She waited.
The sun crept across the sky.
Where was he? Why didn’t he come? Her nerves were stretched as tight as harp strings.
Ah, gods, had he lied to her? Was he so cruel? Wait-there was a sound, the cracking of a twig. She ran to it. Nothing. Some animal. She shivered again: this time with cold, with fear. With anger. She had humbled herself, a Roman governor’s wife, and he didn’t care! It was over then. A wail rose in her throat. Stop it! She beat hers sides with her fists. Stop it. Fate has saved you from yourself. What were you thinking? But, not to see him! Where is he? Who is he with? Is he with a girl, some whore? Are they laughing? Is he telling her about me, the governor’s wife, his slave? The vulgar, lying little seducer! I’ll tell Gaius, confess everything to him, and he’ll crush this wicked boy, torture him, make him wish his mother had never borne him. “No! No! she cried aloud, “What am I saying? I love him. Juno help me, I love him!”
Weeping, she began to gather her things.
Another sound-the snorting of a horse-and then there he was! She ran to him, threw herself against him. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry, couldn’t get away sooner. Had to tour the farm, listen to a lot of boring talk.” He unwound her arms from around his neck. “Anyway, I’m here now. Famished actually, let’s eat.”
“No, make love to me.”
“On an empty stomach? I couldn’t really. Here, I’ve brought some venison. Killed it myself, much to everyone’s surprise.”
They ate. And they made love, rolling and laughing in the crackling leaves. And again he made her feel things that she had never felt with her husband. And she thought she had never been so happy in all her life. Afterwards they lay on their backs under a blanket and Agathon said, “Are you a good climber? I’ll take you up to the top of that hill.
“I’m a country girl,” she laughed, and jumped up, and started to run. And when they reached the top, panting, their cheeks flushed red, they looked back and they could see the white walls and red roofs of the city, and, tiny as toys, the palace and the temples and beyond them the grey sea.
“What a sight,” she said. “I wish I had my charcoal and parchment.”
“There are caves all over here,” Agathon said. “One just up there. When I was a kid I used to go exploring.”
“Let’s find one and make love in it,” she said, “like Dido and Aeneas.”
“Friends of yours?”
“You ignorant boy,” she laughed.
But her laughter was cut short by a man’s shout. An optio and two soldiers were scrambling up the rocky path behind them. They had spent weeks combing these hills, searching for the cave of Mithras. They had spotted the red rag tied to the tree branch and thought it might lead to something.
“They’ve seen us!” Calpurnia cried.
“Quick!” He pulled her after him around a thorn bush that tore at her clothing and into the dark mouth of a cave, stooping under its overhanging eave.
“Stop there, you!” the officer called.
“Agathon, we’re trapped!”
“Follow me.” He plunged deeper into the cave, dragging her behind him.
“I can’t see anything!”
“Follow the wall.”
The floor of the cave sloped downward. Calpurnia slid on loose stones, fell to her knees, tearing them, struggled up again, reached out and felt for the cold stone, slid again. The soldiers had lit a torch. Its light and their echoing shouts pursued them.
“Agathon, where does it lead?”
“I don’t know!”
The passage bent to the left, like the leg of a dog, then turned again, and grew lower and narrower until Calpurnia could stretch out her arms and touch both sides. And then suddenly it ended in a wall made of dressed stone blocks. She and Agathon shrank against it, their chests heaving. In another moment the soldiers caught up with them. The officer held out his sputtering pine branch and peered at them. “Lady Calpurnia?” he said.
Authority was her only weapon. “What d’you mean by chasing us? I’ll see that you’re disciplined for this. My friend is an artist, we came out to sketch. Now leave us in peace.”
“But-” He took a step back.
“Look here, would you.” One of the soldiers was on his knees, running his hands over the stone wall. There’s a ring set into it.” He pulled on it. “It’s moving, lend a hand.” The other knelt beside him and they pulled together. With a screech of stone on stone a part of the wall swung out. The optio shouldered them aside and, holding his torch in front of him, crept through the opening. There was a long moment of silence and then a whoop.
“Boys,” he shouted, “we’ve found it!”
Chapter Forty
The cave of Mithras.
The soldiers clapped each other on the back. They were sure to be rewarded for this! They had stumbled on its back door, in fact, which opened into a small chamber behind the bas relief of the bull-slaying. There they found a lamp on a stand, positioned so that its light would shine through holes drilled through the god’s eyes. The effect on worshippers must have been spectacular when, at some climactic moment in the ritual, one of the priests, concealed behind the relief, lit the lamp and the sun god’s eyes blazed in the darkened cave.
A quick search of the cave proper revealed nothing of interest, at least to these hard-bitten soldiers. No gold, no jewels. When they made their way through to the cave’s front entrance they found it so well camouflaged with bushes that you could have stood right next to it and not known it was there. They found they were only some two hundred paces away from the rear entrance, just around the curve of the hill and a little higher up.
The officer told his men to stay there and guard the place. “And I will take these two back to the city.” He led Calpurnia and her companion out into the open.
Calpurnia forced a smile. “What is your name?” she asked.
“Marcus Catulinus, ma’am. Optio in the third cohort.”
“Well, Marcus, just tell them you found the cave. You needn’t say anything about my friend and me. You’ll have my gratitude, you understand?”
“Ma’am, I can’t-”
At that moment, Agathon let out a curse and started to run, bounding down the hillside and dashing into the trees. Before anyone could make a move to stop him he was on his horse and galloping away.
Calpurnia sank to the ground with her face in her hands.
“Come now, lady,” the officer pulled her to her feet. “We’d best be off. I’ll ride your horse and you’ll sit behind me. I want no tricks.”
“Take your hands off me!” she screamed. “You’ll regret this!”
He looked at her not without a touch of pity. “That’s as may be.”
***
Two days later
Pliny stalked up and down the room, their bedroom, clenching and unclenching his hands, fighting to control himself. Calpurnia, small and miserable, huddled in a chair and followed him with her eyes. A winter storm had arrived the night before; Pliny had ridden through it without stopping. Outside, the morning was almost as dark as night and a high wind hurled sleet against the shutters. It was freezing in the room.
“Who is he? Who is this man you betrayed me with?” His voice was thick. He felt he could hardly breathe.
“I haven’t betrayed you, Gaius. Don’t be silly. We went sketching, he’s an artist, nothing happened. We thought the soldiers were brigands, we ran…” Her eyes pleading.
“Don’t lie to me! Tell me his name. You made love with him in his house. You were seen there by his hetaera. Did you know that? Suetonius knows, Sophronia knows, maybe the whole city knows. How could you do this to me? To us? You think you’re the wife of some shopkeeper that you can act like this? I am the governor!” He stood over her, his fists white-knuckled. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes! Yes! My mind, my heart, my honor!” She was sobbing now. “Gaius, I love you but I couldn’t help it. I was so lonely. You were too busy for m
e and then you were gone and I was left alone with these people who hate me. I wanted be the governor’s wife, to make you proud of me, but I couldn’t. Gaius, you look at me but you don’t see me. I’m not the woman you think I am. I wish I were, but I’m not. That woman doesn’t exist. And so I found a friend. He made me laugh, he flattered me. And I could talk to him just because he was nobody, not one of you. And then the rest-I never meant for it to happen. I beg you to believe me. I’m so sorry.”
That woman doesn’t exist. He was stunned. She had come to him as a child of barely fourteen-fresh, innocent, unformed. And he, like a father as much as a husband, had molded her into the woman he wanted. Had she always secretly resented that? But she had grown more beautiful and accomplished than he could have hoped for-so much that sometimes it almost frightened him. He knew he didn’t cut a dashing figure, had never had great success with women, but he had trusted her, never been jealous of the admiring looks she got from other men.
He turned and walked away, came back. “You understand if this becomes public I will have to divorce you. How can I ever trust you again? How long will it be before you make a fool of me with some other man? How long?” He grabbed her by the arm, dragging her from the chair, his fingers sinking into her flesh all the way to the bone. He raised his hand to strike her.
“Yes, hit me, go ahead! Kill me if you like. When my heart was broken you sent Marinus to take my blood. Take it now, take all of it. I don’t want to live any longer. I’m no use to you. And him, I mean nothing to him. He treated me like one of his whores-you say she was watching us? I’m not surprised. And when we’re caught he runs away.”
Pliny flung her back. “If you hate him why won’t you tell me his name?”
“So you can banish him, kill him? No, despicable as he is he doesn’t deserve that. He didn’t do anything I didn’t let him do.”
Pliny felt suddenly empty, eviscerated, no more than a shell, without nerve, without strength. Calpurnia was wrong-he was not a killer, not even a wife beater. But someone must be punished. “You didn’t do this alone,” he said. “Ione helped you. She‘s been your go-between. By the gods, I’ll get the truth out of her.”
“Leave her alone, Gaius, please. She only-”
But he rushed out into the corridor, calling a slave and sending him to fetch her. A moment later Ione appeared, with Zosimus at her side. They had been next door in their room, waiting for the summons.
“Zosimus, leave us,” Pliny said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“I beg your pardon, Patrone.” He lowered his eyes. “What concerns my wife concerns me.” It was the first time Zosimus had ever opposed his master’s wish. It took all his courage.
Pliny turned on Ione. “Tell me the name of my wife’s lover, damn you.”
“Leave her alone, Gaius,” Calpurnia cried. “Don’t make her betray me.”
“Betray you? She has violated the fides she owes me, her master. I can have her flung out into the street for this.”
“Will you send Zosimus away too, then?” Calpurnia shot back. “Or will you deprive him of his wife and child?”
“Not Zosimus’ child.” Ione’s voice was shrill. She pointed a shaking finger at Pliny. “His child! Tell her, Patrone, tell her or I will.”
Calpurnia stared at her husband wide-eyed, and instantly knew it was true. How could she not have noticed before the growing resemblance between little Rufus and Pliny? How could she not have understood his love for the boy?
He couldn’t meet her eyes. A different man would not have cared if he got a slave girl pregnant, and would not have expected his wife to care. But their marriage hadn’t been like that. He had been attracted often enough by slave women who would have been happy to share his bed, but he had always exercised the self-control that a man of his education should. And then he had bought Ione from a friend to be his wife’s maid and companion. And she reminded him powerfully of that slave woman in his uncle’s house who had initiated him when he was thirteen. And Ione was no innocent victim. She soon guessed the effect she had on him and teased him with it. Finally, one day it happened. It was a steamy summer’s day at his villa in Laurentum, and he had retired to his bedroom for the midday siesta. He had undressed to let what little breeze there was play over his naked body. Ione came into the room without knocking, claiming she was looking for her mistress. Was that a lie? He never knew for sure. But suddenly she was on the bed and in his arms and he was helpless to resist her.
But that was the only time. And two months later, when she told him that she was pregnant, he had hastily manumitted her and married her to Zosimus.
“Patrone?” Zosimus whispered. “Not my son?” His features twisted in pain. And it was like a dagger in Pliny’s heart.
“How long has this been going on, my dear husband?” Calpurnia’s voice was heavy with scorn. “She’s swelling again, is this one yours too?”
“I only wish it were!” Ione rounded on her like a tiger. “You couldn’t give him sons but I could. I could have been his concubine, given him more sons, I could have been to him what you never can be-the mother of his children! Instead, he used me once and then gave me and our baby away-to him.” Her eyes slid to the wretched Zosimus.
Pliny sagged, his legs barely supporting him. “I see it now. You hate us. This is all about getting back at me. Such bitterness, so long concealed.”
Ione’s lip curled. “Oh master,” she sneered, “we slaves drink in dissembling with our mother’s milk. How else can we survive in your world?”
“And to pay me back for the wrong you think I did you you made my wife a whore?”
Ione scoffed, “She did that herself, I only helped, although she frightened me sometimes with the chances she took. And now see where we all are.”
Pliny drew a deep breath. “I ask you again, who is my wife’s lover?”
“Don’t!” Calpurnia screamed.
But Ione gave him a cunning half smile. “I’ll make a bargain with you, master. I’ll tell you his name if you promise not to put me out of the house-no, more than that, make me your concubine and acknowledge our son.”
“How dare you! I don’t bargain with my servants.”
“I’ll get it out of her, Patrone-” Zosimus, who had stood all the while as motionless as if the eye of a basilisk had turned him to stone, shot out a hand and seized his wife by the throat. “- if I have to strangle her.”
But Ione broke loose from his grip, raked his face with her nails, and bolted from the room, leaving the others to stare at each other in mute, unspeakable pain. A frozen tableau. There was no sound but the howling of the wind and a distant mutter of thunder. If some god had struck them all dead at that moment, they would have thanked him.
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.”
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