“But, sir, you don’t really mean…?
“Don’t I? But they’ve tried already! Why do you think I’ve had to execute so many? The governors of Egypt, Asia, Britannia, and Germania. Two Praetorian commandants. More senators than I can count. My cousin Clemens, and my cousin Sabinus before him!” He raked his hands through his few wisps of hair. “Do you think I like putting people to death? Do you think I enjoy scorching genitals and cutting off hands? Justice is my watchword! But I tell you, my friend, that an emperor is the unhappiest of men, for nobody believes that people are trying to kill him until someone finally succeeds! Any Roman senator with an army behind him can dream of becoming emperor. My own father did it.”
This remark reminded Pliny of his schoolboy Plato: the tyrant is never happy. Here was the living illustration of that truth.
They turned another corner and, to Pliny’s surprise, found themselves back at their starting point. Aurelius Fulvus was there now, quaking on his knees, surrounded by the lictors. He tried to speak but Domitian silenced him with a look. “Verpa’s papers-have you examined them yet?” “Yes, Caesar, we’ve gone through everything but we’ve turned up nothing of interest.” “Not a horoscope or anything touching on a plot against my life?” “Certainly not. I would have reported it at once if we had.”
Domitian kicked the man in the chest and sent him sprawling. “Get out! And I command you not to sleep until you have found a letter and a horoscope. Your life depends on it, Fulvus.” The lictors dragged the prefect out.
Pliny swallowed hard and felt himself swaying on his feet. He had no love for Fulvus, but violence terrified him. Domitian threw an arm around him, guided him to a chair, leaned toward him. “Plinius Secundus, I love you. You’re the only honest man I know. You won’t betray me, will you? I need someone I can talk to-not that reptile Parthenius. I’ll have his guts out of him soon enough! Be to me as your uncle was to my father.”
“Caesar, you honor me too much.”
“But you went too far at the funeral.” Domitian jabbed him in the chest with a blunt finger. “Your uncle wouldn’t have done that.”
“No, no, sir, no he wouldn’t. Blame it on my inexperience, sir. I was overzealous. I will apologize to Scortilla and to the Priest.”
Domitian smiled for the first time. “Don’t worry about Alexandrinus. I’ll settle him down. Frankly, I don’t like the man myself.”
“Caesar, are you aware of Verpa’s legacy to the Iseum, two million sesterces for an embalming works, entrusted to Alexandrinus?”
The emperor looked at him narrowly. “Of course I’ve heard of it. True devotion. Admirable. Are you suggesting something? I’m a legatee in the will myself. I would not like to see it held up in probate.”
“No, Caesar, of course not.”
A silence fell between them. Then, “You’ll be at the sacrifice tomorrow? You’re a true Roman, Pliny, not like these foreigners who surround me. And I’ll send for you again tomorrow night, my only friend. Now leave me, I’m tired.”
Domitian enfolded Pliny in his powerful arms and kissed him on both cheeks.”
The same carriage that had taken him away deposited him back on his doorstep. It was growing light in the east. How long had he been gone? As in a nightmare, time was distorted. Pliny was shaken to the depths of his being.
This talk of prophecies and assassination? What was it Verpa knew? Was there a plot against the emperor? The gods forbid it! If Domitian, bad as he was, should be assassinated, it would mean civil war, the second in a generation. The legions in Germania were loyal to him; they would exact a terrible price for his death. Legion fighting legion, blood running in the gutters of Rome, and the barbarians looking on from the sidelines, watching and calculating, just as had happened after Nero’s overthrow. Could anyone, no matter how much they hated Domitian, wish to see that again?
“ We pray for better emperors but we serve the one we have.” Pliny repeated the well-worn line, only this time it brought him no comfort.
He found Amatia waiting up for him. “Your wife is asleep,” she said. “She was half out of her mind, I feared for her and the baby. I sent a slave to fetch your doctor, Soranus. He gave her something for her nerves.”
“Thank you, Amatia, I’m in your debt. You go to bed now, you must be exhausted.”
But she seemed reluctant to leave him. “You’re all right?”
“Oh, quite all right. Caesar, ah, wanted some information.” Pliny tried to hide his agitation, but he could feel her eyes boring into him. He realized that his cheek was twitching uncontrollably. Finally, searching for something, anything, to say, he asked, “Have you received a dream from Isis yet?”
“Oh yes. It won’t be long now.”
He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t seem inclined to say more. “Well, I congratulate you. I trust it was more pleasant than my dreams have been, or the emperor’s.
She raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing. She turned and went back to her room.
And Pliny, after looking in on his wife, retired to his. He felt drained. He would have to dress for the ceremony in a couple of hours. He lay in his bed sweating, sick to his stomach, staring at the ceiling. ???
As the sun came up, Parthenius sat in his apartment across the table from Stephanus. The former steward of Clemens and Domitilla looked thoughtfully at the grand chamberlain. He had just finished making his report on the curious outcome of Verpa’s funeral, for he had met with the poet again. “May I ask what influence you have over this surly fellow who meets me at the popina?” he asked. “Every time he comes he looks angrier.” “Really? Oh, it’s just something he wants the emperor to grant him with my help.” “But the emperor won’t be with us much longer.” Stephanus smiled crookedly and touched his bandaged arm. “A pity for our friend, then.”
“Another thing. I’m worried about the Purissima, sir. Why is she still there? What is she thinking of? I watch the house as often as I can. She never goes out. I was wondering if I could get in on some pretext.”
“No,” Parthenius replied. “Too risky-for her.” He spread his plump hands. “We must trust she knows what she’s doing. In fact, she may be safer there than anywhere else for the moment.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Ides of Germanicus. Day nine of the Games.
The second hour of the day.
In the temple of Vesta, little Laelia, ten years old, roused herself from a doze and felt a moment of terror. On the bench by her side, her elder “sister” Fusca nodded, too. Fusca had lectured the little novice all night long, how if the sacred flame should ever be extinguished, mighty Rome would fall. Trembling, the two girls threw sticks on the guttering flame. They had been on duty since midnight, alone in the tiny, circular temple, it being their turn to tend Vesta’s hearth fire. Although tucked away in one corner of the Forum and dwarfed by loftier buildings, this spot was the sacred center of the Roman race. Their other “sisters” would be just now waking and stretching in their beds in the adjoining cloister that was their home and nearly the limit of their world.
And in this precinct, willing or not, the Vestals would draw out their days in an unceasing round of ritual duties, seldom seeing their families, never knowing the love of a man, on pain of death.
Vesta was not a goddess like Isis, who inspired ecstasy in her devotees. Vesta answered no prayers, offered no blessed afterlife. No myths were told of her. Her temple had no cult statue. But she was the living flame of the primeval kings’ hearth, the heart and soul of Rome. She was tended by six virgins, the king’s daughters once upon a time, who were potent with unspent fertility. Their service was not a joy but a solemn, unsought obligation.
Laelia remembered how almost a year ago the emperor, in his role of Pontifex Maximus, tall and terrifying, had come in great state to her home, spoken the ancient formula, ‘I take thee, Beloved,’ and pulled her roughly by the hand while her father, a Roman senator, stood by, puffed up with pride, and her mother wept.
/> And she remembered how she too had wept, in those first days, as though her heart would break. It was only the tenderness of her new “mother,” the Vestalis Maxima, that had eased her sorrow then. Perhaps it was because the Purissima herself seemed to wear an air of perpetual sorrow that made her so gentle a friend and so patient a teacher to the young ones.
But where was she now? When would she come back to them? She had told them she was ill and must leave the cloister for awhile. But that was so many days ago, and not a word from her since. But surely, Laelia thought, she would come back today, the day of Jupiter’s banquet. Hope fluttered in the little girl’s breast.
The “sisters” breakfasted together, and then their serving women helped them arrange their hair in the archaic fashion: coils of hair bound with fillets of red and white wool massed on top of the head and covered with a long veil that fell over their shoulders.
Outside, Laelia heard the shuffling of many feet and the lowing of cattle. It was beginning! It was only these few grand occasions that punctuated the tedium of her life. And this time the second-oldest Vestal, who was temporarily in charge of them, had given her permission to attend the ritual banquet. With two Vestals left behind to tend the flame, there would be only three of them going. But oh, if only the Purissima could be among them!
Groggy after a sleepless night, Pliny stood atop the Capitoline Hill with a very subdued Aurelius Fulvus and other officers of the City Battalions. His bronze corselet felt noticeably less snug than it had just nine short days ago when he wore it at the opening of the Games; worry had done this to him.
At that moment silver trumpets blared, the signal for the three massive doors of the temple to swing open. The feeding of the gods was the central rite of the Roman Games. The three-chambered temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva had been consecrated on this day six centuries ago, when Rome was only a collection of mean little cottages huddled on the slopes of seven low hills. Today, as on that first day, Jupiter’s face was painted a fiery red, symbolic of the blood of his slaughtered enemies, and he and his two female consorts were gorgeously dressed for dinner.
Public slaves carried the massive gold and ivory statues, freshly tinted and dressed for the occasion, down the temple steps and laid them lengthwise on banqueting couches built for giants. They placed tables before them and began to carry in steaming platters of food. Other couches had been arranged for the guests, senators and magistrates, who would share this sacred meal. Truly, at times like this, Pliny thought, the gods felt very real and very close. For a little while he could imagine himself among those shaggy ancestors, who in their simplicity believed that the divine images were nourished by the same food as they themselves ate. But what should he think of these deities now after what he had been through with Domitian, Lord and God, last night?
The emperor and empress dined with the gods at their table. Pliny, sitting not far away, stole cautious glances at them. Domitia Augusta sat as still as a statue herself; her face betrayed no emotion. Very different was her husband’s. His sullen, red-rimmed eyes seemed never at rest. He had gone through the long morning’s ritual of sacrifice and prayer like a sleep-walker. Now his lips were moving. Was he talking to his wife-or to Minerva, who had deserted him in his dreams? Was he, perhaps, begging Jupiter for his life? Was he insane?
Pliny turned back to his food without relish. At last, the emperor and his entourage stood up. Slaves ran up to drape him in his triumphal toga, purple stitched with golden stars, and placed a laurel wreath on his head. His lictors, bearing the ceremonial bundles of rods and axes on their shoulders, shouted for the crowd to clear the way.
The emperor would mount his golden chariot now and lead a procession of chariots representing the six racing teams, each liveried in its distinctive color, to the Circus Maximus-that immense oval, nearly half a mile long, ringed by tier upon tier of stands, capable of containing a full fourth of the city’s population. Today the races would begin and continue everyday until the end of the Games.
Pliny would join in the procession but then slip away as soon as possible. He regretted having missed most of the theatrical performances during the first week of the Games. He had no such regrets about missing the races. Almost unique among his countrymen, he found them inexpressibly tedious. How the Roman populace could rouse itself to a fever pitch of excitement over the Blues and the Greens, the Reds and Whites, the Golds and Purples, as if it made a particle of difference which team won, was quite beyond him.
But his musings were interrupted by a shocking occurrence. One of the Vestal Virgins, only a child, broke away from the others and streaked toward the emperor. What was she shouting? Something about her mother? The girl threw herself sobbing against Domitian’s legs, holding onto his toga. He raised his hand to slap her, and would have, only the empress pulled her away just in time and handed her to an older Vestal who had raced after her.
And then it struck Pliny-the thing that had bothered him at the sacrifice on the very first day of the Games. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it then. Now there was no doubt. One of the six Vestals was missing.
He had no more time to ponder this now. To the blare of trumpets and thunder of drums, the charioteer cracked his whip and the four white horses of the imperial equipage started forward. As they turned into the avenue that led down to the Circus, an immense crowd surged forward, shouting the emperor’s name in rhythmic acclamations led by trained cheerleaders. Domitian, their Lord and God, raised his right arm in salute. But, at the same time, he steadied himself, gripping the chariot’s handhold with a white-knuckled fist. The rolling waves of sound made him visibly wince, so tightly-strung were his nerves. His features were frozen in a bloodless mask. He looked like a man face to face with death. If the soothsayers were right then this adoring crowd could not shelter him, the steel-clad ranks of Praetorian spearmen could not shield him. If those soothsayers were right, then in five more days, at the fifth hour of the day, his doom would find him.
The gilded chariot, flanked by twenty-four lictors passed on its way. Then followed, in turn, troops of noble youths on horseback, garlanded litters bearing statues of the gods on high, and the leaping priests of Mars, pirouetting to the music of flutes and lyres. Next, in a riot of color and noise, came the chariots of the competing teams, each charioteer pelted with flowers by women in the crowd who shouted their love. And after them the spectators formed one single mass, an immense stream of humanity surging toward the Great Circus.
Gaius Plinius, his mind sorely perplexed, signaled for his litter bearers.
Calpurnia had slept late that morning, drugged by Soranus’ potion. She awoke in a panic. Where was her husband? But Helen ran into assure her that all was well. Master was attending the ceremonies on the Capitolium and would be home for lunch. Helen helped her dress and comb her hair and then walked her out in to the garden to enjoy the fresh morning air. She saw Amatia sitting on the stone bench under the pear tree, facing away from her. She called “good morning,” but her friend did not seem to hear her. Calpurnia sat down beside her and touched her shoulder. Amatia turned to face her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I miss my daughters,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-two
The sixth hour of the day.
Before Pliny, who was longing for a bath and a long nap, reached home, one of Valens’ men intercepted him in the street. “Something to do with a monkey, sir. Centurion says you should come at once.”
Minutes later, Pliny and his officer knelt on the floor in Verpa’s bedroom, peering at the small shape, hideously twisted in death, of Iarbas’ monkey. Lucius, who had followed them upstairs, watched silently from the doorway.
“I reckon he got himself locked in here the other day, after we were here,” Valens said. “A slave found him this morning. I haven’t let anyone touch him. You see how he’s clawed his throat.”
Pliny nodded. There were bloody tufts of fur under the animal’s nails.
“Now take a look at this, s
ir.”
Pliny bent closer. There, on the wrinkled palm of one small hand was a livid welt from which protruded a bit of cork. Grasping the cork warily between his thumb and forefinger, Pliny withdrew a tiny needle from the wound. Suddenly his exhaustion was forgotten. The thing must have been shaken out of the bedclothes when the bed was stripped and lay here on the floor for days until the monkey found it. Clearly whatever killed this animal killed Verpa too. But he would want Diaulus’ confirmation.
Wrapping the little corpse up in a towel and the needle separately in a napkin, and putting both in a shoulder bag, he rushed off to find the doctor. This proved to be not so easy. The embalming workshop in the temple precinct was locked and shuttered. Pliny accosted some minor priestling who was passing by and enquired after “Nectanebo.” To Pliny’s surprise the man dropped to his knees and begged for mercy. It was only then that Pliny, mildest of men, realized how he must look to this fellow. He was still corseleted, helmeted, and armed with his sword from the morning’s ceremony. An unaccustomed sense of power suddenly welled up in him. So this was how soldiers felt when they confronted cowering civilians. Just these bits and pieces of metal made all the difference. It was a heady feeling.
Nectanebo, it seemed, had been summarily fired by Alexandrinus. Word was that he was practicing medicine again in a storefront shop in the Subura.
Feeling invincible in his breastplate and swaggering like a real trooper, Pliny made his way down into that insalubrious quarter of noisy taverns and odorous alleys that buzzed with flies and cheap commerce. After a few inquiries, one ragged inhabitant was able to point out the doctor’s place of business.
He found the little man full of grievance and eager to talk. Indeed, the swelling on the monkey’s paw resembled the one on Verpa’s mentu-, er that is, membrum virile. What sort of poison produced it, he couldn’t say; he was an anatomist, not a pharmacist. But Diaulus had other information to impart, and no reason now to respect the secrets of his former employer, damn him. Twice in the past few nights, both before and after the reading of Verpa’s will, he had observed the Priest of Anubis together with a thin lady who walked with Scortilla’s unmistakable lurching gait.
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