman,” Pliny said to Marinus, “who suffered from falling fits. Hysteria she said it was. When it came on her she looked just like Aulus.”

“Ah yes, similar symptoms but quite a different cause. Your woman friend had a wandering womb, or, at least, that’s the common theory. Aulus’ case is much more difficult. I feel for the lad.”

“I think telling him about the Divine Julius cheered him up a bit,” said Suetonius.

The three had just returned from Fabia’s. They sat in Pliny’s office, waiting for the others to join them.

“Where do you get these gems of knowledge?” Marinus said testily. “I suspect you make them up.”

Suetonius was about to protest when in trooped the swaggering Aquila; Nymphidius, limping on his arthritic knee; Caelianus with precise, small steps; and Zosimus, following some steps behind and looking, as always, as if he were entering a club to which he didn’t belong.

Pliny briefed them on the morning’s revelations.

“Extraordinary,” Nymphidius said. “Sacred Disease? Secret cult? In all my years I’ve never heard—”

“It does sound like fiction, doesn’t it?” Suetonius interrupted. “Which reminds me of a thought I had the other day. To capture this whole mystery—when we solve it, that is—in a work of literature, something quite original. A story where the reader doesn’t know the solution until the very end. I don’t believe it’s ever been done before. You, of course, would be the hero of the tale, Gaius Plinius. I would play a small part. I think it would sell—”

Pliny stared at him without blinking. “You will do no such thing.”

“Yes, well, just a passing thought.” Suetonius fell into a coughing fit.

Marinus shot him a look of triumphant malice.

“Let us sum up what we know,” said Pliny carefully, “and what we don’t.” He spent a moment minutely arranging the objects on his desk— the ink stand and styluses, the small bust of Epicurus, the cameo portrait of Calpurnia. ’Purnia! It had once warmed his heart, this painting of her touching a stylus to her lips, gazing at him with her big, serious eyes; now he felt like he was looking at a stranger’s face. With an effort he dragged his mind back to the present.

“Glaucon feared he would be punished—by whom we don’t know—for killing a lion. He was worried enough to consult Pancrates’ oracle about it. We now know from what young Aulus has told us that ‘Lion’ was the title of a rank that Balbus held in an obscure cult. Glaucon and Balbus both owned the same astrology manual—obviously something required of the cult members. Balbus’ neck was broken. Glaucon had been a wrestler, notorious for his brutality. Ergo, Glaucon killed Balbus, and at a place and time that only another cult member would know of. The poor lad’s confession, while not true, is helpful. It allows us to visualize Balbus’ last moments. A rocky path bordered by dense bushes to conceal the assassin. Barely daybreak, the light still faint. Glaucon comes up behind Balbus as he struggles on the ground with his son, gets him in a wrestler’s hold around his neck—and at that very moment Aulus loses consciousness. If he saw anything at all, he doesn’t remember it now.

“The only problem is that we have no idea why Glaucon wanted Balbus dead. And then someone, who styles himself a ‘Persian’, killed Glaucon, evidently out of fear that the man was so troubled by what he had done that he might do something rash, like confess.”

Pliny paused and took a sip of wine.

“Glaucon’s death has opened an unexpected path; one that leads us away from our other suspects. First Silvanus. That man has more than enough motive—personal animosity, fear of exposure as a thief, and perhaps had the opportunity too. But unless we can connect him with Glaucon—which, on the face of it seems unlikely—then we have to remove him from the list of suspects. The same thing holds for Fabia and Argyrus. Did either of them know Glaucon, much less have such influence over him as to get him to commit a murder for them? With Glaucon dead, it’s difficult to prove that he did or didn’t know someone, but on the face of it all these people moved in quite different circles.”

“Unless Argyrus belonged to this cult too” Caelianus offered.

“That is a possibility,” Pliny replied, “and one worth exploring. Because that cult is the key to this.”

“Mithras,” said Suetonius, who had recovered his aplomb and could never resist displaying his knowledge. “An old Persian deity. The Cilician pirates, who terrorized Mare Nostrum two centuries ago are said to have worshipped him. But that’s ancient history.”

“And the Cilician pirates were allies of Mithridates!” said Aquila with a slap of his fist in his hand.

“Let’s not start that again,” Pliny said firmly. “I don’t believe this has anything to do with real Persians plotting to murder us in our beds.”

Aquila looked unconvinced.

“And if the cult is anti-Roman,” Pliny went on, “how could Balbus have belonged to it? The man may have been many things, but turncoat is surely not one of them.

“And yet,” said Nymphidius, “he was knowingly breaking the law by belonging to it. Wouldn’t this cult fall under Trajan’s ban on voluntary associations?”

“Indeed it does,” said Pliny, reminding them that Nicomedia was not even permitted a volunteer fire brigade. “Somehow, we must find out who the other members are. For all we know, they’re people we pass in the street every day. What do they do out in this cave of theirs? What purpose binds them together?”

“They’re a small group surely,” said Marinus. “The boy said there were seven ranks. Lion and Raven are two. Persian and presumably Bridegroom, Glaucon’s rank, are two others. Of course, there may be more than one holder of a given rank, but I’d guess there aren’t many more to be discovered. How many people can fit into a cave, after all?”

They sat for a minute in thoughtful silence.

“Where do we go from here then, Governor?” Nymphidius said at last.

“I’ll interview Glaucon’s brother again,” Pliny replied. “Is it conceivable that he knew Silvanus, or Argyrus? Who were his particular friends? Although Theron is so embittered that I don’t expect much cooperation on that front. And we’ll search for the cave.”

“A big task. The hillsides out that way are riddled with caves, so I’m told,” Nymphidius said.

“Nevertheless, we must try. It’s somewhere not far from where Balbus was killed. That leather merchant who brought us to the village where the horses were found. Aquila, go find him again. We’re going to need his villagers plus every soldier you can spare. Get started at once.”

Aquila stood and clapped his fist to his chest; happy to be doing something at last.

“And,” Pliny arched his back and stretched. “I can’t think of anything else. Unless one of you—”

“Who owns it?”

“What? What was that?”

Zosimus had been working up the courage to ask his question for some time.

“Owns what, my boy?”

“The land out that way, sir.”