"He told you this? What other issues were there?" Suetonius queried.
"Well, his future was one. There was his other relationship. And Caesar's health too. There were several things of great concern to him," she revealed.
The group of four were startled.
"His other relationship?! We are under the impression the boy was utterly faithful to his long-term erastes?"
"Gentlemen, since Caesar put the fellow aside at Alexandria many weeks ago the lad has found solace in another's bosom. Surely you appreciate he was attractive to many at Court? There is no shortage of suitors," she responded breezily.
"Who? Who?" Clarus demanded.
"I'm afraid he didn't reveal a name to me, sirs," she said. "But I can imagine it would be easily expected of so appealing a fellow."
"What too do you mean by Caesar's health?" Suetonius queried.
"There are many at Court who express concern about Hadrian's coughing bouts. They are no longer a mere nuisance to him. They are known to draw blood from his chest," Perenna stated confidently. "His young consort was troubled by this circumstance and hoped someone such as I would have a herb or decoction to treat such ailments. But this is a physician's art, not a priestess of Anna Perenna. We concentrate on fertility, romance, beauty, and divination, not sickness."
"Tell me, madam, you use your name objectively in the third person? Why is this so?" Suetonius queried.
The tall woman faced him blankly for a few moments. She cleared her throat before responding while Suetonius looked intently at the brightly colored gem upon a finger of her right hand. He felt the gemstone reminded him of something or someone. It was familiar.
"The name Anna Perenna, good sirs, is as much a title as a personal name. All senior priestesses of the cult of Anna Perenna are named Anna Perenna. I am Anna Perenna at Alexandria. My teacher and leader at Rome is Anna Perenna at Rome. Two others are elsewhere in the Empire," the pockmarked matron clarified pertly. "But each of us is guided by the invocation 'for leave to live in and through the year to our liking'. It is our motto."
She returned to silence.
"Then you have a previous name and family after all? Before you became Anna Perenna, that is?"
"No that I recall, sir. Since childhood I have always been Anna to my priestly community at Rome. I have been raised to receive and enact the hallowed duties of an Anna Perenna," she explained. "The priestesses adopt orphans and out-of-wedlock infants of good family to train them in this manner, unless they prove unsuitable to the task. I was eminently suitable."
"Then you cannot throw any light at all on the death of the Bithynian, madam?" Suetonius now finalized his line of questioning.
"Not I, Inspector. Perhaps the wizard Pachrates can cast such light as you may require," she offered. A sense of remoteness appeared in her eyes. She continued.
"I am told we have been instructed by Caesar to attend the reception platform before his chambers an hour ahead of dawn on tomorrow's Third Day?
The third day of The Isia begins the days of celebration, the day when Osiris is restored to life in Isis's arms after his journey in the Underworld. Seth and evil are defeated. Life is restored to this land and its Pharaoh. It is an apotheosis. Caesar is assembling his key advisors and colleagues for this dawn's arrival."
"Life is restored to its Pharaoh, did you say?" Suetonius queried.
"This is what these people believe in this land," Perenna claimed.
"We too are obliged to attend the dawn assembly," Clarus interjected, "so we'd better get a move on with our interviews. Time is passing."
Suetonius was reluctant to depart. He was not entirely satisfied with the woman's testimony. He also wondered where he had previously seen a striking ring similar to the one on the priestess's hand.
CHAPTER 23
"Well what do we make of her?" Suetonius asked the others. "She's a very cool lady, despite the afflictions beneath the pastes and the kohl.?"
The biographer scanned his three companions for a response. They had alighted from a gondola ferrying their return to shore from The Alexandros.
The runabout to the Governor's barque was an elegant vessel whose single sail was emblazoned with the Governor's symbol of an Alexandrine eight-pointed golden star upon a field of sky blue. A wharf patrol in similar colors carefully recorded the group of four's return from The Alexandros. Their return was inscribed in the patrol's papyrus list of movements to-and-fro from the riverside jetty. Suetonius noted this clerical diligence, but had other things on his mind.
"Surisca, my dear, from a woman's perspective do you have an opinion of this Grandmother of Time?"
The Syri entertainer held her own counsel momentarily.
"Well, what did you think?" he pressured again. "Don't be shy, my dear, we've come to value your views."
"This lady is a dissembler, Master. She is lying to you, I'd say," Surisca quietly offered.
"Lying? A liar? In what way, Surisca? What makes you think so?"
"It's my intuition, Master. A woman senses these things. She often knows when another woman is hiding a truth," was the young woman's reply. "There's something amiss with the Lady Priestess in my view, my lords."
Clarus and Suetonius paused in suspended agreement to the statement. Strabon now interrupted.
"I agree, gentlemen. I don't know why I believe so, but as I notated her words I sensed she was holding something back. It was in the tone in her voice. It was a feigned confidence. I have listened intently to many voices in my time and can often detect fraud."
"What sort of thing, I wonder?" Suetonius asked. "We can't judge a woman merely on the tone of her voice."
Surisca again raised her hand to speak.
"Were you aware of the blood, Masters?" she asked.
"Blood? Blood!? What blood?" Clarus yelped.
"If I'm not mistaken, my lords, there were droplets of blood or something similar oozing from the amphora up on the wall niche. They were leaking through a fine crack in the clay lip and dripping down the timbers behind. Perhaps it was some other dark fluid such as wine or garam sauce?" she proposed.
"Did anyone else notice a fluid?" Suetonius asked. "I certainly didn't, though I did notice a thin dark line running down the hull. You sense it was blood, was it? My eyes aren't what they once were."
"But what would a respectable Roman priestess companion of the Prefect Governor be doing with a jug of blood in her workshop?" Clarus asked. "Is the juice of life a component of her priestly pharmacopeia, or does she store the gore of her daily divination victims for sanctification? Theurgists are known to harvest and hoard many odd materials. But stored blood goes off very speedily. It gels and rots. It smells very badly very quickly, like an arena's sands or a charnel house. It's not a pleasing odor, I assure you."
"But not if it was relatively fresh," Suetonius said. "Yet the jar seemed to be enshrined in some way? It was being venerated by the Governor's consort. It was being adored with a votive lamp and a talisman or two."
"What did you make of her facial lesions?" Clarus asked his companions. "Surisca?" he invited again.
Clarus was warming to the courtesan's opinions.
"The lesions? Are they a pox? A canker? Leprosy?" Clarus added. "Or some nightmare Egyptian affliction not worth contemplating?"
"I have never seen such abrasions before, my lord," Surisca said, "except, perhaps, her abrasions are similar to the scars left by surgeons who try to scrape away a freed slave's branding or owner's tattoo."
"Scrape away?" Clarus repeated.
"And what to make of the three rings? Or the beautiful stone on her right hand?" the Special Investigator put forward. "Three fine iron rings on consecutive fingers. Iron, not silver or gold. Is this a local Egyptian fashion, young lady?"
"I do not know of such a fashion, Master," Surisca replied, "neither here in Egypt nor elsewhere in the East. Perhaps fine ladies wear such things at Rome, or they are tokens of her sacred vocation."
Suetonius became
darkly serious.
"The Lady Anna Perenna made two comments of interest to me. One was her observation about the deceased youth's resolve. What could she mean by his resolve, I wonder? Resolve to do what? And separately, she spoke of the night of his death. She, without any advice from us, had concluded his death had occurred at night, not some other time of day. Is this a justifiable query?"
"She explained his resolve by suggesting the Bithynian was on a mission to regain his erastes' favor in some way," Clarus explained. "Yet I too sensed she was talking of some other purpose in the lad's intentions. What could that be?"
"And her certitude of the night of his death?" Suetonius reminded.
"Well the options are only two aren't they, daytime or night?" Clarus said.
"Further, she said the effects of Antinous's death are yet to be seen. She implied the matter is not closed. What did she mean by this?" the Special Inspector advanced. "She also claimed Antinous had a new companion since his dismissal as Caesar's eromenos. Yet who would dare be so unwise as to supplant Great Caesar so soon in this way?"
"No one else has mentioned this fact," Clarus indicated. "Is she confabulating? Would the boy pursue a new conquest so soon after five years of fidelity to his erastes? By the useful principle of cui bono? what benefit has this woman to gain from the young Favorite's death, I wonder?"
The biographer's eye was caught by the keeper of the jetty records at his duties. The officer was seated on a high stool at a lectern on the wharf protected by a trio of Alexandrian guardsmen. Suetonius beckoned the others to follow him to the clerk's desk.
"My good fellow," Suetonius sweetly addressed the officer, "you maintain a daily record of the comings and goings to The Alexandros on behalf of your master, the Prefect Governor, do you not?"
The Special Inspector equestrian adjusted the folds of his purple-striped toga with a generous flourish as he spoke, drawing attention to his status in the pecking order of Rome. The clerk was already cognizant of his status and rose abruptly from his seat to attention before his social superior.
"Yes, indeed we do, sir. We maintain daily records on behalf of His Excellency," the trooper announced helpfully in the strongly Greek-inflected Latin of Alexandrians. "We register each of those who pass to and fro to the Governor's barque through the day."
"Each day, every day?" Suetonius probed.
"Yes, my lord, from midnight to midnight in three changes of watch," the clerk explained.
"Do you still possess your records for the past few days, officer?" Suetonius continued in his best legalist voice.
"Indeed, sir, we retain three days at a time. After three days we dispatch the pages to the Governor's staff for safe-keeping."
"Do you still possess the traffic records for the day and night before last?" Suetonius enquired further.
"Yes, my lord, I do. This is the third day of the cycle."
"What is your name and rank, Officer? And may I inspect your register?" the Special Inspector intoned as Strabon meaningfully waved the ivory scroll of commission with its imposing purple Imperial bulla tag in the direction of the clerk.
"Certainly, sir. Of course, sir. I am Danaos, a Tessararius clerk to the Alexandrine Fleet."
"Tessararius Danaos, were you the officer recording this jetty's traffic to The Alexandros on the day or night before last?"
"Only for my eight hour watch, sir. I supervised the evening watch two days ago, not the morning or afternoon watch," the clerk-of-records explained.
Suetonius cast his eyes across the two sheets of coming-and-goings registered for the day. Running his finger down the list of names and titles his finger stopped abruptly at a single name. Further down the list he noted the same name twice more. He showed the sheet to Strabon as Clarus moved closer to observe.
Surisca, though not having reading skills, could nevertheless identify personal names on a page. She too glanced over the pages as Suetonius turned away from the officer's hearing.
"Here, it's Centurion Quintus Urbicus, our Praetorian. According to these sheets he arrived twice but departed only once on that day. His final arrival was quite late," Suetonius whispered. "The priestess Perenna's story of her bodyguard being witness to her presence that night is confirmed here."
He turned to the clerk.
"May I see the register for yesterday, the day after these pages, Tessararius Danaos."
The Alexandrian provided the further papers. Suetonius again ran his finger down the lists and came to a stop-place.
"Cent Quintus Urbicus. One arrival and then one departure, both in the middle of the day. It seems our centurion friend arrived at the Governor's vessel on the day before last, but there is no record of his departure prior to his further arrival the next day," he said. "This can't be feasible, can it?"
Suetonius turned to the clerk.
"Officer Danaos, is your register of people travelling to and from The Alexandros always accurate? Is it possible you miss some arrivals or departures?" the biographer asked.
"Indeed not, my lord! Our careers as guards to the Governor would be immediately struck out, and we'd receive a thorough beating for our negligence," the clerk protested. Clarus intervened.
"Test the sheets' veracity with another name. Try for Flavius Titianus. The Governor told us he slept at Hadrian's dining marquee on the night of the celebration of The Isia with his paramour lass from Iberia, so surely his departure and return would be noted accordingly?" the senator suggested.
Strabon ran his finger down the first page of the first day once again as Surisca followed his finger closely.
"Here it is. "Excellency Prefect Gov departs with entourage of three." They're each listed by name. It is indicated at four hours after high sun. But there's no record of his return to his vessel later that day, nor of his retinue's return, until mid-morning the following day," Strabon announced. "This register agrees with the Governor's own words."
Surisca, who had been looking across Strabon's shoulder at the first day's pages, pointed hesitantly to a name late in the list. Strabon looked more closely at the penmanship. He turned to the Alexandrian clerk. His eyes were alight.
"Officer Danaos, can you read this name to us please," the scribe enquired as he pointed to a name low down the list. The clerk checked the written entry and spoke aloud.
"Yes sir, it is the name of Lysias of Bithynia. Six hours after midday, around sunset. His travel authority was a personal invitation from Lady Anna Perenna. It was sighted by the watch officer and duly recorded," the clerk announced.
"Lysias?" Clarus exclaimed. "What's this about? What was Lysias doing here?"
"So, what time did he depart then?" Suetonius asked.
Strabon and Surisca trailed down the sheet, across to the second sheet, and then to the following day's page without success.
"There is no record of his departure," Strabon announced. Suetonius turned to the clerk.
"Tell me, fellow, how do you explain that you have two visitors in the sheets of the day before yesterday marked as arrivals to be ferried to The Alexandros, but no record of their return journey from the vessel?" the Special Inspector demanded. "Yet one of these two, Centurion Urbicus of the Alexandrian Praetorians, arrives again the following day without his prior departure from The Alexandros recorded?"
The officer stammered a mumbled reply.
"My lords, I don't know," he wavered. "The Watch has not troubled to compare the sheets. It seems the clerk at that Watch has been negligent. I am at a loss! It is not my fault! He will be punished for it, I'll see to that!"
The officer was visibly shaken by the error and in fear of his superiors.
"Yet you were supervising one of these watches on both these two days?" Clarus intoned, the senatorial stripe running down his toga assuming a menacing magnitude in the clerk's vision.
Suetonius interrupted with a more helpful question.
"Were you also the officer who recorded the arrival of Lysias of Bithynia two evenings ago?"
&n
bsp; "Yes, my lord, I was."
"Do you recall the occasion?"
"Indeed, my lord. Lysias of Bithynia is a fine young noble, well dressed, well built, and bearing fine weapons. I was impressed by his magnificence."
"Was he in company?"
The clerk looked to his sheets to check.
"He was not personally accompanied, but he arrived at the same time as other officers of the Guards. All three were ferried to The Alexandros together."
"And they were?"
"You have already noted Centurion Quintus Urbicus. The other was an officer of Caesar's Horse Guard accompanying the centurion. They visit The Alexandros regularly."
"Their arrival was recorded, but you have no record of their departure. Is it possible your visitors to the Governor's barque can depart by some other means? By other river craft, another route, or some other means?" the Special Inspector asked.
"We retain a complete record, sir, of those who attend the Governor's barque in any manner," the clerk stammered. "Even the late night watch passes such comings and goings to the daytime shift for our records. We aim to protect His Excellency from stowaways who could well be assassins, brigands, thieves, or even seekers of favors."
"What about in the dark of night? Could a visitor to The Alexandros slip away overboard without your clerk or guardsmen seeing it?"
The Alexandrian was stricken mute for a moment.
"I suppose such a thing is possible, sir. But the river is not safe to travel after dark even if the moon is high," he offered. "The currents are dangerous. People drown."
Suetonius resolved to make a deal with the officer.
"Tessararius Danaos, we will remain silent about your offence with these records if you give us with these pages. We will confiscate the pages for our own legal purposes. Be satisfied we are being gentle and won't press charges," Suetonius declared imperiously.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, my lords," the clerk bowed profusely as he handed over the six pages of the register. Suetonius rolled the papyri carefully and handed them to Strabon.
"Keep these in a safe place. I will have to search my mind for what their omissions mean to our investigation," he muttered. "Meanwhile, what was Lysias doing at The Alexandros with that mystic priestess? He did not mention this matter at his interview. Have we stumbled upon a romantic tryst or is Lysias, too, a seeker of the lady's panaceas?"
A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma Page 38
