The Gods Help Those

by Albert A. Bell

  We were sitting around a table in my library, with only a few lamps lit, at Tacitus’ request, talking softly, also at Tacitus’ request. He had promised to regale us with an account of the dinner when he felt better. I had related my conversation with Berenice to him almost word for word. Aurora, sitting beside me, had filled in at a couple of points.

  “You say she was veiled? All you could see was her eyes?” Tacitus belched.

  Aurora laughed. “And an ugly mole.” I joined her.

  “Just below her left eyebrow?”

  We stopped laughing and nodded.

  “That’s Berenice, no doubt of it. When she was living with Titus, some women in Rome stuck fake moles in that spot. Damn things would fall off at the most inopportune times. You go to dip your wine cup in the mixing bowl at dinner and there’s this little black blob floating in it. Do you remember that, Gaius Pliny?”

  I shook my head. “I was living with my uncle and my mother at Misenum at the time. The fad didn’t extend that far.”

  “Maybe this woman’s mole was fake,” Aurora said.

  Tacitus shook his head, a gesture that made him wince. “It was a short-lived fad. When Titus sent Berenice away, all those fake moles dropped off overnight. If she’s got one, it’s the real thing.”

  So a couple of things were settled, because of a signet ring and a mole. “All we’re certain of so far,” I said, “is that the woman I talked to was Berenice and the dead man was Berenicianus. I have no idea how we’re going to figure out who killed him.”

  Tacitus poured himself a little more wine and a good bit more water. “It seems to me that we’re stumbling around in the dark if we start with the question of who killed Berenicianus. It could have been any man—or woman—in Rome. The coins in his mouth are the unique element in this case. If we can decipher the meaning of those coins in his mouth, we might be able to find someone who would have had a reason to put them there. That will be the killer.”

  I slapped the table, causing Tacitus to put his hand to his head. “You’re brilliant,” I said.

  “How can I be when my head is throbbing like this?”

  “Didn’t Phineas say something the other day about a passage in the Jews’ holy books that required thirty pieces of silver to be paid if an ox gores somebody’s slave?”

  “Yes, he did,” Tacitus said. “But I still don’t see how that can have anything to do with this murder. Was somebody paying the money to Berenicianus? Or is this some sort of allegory? If so, who’s the slave? The Jews’ holy books look like a dead end to me.”

  “Maybe not,” Aurora said, “if we look in the right place. Naomi says there’s another passage where a prophet asks to be paid what he’s worth. He receives thirty pieces of silver, which he calls ‘a handsome sum.’ But it’s all sarcasm.”

  Tacitus and I sat up straighter and turned toward Aurora, who drew back as though she was sorry she had said anything.

  “Did Naomi say where that passage is found?” I asked.

  “Just in the book of one of their prophets. I…I don’t remember which one. Their names are so strange, you know.”

  “Would you go get her and ask her to come in here? I want to know more about this.”

  While Aurora was gone I poured myself some wine, not as diluted as what Tacitus was drinking, and broke off some bread from the loaf in the center of the table. “I take it the dinner last night was rowdier than yours usually are.”

  Tacitus sighed heavily. “I hope I can keep the story straight. I’m still hungover and both women are named Julia. By the gods, we need a better way to name our women. Titus’ daughter calls herself Julia Flavia, so, for the sake of my convenience as well as yours, I’m going to call her that. She insists on Julia Flavia, but it’s just too damn cumbersome.”

  “Very well, she’s Flavia. That should clear up the confusion,” I said.

  “All right then. In the past Julia, my wife, has wanted to be part of the elite social set of Rome. It’s difficult for her now because Domitian hates Julius Agricola so much. She has been cultivating Flavia as a friend for some time. She thought herself fortunate that Flavia seemed to like her. Last night she realized that the girl has been playing up to her, merely to annoy Domitian. ‘He’s not in love with me,’ Flavia said. ‘I know that. He hated my father, so coupling with me,’ and she used a truly vulgar term for the act, ‘is just a way to humiliate my father’s memory.’ ”

  I winced. “For her to say something like that in front of people, she must have been well into her cups.”

  “Oh, the girl could drink most men under the table. It was sad, really, to see how unhappy she is. Now this you will not believe”—he leaned toward me and I could smell the wine on his breath—“Flavia predicted that she would be dead within a year. ‘And no matter what you hear,’ she said, ‘it won’t be a natural or accidental death.’ ”

  “By the gods! She’s accusing Domitian of murdering her before the fact.”

  “My thoughts exactly. And in front of six other guests and several dozen servants. We were all terrified at what we were hearing. My wife couldn’t wait for the dinner to end and for Flavia’s servants to scrape her off the couch and carry her home. I’m sure Aurora will hear about this from my Julia. At least it has put an end to her social ambitions. She was even more disgusted than I was.”

  When I heard a soft tap on the door I expected Aurora and Naomi to enter the library. Tacitus and I both scrambled to our feet when my mother came in, followed by the other two women. Mother sat down and motioned for Naomi to sit beside her. Because of her age and her status as my mother’s best friend, Naomi does not consider it disrespectful to sit in my presence. Except for Aurora, my other servants are uncomfortable doing that, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. This time, though, Aurora remained standing behind them.

  “Why did you ask to see Naomi?” Mother said.

  From Aurora’s expression and the few words she was mouthing, I gathered that she had found the two of them together—as was inevitable—and hadn’t dared to tell my mother that her presence wasn’t required or requested.

  Tacitus and I sat down across the table from them. “I just wanted to clarify something she told me earlier,” I began.

  “About what?” Mother’s tone was surprisingly adversarial. Some days lately she can snap without any warning, like a dog that has always been friendly in the past but has developed a nasty streak. I suspect it’s because she’s afraid of dying.

  I turned to face Naomi. “You mentioned something in your holy books about a man being paid thirty pieces of silver because that was what he was worth. Where did you read that and what does it mean?”

  Before Naomi could answer, Mother leaned toward her. “Does this have anything to do with that poor man who had the coins stuffed in his mouth?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to determine. Now, will you please let Naomi answer—”

  “I can answer it.”

  “How—”

  “I asked Phineas about it yesterday. He showed us the book. It’s about a prophet named Zechariah.”

  “How many of my scrolls has Phineas used in copying—”

  “I bought the scrolls from my own funds. We borrowed the books from Malachi, and I paid Phineas to copy them. He worked on them only at times when you had not given him anything to do.”

  I know I have no control over how she spends the money she inherited from my father and my uncle, but I had no idea she was compiling her own library. “Why, Mother?”

  She sat up straight. “Because they’re interesting and give me some comfort, like your books of philosophy and poetry.”

  “But you can’t read Hebrew.”

  “The books have been translated into Greek.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I keep them in my room.”

  From time to time I search my servants’ rooms. Every master has to, and I’m always surprised at some of the things I find. It had never occurred to me that I might ne
ed to search my mother’s room. “So this Zechariah”—I felt like I was spraying all over the table—“this Zechariah, what exactly does he say about the coins?”

  “I don’t really understand all of it.” Mother squirmed in her seat. “But the prophet is told by his god to act as a shepherd to his people. He’s given his payment—thirty silver coins. What are they called, Naomi?”

  “In Hebrew they’re shekels, my lady, something like a denarius. I think that what matters, though, is that they’re silver and there are thirty of them.”

  “And it’s considered an insulting wage,” Mother added.

  “Have someone bring that book to me,” I said. As Mother and Naomi stood to leave, I asked, “How many of these books do you have?”

  “About a dozen scrolls,” Mother said. “Zechariah’s book is on a scroll with some other short books.”

  “We call it the book of the twelve, my lord,” Naomi said.

  Tacitus cleared his throat. He’d been sitting so quietly, his head in his hands, that I wasn’t sure he was awake. “I suspect their brevity will be their only virtue,” he muttered.

  Tacitus called for his litter-bearers. The fact that he had ridden over here instead of walking was a sure sign of how hungover he was. Aurora and I walked with him to the street. He assured us that he and Julia would be back for dinner that evening.

  “It will be a much calmer affair, I promise you,” I said as he settled onto the cushions.

  “Julia and I will both appreciate that. And she’ll have a full report on our dinner last night.”

  Aurora and I returned to the library to find Phineas laying out scrolls on one of the tables and lighting a few more lamps. “Your mother said you wanted to see some of our holy books, my lord. This is the scroll containing the book of Zechariah. I’ve opened it to the passage about the thirty pieces of silver. This”—he pointed to the scroll next to it—“is a collection of songs and poems. Some of them were written by our King David, over a thousand years ago.”

  “That long ago? Are you sure? That would make them older than Rome.”

  “Yes, my lord. David lived in a palace in Jerusalem when Rome was a collection of mud huts.”

  I ignored the remark. As long as Phineas keeps his resentment of Rome within bounds, I don’t object to every jibe. When we sat down and began looking over the scrolls, he rubbed his hands together nervously, like a woman watching someone touch her infant.

  “You did a nice job,” I said. “The letters seem a bit large, though.”

  “Your mother is beginning to have some trouble reading normal-sized script, my lord.”

  Now I remembered that.

  “All right. We’ll call you if we need for you to explain anything,” I said.

  Phineas stepped back from the table. “I was wondering, my lord, if I might go down to my synagogue. I need to return a couple of scrolls that I’m finished with and ask to borrow some more.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  When we were alone, Aurora and I moved closer together on the bench. I took her right hand in my left. With our free hands we unrolled the scroll and she began reading at the point where the prophet demanded his payment for being a shepherd.

  “I became shepherd of the flock marked to be slaughtered.… I tended the flock.”

  “What on earth does that mean?” I said.

  “Maybe we’ll understand better if we read a little more,” Aurora suggested.

  “Three shepherds I destroyed in one month. But I became angry with them, and they hated me.”

  After a few more lines I stopped her. “Does any of that make sense to you?”

  She shook her head. “No more sense than the Sibylline Oracles. It could mean anything, or nothing. Who are the three shepherds?”

  “Where does it mention the money?”

  We looked further down the page and found the reference to the thirty silver coins, the “handsome sum.”

  “All I can make of it,” Aurora said, “is that Berenicianus might have been in charge of some group—tending the flock—and someone became angry with him.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. Because he didn’t do a good enough job?”

  “What about the other one, the collection of poems? While we’ve got them, let’s have a look. I’d like to know what my mother finds so appealing about this stuff.”

  The first of the poems depicted the happy state of a man who obeyed the laws of the Jews’ god compared to a man who refused to do so.

  “Not all that different from some of our philosophers,” I said.

  We skimmed through the scroll. The poems celebrated victories, mourned defeats, and called upon the poet’s god to rescue him. One compared the god to a shepherd who leads the poet beside quiet waters.

  “I could see how that would have a certain appeal to my mother. That lump she found in her breast casts a shadow over the whole house.”

  “You can’t talk to her and tell her you know?”

  “How do you tell someone you know she’s dying?”

  “Well, just treasure the time you have with her. My mother’s illness came on so quickly I had no time to get ready for it.”

  “And you were so young.”

  Aurora shook her head. “I don’t want to go back to all that. Let’s concentrate on this.” After she had read another dozen or so of the poems, we stopped. “Not anything like Ovid or Horace, is it?” she said.

  “No. I don’t see how it gets us any closer to understanding what happened to Berenicianus. Like Tacitus said, these books seem to be a dead end.” But I could have sat next to Aurora, holding her hand and listening to her warm, golden voice, for the rest of the day.

  We heard a knock on the library door. I kissed her hand and we moved slightly apart as Phineas entered the room, carrying two more scrolls.

  “Excuse me, my lord.”

  “It’s all right. I think we’ve read enough. You may take these back to my mother.”

  “Yes, my lord.” He placed the new scrolls on a shelf. “I have a message for you, from Malachi.”

  “From Malachi?”

  “Yes, my lord. He’s asking you to come to the synagogue. He’s been thinking about Berenicianus’ death and wants to discuss it further.”

  “Why can’t he come here?” I did not like the idea of going into the Subura.

  “He feels polluted when he goes into the house of a Gentile. He’s not sure what he can touch or eat or sit on. He had to go through a ritual to purify himself after coming into contact with a dead body the last time he was here.”

  “He never touched the man.”

  “But he got too close to him. He felt…polluted.”

  “Do you feel polluted?”

  Phineas began to stutter, as he does when he’s nervous. “No, my…my lord. My mother and I ac…accept our situation, and our law allows us to accommodate ourselves to situations we can’t control. With the lady Plinia’s permission we’re able to do what we need to do to stay within the limits of our law.”

  I wasn’t going to pursue that topic at the moment, but I would certainly ask Mother what it meant for them to stay within the limits of their law. What were they doing or not doing that I should know about? “When does Malachi want me to come down there?”

  “Your mother, my mother, and I will be going to the synagogue this evening, my lord, for a regular time of worship. Perhaps you could accompany us and talk with Malachi afterwards. All he asks is that you not bring a large group of servants or clients with you.”

  “Have you forgotten what happened the last time I got anywhere near that place?”

  “The people who threatened you were not Jews, my lord. We’re not the only ones who live in the Subura. You ran into danger because of the large clientela you had with you and the stripe on your toga.”

  “Are you about to suggest that I wear a toga without the stripe?”

  “Yes, my lord, I am. In fact, if you were to dispense with the toga altog
ether, it would make you much safer. You would appear to be just another citizen, in a tunic without a stripe, not worth robbing.”

  “Hmmph! I’ll have to think about that. When will you be leaving?”

  “About half an hour before sunset, my lord.”

  When Tacitus and Julia arrived for dinner, we gathered in the exhedra and I told them about Malachi’s invitation. Julia voiced strong objections to the plan. “It sounds like a trap. You’re being asked to go into the most dangerous district of Rome without your clientela and to remove your stripe. Those are the two most important elements that protect you when you walk through the streets of this godforsaken city.”

  “They didn’t do me much good the last time I ventured into the Subura.”

  “Yes. Tacitus told me about that.”

  “Malachi and his synagogue saved me on that occasion. I find the man honorable, if abrasive.”

  “You might be abrasive, too, Gaius,” Aurora said, “if the situation were reversed and you were living in the land of your conquerors.” Julia gasped softly. Even as good a friend as she is to Aurora, she is still sometimes shocked by her effrontery.

  “You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?” Tacitus said.

  “If someone wants to talk about Berenicianus’ death but doesn’t want to come here, then I’ll go wherever I need to, even if I have to go alone.”

  “I’m going with you,” Tacitus said. Aurora and Julia quickly agreed.

  Aurora did not surprise me, but Julia did. “Are you sure?” I asked her.

  “Well, your mother’s not afraid to go down there. Besides, they may need someone to identify the bodies.”

  VIII

  Tacitus and I put on oversized, unmarked tunics, loose enough to conceal the short swords we would carry beneath our clothes. As we walked down to the synagogue Phineas explained that women sit on one side and men on the other. “I hope that doesn’t make any of you uncomfortable, my lord.”

  I knew he was talking about Aurora and me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m not going in. There’s a taberna across the street, isn’t there? I’ve heard Mother mention it.”