The Bull Slayer
( A Plinius Secundus mystery - 2 )
Bruce Macbain
Bruce Macbain
The Bull Slayer
Versus quidem meos cantat etiam formatque
cithara non artifice alio docenteque,
sed amore, qui magister est optimus.
She even puts my verses to music and sings them, accompanying herself on the lyre, with no instruction from a music teacher but only love, which is the best teacher of all.
Pliny praising his young wife. Letters IV 19
Map
Dramatis Personae
(in order of appearance)
Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny), Governor of the province of Bithynia-Pontus
Zosimus, Pliny’s secretary
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, a member of Pliny’s staff
Pancrates, a fortune-teller
Calpurnia, Pliny’s wife
Ione, Calpurnia’s maid
Atilia, the wife of a Roman businessman
Marcus Vibius Balbus, the Fiscal Procurator of the province
Fabia, Balbus’ wife
Silvanus, Balbus’ chief accountant
Diocles the Golden Mouth, a wealthy provincial, famous as an orator
Rufus, the young son of Zosimus and Ione
Timotheus, a Greek tutor
Faustilla, Memmia, Fannia, Cassia: the wives of Pliny’s staff officers
Nymphidius, a member of Pliny’s staff
Galeo, a lictor
Marinus, Pliny’s physician
Caelianus, Pliny’s chief clerk
Aquila, senior centurion on Pliny’s staff
Aulus, Balbus’ son
Baucis, Agathon’s housekeeper.
Sophronia, owner of a brothel
Argyrus, Sophronia’s half-brother
Glaucon, a wealthy provincial
Theron, Glaucon’s brother
Didymus, a banker
Barzanes, high priest of Mithras
Lurco, Balbus’ freedman
Chapter One
The tenth regnal year of the Emperor Trajanus Augustus, conqueror of germany, conqueror of dacia, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power,
consul for the fifth time, father of his country, best of emperors
The province of Bithynia-Pontus
Through long weeks of instruction, the Father had taught him the rituals, the star-lore, and the incantations that he must pronounce when the moment came. All that study had made his head hurt; but he had a purpose that drove him. For the past week he had abstained from sex, meat, and bathing. And now at last he was drawing near to the cosmic cave, to a confrontation with the beautiful young god in his fiery splendor. He would see the mystery of the bull’s death, he would be baptized with water from a living spring, his soul would soar up through the seven planetary spheres to the starry firmament where one day it would dwell forever. He would share bread and wine-the flesh and life-giving blood of the bull-with his brethren and be born again for eternity.
They emerged finally from the dark woods at the foot of a craggy upthrust of bare rock and, just as they did so, the sun broke over its top and bathed them in its rays. The Unconquered Sun. All-powerful Mithras. Lord and Savior.
No casual traveler could have stumbled upon the entrance to the cave; it was low and only some six paces wide and well concealed by brush. While the mystae busied themselves clearing this away, the Father, a frail old man with infinitely wrinkled skin, turned to him, grasped his hand in fellowship, and smiled at him. “Are you ready, my son?”
Following the Father, he ducked under the rocky overhang and descended the seven stone steps, worn smooth by the feet of the blessed, down into the earth’s dark womb. The damp subterranean chill made him shiver. The stale air smelled of dripping stone and burnt pine. Now the mystae moved here and there in the cave, igniting incense and lighting the pine torches that stood in niches along the walls. He gazed around him in the guttering light. The cave was no ordinary one; it had been reshaped by men’s hands. It wasn’t large-forty paces long, fifteen across. Twenty men filled it full. A narrow nave ran the length of it with stone benches along each side where they would recline for their meal. The low ceiling was arched, painted midnight blue, and sprinkled with golden stars; the signs of the zodiac ran around the walls. The nave ended in an apse where curtains hung before the altar. The crash of a bronze thunder sheet shattered the silence and unseen hands drew the curtains back. Then he gazed for the first time upon the mystery of his new faith. Suddenly he thought his heart would burst-the intensity of his feeling took him by surprise. Sculpted in high relief from the living rock, the figure of Mithras, a serene and handsome youth dressed in a billowing blue cloak and red Phrygian cap, straddled a kneeling bull, holding it down with his knee, pulling its head backward with one hand, and plunging his dagger into its throat. A dog and a serpent licked the bloody wound, a scorpion attacked the bull’s testicles, and from the bull’s tail sprouted ears of wheat.
Bells chimed and the hollow eyes of the god blazed with sudden fire. The mystae began to chant the Nama Mithras. They raised their hands, each one holding the emblems of his rank-cup, spear, sickle, whip, thunderbolt. The torchlight threw their shadows huge against the wall.
Now hands removed his clothes, blindfolded him, and guided him down the nave toward the altar. Hands on his shoulders forced him down, pressing his forehead painfully against the cold stone. Other hands pulled his arms behind him and bound them with the hot guts of a chicken. The sharp point of an arrow pricked his neck.
“Take three deep breaths,” spoke the Father close to his face. “You will rise into the air, you will look upon the face of our god, you will taste immortality.”
And so he did, or thought he did at any rate, for a brief moment. And then it was over. His new brothers raised him up, removed his blindfold, clothed him. They pressed around him, shaking his hand. The Father beamed. The Sun-Runner, second in rank to the Father, hailed him in his rich baritone.
“You’re a Raven now, my good friend, and soon to rise still higher in our ranks. You honor us with your patronage, a man of your rank and power. And now let us eat and drink to your good fortune. I should say to our good fortune.”
The new-made Raven looked from face to face and was answered with smiles all around. Indeed, fortune was the word.
Chapter Two
Nicomedia, capital of Bithynia-Pontus. Two years later.
The 13th day before the Kalends of October
Clerks bustled back and forth in the great hall, carrying armloads of scrolls, making a great to-do of hunting for the missing documents, accomplishing very little. Gaius Plinius watched them with growing exasperation. The chaos of the archives, the slovenly habits of the staff he had inherited from his predecessor, the ruinous state of the old royal palace in which they were housed. Day three in his new post. He had expected bad: this was worse.
“Patrone.” His freedman Zosimus touched his shoulder. “It’s past midday. You’ll want to eat something and then rest for a bit. Doctor’s orders.”
“What? It can’t be so late already. No, just have a tray brought in.” Zosimus frowned. “It’s all right, my boy. I’ll rest later, I promise.”
What would he do without Zosimus? Secretary, companion, nursemaid at times. Friend. He had a head of yellow hair like an untidy haystack and the innocent, earnest face of a fool-but he was far from being a fool.
“See if you can’t find Suetonius out there somewhere and ask him to step in. And stop looking so worried.” Pliny waved him off. While confusion reigned around him, he busied himself arranging the objects on his desk-ink stand, styluses, sheaves of parchment, a carafe of watered wine, a bronze bust o
f Epicurus the philosopher inherited from his learned uncle, a cameo of his darling Calpurnia painted by her own hand. There was comfort in orderliness, even in small things. His passion for order amused his more exuberant friends.
Lately he had begun to be aware of his own mortality. He was nearing a half century of life-more than three-quarters of his allotted span. A half century that had seen the enlargement of the empire while rot set in at the center. By the grace of the gods they had survived Caligula, Nero, and Domitian and come at last to the present happy state of affairs-the reign of a sane and benevolent emperor who respected their liberty. He prayed it would endure at least as long as he did.
Pliny knew that others saw in him only a rather plump, rather domesticated, rather fussy man. He made no apologies. It was a lifetime of hard work, reliability, attention to detail that had won him, at long last, this extraordinary appointment: Governor of Bithynia-Pontus with overriding authority to clean up the most corrupt, mismanaged, seditious, and turbulent province in the Empire. The province had been a backwater for too long; a place for second-raters, governors from whom little was expected. That would all change now. Only a few people knew it, but Bithynia was to be the staging area for an invasion of the Persian empire. Restoring order and sound finances was now a top priority. Trajan, Best of Emperors, had entrusted this to him. And he would not fail him. Bithynia was a graveyard of governors. Pliny knew he had enemies who would relish his downfall. What man of importance didn’t? He was determined not to give them the chance.
“There’s a line of people out into the street waiting to see you. All clutching petitions in their sweaty hands.” Suetonius, pink-cheeked and pink-scalped-at forty he was already losing his hair-edged through the mob of clerks, accountants, and messengers, and dropped into an armchair beside Pliny’s desk. “Shall I send them all away?”
“On the contrary, I want you to interview them-unless you’re otherwise engaged?”
“I was about to be. Research, you know. But it can wait.”
“Ah, and which of your many works-in-progress are you researching today? Greek Terms of Abuse? Famous Whores? Physical Defects of Mankind?”
“Well, one never knows what will turn up, does one?”
They laughed easily together. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was one of Pliny’s literary proteges: a talented writer, a man of restless curiosity, a bottomless repository of rude anecdotes, a tireless collector of backstairs gossip, a lover of the odd fact, fascinated by the grotesque-in short, an extremely useful man to have along in this hellhole of sedition. He was vain, too, and combatted his baldness with concoctions of horseradish, cumin, and worse things-all to little avail. No sooner had he arrived in the province than he’d exchanged his white Roman tunic with an eques’ purple stripes for a colorful Greek outfit of sheer linen. The better to blend in-you learn more. He had jumped at the chance to come to Bithynia on Pliny’s staff.
“Have you found what you wanted in the files?”
Pliny pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed, feeling the skin move on his skull-for an awful instant imagining the skull bare of flesh as it might look ten, fifteen years from now if he lasted that long, if he husbanded his strength. He drove the image from his mind. “Beyond belief, the mess he’s left us with! Six former governors of this province have been prosecuted and our friend Anicius is likely to be the seventh, for sheer incompetence, if nothing worse. Transcripts of trials, minutes of meetings with the local grandees-all missing. He’s taken them home with him or more likely burned them. And the people he’s left behind, this lot.” His glance took in the room. They come in late, they leave early, they give you sour looks when you speak to them. I’m putting you in charge of the secretariat. Whip them into shape.”
Suetonius winced. “Not really my-”
Pliny held up a finger. “What on earth is that racket?”
Through the open second-story window, carried on a soft September breeze, came a sudden shriek of flutes and a crash of cymbals. A parading army couldn’t have made more noise. Pliny and Suetonius looked out and, as they watched, a mob turned the corner, marching along the avenue below them, men and women together, dancing, leaping, shouting something-a word, a name? Pliny strained to make it out but in the general din it was impossible. But there was no doubting who the focus of this adulation was. On a litter that swayed above the heads of the crowd, rode a handsome man whose hair hung down his back in long curls. He stared straight ahead, looking neither left nor right, motionless as a statue while eager hands reached out to touch his long, white garment as he passed. In his right hand he held a glittering scimitar, but what held everyone’s eye was the giant python that draped itself around his chest and over his shoulder, its head swinging to and fro.
Pliny felt a stab of anxiety. Somewhere out there in this alien city was his wife.
“’Purnia, don’t let go of me!”
“Hold tight, Ione!”
Calpurnia, the taller and sturdier of the two women, gripped her maid’s hand as they struggled to keep their footing in this crowd of madmen that surged outside the temple of Asclepius and filled the whole marketplace alongside it. Elegant matrons pressed against greasy-aproned shopkeepers, beggars contested with merchants for a glimpse of the holy man who rode above them in his litter like a raft tossed upon a sea of eager faces and outstretched arms.
A sharp elbow hit Calpurnia in the side, knocking the breath out of her. Her knees buckled and she thought for an instant she would fall and be crushed under the stamping feet.
“Pancrates! The god returns!” The shout rose up from five hundred throats, mingling with the din of cymbals, flutes, and drums.
Calpurnia and Ione had spent the morning going round the shops and stalls and ateliers of the unfamiliar city, escorted by a retinue of slaves and local guides-all of them now lost somewhere in this seething confusion of color and noise. The palace in which she and Pliny and all their staff were housed had once belonged to the ancient kings of Bithynia. Mithridates the Great-a name that could still strike fear in Roman hearts even after a century and a half-had ruled his bloody empire from here; and so had Pompey the Great, who defeated him and made the kingdom a Roman province.
The palace, which sat on a high hill overlooking the harbor, was vast: more than a hundred rooms grouped around two great peristyle halls. Impressive in size but disappointing in detail. All the portable works of art, all the splendidly wrought furnishings had long since been looted, first by Mithridates and then by a succession of Roman governors, culminating with the wretched Anicius, who had filled a whole ship with whatever was still worth stealing. The mosaic floors were original and fine, but the statues that populated the courtyards were now mere copies of copies. The tapestries and draperies were shabby, the brass work tarnished, the frescoed walls black with soot, the rooms littered with trash, the smell of mildew heavy in the air. Calpurnia sighed for her Italian villa, swallowed hard, and determined to turn the place into a home worthy of her husband. Worthy of Rome. The last governor, who had no wife, was so parsimonious that tradesmen had stopped coming to the palace, so she must seek them out herself. In a single day she had examined fabrics, contracted with cabinetmakers and painters and silversmiths. Thank the gods she had Ione with her. Her freedwoman spoke fluent Greek, while Calpurnia’s halting kitchen Greek was not up to haggling in the marketplace. That was another thing she was determined to rectify.
It was the end of a long and productive morning. Hunger and the hot sun overhead urged that they return to the palace for a bath-at least the plumbing worked-and a meal with their overworked husbands, Pliny and Zosimus. And then suddenly they had found themselves swamped in this sea of frenzied celebrants.
“Long life to Pancrates! Oracle of Asclepius!”
The crowd surged forward as the object of their adulation was helped down from his litter-he and the astonishing snake. At that point she lost sight of him as he passed within the bronze doors of the temple. But a herald stood on the topmost
step and cried out, “The god has returned to his house. Present your questions and they will be answered to your heart’s desire for the fee of one drachma.”
The crowd was mostly male but there were women too, Greek women modestly veiled as their custom was. But then, to her surprise, Calpurnia saw Roman faces too, unveiled and elaborately coifed like herself. One towering hairdo atop a whitened face and fat neck forced its way toward her through the press of bodies.
“You remember me, Lady Calpurnia? Last night-the reception-such an honor…”
“Yes, of course,” Calpurnia murmured. What was the woman’s name? “So many new faces-Atilia, isn’t it?”
“Philomela, you stupid little bitch, where are you?” The woman looked around angrily as a little slave girl, who couldn’t have been more than ten, struggled after her, fighting with both hands to hold up a large parasol.
The woman turned back to Calpurnia. “Impossible to find decent slaves in this country. But isn’t it wonderful, he’s returned at last!”
Calpurnia looked at her blankly.
“Pancrates, of course. Our oracle.”
Chapter Three
That night. The villa of Marcus Vibius Balbus
Balbus snapped his fingers. Thick fingers covered with coarse hairs. Fingers that in their day had gripped a centurion’s vitis, bringing it down hard across the shoulders of any legionary who didn’t jump to attention quick enough. Fingers that lately wielded nothing heavier than a stylus-but even a stylus was a weapon in those fingers. Marcus Balbus snapped his fingers and a young slave boy ran up to refill his goblet.
“More wine, Governor?”
Pliny, reclining beside him in the place of honor, hastily covered his cup with his hand. He’d drunk too much already. Balbus preferred his wine unwatered and forced his guests to do the same.
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