The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Twenty-eight

The day before the Ides of November

The second hour of the night

Pliny and Suetonius trod carefully on the slick cobblestones of the crooked alley. A rivulet of liquid filth ran down the middle of it; rats squeaked and scuttled in its dark corners. The tottering buildings on either side nearly met above their heads. Their way was lit only by the flaring torch of the Night Watch slave who guided them. Behind them, Galeo and three other lictors dressed in dark-colored clothing loitered along the way, just close enough to come running if summoned. The damp stones, the sagging tenement walls of rotting timber and crumbling plaster, seemed to exhale a breath redolent of the toilet. Here, on the eastern outskirts of the city, was Nicomedia’s largest fullery, where vats of urine and burning sulfur were used in the process of cleaning and whitening cloth. Understandable how, living here, the smell might cling to your clothes, your hair. Doubtless, the inhabitants of the quarter had long since stopped noticing it.

Two days had passed since the meeting with the Persians. Pliny had summoned the city’s Night Watch—a score of public slaves, most of them elderly—who knew intimately the city’s every corner and cul-de-sac, every wine shop and cook shop and run-down bath house. He had promised a reward to whoever could track down a certain old foreigner, poorly dressed but haughty, living in the vicinity of a fuller’s establishment. He hadn’t hoped for much.

But then one of the slaves had come back that morning to report that the proprietor of a cook shop knew of a man answering the description. He would come in now and then for a plate of sausage or a bowl of broth, the man said. He was an old geezer who walked with the aid of a stick. He didn’t say much but his accent was foreign. He never gave his name. The cook shop man took him for a Jew, but he might be anything. He never mixed with the other customers but ordered the serving girl around as if she were his slave and even slapped her once when she was clumsy. Altogether, a nasty old piece of goods. The cook shop man thought he lived in an insula on the corner.

And so here they were, creeping up on the four-story apartment building, its plaster walls patchy and grimy with age, in what was almost certainly a pointless exercise. Pliny could believe that this was the Barzanes that Arsames’ father had known. But could such a person be the mover behind a secret cult to which the likes of Balbus and Glaucon had belonged? They would feel like fools when he turned out to be nothing more than a surly old eccentric.

It wasn’t the worst tenement Pliny had ever been in—that had been in Rome years ago when he was searching for a runaway murderer— but it was bad enough: dark and smoky and verminous, like all such places.

There was nothing to do but knock on the door of the ground floor apartment. It opened a crack and a man’s face, double-chinned and shiny with oil, peered out. The odor of cabbage, burnt oil, and garum escaped from the interior, and the sound of a baby crying. The man’s eyes widened, seeing the unfamiliar figures of two well-dressed men.

Did an old man live in the building? Foreign accent? Unfriendly?

“Him? Third floor.”

A cat fled before them as Pliny and Suetonius mounted the sagging stairs.

There was no answer to Pliny’s knock. He put his ear to the door. Did he hear someone breathing? He was almost sure he did.

“Barzanes?”

No sound. Then an explosive, hacking cough.

Pliny put his shoulder to the door; the bolt came away easily from the rotted door jamb.

He was ancient. Bent-backed like the letter C. A nimbus of white hair surrounded a face that was withered and spotted like an old apple. But the forehead was broad and the nose large and strong like an eagle’s beak. He might have been handsome once, even kingly. He wore a long-sleeved tunic which hung to his shins; a threadbare shawl around his shoulders. He steadied himself with his left hand on the back of his chair. In his right hand, which shook visibly, was a butcher knife. He held it in front of him

“Who are you?”

“I am the governor of this province. I mean you no harm, Barzanes, put the knife down, please.”

The man made no move to obey.

Pliny took in the room with a glance: a table with the remains of a meal on it, one chair, a smoking brazier, a narrow cot with a plain spread, a small wooden chest, a bookshelf with a few scrolls, a cupboard with some plain crockery, a rush mat on the floor. Clean, neat. But so bare. Surely this is not the man who purchases property for three thousand drachmas. He was almost tempted to turn and leave. He took another step into the room, Suetonius coming in behind him.

“You own a piece of land on which there is a cave where the rites of Mithras are conducted. I need to know precisely where that cave is and who are the members this cult.”

The knife sliced the air. “Get out! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no—” the words ended in a fit of coughing and the old man sank onto his chair. The knife clattered to the floor.

There was fear in those rheumy eyes, and understanding.

It is him. Pliny waited until the coughing fit ended.

“Two members of the cult, the Lion and Bridegroom, have been murdered, apparently by another member, the one called the Persian. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t deny it.”

He flung out an arm. “No one has been murdered. A riding accident, food poisoning.”

The shock was wearing off, the man gaining control of himself.

“You don’t believe that. Help me find this murderer. Or perhaps you already know, or can guess who it is. Maybe you should fear for your own life.”

The old man waved this away.

“You understand you are violating the law on illicit associations. I can prosecute you for that alone. I will overlook it in return for your cooperation. Come now, who is the Persian?”

The old eyes looked fierce. “No. I don’t know how you know what you do, but these are mysteries and you are not an initiate. You want to arrest me, torture me? Do so, by all means. It will take very little to separate my spirit from my body and send it flying up to the stars. Do you want someone to persecute?” The eyes narrowed now and there was a hint of a smile around the withered lips. “I know of some who worship a crucified criminal. They meet in secret on the day of the Sun and shamelessly imitate our own rites. And I’m told they refuse to sacrifice to the gods or the emperor. I can tell you where to find them.”

“I’ve dealt with Christians before,” said Pliny impatiently. “They are not my concern at the moment. You are. Now, listen to me, Barzanes.” There was no other chair in the room. Pliny pulled over the wooden chest and sat down on it. He brought his face close to the old man’s. “I know you aren’t an enemy of Rome like the Christians. I have no wish to persecute you. What if I were to become an initiate in your mysteries?”

The old man snorted.

“No, I mean it. I am a seeker of ancient wisdom. I’ve been initiated into the mysteries of Isis and the Eleusinian goddesses.” Pliny was never comfortable lying; he could almost feel Suetonius smirking behind his back. “If this Mithras is a great god, I want to know him. As does my friend here.”

He’ll take the bait. Pliny thought. Pancrates wouldn’t, he’s a swindler. But this man is a true believer. He wants to convert me.

Barzanes looked into Pliny’s eyes long and searchingly. “I am the Father,” he said at last. His bent back straightened, his chin came up. “I am sprung from the prophet Zoroaster. I preach eternal life through the life-giving blood of the Bull, slain by Mithras, the Unconquered Sun, the Light of Truth. He is young and strong, a god of soldiers. Only men are permitted to worship him. The Persians have known him since ancient times.” Barzanes’ voice was hoarse with age but there was still power in it; the accent foreign, but the Greek excellent. Once, it might have been a commanding voice, even stirring.

“I’ve spoken to the Persians,” said Pliny. “They don’t know you.”

“I have nothing to do with them, they worship Mithras in their own way. My mission is to the Greeks, and even to you Romans. And I am not alone. There are others of us in every corner of your empire, even in Rome itself, who even now are spreading the Faith. One day soon the whole world will know the power of my god. You want to be initiated? First, you must master the science of the stars. You must pay a fee. You must prepare yourself by fasting and purification—”

“I say,” Suetonius spoke for the first time, sniffing and wrinkling his nose. “I would have thought a prophet might live in a sweeter-smelling part of town.”

Great Zeus, Pliny cursed silently, shut up!

But the spell was broken.

Barzanes blinked. His head swung from Pliny to Suetonius and back. “You’re lying! You think you’re clever. You’ve only cheated yourselves. Get out.”

Pliny drew a deep breath and stood up. “All right, old man. I leave you with this warning. These rich and powerful men whom you’ve somehow attracted—don’t trust them. They are drawing you into more trouble than you will ever be able to get out of. Think about that, and then come and talk to me.”

“I am sorry,” said Suetonius as they emerged into the street. “Couldn’t help myself. The pretentious old fool. I hate these filthy barbarian cults.”

“No more than I do,” said Pliny. “Well, what’s done is done. But I think we’ve stung him. He won’t sit still now. He’ll make a move.”

He spoke to his lictors, who were waiting outside. “Galeo and Marius will wait here tonight, across the alley where you can watch the building without being seen. I’ll send men to relieve you in the morning. You’re watching for an old man who walks with a stick. Wherever he goes, follow him.”

***

Barzanes sank onto his chair and stared at the open doorway. He took a rattling breath and tried to still his heart. It fluttered like a trapped bird in his breast. Another fit of coughing seized him and brought tears to his eyes. Too old, I’m too old. I’ll die before my work is done.

Was it possible, what the Roman said? The Persian a murderer? For what possible reason? He wouldn’t believe it. But could it be? He must tell this to the Sun-Runner. He would go to see him in the morning. Risky, to meet outside the cave, they seldom did it, but now he must.

He struggled to his feet and went to shut the door. Seeing that the bolt was broken, he pushed the chest, the small box that contained his few possessions, up against it. The effort brought on another fit of coughing. Then he took his plate from the table and scraped the uneaten bits of bread and cheese out the window and tossed out the lees from his cup of vinegary wine. He closed the shutter and latched it against the night vapors. He shivered. The night was cold and his watery blood had no warmth in it. The coals that glowed in the brazier hardly sufficed to warm the little room. He lowered himself onto his cot and removed his sandals and foot cloths. He rubbed his thin shanks to bring a little warmth to them. He put the butcher knife under his pillow as he always did. He blew out the lamp and eased himself under the covers, his ankles, like sharp stones, grated one on the other.

He had been strong once, equal to the hardest labors. When he and his four brothers—all of them so many years dead—had come here from Commagene, on fire to spread the gospel of Mithras. He remembered how they had bought a piece of worthless land, honeycombed with caves, and with their own hands had fashioned it to their purpose. How, with masons tools and paint and plaster, they had made the image of their beautiful god in the act of slaying the bull; how they had painted the mystery of the zodiac on the walls and ceiling. How they had sought converts—secretly, quietly; only a few, but all of them rich men, important men. Men who gave generously to the work of spreading the Faith. And if they served their own purposes as well, if they conspired to break Roman laws in the privacy of the cave, well, what did that matter to him? And they offered to make him rich too, but he had never taken a drachma for himself. It was all for Mithras: to send missionaries, others from the royal clan of Commagene, to the West, to the army camps—because Mithras was a soldier’s god—and to the great City itself, the beating heart of the Empire. To this great purpose he had devoted his life; he had taken no wife, fathered no children. And he would not live to see it, but someday tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of men would worship at the altar of his god.

Barzanes lay, lost in his memories, waiting for sleep to come. He heard the ceiling creak as the family that lived above him made ready for bed—a laborer in the fullery and his slattern wife and their four snotty-nosed brats who loved to taunt him. He heard some drunken late-night revelers shouting in the street outside. He heard—what? The chest grating on the floor, his door opening?

“Who is it? Who’s there?” The Romans again? He fumbled for his knife under the pillow.

The shadow, black against black, came at him swiftly. He struck out with the knife and felt the point graze his attacker’s cheek. Then powerful fingers found his throat, a hand covered his mouth. He felt the assassin’s hot breath on his face. He kicked out with one leg, knocking over the brazier, spilling the coals onto the mat of dried rushes.

By the time he was dead, the room was in flames.

Pliny and Suetonius had scarcely arrived back at the palace when Galeo, panting from having run all the way, caught up with them. They returned at once to find the building ablaze, smoke pouring from its windows, flames shooting up through the roof. The inhabitants of the street were fetching buckets of water from the fullery and flinging them uselessly on the flames. The old wooden structure burnt like tinder. Pliny recognized the man whose door he had knocked on standing in the crowd with his wife and baby. The flames lit up his oily face.

“Where are the others, man?”

Tears ran down the man’s cheeks. “The couple on the second floor got out, and us. The family on the fourth—all those children…”

“The old man on the third?”

He shook his head. “The stairway was all flame.”

Pliny stayed through the night, supervising the bucket brigade, and sent Suetonius back to the palace to fetch Aquila and a squad of soldiers. It would be daylight before the fire burned itself out.

He questioned Galeo and Marius. They had seen a man enter the building, they assumed he lived there. He must have run out with the others who escaped, they couldn’t be sure.

***

The Sun-Runner was grim-faced. “Idiot! Was is necessary to burn the building down?”

The man held a bloody rag against his cheek. “Was an accident,” he mumbled. “Just as well, though. Covers our tracks.”

“It was supposed to look like the old man had a heart attack. It’s hardly likely that he set his room on fire.”

“Could have.”

“Let’s hope the Romans are stupid enough to think so.”

“My silver, sir?”

The Sun-Runner tossed a bag of coin which the man caught in one hand. “Go get your face looked at, you’re dripping blood on the floor.”

The Sun-Runner poured himself a goblet of wine and drained it in one gulp. He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed to think. Sad, of course, that the Father had to die, but there was no alternative. Sooner or later the Romans would get the old man to talk—if he hadn’t already. It was a risk the Sun-Runner couldn’t afford to take. And the cult had clearly outlived its usefulness. Mithras, he hoped, would be understanding. Mithras who eternally plunged his dagger into the bull’s throat.

More blood than that would be spilled before this was over.