The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Thirty-five

The 9th day before the Kalends of December

To Aulus the passage of time was formless and endless. He drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes spasms shook him, and afterwards he would sleep for hours: sleep filled with dreams of thrashing in icy sea water, of struggling for breath, of his mother’s powerful arms around him. And even in sleep the ache of hunger and the ache of cold never abated. In his lucid moments he knew that they drank rain water from a hollowed rock, ate berries that gave him a stomach ache, tried to catch and kill a goat until they sank down exhausted. How long had they been here? How much longer could they survive? Mother! She lay beside him on the stony ground, her hair a wet tangle spread out around her, her dress sodden and filthy. Her eyes shut. Was she breathing? Mother, don’t die, don’t leave me! He crawled to her and laid his head on her breast. It’s all right, she’s breathing. He sank again into oblivion.

And then, in his dream, he was being shaken. Hands gripped his shoulders. His eyelids fluttered open and gradually a face came into focus. Not mother’s but a man’s face. The governor’s face! “It’s all right, boy, it’s all right.” Pliny and another man helped to sit up. He knew that face too—the physician. They put a woolen robe around his shoulders, held a cup of water to his lips. He swung his eyes around. A ring of Roman marines stared back. His mother sat on the ground nearby, a rope around her wrists. At the edge of the islet a navy cutter rocked at anchor.

***

Silvanus was sunk in a pleasantly drunken doze when the soldiers burst through his door and laid hands on him. The next hours were very unpleasant. They bound him with chains and dragged him to the palace dungeon, where the governor stalked up and down the cell, firing questions at him, while a brute of a jailer heated pincers over a flame.

“The procurator caught you stealing, didn’t he? What did he do to you?”

“Beat me up. Not for the first time, he loved to hit. Threatened to sack me.”

“So you killed him.”

“I didn’t!”

“But you hated him.”

“Everyone hated him.”

“Then who killed him?”

“Fabia killed him.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Was Balbus stealing from the treasury?”

“I’m sure he was.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how. He never included me in that.”

“You do know that I can put you to death for what you’ve done.”

“You can’t. I’m a Roman citizen. I’ll appeal to the emperor.”

“All right. I’ll send you to Rome for trial, but I promise you you’ll find a nastier death at the end of it than the one I’ll give you. Now again, how was the procurator stealing?”

“I told you I don’t know!”

And so it went until they finally left him alone.

***

Aulus lay on a soft bed, propped up on cushions as a servant fed him spoonfuls of hot broth. Pliny sat in a chair beside him and spoke in a low voice.

“I honestly don’t know what to think about your mother. If nothing else, she had guilty knowledge of Silvanus’ whereabouts. I hope it’s nothing worse than that.”

“But she wouldn’t have sent assassins to kill my father when I was with him.”

“That is an excellent point, which I take note of. Aulus, I don’t want it to be your mother, but she did run away.”

“She made me tell her everything I told you—about that Greek who came to see her. And then she began to scream and strike her breast. I didn’t know what to do…”

“Hush, be calm now. I understand. I’m sending her home under guard until I know more. But what shall I do with you? Do you want to go back with her or would you rather stay here in the palace for a time? I’ve spoken to Marinus, you know, about you assisting him. He’s willing to take you on.”

“I—I’ve never been away from her. What will happen when I…”

“Have a seizure? We’ll know what to do. I remember you told me you’re the man of the family now. In law, yes. But in fact you never will be as long as you live with her. I’ll tell you something. I lost my father early and grew up in the house of my uncle. He was a good man, a tireless civil servant, a prodigious scholar, but a man whose personality absolutely dominated the household. Nothing mattered except his needs. We all tiptoed so as not to disturb him while he was being read to by his slaves and making notes for his Natural History, which was literally all the time. Until the day he died, we were almost like prisoners there. It’s taken me longer than I like to admit to get over it. Think about it, son.”

Mi fili—my son. He had said it without thinking. He felt a sudden pang of longing for the son that he and Calpurnia would never have. Suddenly he wanted very much to be a father to this tortured boy, bring him into his household, give him a better life than he had ever known. He would speak to Calpurnia about it. But what if it caused her pain? They never spoke about their childlessness. And lately, it seemed, they never spoke at all. They had grown so far apart he felt he hardly knew her anymore.

“Sir?” Aulus was staring at him. “Is something the matter?”

“What? No, no, of course not. You rest up, we’ll talk again later.”

***

Pliny summoned his staff. He toyed with the objects on his desk while he marshaled his thoughts. “We have, at the moment, four suspects. Silvanus hated and feared Balbus after he caught him stealing, although frankly I don’t think the man is capable of murder. Fabia and Argyrus, either together or singly, both stood to lose if Balbus divorced his wife and married Sophronia. In that case I suppose that Fabia’s muscular slave, Lurco, was the actual killer. Unfortunately, he gave my lictor the slip and we have yet to find him. Finally there is the banker, Didymus.”

“That little one-armed runt,” Nymphidius snorted. “He couldn’t kill my old mother.”

“I’m assuming Glaucon did the actual killing. Didymus must have had some influence over him. They knew each other, that much is certain. He wouldn’t even have to be there in person.”

“And the motive?” Marinus asked.

“A dispute over money. If, that is, Didymus is the Persian that Balbus complained of to this Sun-Runner, whoever he is. The same Persian who later poisoned Glaucon to silence him, and burned up Barzanes in his house too, I imagine.”

Zosimus spoke up, diffident as always. “Money? Is that reason enough to make a provincial risk murdering a high Roman official? Surely Didymus could have found the money somewhere to pay Balbus back. He is a banker with banker friends.”

“And speaking of his banker friends,” Pliny said wearily, “a delegation of them has been clamoring to see me ever since we brought him in. His arrest has hardly gone unnoticed. Bankers, merchants, and assorted grandees with none other than our friend Diocles at their head, all demanding that I free him. Precisely the people that I do not want to antagonize. Unless I can prove something against him soon I’ll have to let him go.”

“The little banker worshipping Mithras in a cave?” Suetonius put in. “I just find that hard to picture.”

“I find the whole thing hard to picture,” Pliny sighed. “And that is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Who are these people and what are they up to? And we’re no closer to learning that than we ever were.”

“The cave,” said Aquila. “The blasted cave! I’ve had my men out searching for it for weeks now. They’re so tired of tramping through those hills, climbing in and out of one dark hole after another I’m half afraid they’ll mutiny soon. And what if we do find it? What’ll we learn?”

“It would be pleasant to imagine we’ll find a list of the initiates, although probably not.” Pliny smiled bleakly. “Anyway, keep them at it.”

“Where does this leave us, then?” said Suetonius.

“It leaves us,” said Pliny, “with our little banker. I’ve let him cool his heels for three days while we dealt with Fabia and Silvanus. Let’s see if he’s ready to talk to us. We’ll start on him this evening. Get some rest now, my friend, it may be a long night.”

***

Timotheus tapped his foot, unrolled and rerolled his scroll. The damned woman was late again for her lesson. But, of course, no one in this household minded wasting his time, no one bothered about his convenience. A Greek tutor in a Roman household was a creature to be pitied. He might wear a scholar’s cloak and long beard but in fact he was little better than a slave; a monkey with a collar around its neck, expected to be amusing at the dinner table though fed on scraps of food and bad wine; expected to flatter and praise the master’s modest poetical efforts, expected to teach the rudiments of Greek to the master’s wife, and to know that while they smiled at him they secretly despised him for a miserable Greekling. These Romans! But Diocles, who was his patron, wanted him here and here he would stay.

He blew out his cheeks. His stomach was hurting him again. He was forced to admit that the lady exhibited some shreds of intelligence—for a woman and a Roman, although she often seemed half distracted. She claimed to know something about art but her taste in literature was execrable. He had given up trying to drag her through Homer and finally consented to read a romantic novel of her choosing. Absolute trash! Pirates, kidnapped brides! Pure torture for a man of his sensibility. And the expressions she came up with—the Greek of the alleys. Where was she learning them? From that slut Ione, he supposed. A thoroughly bad influence.

The library door flew open and Calpurnia rushed in, murmuring apologies.

Timotheus scowled. “Today, madam, I think it best to begin with the finer points of the Greek verb. Its subtlety, its flexibility—”

“Oh, you’ll drive me mad with this, Timotheus! O-verbs, mi-verbs, contracted verbs! And the aorist tense—what is it for? And the middle voice and the optative mood? We don’t have them in Latin. Your grammar makes my head spin. Why must it be so difficult? Latin is so simple.”

“Adequate, no doubt, for expressing simple thoughts, lady. Now, if you will please attend to me—”

There was a knock at the door and Pliny poked his head in. “Thought I’d find you two here. Sorry to interrupt. How are you getting on with your lessons, my dear?” His gaze met hers; she looked away. “Yes, well, I’ve got a new pupil for you, Timotheus. A young man who’s our guest temporarily. Hasn’t had much schooling, I’m afraid. I thought he could sit in on Calpurnia’s lesson. You won’t mind will you?” He opened the door wider and propelled the boy inside, with a hand on his thin shoulder. He was visibly trembling. Calpurnia knew instantly who he was. The tutor started to protest but she silenced him with a look.

“Thank you, Gaius,” she said. “I’m delighted to have a fellow pupil. Come, Aulus, sit here beside me.” She spoke to him in rapid Latin while Timotheus sat stony-faced. “Don’t mind him, he isn’t as fierce as he looks. Do you know any Greek at all? Well, I’m still very much a beginner myself. You can’t imagine how glad I am to have a companion. We’ll make a game of it. I’ll bet you’re a quick learner too.”

Aulus sat carefully on the edge of his chair. His shoulders relaxed a little. He shot Calpurnia a look of almost painful gratitude.