Barzanes lay, lost in his memories, waiting for sleep to come. He heard the ceiling creak as the family that lived above him made ready for bed—a laborer in the fullery and his slattern wife and their four snotty-nosed brats who loved to taunt him. He heard some drunken late-night revelers shouting in the street outside. He heard—what? The chest grating on the floor, his door opening?
“Who is it? Who’s there?” The Romans again? He fumbled for his knife under the pillow.
The shadow, black against black, came at him swiftly. He struck out with the knife and felt the point graze his attacker’s cheek. Then powerful fingers found his throat, a hand covered his mouth. He felt the assassin’s hot breath on his face. He kicked out with one leg, knocking over the brazier, spilling the coals onto the mat of dried rushes.
By the time he was dead, the room was in flames.
Pliny and Suetonius had scarcely arrived back at the palace when Galeo, panting from having run all the way, caught up with them. They returned at once to find the building ablaze, smoke pouring from its windows, flames shooting up through the roof. The inhabitants of the street were fetching buckets of water from the fullery and flinging them uselessly on the flames. The old wooden structure burnt like tinder. Pliny recognized the man whose door he had knocked on standing in the crowd with his wife and baby. The flames lit up his oily face.
“Where are the others, man?”
Tears ran down the man’s cheeks. “The couple on the second floor got out, and us. The family on the fourth—all those children…”
“The old man on the third?”
He shook his head. “The stairway was all flame.”
Pliny stayed through the night, supervising the bucket brigade, and sent Suetonius back to the palace to fetch Aquila and a squad of soldiers. It would be daylight before the fire burned itself out.
He questioned Galeo and Marius. They had seen a man enter the building, they assumed he lived there. He must have run out with the others who escaped, they couldn’t be sure.
***
The Sun-Runner was grim-faced. “Idiot! Was is necessary to burn the building down?”
The man held a bloody rag against his cheek. “Was an accident,” he mumbled. “Just as well, though. Covers our tracks.”
“It was supposed to look like the old man had a heart attack. It’s hardly likely that he set his room on fire.”
“Could have.”
“Let’s hope the Romans are stupid enough to think so.”
“My silver, sir?”
The Sun-Runner tossed a bag of coin which the man caught in one hand. “Go get your face looked at, you’re dripping blood on the floor.”
The Sun-Runner poured himself a goblet of wine and drained it in one gulp. He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed to think. Sad, of course, that the Father had to die, but there was no alternative. Sooner or later the Romans would get the old man to talk—if he hadn’t already. It was a risk the Sun-Runner couldn’t afford to take. And the cult had clearly outlived its usefulness. Mithras, he hoped, would be understanding. Mithras who eternally plunged his dagger into the bull’s throat.
More blood than that would be spilled before this was over.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The Ides of November
“…therefore, Sir, if you will authorize the rebuilding of Nicomedia’s aqueduct and the refurbishing of the baths, I will see to undertaking these works at once. With respect to the Balbus investigation, I have to report—” Pliny paused, sighed. Zosimus, who sat at the foot of the dining couch with his stylus and tablets in hand, looked up questioningly.
What did he have to report to Trajan? That his procurator was mixed up with some barbarian religious fanatics? That more people had been murdered and he was no nearer the truth? How would all this sound in Rome? Like pure lunacy. Like incompetence.
The embers of Barzanes’ apartment were still smoldering. They had gone in this morning and uncovered his charred corpse—which told them nothing.
“Uncle Pliny, play Latrunculi with me. Please. You can be the soldiers this time.” Little Rufus climbed up beside him on the dining couch. Pliny had given him the board game of Soldiers and Brigands and he loved to spend time, when he could snatch a few minutes, to play with the child. At four, Rufus was an enthusiastic, if reckless, player.
Pliny tousled his hair and kissed him. “I’m afraid you’ll beat me again.”
“I will, I will beat you. I want a grape. Don’t eat ’em all.”
“Don’t bother master now, he’s busy,” Zosimus said, trying to sound like the stern father.
“Where’s his mother?” Pliny asked.
“With the mistress, I suppose. They spend so much time in the temples these days looking at statues and paintings Ione says she could write a book on the subject, if she could write.”
There was a knock at the dining room door. A servant entered followed by a figure that Rufus had never seen before. The child clapped his hand to his mouth and shrank back, trying to hide himself behind Pliny. The figure approached the couch with jerky steps like a puppet on strings. Its face was pinched and pale, its neck ropy, its arms and legs like sticks. Rufus began to whimper.
“Take him away, Zosimus.” Pliny handed the child to him with a swift motion. “And leave us for a while.”
“Aulus, what a pleasure to see you. Sit down here beside me.” Pliny made room for the boy on the couch. “What brings you here? You don’t leave home often, do you?”
Aulus sat stiffly, twisting his hands. “I—I haven’t told mother. I took a horse from the stable. Asked the way to the palace. They didn’t want to let me in until I told them whose son I am.”
“Well, I’m very glad to see you. Have you eaten? Try these, they’re very good.” Pliny handed the boy a plate of grapes. “Will you take some wine? What’s that you’re holding?”
“A letter, sir. No wine, it does things to my head.”
“A letter. What sort of letter?”
“I found it amongst a lot of papers in my father’s desk. I am the man of the house now, the paterfamilias. I have a right to sit at his desk, look at his papers.” He spoke with a fierce insistence as though he expected contradiction.
“And so you do.” Pliny took the rolled sheet of parchment from his hands.
“It’s in Greek, I can’t read it,” Aulus said.
“Your education has been neglected.”
The boy gave a helpless shrug. “The tutors always run away when they see how—how I am. But I can make out the letters. There’s the word leon in it. That means lion, doesn’t it? And so I thought—”
Pliny held up a hand to silence him and quickly scanned the page. Then he read it again more slowly, translating it aloud to Aulus.
“From the Heliodromus—that’s an odd word. What would that be in Latin? Cursor Solis—Sun Runner? Something like that. From the Sun Runner to the Lion, Greetings.You say the Persian has refused to repay you the money he owes you. That is a serious charge, I understand your anger. You demand that we expel him from our worship. This is a drastic step, not to be taken lightly. I have questioned him and he denies your charge, though I made him swear by Lord Mithras, who sees into every heart. I beg you to reconcile with him. You are both too important to our enterprise. I have not brought this matter to the Father and hope that will not be necessary. Farewell.”
Pliny set the letter down. “I thank you for bringing me this. You can’t imagine how important it is. It is dated only a few days before your father disappeared.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
“I don’t know what it all means, but I begin to glimpse the outlines of what must have happened. This Persian murdered a man called Glaucon, who, we think, murdered your father together with the Persian. You had just lost consciousness, you never saw them, but they were there on the path, waiting to ambush him. The motive, I see now, was a quarrel about money. The Father is, or rather was, the leader of the Mithras cult. He could hav
e named the Persian and the Sun-Runner and all the others had he not died, quite conveniently, last night. All these men, including your father I’m sorry to say, were involved in an illicit cult, as you know. A cult riven by discord, leading to murder. What united them in the first place—this ‘enterprise’ to which your father and the Persian are so important—I don’t yet know, although I have my suspicions. I’m afraid that when we find out it will not reflect well on your father. Are you prepared for that?”
Aulus attempted a smile. “I have no reputation to lose. It will be hard on mother, I suppose.”
“How is she? How are things at home?” Pliny put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Hard. She cries a lot. Drinks a lot. She claims now that she never really believed I could have done such a terrible thing, but she was afraid I would be accused anyway if it was known that I was with him and there was no other suspect. Now she’s tormented with money worries. My father made a second will not long ago. Someone from the treasury brought over a load of papers from his office after he died. She finally got around to looking through them and found it. I thought she’d go mad, raving and screaming. It leaves most of his estate to some woman.”
Pliny was suddenly alert. “The woman’s name?”
“I don’t know, but they fought about him seeing her. It started a couple of months ago when a strange man came to the house when father was out. Why do you look at me so strangely? Have I said something wrong? I don’t mean to spy but I couldn’t help—”
“Can you describe this man. It’s important.”
“I hid when he came in but I got a glimpse of him. About your age, I think. Thinning hair. He had a sharp nose and not much chin, he was red in the face—it made him look a little like a ferret. Do you know him?”
“I do,” Pliny frowned. “Aulus, do you know the game Latrunculi? I fear I’ve just been sent back to square one.”
Chapter Thirty
Aulus looked at him with puzzlement.
“What did this man and your mother talk about?” Pliny asked.
“I couldn’t understand them, they spoke in Greek. Mother always says she doesn’t know but six words of Greek but she seemed to understand him well enough. And after he left she was furious, and when my father came home that night she attacked him, screaming and crying. He hit her across the head with his vitis. He did that when he was angry. After that they seldom spoke. The tension made me very nervous. What would I do without my parents, who would care for me? My fits started getting worse. That’s when my father decided to take me to the cave.” Aulus’ hands writhed and twisted in his lap.
Pliny’s brain was in a whirl. Argyrus and Fabia! Is it them after all? Did they plan the murder together, each for their own reason fearing Balbus’ marriage to Sophronia? Was it Fabia’s burly slave who was waiting for Balbus in the woods? Do Glaucon and the Persian actually have nothing to do with it? But surely she wouldn’t have arranged her husband’s murder for the very day that Aulus would be there to witness it? But what about Argyrus? Could he have been out there with Glaucon? Do those two know each other? Is Argyrus in the cult?
“This man—did you ever see him at the house again?
The boy nodded. “The day of my father’s funeral, after everyone else had left. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral; mother was afraid I’d have a fit in front of everyone. I came out of hiding after everyone had gone, but then he came. Mother sent me to my room. A little while later, he left.”
Pliny gazed at the boy—too hard and too long. Aulus looked away, wrapping his thin arms around his body, hooking one foot behind the other, the knees twisting. “Have I—have I told something I shouldn’t?”
The boy looked ill, Pliny was afraid he might have a fit then and there. “No, of course you haven’t.” He would not tell Aulus his suspicions, the boy was too fragile. “You won’t tell your mother you came to see me, will you? I’d rather you didn’t. Not just yet.”
“Keep a secret from her? I…” The words died in his throat.
For an instant, Pliny was tempted to take the boy home and confront Fabia on the spot. But what would that do to Aulus? This sad, damaged, brave boy, struggling toward manhood, fighting for his place in a world that literally spat at him. No, he wouldn’t risk it. There would have to be another way.
“How will you get home, Aulus? I can send you back in a carriage if you like.”
“No.” He lifted his eyes and met Pliny’s. “I can go by myself. I won’t tell mother where I’ve been.”
Pliny’s heart went out to the boy. “Aulus, have you thought what you might do when you’re older? I’d like to help if I can.”
“You’ll think I’m being stupid.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, a physician? Like—”
“Like Marinus, of course. I understand completely. I’ll speak to him about you. He’s often said to me that he needs an assistant. Would you like that?”
Aulus’ eyes filled with eager hope.
And inside Pliny a small voice asked, How much of this is kindness and how much calculation, to win the boy away from his mother?
He didn’t like to contemplate the answer.
***
After Aulus had gone, Pliny conferred with Suetonius.
“You must have it out with Fabia, there’s no other way. And the sooner the better.”
“So I keep telling myself. But she’ll deny everything, as she already has, and I can’t compel her. And to use her son as a witness against her? I can’t tell you how reluctant I am to do that.”
“Then go after Argyrus. I remember we decided he didn’t look like he had it in him to kill Balbus, but maybe we were wrong. And this time don’t just threaten to torture him, do it. I know you’re squeamish but the man’s a weakling, it won’t take much. Maybe it is him and Glaucon. Maybe Fabia’s innocent, after all.”
“For the boy’s sake I hope so. What will become of him if I have to execute her?”
***
For the second time, Argyrus sat on a stool in the palace dungeon, his hands tied behind his back. Pliny and Suetonius watched him tremble and sweat while a jailer heated a pair of iron tongs over a fire until the metal glowed dull red. A shorthand writer sat behind them.
“Show him the tongs,” said Pliny, grim-faced.
The jailer held the instrument up to Argyrus’ face and opened its jaws—ready to tear off his nose at a word from the governor.
Argyrus twisted away from the heat. “Please—I’m begging you. I’ll tell you anything.” Tears streamed down his face.
“Let’s start with your sister. You told us you didn’t believe Sophronia would marry Balbus but that was a lie, wasn’t it.”
“Yes. Make him take that thing away from my face!”
Pliny nodded to the jailer. “And so you approached Fabia, his wife. Don’t lie, we have a witness. What did you talk about? Did you plan how you would murder her husband?”
“Yes, all right, yes. We made a plan. She said how on a certain day each month he rode out to the woods on some secret business or other. I would follow him and she would send her slave too, a regular brute, and we’d—we’d kill him and hide the body. And then she’d have his money and go back to Rome or someplace with her pitiful son, and I’d still have power over Sophronia, the bitch. And I was going to do it, too. But, when the day got closer and closer I began to get pains in my stomach and I couldn’t sleep. And finally, I—I just couldn’t. And on that day I stayed at home, in bed. I couldn’t even get out of bed. You have to believe me.”
Suetonius said, “Why did you go back there on the day of the funeral?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t stay away. I was curious to know how she had managed to kill him. She told me she hadn’t. But why would she admit it to me? I think she did do it.”
Pliny and Suetonius exchanged glances.
“This secret business of Balbus’. You know what it is, don’t you?” said Pliny. “The cult, the cave of
Mithras.” It was his last try.
“The what?”
“The cult that you and Glaucon and the Persian belong to.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear.”
“But you know Glaucon, don’t you?”
“No!”
“The tongs, jailer.”
“Please! What can I tell you? I don’t know what you mean!” Argyrus was shrieking, blubbering.
Pliny lifted a finger and waved the jailer away. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wanted to get out of this vile place nearly as much as Argyrus did.
“Lock him up.”
“Well, that’s gotten us nowhere.” Pliny pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. His head hurt.
“What now?” said Suetonius.
“Question Fabia. I’ll go out there tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it. For that boy’s sake I hope she’s innocent.”
***
A fine drizzle was falling as Pliny’s coach turned into the driveway that led up to Balbus’ mansion. Almost at once he saw that something was wrong. The gate hung open. There was no sign of the slave who ordinarily guarded it. In fact, there was no sign of anyone on the grounds. He jumped down from the coach and ran up the steps and through the open front door. He stood in the entrance hall and called her name. Only his own echoing voice answered him.
Chapter Thirty-one
Pliny and his coachman ran from room to room. In the dining room plates of uneaten food sat on the table. In the bedrooms the floors were strewn with clothing. In all the house there was not a soul. Pliny cursed himself for allowing Aulus to go home alone. Of course Fabia had made the boy confess what he had told him about her and Argyrus. And now she was on the run. Could there be any clearer proof of her guilt?
Pliny ran back out into the courtyard—and collided with the stableman.
“Where is everyone?”
“Left last evening about dinner time, sir. The mistress and the boy and Lurco.”
The Bull Slayer: A Plinius Secundus Mystery Page 17
