“That’s my room ahead, if you care to know.” Lucius halted at the top of the steps. “Go left, my father’s room is at the end there.”
“Five, six doors down. Who occupies those rooms?”
“No one, at the moment. They’re for guests. Sometimes my friends sleep over if they’re too drunk to find their way home.”
“Did any of your friends happen to sleep over the night before last?”
“Maybe—I mean, no, no one.”
Pliny lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “And the room below his?”
“His room overlooks the back corner of the garden. Below it is a shed for garden tools and whatnot. No one sleeps there.”
They stood in the doorway and Pliny took in the scene at a glance: a small desk and chair, a lamp-stand and a gilded chamber pot with handles in the shape of urinating Cupids; and Verpa’s bed, its costly Babylonian coverlet tangled and spattered with blood. All at once an unexpected thrill of excitement shot through him. The thing began suddenly to seem real to him. Here a man had died, butchered by a resentful slave, a castoff lover or perhaps some other enemy.
“Of course, without our slaves there’s no one to clean,” Lucius said in a petulant tone.
“Uncommonly large for a bedroom, isn’t it.”
“The family that built the house bedded a dozen slaves here. My father felt that was far too generous. One only needs to squeeze slaves closer together to get them in smaller quarters.
Pliny seemed to recall that this mansion in the Vicus Pallacinae had formerly belonged to a senator whom Verpa had denounced years ago for dabbling in philosophy. It was a beautiful house, far the grandest in a neighborhood of grand houses, and the emperor gave it to him as his reward. Informing on one’s colleagues paid well.
“My father took this room as his private, ah, lair, if that’s the right word,” Lucius continued. “He wanted someplace that was more secluded than the downstairs bedrooms. He was a secretive man who craved privacy—not easy to achieve in the houses we Romans live in. The rest of us have seldom had occasion to enter it. As you see, he decorated it to suit his taste.”
Until now, no one had called attention to the room’s most striking feature—the murals. On every wall, horse-tailed Satyrs with bulging eyes and huge curving penises performed sexual acts in every imaginable position with naked women, their hair loose, their mouths open in shrieks of ecstasy. The figures were life-sized, painted by an undoubted master of anatomy, color, and modeling.
Pliny, like any Roman, was not easily shocked. Sex was celebrated everywhere in the city; you could see similar things in the public baths. Still, his Northern conservatism was pricked. His parents’ house had allowed no such stuff as this. “Great gods, it looks more like a brothel than a gentleman’s bedroom.” All this to stir the man’s flagging libido or, more likely, to instruct the younger slave girls in what was expected of them. What shameful sights these walls must have seen.
Valens grinned. No doubt he and “the lads” found frequent occasion to come up here. Lucius stared straight ahead and said nothing.
Pliny hastened on, “Lucius Ingentius, tell me in your own words what happened that night.”
The young man shrugged—shrugging seemed to signal the way he dealt with the world—and explained how he and a few slaves had burst in at dawn when Verpa failed to answer their knock and found him naked, on his stomach, one leg curled under him, the other extended straight, his back and buttocks shredded with bloody slash marks. The body was cool to the touch and already stiffening.
“And there was no one else in the room when you entered?”
“No one.
“And no one heard a struggle, a cry for help?”
Lucius hunched his shoulders again, “I was out most of the night. Scortilla’s room is downstairs.”
“What about the slaves?”
“I’ve already questioned them, sir,” Valens struck in. “None of them admits to hearing anything.”
“And none of them ran away?”
“No, they’re all here,” Lucius said.
“Interesting. How did your father get along with them.”
Lucius looked doubtful. “He was a strict master, but hardly the monster people made him out. Not loved. But this? I don’t know.”
“And where do the slaves sleep?”
“There are two other big rooms at the other end of the house. Most of them sleep there.”
“Under guard?”
“They’re counted every night, but not locked in.”
“You said most of them sleep there.”
“A few privileged ones sleep elsewhere.”
“And they are?”
“The night staff, the door slaves, the clock slave. Oh, and Iarbas the dwarf. He’s Scortilla’s pet and plays the clown in her pantomime troupe. He sleeps with her.”
“Her own troupe?”
Lucius had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. “I know, frowned on in these virtuous days, but her tastes are old-fashioned. Harmless, really—bit of slapstick, rude songs, boy ballet dancers.”
“Quite,” Pliny interrupted. “And so she and your father never slept…”
“Together? No, not for years.”
“Did any other slaves have the freedom of the house at night?”
“Phyllis, one of the slave girls, generally slept with my father, she was his current favorite. And there’s Ganymede, the cinaedus in our troupe.”
“And where does he sleep?”
There was a half-smile on the young man’s lips. “Ganymede sleeps wherever he likes.”
“Hmm. Well, I will question them all in due course. None of them sounds like a likely suspect. But your father didn’t have Phyllis to bed that night, or anyone else?”
“No, he didn’t. It was his custom when he had important business to transact the next day not to squander his vital force in lovemaking.”
“And what business would that have been?”
“I’ve no idea. But he seemed agitated at dinner and drank more than usual. Something was in the wind.”
“Sir.” Valens had been circling the room, doubtless with the object of appreciating the muralist’s extraordinary technique. “Look at this here. We never noticed this before.” He was pointing at what appeared to be a charcoal sketch of some kind high up on the wall beside the bed: three semicircles one above the other, the largest one at the bottom bracketing the other two. A vertical slash drawn through their centers connected them and protruded a little way above and below them.
“By the gods,” whispered Lucius, squinting up at it. “Jews! My father prosecuted them, you know, and their friends, the ones who call themselves God-fearers.”
Pliny cast him a questioning look.
“What, you don’t know about the God-fearers? Romans, people of our own class, mind you, who attend the lectures of the rabbis where they listen to a lot of nonsense about how their books contain wisdom the equal of Plato or Pythagoras. They worship a god with no image, if you can imagine it, and not only that but he’s worse-tempered than Zeus with a hang-over, spouting rules about this, that and the other. But they eat it up. I had to sit through hours of it, pretending to be one of them, and it all went over my head, I assure you. The only thing that was clear to me is that they’re traitors. But that’s how we caught Clemens and Domitilla. It was my father’s idea.”
What a long speech suddenly from this reticent young man, Pliny thought. “But what does that have to do with this scrawl on the wall?”
“I know what this is a drawing of,” Lucius replied. “And so do you, vice prefect, think about it.”
“Mehercule, he’s right!” Valens exclaimed. “On the Arch of Titus, sir. That bloody huge seven-branched candlestick from the temple in Jerusalem.”
Of course! He’d seen it a hundred times. Every Roman knew those bas-reliefs that depicted the triumph of the emperor Titus, Domitian’s lamented elder brother, over the Jews. All the treasures of the temple had been paraded throug
h the streets of Rome more than a quarter century ago and commemorated in carved and painted stone on the triumphal arch that Titus built near the Forum.
“Sir?” Valens scratched his jaw. “If I might make a suggestion, sir.”
“Yes, what?”
“Ask about the murder weapon.”
“Right, of course, centurion. I was just going to.” In fact, it hadn’t occurred to him. He was no policeman, damn it!
“I have it,” said Lucius. “We found it on the floor by the bed. I took it to my room, I’ll get it.”
Lucius returned moments later with the dagger and held the hilt toward Pliny, who took it in his hand. It was a heavy piece with a wicked-looking curved blade incised with symbols in a foreign script. Black flakes of Verpa’s blood clung in them.
“A Jewish sica,” said Valens. “An uncle of mine worked for tax farmers in Judea before the revolt. The Zealot terrorists used to slash Roman throats with these.”
“You’re a font of information, centurion.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Here, you’d best take charge of it. It’s our only evidence so far.” He handed it to the centurion. Turning back to Lucius, he asked, “Are there any Jews in this house?”
The young man looked at his feet. “Well, yes, one among the slaves that I know of. But really, I don’t think…”
“And who is that?”
“Old Pollux, a former boxer, who guards—guarded—my father’s door at night.”
“Then, I think we’d better speak with him.”
Chapter Eight
Valens stepped out and returned a moment later with Pollux and a second soldier to guard him, even though the man was shackled hand and foot. Ignoring Lucius, he gazed steadily at Pliny. There was nothing servile in his manner. Valens lifted the man’s tunic with the point of his sword, exposing his nakedness.
“Well, the old boy’s a Jew, all right.”
Pollux stood as still as a statue but Pliny saw his jaw muscles quiver. Valens was no weakling but this man could have broken him in half.
“Leave the man alone, centurion,” Pliny snapped. “There’s no call for that.”
He reminded Pliny of a Greek statue he had once seen of a boxer, not in triumph but in defeat: battered, scarred, sad-eyed and infinitely weary. This fellow could have posed for it. He looked to be in his late fifties, his hair and beard grizzled. His shoulders were huge, his big-knuckled hands hung at his sides, gnarled from years of being wrapped in the cruel iron-studded thongs that boxers fought with.
“How did your father come to own this man?” Pliny asked Lucius.
“He served in Judaea during the revolt; legate of the Fifth Macedonica under Vespasian. Pollux here was a Zealot fighter. Thousands of them were crucified, others sent to the mines. My father brought him home, trained him as a boxer, and used to hire him out for private shows. He’s been in our familia since before I was born. After some years he begged to stop fighting, lost his heart for it I suppose. My father made him his bedroom slave instead.”
“Why would your father entrust his life to a former rebel?
“Why do some people keep pet panthers? It’s the kind of man my father was.”
“You speak Latin, man?” Pliny addressed Pollux.
The slave inclined his head ever so slightly.
“The night your master was killed when did you take up your post?”
“Always at the fifth hour.”
“And was your master already in the room?”
The slave nodded.
“Speak when I ask you a question!” Pliny felt unaccustomed anger rising in his chest. This turbulent race with their single god who refused to live peaceably within the Empire like everyone else. Surely, they deserved what had happened to them.
“He was inside,” answered Pollux.
Valens snarled at him, “You’ll address the vice prefect as ‘sir.’”
“And you were outside the door all night,” Pliny continued, “and yet you heard nothing?”
“Nothing.” A pause. “Sir.”
“I can have you tortured, you know.” But there were slaves, Pliny knew, who would go to the rack before they would betray their master, and one look into that brutal, battle-scarred face told him that Pollux would not yield to torture, at least not to any degree of torture that Pliny had the stomach to inflict. Anger gave way to a feeling of helplessness.
“Take him back, centurion. I’ll question him again later.”
He turned back to Lucius. “What’s your opinion of Pollux’s loyalty?”
Lucius gave his characteristic gesture of indifference. “My father saved the fellow from crucifixion and promised him his freedom one day in return for good service. And as far as I know, that’s what he got.”
“Until now, that is,” said Valens. “I’ll have the truth out of that brute in short order—”
“What are you saying?” Pliny turned on him. “That Pollux came in here, butchered his master, drew the candlestick on the wall, dropped the dagger by the bed—all making it plain that this was an act of Jewish vengeance—and then went back and calmly took up his post again outside the door until morning?” At last he’d scored a point against this overbearing soldier. Valens frowned at the floor and said nothing.
There was a hint of a smile on Lucius’ lips.
Pliny turned back to the young man. “Is there anything else here we’ve overlooked? Think carefully. Any other way into this room besides the door?”
“Well, the window, but I hardly think… Wait, though, the shutters were open. Yes, I’m sure they were. And that wasn’t my father’s habit, even on the hottest nights. He dreaded night vapors.”
The single window was barely a foot wide by two feet high. This part of the house was raised on a tier of columns, topped by a course of overhanging eaves that surrounded the garden at the rear. Pliny crossed to the window and peered out. Ivy grew thick around the window frame.
“We’ll go down to the garden, centurion.”
They all trooped downstairs and looked up at Verpa’s bedroom. Strands of ivy spiraled up the columns producing a striking and pleasing effect, but they could see plainly at the base of the column nearest Verpa’s window that the tendrils were torn and loose, used as handholds.
Valens scratched his jaw. “Seems an impossible climb, sir, getting around that overhang and up to the window. And what man of normal size could have squeezed through it? It was clearly designed to give the slaves who were kept there a little air, but no means of escaping.”
“Maybe a trained assassin…,” Lucius said, looking thoughtful. “Not impossible. I’ve heard from my father what those Judean Zealots were like. And if Pollux was his accomplice? I mean, telling him which window, signaling when the time was right, and then guarding the door in case anyone came by?
Pliny was silent for a moment. It sounded fantastic, yet who could say that Jewish assassins hadn’t made their way to Rome, where the filth of all the world eventually collected.
A thought occurred to him. “Are there other Jews in the familia?”
“Don’t know, really. We’ve got slaves from everywhere.”
“There’s one way to find out, sir,” said Valens, eager to regain his authority. “None of them will sacrifice to our gods. Why don’t we put them to the test? I mean, if you agree, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t think…” Lucius began, but Pliny cut him off. “No, my centurion’s right—again.” Pliny was beginning to feel distinctly annoyed at this competent officer. “We may as well know the worst. What images of the gods have you?”
“Dozens, look anywhere in the house. We’ve an altar too, quite nicely carved.”
“Show my men. Bring one of every deity out into the garden, we’ll do it there. And have you an image of Our Lord and God?”
Lucius replied that they kept a small bust of the emperor in the lararium together with their household gods so that they could venerate it everyday.
“Put it with the
others and fetch wine and incense. In the meantime, centurion, show me to the slave quarters.”
A rank stench of bodily waste, sweat and terror assaulted Pliny when the door was unbolted. And this, after only two days of confinement. What would it be like after fifteen—if any of the slaves were still alive by then? With a wail of shrieking protestations they cried out that they knew nothing of any plot to murder Master. On their lives, they would have told if they did. And why would anyone do such a thing to Master? Good, kind Master.
Here was the blood and bones of the household, Pliny reflected. They were Levantines, Nubians, Dacians, and Germans. They were litter bearers, torch bearers, bodyguards, and private bully-boys; doorkeepers, footmen, and messengers; valets, butlers and barbers; lady’s maids, dressers, bath women, hair curlers, and masseuses; scullions, chefs, pastry cooks, waiters, cup bearers, and tasters; keepers of the silver, the unguents, the pearls; short-hand writers, hour callers, name rememberers, bed partners of both sexes, musicians, mimes, dancers, and reciters of poetry. Among them also were children, for Verpa permitted his slaves to cohabit on payment of a fee. Pliny saw backs and shoulders seamed with the marks of old floggings and more than one face branded like a felon’s to serve as a warning to the rest. And now, by order of the city prefect, all wore iron collars on which were inscribed the words, “I’m running away—seize me.” The collars were linked together with chains.
Roman Games Page 6
