Death in the Ashes

by Albert A. Bell, Jr.

  When I approached the door I saw that a small opening had indeed been cut into it, at about my head height, and bars had been placed over the opening. I knocked, and when there was no immediate response, I called through the opening, “Good day! Is this the house of the lady Fabia?”

  I was surprised to see a woman, not a doorkeeper or a steward, crossing the atrium in response to my call. She stopped a step or two from the door but did not open it. From the simplicity of her dress it was difficult to tell whether she was a servant or someone of higher rank who disdained ostentation. She wore a gown of unbleached wool, with a scarf of the same material covering her hair. Without any makeup, she looked worn and tired, as drab as her garments. Behind her the house was quiet.

  “Who is asking for the lady Fabia?” Her tone let me know that she did not wish to be bothered.

  “Good morning. I’m Gaius Pliny.” I held up my hand so she could examine my signet ring. “This is Cornelius Tacitus. We would like to see the lady Fabia.”

  “What is your business with her?”

  “We’re trying to assist Calpurnius, son of Calpurnius Fabatus, a friend of Fabia’s late husband. We believe she might be able to help us.”

  “Why does Calpurnius need any help?”

  “He’s being blackmailed and is accused of murder.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “We know nothing here that would be of any use to you. No one here has had any contact with Calpurnius in several years.”

  “My lady”—I had guessed by now and she did not react—“we pose no danger to you or to your house. We think a former slave of yours is involved. May we come in and talk for a few moments?”

  “No.” The answer was curt, but sad rather than rude. “We do not allow outsiders in the house anymore. If you have questions, I will try to answer them here and now.”

  I had to accept what she was willing to offer. “Very well. We—”

  “Would you please step away from the door, so I can get a good look at you? And you said there were two of you?” Fabia waved her hand to back me away.

  I stepped back and Tacitus stood beside me and leaned over so he could see through the opening, which struck him at chin level.

  “Thank you,” Fabia said. “I thought you might be sent by Domitian to finish what he started three years ago, but I don’t see any weapons.”

  “No, my lady,” Tacitus said. “The princeps didn’t send us. I’m the son-in-law of Julius Agricola. If you know that name, you’ll understand our relationship to Domitian.”

  “Yes,” Fabia said with a nod, “that does give me more confidence in you. Death looms over you as heavily as it does over me. Now, what do you want to know?”

  I could see one other woman behind Fabia. There was no activity and no sign of anyone else. “You once owned a slave named Sychaeus,” I began.

  Fabia’s shoulders slumped along with her voice. “What has that scoundrel done now?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine. Your husband sold Sychaeus about seven years ago, didn’t he?”

  “Traded him and two other slaves for a horse, to be more accurate.”

  “We’ve been told that Sychaeus had a sister in your household.”

  Fabia sighed so heavily I wondered if she was still in mourning for her husband. “Canthara was her name, and it pains me to speak it after some years.”

  “She’s not still in your house?”

  “No. My husband freed her six years ago.”

  “Freed her?” That was as surprising a bit of information as any we’d picked up this morning.

  “If you’ll spare me the interruptions, Gaius Pliny, I’ll tell you the story as succinctly as I can, for it is truly not something I like to remember.” She looked up as she gathered herself, like a bard seeking inspiration. “I always suspected that Canthara was my husband’s child by a slave woman. Even though she was born with a misshapen foot, Aelius refused to get rid of her.”

  “Was Sychaeus also his child?”

  “I asked you to spare me the interruptions,” Fabia said. “I saw no evidence that Sychaeus was his child, though he was born of the same woman. Aelius never showed any particular interest in Sychaeus. He used Canthara as his assistant scribe because she couldn’t do much other work around the house. She was clever with figures and she did write a beautiful hand. She knew that Aelius favored her and flaunted herself in my face. You know how arrogant a pampered slave can become if you don’t keep control of her.”

  Yes, I thought. She can rent a horse and ride off to…somewhere.

  “Canthara became bitter after Sychaeus was sold. They were very close. I finally insisted Aelius sell her. I told him that she and I could not live in the same house. He refused and emancipated her instead, giving her a large sum of money in the bargain.”

  “From your tone, I suspect you weren’t happy with that arrangement.”

  “I certainly was not. I accepted it only so long as the girl was not allowed to stay in the household or have any contact with anyone here. I suspect he may have seen her when he was away from here, though.”

  Freed slaves often remain in a house, doing the same tasks they had done as slaves but with a different status. It would be unusual for a man to send a freed slave away, especially if she was crippled, and I couldn’t imagine him sending her away if she might be his own daughter.

  “Do you know where she went, or where she might be now?”

  Fabia’s face turned grim. “I hope she died in the eruption. No one here has heard anything from her since the day she left. I gave strict orders to the other servants that no one was to have any contact with her. Now, is that what you needed to know?”

  Tacitus leaned in toward the opening. “Could Canthara read Greek?”

  Fabia nodded. “Aelius had her taught alongside our own daughter, over my strenuous objections. He said he needed for her to know Greek and Latin if she was to be useful to him.”

  I wasn’t sure what my next question should be, but I wanted to keep the conversation going. “Did Canthara—”

  “Gentlemen, this conversation is causing me great distress,” Fabia said. “I have nothing more to say. At the risk of seeming rude, I must ask you to leave.” She turned and walked quickly toward the interior of the house.

  We could do nothing but return to our horses for the ride back to Aurelia’s villa. Lacking a mounting stone, we had to rely on our servants to boost us up and then help one another onto their horses. We had just mounted when a woman, hiding behind a tree, motioned to get our attention. I rode over as close as I could get to her. She kept the tree between herself and the house, partially hiding herself from me as well. All I could tell was that she was in her middle years and had covered herself the same way Fabia had.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Forgive my boldness, my lord, but I heard you asking about Canthara.”

  “You were the woman I saw behind Fabia.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Do you know something that the lady Fabia didn’t tell us?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I suspected she was hiding something,” I said.

  “No, my lord. Not hiding. She couldn’t tell you because she doesn’t know it.”

  XVII

  I guided my horse as close to the woman as I could manage in the midst of all the trees and brush. “How can you know something—”

  The woman edged closer to me but kept a hand on the tree, as though anchoring herself. “Forgive me, my lord, but I must speak quickly, before I’m missed. Please send your servants down the lane, so they can’t hear us.” She motioned with her arm, revealing splotches on her skin, which she quickly tried to cover up.

  Studying her as we waited, I noticed that she was holding a piece of papyrus at her side. I thought I saw a seal on it.

  When the servants had ridden thirty paces or so, the woman finally nodded with what seemed to be satisfaction. Then she began to speak rapidly and in a low voi
ce, with the diction of an educated slave from a noble house. “I am Xanthippe, my lord. I was the midwife twenty years ago when two girls were born in my lord Aelius’ house, within an hour of each other. The daughter born to my lord Aelius and his wife, the lady Longina, had a badly misshapen foot. The other daughter, born to a slave woman, was whole. My lord Aelius told me to switch the two children. He did not want his wife to be disappointed in her firstborn child or to blame him for her misfortune. But that healthy child died when she was three. And then Longina left him for Domitian.” She spat out the second name, winning a degree of my respect.

  Tacitus and I looked at one another in amazement, and the woman read the glance.

  “Yes, my lords. That means exactly what you think it means because you know who the lady Longina was descended from, don’t you?”

  We certainly did know what it meant. Aelius had raised his daughter, a direct descendant of the deified Augustus, as a slave in his own house, passing off a slave’s child as a descendant of Augustus. Canthara thought Sychaeus was her brother when, in fact, he was no kin to her at all. Her kinsmen included names like Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.

  “How could a man so callously condemn his own child to a life of slavery?” I asked.

  “Both of the girls were his, my lord. The servant woman died after the birth. My lord Aelius said he knew the girl with the misshapen foot could never take the place in society that she ought to have. It would be better for him to keep her close and care for her. Eventually he could make things right. It didn’t matter to him which child was called slave and which free.”

  “I’m certain it would matter to his wife.”

  Xanthippe snorted. “She was a haughty woman, my lord. She was holding the healthy child to her breast when she first saw the child with the misshapen foot—her own daughter! She called her ‘a wretched little thing’ and said my lord Aelius should put her out to die. He told me that he knew then he had made the right decision.”

  Tacitus leaned back on his horse. “Why are you telling us this? Why should we believe a word of it?”

  “I heard you say you were the son-in-law of Agricola, my lord. That, I think, makes you someone I can trust.” Since she was closer to me, the woman reached up and handed me the document—a single sheet of papyrus, folded and sealed—then covered her arm again. My horse stepped back nervously and I patted his neck to calm him.

  “That bears my lord Aelius’ seal,” she said. “He and I were the only ones who knew the truth. He wanted to tell Canthara, but fear of his wives and his need for their money kept him silent. He treated the girl as well as he could. He planned all along to emancipate her someday. He wrote that and left it with me so, if something happened to him, Canthara could still know the truth. About her father.”

  “So that’s why he freed her and gave her some money instead of selling her,” I said.

  “Yes, my lord. It hurt him so badly to send her away, but he knew my lady Fabia would never forgive him if the truth came out.”

  “Why would it matter to her? Fabia told us that she suspected Canthara was his daughter. And she had her own daughter by Aelius.”

  “Yes, my lord, but Canthara was the daughter of a servant woman.”

  “That does happen in large houses, more than we care to admit.”

  “And most wives tolerate it,” Tacitus said.

  Xanthippe gave us a less than kindly look. “My lady Fabia would not. If Canthara had known who she really was, my lord, she would have been absolutely insufferable to Fabia. She was a livelier, more intelligent girl than Fabia’s daughter, and she was arrogant and strong-willed enough as it was, just like her mother.”

  By “mother” she was talking about the woman who was now Domitian’s wife, I reminded myself. Though such traits were no proof of Canthara’s ancestry, they were characteristic of any imperial woman I’d ever encountered.

  “Do you know where Canthara is now?” I asked.

  “No, my lord, but I doubt she’s far from here. She swore she was going to get her brother freed, and that she would get even with Aelius and Calpurnius. Swapping him for a horse—that made her furious. I heard her say it many a time, ‘They traded him like he was an animal.’ ”

  “How did she plan to free her brother—or the man she thought was her brother—and take vengeance on Aelius and Calpurnius? That’s an ambitious plot for a single slave.”

  “She didn’t say, my lord, but she said she had a plan, and she wouldn’t leave this area until she’d done it.”

  I wondered if she had given information to Domitian that had led him to execute Aelius—unknowingly condemning her own father. “Do you know if anyone in this house has heard from her since she was emancipated?”

  “No one has, my lord. My lady Fabia forbade anyone to have contact with her, but that wasn’t necessary. She had no friends among the servants here. She treated us all as though she knew her lineage and considered us beneath her.”

  Voices sounded from inside the house. “They’re looking for me,” Xanthippe said. “I must go.”

  “I have one more question,” Tacitus said. “Why has the lady Fabia sealed up her house? Is she really devoting herself to some god?”

  Xanthippe bit her lip and finally said, “It’s the…the leprosy, sir.”

  “Leprosy?” I said. “There hasn’t been any leprosy in Italy since the Republic collapsed.”

  “It comes from Egypt, doesn’t it?” Tacitus said.

  “Yes. I remember my uncle commenting on that when he was writing his Natural History. He thought it ironic that leprosy disappeared from Italy about the time Cleopatra died. It was as though she was the source of the disease, as she was of so much evil for Rome.”

  “Well, sad to say, my lord, it’s in this house. Just before my lord ­Aelius was…that is, just before he died, he acquired two servant women from Egypt. Shortly after his death my lady Fabia realized that these two women had leprosy and had spread it to other women in the household. She sent the servants who weren’t afflicted to friends and family of hers and shut the rest of us up in the house. There were ten of us. Two have died.”

  “Does Fabia have it?”

  “Not yet, my lord. But she is caring for the rest of us as best she can. She is truly a noble lady. There is nothing anyone can do, though, but wait.”

  I looked with dread at the document that she’d passed from her hand to mine. “You have it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, my lord, but you won’t get it just from touching that. I know there’s no hope for me, but I decided this would be my last chance to tell anyone the truth about Canthara, and I believe I can depend on you to know what to do with this secret. It’s out of my hands now.” She stepped into the woods and almost vanished as her featureless clothing blended in with the brush.

  Before we rejoined our servants I asked Tacitus, “How do you think Longina would react if she found out her ‘wretched’ daughter is still alive, given that she and Domitian have no children?”

  “I’m more concerned about what she’d do if she knew that we suspect that daughter of blackmail and murder. Are you going to open that document?”

  “Let’s get away from here first.” I held the papyrus between two fingers, touching as little of it as possible.

  †

  Once we were out of sight of the house Tacitus and I told the servants to keep riding and we pulled our horses over to read Aelius’ document. Trying to reassure myself that I was not going to become a leper, I noticed that Tacitus did not reach for the papyrus to snatch it from me, as he often does when we have something to read. I broke the seal gently so we could preserve the two parts of it. The note confirmed everything Fabia’s servant had told us:

  I, Lucius Aelius Plautius Lamia Aelianus, do hereby acknowledge that the slave Canthara, known by her misshapen left foot, is my daughter, by my wife Domitia Longina. When circumstances allow, I will emancipate her, even if I cannot reveal the full truth of her birth to her. I swear to the veracit
y of this statement before the almighty gods and affix my seal as a further witness.

  Written by my own hand on the fourth day before the Kalends of March in the eleventh year of Nero Caesar Augustus.

  Aelius had pressed his seal ring into a glob of wax at the end of the note. It matched the seal on the exterior of the papyrus.

  “I think this does answer one question,” I said.

  “Which one?”

  “Isn’t it odd for a girl—even a slave—to have a name taken from a drinking cup?”

  Tacitus thought for a moment, then recognition dawned. “Canthara. Yes, one of those old Greek cups that usually has two women’s faces on the base, one Greek and the other barbarian. Your uncle had one, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. Which woman you’re seeing depends on which side of the cup you’re looking at.”

  “And how much you’ve had to drink out of that cup.”

  I held the papyrus up, still by only two fingers. “I think Aelius left a clue in the girl’s name—Canthara, a woman with two faces. If you look at her from one side she’s his slave, but look from the other side and she’s a descendant of Augustus.”

  “Now all we have to do is locate her,” Tacitus said. “A woman with a misshapen left foot shouldn’t be that difficult to find, especially with a name like that.”

  “She still has the foot, I’m sure, but I doubt if anyone calls her ­Canthara now. I think Aelius has given us another clue—his full name: Lucius Aelius Plautius Lamia Aelianus. As a freed slave, don’t you suspect she took part of her former master’s name?”

  “Of course!” Tacitus slapped his thigh, startling his horse. “The book shop in Naples! The scribe said the owner’s name was Plautia.”

  “And she owns the entire insula in which the book shop is located. Aelius must have been very generous when he emancipated her. No wonder Calpurnius never saw anyone leave with the blackmail money. She also had a perfect vantage point to see if he was watching the shop. He could have seen her looking out a window and never would have suspected who she was.”