The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Forty-one

The 3rd day before the Kalends of December

“It isn’t easy for a man to talk about some things,” Pliny said. He gazed down at his breakfast table, the food untouched. “You understand?”

“I’m honored by your confidence.” Suetonius looked at his chief with sympathy. The man was unshaven, haggard, his color was bad. Plainly, he hadn’t slept all night.

“Well,” Pliny forced a weary smile, “you already know the worst. You have a way of knowing secrets, haven’t you?”

“I’d rather not know this one. I’ve never had a high opinion of women. Calpurnia was an exception.”

Pliny rested his forehead in his hand. “She’s an exceptional woman.”

They were quiet for a while.

“What is everyone saying?” Pliny asked.

“They sense something’s wrong. The wives, I gather, are desperate to find out what’s happened. Harpies. Vultures.”

“Well, they won’t learn it from Calpurnia.”

“What are you going to do with her?”

“She wants to go back to Italy, to her grandfather. He’s unwell and needs her. I’ve told her she can travel by the cursus publicus, but it will take some time to arrange. In the meantime, I’ve put her in another apartment, far from mine.”

“I mean, will you divorce her?” Suetonius looked a question at Pliny, waiting for an answer that didn’t come. “Of course, you needn’t if you don’t want to,” he went on. “As long as everyone’s discreet and the emperor doesn’t find out, the Augustan law on marriage needn’t be invoked. Sophronia won’t talk as long as we’re nice to her. And the lover, whoever he is, has apparently kept his mouth shut all along.”

“Whoever he is.”

“Calpurnia won’t name him?”

“No. If she wants to she will. I won’t force her, I can’t.”

“Nor Ione?”

“Do you know she tried to hang herself last night? Zosimus found her in time and cut her down. She’ll live, though she doesn’t want to. Maybe that’s punishment enough for what she’s done.” Pliny said nothing about fathering Rufus on her. There were some secrets even Suetonius should not know.

“Surely you can force it out of her.”

“Marinus had a look at her. Her throat’s so bruised she can’t speak, even if she would. And she doesn’t know how to write. So there we are.”

“Poor Zosimus.”

Pliny nodded. “He has asked my permission to divorce her but I suspect he loves her in spite of everything, and there’s the boy to think of. I haven’t given him an answer yet.”

“There’s still the hetaera. The girl’s scared witless, but we’ll lean on her. I’ll go back to Sophronia’s at once.”

“No, don’t.”

“What? You don’t want to know?”

Pliny pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Last night, if I had known who he was I might have sent soldiers to drag him out of his house—and it would have been a catastrophe. I’m a little calmer now. You understand the power I have here, my friend. In this province I’m an emperor. I can arrest, I can torture, I can banish, I can execute. I could be a little Domitian, a Caligula, if I wanted to. Plenty of governors have succumbed to that temptation. I’m not sure I could resist.”

“I, for one, wouldn’t blame you. She disgraced you with a Greekling. Because she was bored?”

“I never should have brought her here. I blame myself.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Of course, I’m angry.”

“But you still love her?”

“You know that poem of Catullus?”

“Odi et amo. ‘I hate you and I love you.’”

Yes, that’s it. It speaks to me, my friend. Especially the last word, excrucior, ‘I’m in torment.’”

They were silent for a while. Then abruptly Pliny pushed the table aside and stood up. “It’s no use sitting here, I must occupy myself. Come with me, I want to have a look at this damned cave at last.”

***

They left their horses at the foot of the hill and scrambled the rest of the way up, following the optio. Pliny stopped at the top to catch his breath. Suetonius shot him a worried look. The soldiers who had been left to guard the place cut back some of the bushes with their swords so that the two men could enter more easily. Pliny ducked under the overhang and felt his way down the seven steps, followed by Suetonius and the soldiers holding torches.

“So this is it,” he said. “I imagined it bigger.” With a glance he took in the painted blue ceiling with its golden stars, the sculpted relief of the young god with his red cap and blue cloak in the act of stabbing the bull. “All of this the handiwork of Barzanes,” he said wonderingly. “Astonishing.”

“The signs of the zodiac all along the walls,” Suetonius observed. “Clearly their belief has much to do with astrology. That explains those handbooks that Balbus and Glaucon owned. Apparently, you have to study to penetrate deeper into the mysteries.”

“That and pay a hefty fee, I don’t doubt. I was forced once to learn something about the cult of Isis. They’re all the same, they hook you and then they lead you on.”

Suetonius touched the desiccated corpse of a squirrel with his foot. “This place hasn’t been visited in a long time. At least not since the old priest’s death. I don’t think we need to keep the guards here any longer.”

“No,” Pliny agreed. He went up to the relief and examined it closely. “Beautiful workmanship. It’s cracked, though. Look here. And the crack runs along the ceiling too.”

“The earthquake,” Suetonius suggested.

“Yes, probably.”

“Do you suppose he’s real?”

“What, Mithras?” Pliny shrugged. “I imagine he’s just Apollo by another name.”

“And eternal life for his worshippers?

“Frankly, I don’t care. I live in this world, the next one doesn’t interest me much. Anyway, we know that these particular worshippers, or some of them anyway, were not here to save their souls but to fatten their purses.”

Suetonius examined the long stone benches that ran along the sides of the cave. “Raven—several of those—Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Sun-Runner, Father,” he translated the Greek titles that were inscribed on each place. “This was the hierarchy, then. Half a dozen Ravens and one each of the others, and the remaining places for the common worshippers, I suppose. There isn’t room for more than about twenty altogether.”

“Unfortunately, no personal names attached,” Pliny said. He shut his eyes for a moment, imagining the human forms that had once sat there. “Barzanes, the Father; Balbus, the Lion; Glaucon, the Bridegroom and Didymus, the Persian. That leaves the Ravens, the Soldier, and the Sun-Runner. They could be people we know. Very likely are. My work isn’t finished until I can expose them—especially the Sun-Runner.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered wearily. “I simply don’t know.”

***

Night. The temple of Asclepius

As ever, the lamps burned late in the chamber beneath the great gold and ivory statue of the god. Pancrates and his assistants labored over the day’s haul of questions to the oracular serpent: some deftly removing the seals from the tablets, others concocting crabbed, obscure answers, still others counting the drachmas.

“Have a look at this one, boss.” One of the nimble-fingered boys handed Pancrates an opened tablet.

He held it to the lamp and squinted. “Interesting. It isn’t a question, it’s a message. From Didymus to Diocles. The governor, I hear, has the banker locked up tight. I wonder how he smuggled this out. He asks me to deliver it in person, praises my discretion, my influence.” Pancrates’ lips moved silently as he read and re-read the words scratched in wax. “The poor fellow is desperate. He begs, he threatens, but without quite saying what he means.” Pancrates bound up the leaves of the tablet and set it aside. He smiled to himself. Where there’s a secret to be learned, a favor to be earned, count on me.