The Bull Slayer

CHAPTER Five

That evening

“Daddy, mommy, look at me, I’m a chariot driver!” Rufus, red-haired, fat-cheeked and sturdy, his mouth and fingers sticky with honey cake, stood up in his goat-cart, and waved his whip. His words were a jumble of Latin and Greek, he hadn’t sorted the two languages out yet. This birthday present, from uncle Pliny, carefully hidden in the palace stable until the moment of its presentation, was the best one of all. His other new toys—a hobby horse from Suetonius, a wooden sword from old Nymphidius, a kite from Caelianus, knucklebones, a top, a hoop, carved animals, a stuffed ball, a boat—all momentarily forgotten. The goat, which had stood motionless for some time, made a sudden jump, nearly tumbling the little boy out. Ione, his mother, ran to grab him, while Zosimus, his father, fumbled with the goat’s halter.

“Gaius, he’s too young for it,” Calpurnia protested, though she was laughing.

“No, auntie ’Purnia, I’m big! I’m four! Daddy, make the goat go.” Zosimus shot a worried look at his master and mistress. His own gifts, a writing set and an alphabet book—what else would a secretary give his son?—lay unnoticed where they had been instantly dropped.

“Rufus, give the other children a turn now,” Ione said.

Caelianus’ twelve- year- old boy and Nymphidius’ eight-year-old granddaughter were looking envious. Pliny swept the boy up in his arms, swung him around, and set him down. “You know what that goat wants? I’ll bet he wants an apple. Let’s feed him, shall we?” Pliny was enjoying himself as much as little Rufus; more, if that were possible.

Suetonius, reclining at the adults’ table, surveyed this picture of domestic joy and was puzzled. Rufus was a bright and engaging little boy but he was, after all, only the son of two freed slaves. Pliny had a reputation for generosity to his slaves and freedmen, but even so, to make such a fuss over the child, putting on this party with gifts from every member of the staff as if Rufus were his own—and that was the point, wasn’t it? Pliny and Calpurnia were childless. Suetonius was childless too, but that was by choice; and he had left his wife—by their mutual consent—back in Rome. Pliny and Calpurnia were different. You only had to watch them around little Rufus. They seemed determined to be as much the boy’s parents as Zosimus and Ione.

And there was an odd pair, when you thought about it—not that Suetonius thought about it much, but you couldn’t help wondering. Zosimus was a precise, serious man of about thirty, a talented reader and musician, a more than competent secretary, who had been born a slave in the household and later freed. He was deeply loyal to Pliny, his former master, now his patron. But as a father he was ill at ease, awkward with the boy, as if he hardly knew what to do with him.

How different was Ione! She was a minx. Pretty, vivacious. Just beginning to show signs of a new pregnancy that rounded her features becomingly. She had been purchased as a girl, Suetonius gathered, and trained as a lady’s maid. It wasn’t known where she came from, probably sold by her starving parents, but Greek, of an uneducated variety, was her native tongue. She and Calpurnia were very close, more so perhaps than was proper for a mistress and her servant; always whispering together, sharing secrets like a pair of sisters. About five years ago, Pliny had freed Ione and married her to Zosimus. All rather sudden, one would have thought. And that young man couldn’t believe his good fortune. He was devoted to her—you only had to see how he gazed at her. But Ione seemed—to Suetonius’ observant eye—perhaps a little less in love with him.

No question, though, that she loved her son. Rufus had been lured away from the goat with more honey cake and now Ione was hugging him and dabbing at his face with a napkin while he squirmed. Meanwhile, the older children had usurped Rufus’ hoop and his hobby horse and were racing up and down the marbled hall with shrieks of laughter.

In the midst of this merriment, a slave appeared to announce a stranger at the door. Pliny ordered him shown in and greeted him with a smile. Which was not returned.

“And you are—?”

“Timotheus, sir. The tutor. Diocles asked me to present myself to you and your, ah, wife.” He pronounced the last words—he gyne sou—as if a wife were some fantastic beast in whose existence he only half believed. In Timotheus’ world wives were rarely seen, still less heard. He was a sour-faced man, fiftyish, with sharp features and watery eyes. He clutched a satchel filled with scrolls, the tools of his trade. A tired man sent to do a distasteful job.

“Yes, yes, of course! Remarkably prompt of our friend, I hadn’t expected you so soon. Do come in. My wife will be delighted to meet you. I’m sure you two will get on—yes, well—’Purnia, come here, my dear…your new tutor.”

She regarded the newcomer doubtfully with her large, dark eyes. “Delighted to meet you, sir,” she said in halting Greek. Timotheus winced at her accent.

“Sit down, Timotheus, have something to eat.” Pliny burbled. “Happy occasion this. After dinner we can discuss your fee, show you to your room. Perhaps you’ll recite something for us this evening? Some light verse? I dabble myself, you know. Here, let me introduce you to everyone—” The tutor looked as if he had just tasted something unpleasant. But Pliny seemed not to notice, he loved playing host.

Soon enough Rufus developed a stomach ache from too many honey cakes and Ione carried him off to bed. Pliny followed them with his eyes until they passed through the door. Timotheus was prevailed on to recite something from a comedy and, though he did it not nearly so well as Zosimus, Pliny was effusive in his praise. Pliny’s dinners never lasted long after sundown. The dining room emptied as families drifted off to their living quarters throughout the palace.

***

Pliny and Calpurnia lay in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, warm with love-making, the covers a tangle at the foot of the bed. Pliny inhaled her hair; he loved the smell of it.

“I wish you didn’t have to go away so soon,” she said.

“Can’t be helped. So much to do.”

“I could come with you.”

“Out of the question, my dear. We’ll be on the road day after day for a month or more. No place for a woman. Besides, I need you here.”

“Do you, really?”

“You’re the governor’s lady. I’m leaving Suetonius behind to run the office but you will represent us socially. Meet people, entertain them, just like at home. You’re wonderful at that sort of thing. You’ll do us proud, as always.”

And she would, but he never knew what it cost her. She was a matron of twenty-eight, beautiful, clever, accomplished—everyone said so—and yet the frightened fourteen-year-old bride that she had once been still trembled within her. She was a country girl, raised amid the mountains and lakes of northern Italy, who had suddenly found herself married to a man more than twice her age, a Roman senator, a lawyer, the nephew of a famous uncle, a man with important friends, the emperor’s confidante. Her mother had died giving birth to her and her father had died not long afterward, fighting on the Danube frontier. Her grandfather had raised her—how she missed that dear man!

Pliny came from their part of the country; the two families had known each other for ages. His first wife had died and he wanted another. He was a kindly, gentle man, though not quite the husband of her girlish dreams. He seemed to her, in fact, more a father than a husband. The courtship, the wedding, the move to Rome, that vast and dizzying metropolis—all so fast. She had felt as though she were moving in a dream where one scene melted into another without sense or logic. She hadn’t loved him then—how could she have? And, anyway, marriage wasn’t about love, as her grandfather admonished her; that was only in poetry. Yet, Pliny’s love for her was an extraordinary thing. When they were apart, he wrote her love letters that made her blush. And in time she grew to admire his generosity, his patience, his good humor; to take pride in his triumphs; to feel tenderly toward him. And yes, finally, to love him as a woman should love a man.

It had been hard at first. Though hardly more than a child, she was suddenly the mistress of an elegant town house on the Esquiline, surrounded by slaves whom she was expected to manage, while playing the hostess to clever, powerful men and their sharp-eyed wives. Somehow she had managed. She had made her husband proud of her. She had run his house, entertained his friends with her singing and skill with the lyre, would have borne his children, if—no, she wouldn’t think of that now. Yet always that little girl that she had been, the one who cried into her pillow during those first nights while her husband slept placidly beside her—that little girl was still her.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be fine. There’s plenty to keep me busy—the redecorating, my Greek lessons, and I have Ione for company. We’ll console each other while you men are off putting the world to rights. And I think I want to start painting again.”

“Do you? Splendid!” Her eccentric hobby delighted him, precisely because no other Roman woman would do such a thing—and she had a real talent.

“I want to paint Rufus, capture him at this age. They change so fast.”

“Ah.”

They were silent then for a while.

“And you,” she poked him playfully, “you mustn’t skip meals, and don’t overtire yourself, and remember to keep your chest warm.”

Pliny gave her a tender kiss. “Hush now, go to sleep. It’ll soon be dawn and then I’m off.”

***

But dawn came with a sickening lurch of the floor that threw them both out of bed. The floor buckled and a water jug on the bedside table fell to the floor and smashed. The shaking lasted only moments but when it stopped the bedroom wall was crazed with cracks and plaster dust hung in the air. Pliny lay on top of his wife, shielding her with his body, his heart hammering. From distant parts of the palace he heard shouts and cries for help. Then there was the sound of running footsteps and Zosimus and Ione burst through the door—their bedroom was close by—Ione holding Rufus to her, the child screaming.

“Patrone!”

“We’re all right. Give us a minute. I want everyone outside in the courtyard, at once. See to it.”

Zosimus dashed off. Ione helped Calpurnia to her feet and together they tried to comfort the child.

Damage to the palace, it turned out, was slight, only one roof had fallen in and no one was badly hurt. But from the top of the wall Pliny looked out over the city and saw, through an ochre haze, smoke rising in half a dozen places. The sight brought with it a sudden overpowering memory of the explosion of Vesuvius—the buried towns, the flaming countryside, the refugees stunned by disaster. He had been seventeen years old and barely escaped with his life. It still haunted his dreams.

With an effort, he shook off the memory. Fire and looting were their twin enemies now. He ordered his soldiers into the streets to protect the treasury and the temples. He had only two cohorts of auxiliaries, a pitifully small force; they would have to do their best. With his lictors and a gang of public slaves he raced through the rubble-strewn streets to the marketplace where several shops were ablaze, the air filled with flying cinders. To his amazement, he found the citizens simply standing and staring, doing nothing to extinguish the flames. Trajan had taken the extraordinary step of banning every kind of private association in the province—burial societies, workers’ clubs, trade guilds, cult associations, even something as innocent as a volunteer fire department—on the grounds that they always turned into political cabals. Pliny and his men, with much yelling and shoving, got bucket brigades organized. By nightfall the worst was over. He left the scene only when Marinus, his physician, seconded by Calpurnia, insisted that he return to the palace and rest. He was already composing in his head a letter to the emperor begging him to authorize a fire brigade, which he would guarantee to supervise closely. But he knew what the answer would be.

Pliny delayed his departure until some degree of order was restored. Within a week, rubble was carted off and weakened walls were shored up, shops reopened, the taverns and brothels of the harbor returned to bustling life. Yet a sense of dread persisted. Street corner soothsayers harangued the crowds with dire warnings, you could see fear in the eyes of ordinary citizens and even within his own household. Little Rufus wouldn’t let his mother out of his sight. Calpurnia looked tense.

An earthquake is a sign from the gods. Why had Poseidon the Earth-Shaker chosen this particular moment to strike the ground beneath their feet? Was it because a new governor had arrived who would shake them and squeeze them and bend them to his will? Or was it a warning to the Roman to tread lightly? Pliny was not a man who believed in omens. Most of the time. He ordered sacrifices to Poseidon at his temple near the harbor and led the procession himself. What more could he do? Finally, his departure could not be put off any longer. But as he set out at last on the road to Prusa he sent up a silent prayer that all would be well.