Roman Games

by Bruce Macbain

  Valens interrupted these mutual congratulations. “It’ll take days to search them all with the men I’ve got.”

  “Then I’ll ask the prefect to assign you more men.” Pliny reached for parchment and pen and scribbled a note to Aurelius Fulvus. “Anything else now?”

  Valens looked at his feet. “Well, sir, there was a personal matter, but I’ll ask you another time.”

  “No, no go on.”

  “Well, sir, I want to make a will. Haven’t much to leave but my family situation’s a bit complex. Common-law wife, bastards, that sort of thing. I want ’em to be cared for if anything should happen to me. Wondered if you could recommend me a lawyer that won’t charge too much.”

  “Wise man. No one should live a single day without a will. But why at this particular time?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Just a feeling I’ve got. Lot of tension in the Castra Praetoria, sir, between us and them. I mean there always is, but there’s something in the air lately. The way they swagger about, like something’s going to happen soon. All the lads are a bit nervous.”

  “You don’t say.” Pliny and Martial exchanged worried glances.

  “Well, my dear Valens, you just find Ganymede for me and I’ll write you a will free of charge such as any client of mine would be proud to have. How will that suit you?”

  “Why, sir, thank you, sir.”

  For the first time, Valens allowed himself a smile of genuine feeling. Pliny wasn’t sure how it had happened but the two men had become, if not friends, at least allies.

  “Get busy then. Every bordello in Rome is registered at the Prefecture. You’ll find them all there.”

  “Well, I’ll lend our brave centurion a hand,” said Martial, “just to make sure he doesn’t mix business with pleasure.”

  “Not my idea of pleasure,” growled Valens as he lumbered out of the room, followed by the poet.

  But Valens paused on the threshold and came back. “I nearly forgot, I’ve another matter to report on, this time with a bit of success. It’s about that missing doctor of the lady’s. We put his description about and a sausage seller in the Forum claims to have seen him. Says he passed that way several times around midday with his doctor’s kit slung over his shoulder. Says he bought hot sausages from him. But the last time he saw the fellow, three bearded men, foreigners he thinks, ran up to him and started jabbering about an accident nearby, something like that. Iatrides tried to get past them, but quick as a wink they mobbed him and hustled him into a shop. A minute later, out come our three foreigners with a rolled carpet on their shoulders, tossed it into a waiting cart and off they drove.”

  “The same three men, he’s sure of this? And it never occurred to this damned sausage seller to report what he’d seen?”

  “None of his business, says he.”

  “When did this happen, does he remember that?”

  “It was the third day before the Nones.”

  “Verpa died that very night!”

  “So he did, indeed, sir.”

  Pliny massaged his throbbing temples. This was becoming too much. The physician of Amatia, a stranger to the city, snatched off the street in broad daylight, rolled up in a carpet, taken somewhere, and almost certainly murdered. For what possible reason?

  He drew a deep breath. He must inform the lady. She was taking lunch in her room, said old Helen, shaking her head. The mistress was with her, crying on her shoulder.

  What a confusion of feelings assailed him! But he had been brought up in his uncle’s hard school. His uncle who, setting duty before all else, had sailed into the maelstrom of an erupting volcano and lost his life. With a comparable feeling of dread, Pliny knocked upon the door.

  “You have come to speak with me, Gaius Plinius?” Amatia said in her low voice. “Speak first to your wife.”

  Calpurnia, covering her face with her hands, tried to run past him, but he stopped her. They enacted a painful scene before their guest’s steady gaze.

  His story came out in halting phrases—not quite the whole truth, but enough of it—amid many endearments and promises never, never to make such an ass of himself again. At the end Calpurnia, blinking back her tears, kissed him gravely upon the cheek. A married woman learns to expect these things, she seemed to say, but from you I expect better. “We will not speak of it again, husband.”

  Pliny’s heart overflowed with gratitude. “Thank you, my dear. And now, if you will excuse us, I need to speak with Amatia.”

  The lady gave him a questioning look.

  “I fear I have troubling news, dear Amatia. The thing is quite baffling.” He recited the few, bare facts of Iatrides’ disappearance. “Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kidnap your physician? I mean murders, assaults, robberies happen every day in Rome. But this seems very odd. Where would he have been going at that hour of the day?”

  “I don’t know.” She put her hands to her breast, her breath rattled ominously in her throat. “Oh, I wish we’d never come here!”

  “My men are still working on the case, but I’m afraid I can’t offer you much hope. In the meantime, may I again offer you the services of my specialist, Soranus?”

  “Oh, please say yes, dear,” Calpurnia urged, “he’s quite a wonderful man, I’m sure he can help you.”

  Amatia smiled wanly and placed a finger on her lips. “Allow me awhile to think on it alone. Please leave me now, both of you.”

  “Will you be all right?” Calpurnia asked.

  “Yes, yes, don’t worry.”

  But they had barely closed the door when they heard a strangled scream and the thump of a body. They raced back to find Amatia on the floor. Her limbs twitched violently. Her lips were drawn back in a rictus, baring her teeth. Her eyes were wide and staring.

  “Helen, quick!”

  The nurse came running as fast as her short legs would carry her. She and Calpurnia between them were able to raise Amatia’s head and pour spoonfuls of medicine down her throat—a preparation of hemlock, pepper, and honey, which she had brought with her. After some moments, her limbs relaxed, her eyes closed, and they were able to lift her back onto the bed.

  

  The Roman Games consisted of ten days of stage plays followed by five of chariot races. Pliny detested chariot racing, but loved the theater. In seven days he had yet to tear himself away to see a play. And what better peace offering to Calpurnia? The poor girl hadn’t been out of the house in weeks. Soranus would disapprove but he’d chance it anyway. Wall posters announced that a performance of Plautus’ The Captives, one of his least bawdy creations, was to be performed that afternoon at the Theater of Marcellus. He would take her and Zosimus. And Amatia? She seemed to have recovered herself although she was still pale.

  “I can’t. As I told your friend the poet, crowds terrify me. And I’ve had one attack already today. But let me help Calpurnia dress.”

  Calpurnia was determined to plaster her face with white lead and rouge, “like a proper lady.” This was a constant argument between her and Pliny.

  “Your husband is quite right.” Amatia touched the pouting girl’s cheek. “Any dried up old matron would give a hundred gold pieces for your rosy skin. Your beauty is a gift of the gods, my dear, why ruin it with this noxious stuff. I never wear it, even at my age, and I think I’m none the worse.”

  Pliny was grateful to her and said so.

  They sat in the section reserved for senators, front row center in the vast open-air cavern of the auditorium, facing the towering porticoed facade through whose doors the actors entered and left the stage. The singing and acting were first rate, but the play was a bad choice, Pliny soon decided. Only mildly amusing, while its theme of unjust captivity and slavery threw him back painfully on the very thoughts he had hoped to escape from. But Calpurnia seemed to enjoy herself—indeed she must have enjoyed being anywhere outside the confines of their house.

  As they left the theater late in the day, black clouds roiled across the sky, li
ghtning quivered on the horizon, and the heavens opened. Rain pounded on the tile roofs, gushed from Gorgon-mouthed rainspouts, and ran in rivers down the gutters. Then a sudden lightning flash close at hand and a thunderclap made Pliny jump and set his heart pounding. Where had it struck? Somewhere over toward the Capitolium he thought. An omen? A sign of Jupiter’s wrath? It was said that the emperor Augustus used to cower under his bed in terror during thunderstorms. And even as rational a man as Pliny could not suppress a nervous shudder. Instinctively, he made a sign with his fingers to ward off evil—a thing which he had not done since childhood.

  

  Ganymede, crouching by the open window, stared at the rain-swept street below and at the house fronts slowly materializing out of darkness. Water dripped steadily down between the charred roof beams of the fire-gutted flat, drumming with a hollow sound on the thin floorboards and striking with a higher, thinner sound the sodden corpse of the old woman who lay beside him.

  She had haunted his dreams in the night, in those brief intervals when sleep overcame him. She had opened her eyes, crept upon him silently, he unable to move, and wrapped her bony fingers around his throat. Finally, out of desperation, he had dragged her to the window to push her out, but her arms and legs had stiffened at odd angles to her body and he couldn’t manage it. He knew he would turn stark mad if he stayed there much longer.

  Through veils of rain he could make out the entrance to the Temple of Eros and above it the prick and balls that banged back and forth in the wind. Lucius would come there soon, looking for him. He would make an arrangement with the new proprietor, and then, as soon as things died down, he, Ganymede, could go home again, safe and protected forever. Lucius had promised him this, if he did his part right, and he had.

  It had been so easy! He had plunged the dagger again and again into Verpa’s naked back, pouring out a lifetime of hate that surprised even him. The filthy old beast didn’t cry out, didn’t even grunt. And he had followed the rest of Lucius’ instructions exactly: drawing the picture, leaving the dagger. He’d even had the pleasure of strangling that wretched little Hylas in the confusion when the other slaves were killed. Still, somehow, that vice-prefect had come to suspect him. But no matter, Lucius was too clever for them; he knew what to do. Lucius would never abandon him. But what if Lucius didn’t come? No! Lucius loved him, hadn’t he said so? But if Lucius changed his mind, if he were angry with him?

  Ganymede was soaked to the skin and shivering. He’d eaten nothing for hours. The old crone’s wine jug held only a few dregs at the bottom and if there had been any food in the cupboard, the rats had long since consumed it. Someone stirred in the apartment below. Only an inch thickness of floorboard between them! He froze, not daring to move a muscle, though his limbs ached with cold. He was trapped. If Lucius didn’t come soon he would surely die! He clutched his knees and wept silently.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The eighth hour of the night.

  “Compliments of Centurion Valens,” said the breathless trooper, striding into the dining room. “We’ve got the pretty boy, sir! Though he ain’t so pretty anymore.”

  Pliny was up from the table instantly, calling for his boots and cloak.

  Under a dripping sky, his litter bearers set him down in front of a shabby tenement near the Laurentine Gate, where the walls were scrawled with graffiti, and the filth in the gutters was ankle-deep.

  The trooper led the way up to the garret room, roughly shouldering aside curious tenants who crowded the landing. An exhalation of boiled cabbage and onions, of wood rot and stinking straw seeped from under every door. The heat was suffocating. Inside, Pliny found Martial and Valens, both looking pleased with themselves. On the puddled floor by the window lay the old woman and the boy, like two sodden rag dolls. The shards of a smashed wine jug lay between them, and one sharp-pointed fragment was in Ganymede’s lifeless hand. He had used it to rip open both wrists. A pinkish pool of blood diluted with rainwater spread out around him.

  “Red rain drops come through our ceiling, Your Honor, drippin’ on our plates while we was eatin’. Me an’ the wife.” From the open doorway, an old man addressed himself to Pliny. “I come up to see what was the matter. He’s a runaway, ain’t he? I saw that writing on his collar but, not being a reader, you see, I didn’t know where to report him. I’ll wager there’s a reward for him though, ain’t there? You think I’ll get it? Mean a lot to us. I walked all the way to the Prefecture in this rain just to report him. Be a shame not to get a reward.”

  “I will see to it personally,” Pliny murmured.

  “It took another hour for the word to get to me,” added Valens.

  Martial struck in, “Your excellent officer and myself were pursuing our researches into the brothels of Rome. We were visiting our, what was it, sixth or seventh Temple of Eros? The proprietors, I must say, have all been terribly obliging. They’ve all invited us back any time for a night on the house. Wonderful thing, being a policeman. We hadn’t gotten near this neighborhood yet, but there’s another Temple of Eros down there across the street. You can see it from the window. I reckon that’s what our friend was doing, watching out for someone. Don’t know why he would have killed himself, though.”

  “Don’t you?” sighed Pliny wearily. “Here’s matter for your pen, my friend, if you would write in a somber vein: this pathetic creature, this ‘boy’ who was never allowed to be a child. What happens to the pretty boys when they lose the power to please us? Whether they are house slaves like Ganymede or hustlers on the make like your Diadumenus and his little friends. What happens to them, Martial, when they no longer amuse? I think you know the answer but I imagine you’ve never looked at it before. Look now. Ganymede believed himself to be betrayed. What else could he do but die?”

  The poet started to say something, then closed his mouth and looked away.

  “You’re right about him being betrayed, sir,” said the centurion. “While we were waiting for you I interviewed the brothel keeper. Take a look at this.” He handed Pliny the message addressed to Marcus Ganeus. “You notice it’s signed ‘L’.”

  

  “Patricide!” thundered Pliny, “the most hideous of all crimes!” The vice prefect, flanked by Martial and Valens, shook his fist in Lucius’ face. “Oh, Ganymede wielded the dagger all right, but you, you are the murderer! Do you know the punishment for what you’ve done? It is as ancient as Rome itself. You will be sewn into a leather sack with a cock, a dog, and an ape and thrown into the sea. The animals will tear you to pieces while you drown!”

  Seeing himself cornered, Lucius bared his teeth. “Pah! You don’t scare me with your apes and sacks. You’ve no evidence for your ridiculous theory.”

  “Haven’t I? Look at this.” Pliny showed him the waxed tablet. “Given to my centurion by the new owner of the Temple of Eros where you told Ganymede to hide. Why arrange his death unless you feared he would incriminate you? Unfortunately for you, Ganymede isn’t dead,” Pliny lied, “and he’s told us everything.”

  Lucius’ eyes darted wildly to the door, his muscles tensed, but Valens’ men converged on him from all sides, surrounding him with a ring of steel. His shoulders sagged. The fight drained out of him like air from a punctured bladder.

  “It wasn’t just the money.” He spoke in a low voice full of resentment and pain. His face worked with emotion. “In return for my spying on the Jews and the God-fearers, at risk to my own life, he promised me freedom from potestas and money to pay my debts. Then he changed his mind! All because of that little cunt, Phyllis. On his last day alive, we quarreled again. He waved two sheets of paper under my nose and boasted he had a dozen great men by the balls and all he had to do was squeeze. I asked him who he meant but he just laughed. Said it was no business for an imbecile like me. You know what he was like. All my life he humiliated me.

  “But I’d made up my mind long before that day to kill him. After all, he’d threatened to kill me, hadn’t he? At first, I expec
ted Pollux to take revenge for his Jewish compatriots and spare me the trouble. When he didn’t, I decided to make it look as if he had. I knew enough about them to make a good show of it.”

  Pliny exchanged a look of triumph with Martial: all their guesses had turned out to be right.

  “Perhaps you will enlighten us on one point,” said Pliny. “Your father rarely slept alone. How did you choose the one night when he did?”

  “By going around the house after everyone was asleep and counting his bed partners, male and female. I did it many times until finally that night I accounted for all of them. I wasn’t surprised. He didn’t like to squander his sexual energy on a night before he had important business to transact. From his wild talk that day I guessed he might have something on for tomorrow. I told Ganymede to meet me in the garden at midnight. I gave him a pouch to wear containing the dagger, which I’d taken from the tablinum, also a thin-bladed knife to insert in the shutter latch, and a piece of charcoal for drawing the candelabrum. I had to pour half a flagon of wine into the boy to get him to stop shaking, the little coward. Merda! I’ve plenty of friends who would gladly have stuck a knife into my father if I asked them to, but none who could scamper up to that window. I was forced to use Ganymede although I knew he was a weakling. When he came down again I washed the blood off him in the fountain and sent him to bed. I told him that everything would be fine if he just kept his head, and it would have been. The only thing I wasn’t prepared for, vice prefect, was—you. No one else in Rome would have worried this case to death like you’ve done.”

  “You say he taunted you with some papers. What were they, where are they?”

  “One looked like a letter, the other was covered with signs and symbols, a horoscope maybe. I searched the tablinum for them the night he died but I couldn’t find them. I surprised someone else there in the dark. Scortilla, I’ll bet. Why don’t you ask her? Anyway, I couldn’t find anything. Then early next morning, before you got here, men from the Prefecture came and carted off all his files. They probably have them.”