The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Three

That night. The villa of Marcus Vibius Balbus

Balbus snapped his fingers. Thick fingers covered with coarse hairs. Fingers that in their day had gripped a centurion’s vitis, bringing it down hard across the shoulders of any legionary who didn’t jump to attention quick enough. Fingers that lately wielded nothing heavier than a stylus—but even a stylus was a weapon in those fingers. Marcus Balbus snapped his fingers and a young slave boy ran up to refill his goblet.

“More wine, Governor?”

Pliny, reclining beside him in the place of honor, hastily covered his cup with his hand. He’d drunk too much already. Balbus preferred his wine unwatered and forced his guests to do the same.

“Another bite of turbot?” He held out the morsel dripping with sauce on the point of his knife. Eat.” It was very nearly a command. Balbus’ face, square, brown, and hatched as a chopping block, leaned close, smiling unpleasantly. He was a man made entirely of bone and gristle, a man who kept himself fit, with big-knuckled hands and a shock of stiff red hair speckled grey. Gaulish blood there somewhere, Pliny imagined, or even German.

Pliny waved the food away. The dishes were all too sauced and spiced for his frugal tastes. And he would not allow this man to bully him. After a long moment, Balbus withdrew his hand and shrugged.

Conversation, which had died momentarily, resumed with pretended gaiety. There were nine of them at table, the usual number for a triclinium. In addition to Pliny and Calpurnia, the guests included Suetonius, who was always reliably entertaining at affairs like this; two wealthy Roman merchants, one accompanied by his wife, and a man named Silvanus, who was Balbus’ chief accountant. The merchant’s wife seemed to know Calpurnia and conversed with her throughout the evening with great animation. “Thrilled to see you again…this morning…a god…miraculous man…you must ask him…yes, a snake…” Calpurnia had that fixed smile on her face that meant she was bored to tears.

Again Balbus brought his battered face close to Pliny and said in a whisper that was meant to be heard around the table, “We’ve met before, you know, you and I.”

“Have we? I’m afraid I—”

“Don’t remember my face? Well, I was younger and handsomer then, and I was only one of many. The night before Emperor Domitian was murdered. I was a Praetorian Guardsman then. We paid you a little visit, didn’t we? Almost cost you your life, didn’t it? And your charming wife’s.” He smiled at Calpurnia the way a crocodile smiles.

Pliny felt the blood drain from his face. That was a night that still, after fourteen years, haunted his dreams. And Calpurnia’s. And why was Balbus mentioning it now? To make him squirm, why else? Suetonius shot Pliny a worried look. Calpurnia felt for his hand.

Pliny drew a long breath. “Those were difficult days, my friend. Thank the gods we live in happier times.”

Eager noises of assent around the table. Then Fabia, Balbus’ wife, a big-boned woman all bosom and jewels, hastily changed the subject to her favorite, her only, topic of conversation.

“These Greeklings,” she said, “scoundrels every one of them. They don’t love us.” She spoke in a fluting, gentrified Latin that didn’t quite disguise something foreign in the accent—Thracian, it was rumored. Pliny had heard that she concealed barbarian tattoos under her clothing. He could almost believe it.

“No reason why they should,” he answered mildly.

“We’ve brought them peace, haven’t we?”

“Peace, lady Fabia, has never been what they wanted. If the Empire were to disappear tomorrow they would all be fighting each other again and loving it.”

“Strange words for a governor,” Balbus struck in.

“I’m a realist. They pay a high price for Roman peace as you, of course, would know, Procurator.”

Balbus eyed him suspiciously. “Is there a question buried in that remark, Governor?”

Marcus Vibius Balbus was not accustomed to being questioned. Trajan had appointed him Fiscal Procurator of the province. For over two years now he had wielded absolute authority to raise taxes and pay the soldiers, answerable to no one but the Emperor. He had his own office and staff and lived lavishly with his family in a spacious seaside villa south of the city, while Pliny and Calpurnia camped out in the shambles of their ruinous palace. Balbus’ power had equaled that of the governor himself. Not bad for a man who had started life as a common soldier, and clawed his way up the ranks: Chief Centurion of a legion, then a stint in the Night Watch, the City Battalions, and the Praetorian Guard, and finally a succession of civil posts in every corner of the world. The typical procurator’s career, it produced the tough, experienced men who made the Empire run.

Balbus was a man whom no governor questioned. Until now. Pliny’s extraordinary commission from the emperor overrode his authority. Balbus knew it. Pliny knew that he knew it. How long would it be before they had to confront it?

The procurator pulled in his horns just a little. “You have questions about the taxes, Gaius Plinius, speak to my man Silvanus. You there, Silvanus, are you still sober enough to speak? Introduce yourself. Where’re your manners, you ugly fellow? This is our new governor, come all the way from Rome to help us count our pennies. Show him some respect. Perhaps you’ve brought your abacus with you, show him how well you do sums.”

The man addressed was short-necked, beak-faced, and bald but for a few sparse hairs combed ear to ear; he resembled, Pliny thought, nothing so much as a tortoise. His eyes were narrow and nearly without lashes. He blinked them myopically. He stared at his food, his jaws working, and said nothing.

“The man’s as dumb as he is ugly,” Balbus said in a loud voice and laughed.

But Fabia, Pliny noticed, did not laugh. What was it that crossed her face for an instant? A tightening of the jaw muscles, the eyes moving to Silvanus and then sliding quickly away. Perhaps it was only his imagination.

“But he’s loyal,” Balbus continued. “Loyalty’s the great thing. Been with me for years.”

Another uncomfortable silence. Broken by Suetonius, who asked, “What can you tell us about the former governor?”

“Anicius?” Balbus answered. “Excellent man. Excellent. Miss him already.”

Pliny and Suetonius had met Anicius Maximus at the harbor where he was waiting, amidst a mountain of luggage, to sail back to Italy on their ship’s return voyage. He had seemed almost pathetically eager to be on his way. The emperor had nothing against the man, or at least nothing he had shared with Pliny, and yet Anicius’ jumping eyebrows, his fluttering hands, his muttered apologies for his hasty departure all seemed to signal some consciousness of guilt. Would he be the seventh governor of Bithynia to be indicted on his return for crimes real or contrived?

“We got along like brothers, each to his own sphere, no conflicts, no ruction.” Balbus seemed to feel the point needed underlining.

“We’re having trouble finding a number of documents in the—”

“Took ‘em with him,” Balbus cut him off. “Perfect right to. Governor’s papers are his own, you know that. Mine too.”

Pliny decided for the moment to let that pass. This was not the time or place.

Balbus swung his legs off the dining couch, stood and stretched. “Show you around the place.” Dinner, it seemed, was over.

The villa and grounds were spectacular, crammed with first-rate statues and objects, although jumbled together and poorly displayed as though the mere having of them was all that mattered to the procurator and his wife. Calpurnia, who was an artist herself, made appreciative comments to her hostess and asked where they had acquired this bust, that vase. Fabia glowered and answered her with curt monosyllables.

It was growing dark now and they were returning from the garden, Pliny and Calpurnia walking ahead, followed by Balbus and his wife and the others, when a slender figure, half-hidden in the shadow of the doorway, suddenly bolted across their path and vanished into the dim recesses of the house. It was so unexpected Calpurnia gasped and grabbed Pliny’s arm. “What on earth was that?”

Instantly, Balbus and Fabia were on either side of them, shouldering them back. “One of the slaves,” said Fabia too loudly, “pay no attention.” But her eyes said something else. For an instant, Calpurnia could have sworn, those agate eyes turned liquid.

It was all over in a moment and Balbus was eager to see his guests to their carriages.

***

“Delightful couple,” said Suetonius with a twinkle in his eye. He, Pliny, and Calpurnia had stepped down from their carriages and stood together at the palace gate. “You’re going to have your hands full with Balbus.”

“Balbus will open his books for me or find himself back in Rome explaining himself to Trajan. The emperor was very clear. There is too much money sloshing about in this province, misspent, unaccounted for, squandered on projects that never seem to be completed. Whether our friend Balbus has his fingers in any of that I do not know. But I plan to find out.”

“Do they have children?” Calpurnia asked.

“Why do you ask?” said Pliny.

“I just thought—no reason, really.”

“You, by the way, were wonderful, my dear as always. Putting up with that dragon.”

“Fabia doesn’t like me.”

“Not surprising. She’s enjoyed the highest rank among the Roman wives up until now. I know that doesn’t matter to you but it does to a woman like her. You now hold that place, like it or not, ’Purnia.”

If it had not been so dark Pliny would have seen the anxious look that crossed her face. Suetonius, with sharper eyes, perhaps did see it.

“Well,” said Pliny. “Let’s make an early night. Busy day tomorrow. We meet the Greeks.”

“Just one thing more, Gaius Plinius,” Suetonius said. “If you don’t mind. What Balbus said earlier, something about the Praetorians visiting you the night before the unlamented Domitian died. Some danger to yourselves? Happens I’m gathering material for another project of mine, biographies of the Caesars from Julius to Domitian. I’d be grateful for anything you might…”

Pliny froze him with a look.

“Well, I mean, that is…” Suetonius looked from Pliny to Calpurnia, who gazed at him steadily.

“We don’t speak of that night,” she said.

“Yes, well—sorry,” he stammered, “please forget I asked.”

“Already forgotten, my friend.” Pliny smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Sleep well.”

***

Not everyone slept that night.

In the temple of Asclepius, in a secret chamber beneath the great gold and ivory statue of the god, lamps burned late and a dozen sweating figures bent to their work: Shall I receive the allowance? Will I be sold? Am I to be reconciled with my father? Will I get a furlough? Is he who is away from home alive? Is my partner cheating me? Am I to become a beggar? Will I become a fugitive? Will my son waste my property? Am I to be divorced from my husband? Will I get my money back? Is someone diddling my wife?

Lads with nimble fingers inserted hot needles under the wax seals of the tabellae, opened them, and read out the questions. This was accompanied by a good deal of laughter. (“Yes, you old fool, half the town’s diddling her!”)

Pancrates permitted this. He paid them little enough, let them enjoy themselves. Better paid and more serious were his oracle writers, men with a smattering of literary education who composed the answers in crabbed poetic verses that could mean anything. The written replies were attached to the tabellae, which were then resealed so deftly that no one would suspect they had been opened. Often though, if the hour grew late and they were tired, they would simply attach stock answers without bothering even to read the questions. In any case, the next day the questioners would receive their responses for the price of a silver drachma. Hundreds of drachmas a day.

But that was for the common run of questioners. Seekers of higher status were vouchsafed an oracle from the mouth of the sacred python itself. Pancrates was careful to do this only rarely so as not to dilute the effect by overexposure. It was a complicated and tiring performance. He would sit in the doorway of the temple, the snake, asleep with drugged milk, hanging like a dead weight from his shoulders, its head under his arm, while he opened and closed the mouth of a canvas snake head by pulling invisible strands of horsehair. A confederate hidden behind him spoke through a tube made of cranes’ windpipes.

For still more important clients—the Romans and their foolish wives—Pancrates would grant personal visitations: drawing out their secrets so subtly that he seemed, to their amazement, to read their unspoken thoughts. It was a talent he had perfected over years.

For the past six months he had toured the provinces of Greece and Asia, drawing immense crowds everywhere he went and putting to shame those shabby Christian proselytizers whom he encountered at every turn. Now he had returned in triumph to Nicomedia, all the more sought after because of his absence. It was time now to reactivate his network of informants. For in every great house there was some servant, some lowly hanger-on, who was on Pancrates’ payroll. They sent him people’s characters, forecasts of their questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready. And sometimes the questions revealed that the writers were up to illegal activities. In these cases he didn’t return the tablet with an answer but held on to it and used it to blackmail the sender. Here was where the real money was made.