by Ben Pastor
Aelius would not let himself even blink. "I could say the same. Helena was my lover as much as yours."
"Well, never mind who screwed whose girlfriend, I am not particular that way." Staring at each other was leading nowhere. Decimus kept at it only because he did not want to give Aelius the satisfaction of lowering his gaze. "Like her Trojan War namesake, Helena will cause men to kill one another on her account, and not only her account. I urge you for your own sake to stay away from her."
"Interesting you should say that. She warned me likewise about you."
"Spartianus, even bedding her isn't safe—although it's damn pleasant, I must admit."
"I promised not to discuss her."
"Really? She thrives on having her lovers compare notes. Believe nothing Helena tells you, even as far as your bedroom abilities, or anyone else's. She always brags about another man in your presence, and hopefully about you to others."
It was another trap in the grass. Aelius stood figuratively in front of it, evaluating the danger and choosing not to step forward.
His colleague mistook it for uncertainty. "What are you doing here?" He spoke as if the apologies were due to him. "You come as an imperial envoy, and then you stay, ask questions about matters unrelated to your official business . . . Mediolanum is not so large that such behavior would not be noticed. After your mission to Rome the past summer, officials were arrested here as elsewhere in Italy, the last ones only a week before you came. People suspect you are an agens in rebus, but if you are an undercover operative your cover is a bit short."
What nonsense. This is the result of ease and boredom in cities like this. "I do not have to explain my position in Mediolanum to you or anyone else, Decimus. Think what you will."
Decimus continued to tap the armrests, a sequence beginning with the forefinger and ending with the small finger. He darted glances here and there, avoiding Aelius's face now. "So, you're coming east as well," he said.
"I have my orders."
"The names of the officers transferred to the frontier are posted at the Palace, that's how I know. The specific units are rumored to be assigned soon. I am not sure whether it's a prize or a punishment: What about you?"
"Orders are orders."
"Oh, that is enough, Spartianus! I will not have you act as if you swallowed a broomstick. Men who go to war together ought not to behave this way with one another."
Aelius took a deep breath. "That is generally true. So behave as the good comrade at arms, and accept that I will see Helena tomorrow."
"Where, at what time?"
"None of your business."
19 December, Tuesday, Opalia, Feast of Wealth
At the second morning hour, an obsequious lesser official from the chamberlain's staff came with the summons for Aelius. He'd have waited around to provide proper accompaniment (he had six soldiers with him), had his charge not insisted on coming with his own escort. A consistent snowfall deadened all human sounds in the streets. Faint lapping noises came from the canal where water met small tangles; belligerent sparrows raised a chirping clamor on a windowsill where they fought over crumbs or seeds sprinkled for them. The clean odor of snow, well known to Aelius from his childhood, acquired from place to place a flavor of burning coals, saplings and sawdust used as kindling, soup boiling in iron pots. Odors related to home and women, in his mind.
But Helena was no doubt still asleep at this time, perhaps alone, perhaps not, and sleep kept her from worrying about this wrinkle, that small sag, the all-important smoothness of her inner thighs. Casta— did what? Brave the weather, sit in a hostile guardpost, pray to her god, think in an offhand way of the officer who'd come to the little dark house near Nemesis's temple. In her blue house outside the city gate, or in her Antinoopolis workshop, Anubina had been up for two hours at least. His mother, the soldier's wife and mother, since before dawn. Aelius impractically hoped one of the four at least was thinking of him at that moment, as he thought of them.
Crossing the Jewish quarter toward the Palace district, he ordered the head of his Guardsmen to carry a message to Baruch ben Matthias. Streets, slippery and mushy in turn everywhere else, had been swept as one approached Maximian's residence; soldiers and Palace Guards stood stomping their feet at corners, in doorways. The canals flowed threateningly high where snow had been dumped into their beds from the pavement
In his diminutive office, Aristophanes was wearing green this morning. The color made him appear underripe, compared to the mellow gold he had worn during the first interview. The embroidered ovals on the front of his tunic represented archers and horsemen, stitched in black with silver thread detailing armor and weapons. Egyptian needlework, Aelius recognized. Anubina's shop produced such minutely decorated appliques, sold separately or already sewn to fabric.
This time the eunuch made sure to be found standing. His relatively little feet, stretching the cloth of his slippers, supported a mass that was all courtesy, but without apology. As if the first interview had involved two different men, and they were seeing each other for the first time, Aristophanes asked for credentials. No irritable repetition this morning; no urging of the right hand accompanied the request.
Aelius played the game. Direct orders to accept the imperial message had come from Diocletian, that much was certain. It might or might not mean that he would be received by Maximian after this en counter. Likely not, which saved everyone time and embarrassment.
"His Serenity will view the brief from his colleague and brother in the purple, Commander, and will be pleased to issue a response on Wednesday morning." Surprisingly, the Greek accent had all but gone from the chamberlains speech. Forgetfulness? Admission that pretense was no longer useful? Under the button nose, his mouth drew an upward crescent in the fat of the cheeks, short of a smile.
Aelius bowed his head. "I am grateful to His Serenity for the consideration."
Maximian's bitter reluctance to renounce the throne held with his senior colleague for twenty-one years was understandable. According to His Divinity's irrevocable decision, in less than six months courtiers, bureaucrats, and hangers-on in Nicomedia, Mediolanum, Treveri, and Sirmium would lose their jobs or have to reinvent themselves to please the new imperial foursome. Their clients would tumble in turn, and if the professionals—among these the legal experts and regiment commanders—were expected to retain their posts, loftier heads would have to seek new resting places. The cadres of the criminal police stood to change as well. Overnight, Aristophanes's and Sido's positions were made unsafe.
The meeting with the chamberlain lasted the time necessary to agree on the time on Wednesday when Aelius could return for Maximian's official answer. Acceptance of Diocletian's terms was out of the question; still, much can happen to an imperial envoy even in a few hours. To err on the side of prudence, Aelius planned to send a message to His Divinity before the afternoon.
After the sense of disorientation of his first visit to the Palace, he was starting to make sense of the labyrinth of halls and corridors. There was a sense to the maze: According to the rank of the officials housed therein, marble, travertine plaster, or bricks lined the walls. Name tags on doors, number of guards at the threshold, presence and quality of carpets spelled out the usual self-importance, but May would sweep like a flood through those fragile claims to fame.
At the head of its corridor, the door to Sido's office was open; through it, Aelius saw his empty desk. According to Decimus, Aristophanes's secretary had suggested that the head speculator himself convey the news of the summons to Aelius. Aristophanes had pondered the question a moment before saying no. But Sido knew of the change in policy, clearly, and was perhaps more dangerous now than when his position had been unassailable.
Turning on his heel to resume his winding walk toward the exit, Aelius collided against two Palace Guards. They had silently come up behind him, despite the echoing vaults that magnified sounds. "Commander." Just short of hooking his arms in theirs, without explanation they escorted hi
m back to the threshold of Sido's office, hugging his disarmed sides with their thoroughly armed hips.
As though conjured up by magic, Sido was now sitting at his desk. Alone in the room, he acted as if he'd just heard Aelius coming, or simply happened to look up from his papers at this time. His bullish head and menacing bundle of muscles set themselves into a posture between vigilance and aggression.
Delivered by the guards inside the office, Aelius forced himself to mouth a proper greeting.
"Are you in a hurry, Commander?"
"Not particularly, no. I was seeing myself out."
It was hardly true. Aelius had purposely made the diversion in order to look the head of criminal police in the eye. In the past days, under friendly pressure, he'd made Duco the Briton admit what else he knew about him: namely, that Sido took bribes from army purveyors and suppliers. Because of it, the fabulous contract for the construction of the walls (miles' worth of bricks, mortar, iron brackets, ashlar) had grown like bread dough full of yeast. "Sido is tied to the brick business, to the lead pipe business, to the army mule business—you name it, Aelius. See why I say that I get myself in trouble by talking? Do not tangle with him."
Presently the police official pushed himself up from the desk with his knuckles and surged from behind it. "Why leave? Come forward."
If it was meant as an invitation, the tone of it resembled an order. Aelius checked himself for anger. Finding none worth noting, Leisurely he detached himself from the guards and walked one more step into the office.
"Closer, closer." Sido's bristly head occupied the center of the Medi-olanum wall map, marking the place where the old mint building used to be. "Come closer. You have to see something."
Had Aelius not known better, he'd identify the oblong metal box on Sido's desk as a tureen used to serve fish; Decimus's pond-grown pike had been brought to the table in just such a container. "Closer, Spar-tianus." When the pot was uncovered under his nose, he saw that salt was packed tightly inside it, under the thinnest veil of brine, and he sensed an indefinite smell of pickle rising from it.
"Here." The chief of criminal police was handing him a stylus from his writing kit. "Look in the salt."
A scooping motion, and Aelius exposed a severed human hand. Wrinkled, pale things that had been fingers formed its inert, blue-nailed appendices.
"Did you think you were the only one who noticed the smear of a bloody hand in the room where Marcellus was murdered? The good thing about the Old Baths is that they require a small staff, and you can quickly run a check on them."
Aelius kept his eyes on the tureen. He felt no disgust—not exactly, given his battlefield experience: malaise, rather, ominous and uneasy. "So, it belongs to one of the slaves who were taken and executed right off." Saying it, he set aside the stylus. "Am I right?"
"No. It belongs to the judge's secretary, the former Christian Prota-sius. His fingers and the span of his hand matched the smear on the wall."
Malaise came suddenly close to disgust. He knows the smear could have come from anybody's left hand. Aelius told himself the words, taking one rigid step back from the desk. He knows the bloody stain could belong to anyone who'd helped fish Marcellus out of the pool "I was under the impression that the Christian clergy was found guilty of the crime," he observed.
Sido took the stylus back. He pricked the dead hand with it, squirting brine around it. "He was the one who actually killed the judge. But who do you think enlisted him to commit the crime? Once a Christian, always a Christian. Their leaders take all the decisions for them."
The blue-nailed, pale fingers, shrunken as they were, resembled a woman's fingers. Aelius took another, less steady step back. "Well, I presume this settles the murder case."
"Right." Deliberately, Sido brought the tip of the stylus near his lips and tasted it with his tongue. "I am being transferred to Siscia." He pronounced the sentence, so unrelated to the conversation, as if it were a disgruntled logical corollary to it, implicating Aelius somehow.
"You're fortunate," Aelius commented. Looking away from the obscene savoring of the metal tip became necessary for him. "Iron mines, the weapons factory, the army mint. It's an excellent assignment." Even with his attention on the city map, the spearing of the severed hand was quickly upgrading disgust to nausea. "With your permission," he added, "I have errands to run."
Sido let him salute and start to leave before saying, "Rest assured, Commander, this is not the last we see of each other."
"It hardly ever is, in public service."
"You worked against me."
In theater dramas, the audience shuddered hearing such phrases, pronounced in a hollow voice by the actor playing the ghost or the vengeful god. In real life, the accusation turned Aelius around as if he'd been shoved. "I? What motive would J have to work against you?" Never mind that he could think of several reasons, all sufficient.
Sido stood behind his desk, dominating the center of the large empty room. His fists pressed on the wooden surface, giving the impression that with a sudden impulse he could propel the heavy piece of furniture forward, to bowl down his interlocutor. "You will not be forever His Divinity's historian, nor his envoy."
Who knew what palace intrigue was behind Sido's transfer. Surely it had not been done on account of his corruption, much less on the suspicion that he'd planned the attack at Faunus's Fortune. Aelius saw no point in contradicting him, either. In Treveri, Constantius had mentioned his interest in having a scholar on his staff, now that he'd rise from vice-emperor to head ruler. Aelius had reserved his answer until after May 1, because, as he'd said, "Until then Diocletian is my emperor. I grew up with him, and need to serve him to the last."
To Sido, who continued to scowl at him with his fists clenched, he could only tell the truth. "I assure you I had nothing to do with your reassignment, perfectissimus." Choice of words, tone, posture: All three were under control. His eyes—Aelius knew himself well—had the confident, smiling cruelty of the soldier answering a challenge.
Ben Matthias did not want to talk indoors. "Let's walk toward the synagogue," he said. A hooded fur cape made his bearded figure resemble a sly character from myth. Ulysses, Aelius joked, and the Jew laughed. Snow began to come down again, in large wet crystals that fell heavily in straight lines. Compared to the celebrations elsewhere in the city, the Jewish district was quiet, despite the fact that it was a holiday season here as well.
"The men you asked about, Commander—Curius Decimus sees them often. Vivius Lucianus, Ulpius Domninus, and a man who goes by Otho and claims to belong to the Salvii clan, another called Frugi— all I know about him is that he's fat. Plus those two, the twins. Dexter and Sinister, the only ones who are not aristocrats by birth, but are— I am assured by friends who lived in Rome—pure urban stock, plebeians from way back whose father was knighted by Aurelian."
"And what do they do?"
"You ask too much. I'm a smart Jew, not a magician. They're officers, you're an officer: What do the likes of you do when they get together?"
Aelius ignored the question. "They are all assigned to court, aren't they."
"No. Otho is a liaison to the weapons manufacturers in Ticinum. It's a club, nothing secretive about it. Cato's Sodality, they go by. Have their bylaws and calendar, meet for lunch or dinner at their respective homes, by turns."
"Cato the Elder, or the Younger?"
Ben Matthias shrugged. "I don't know. Does it make a difference? If I read Roman history correctly, they were two conservative pricks, both of them."
At Decimus's dinner, no mention of a club had been made. The appearance was of an occasional get-together among Roman-born colleagues. "Any gossip about their politics?" Aelius asked. "My sideways inquiry at the barracks made everybody clam up."
"No politics that would land them in trouble. Decimus is believed to be a high-level imperial informant, but so are you."
They had come within sight of the synagogue, a smart building at the end of an alley that had priva
te houses on both sides. Neither shops nor public places opened their doors on the narrow pavement. Ben Matthias winked. "We're like Decimus's friends, Commander: We like being among our own. The tenements belong to the synagogue and are rented to people we know."
Aelius nodded distractedly. "Anything else about Decimus?"
"He was involved in a litigation with his relatives over an inheritance seven years ago, Judge Marcellus presiding."
"Really. Won or lost?'
"Lost. You'll find the acts deposited at the tribunal."
Aelius's sudden interest was so overt, ben Matthias smirked widely in the grizzled bush of his beard. "See why one can't be friends with a Roman? You gossip and spy on one another. No, I haven't inquired further into the court docket. I'm doing this for free, remember. In other news, my son-in-law sends me word that a scandal that threatens to turn ugly is rocking the city of Treveri. Already several people have been arrested. Isaac himself has taken his wife and gone out to the country. But he has good lawyers, so we hope that all will be resolved as far as they are concerned."
"Is it still about the brick-maker? Does it involve Lupus's heirs?"
"It involves Lupus himself! Several individuals, from physicians to gravediggers, are being prosecuted for lending themselves to the trickery of Lupus's resurrection." Because Aelius had halted to listen, ben Matthias took him familiarly by the elbow. Away from the snow, they stood under a projecting eave. "The brick-maker's relatives are fighting to show themselves extraneous to the affair. They now swear it was Lupus, on the occasion of an illness, who asked that the fire waker be called to his bedside."
"Does it make a difference?"
"It does. However the Christian healer managed it, Lupus did get better. Then he and Agnus hatched a plan to pretend Lupus's death, preparing an elaborate mise-en-scene that would fake a resurrection from the dead. The advantages for the fire waker's career were self-explanatory. There aren't too many holy men, even among the Christians, who can claim such success. As far as Lupus, the idea was that his brickyard would turn popular after he became famous as one who came back from the dead. So there goes the value of my first-issue bricks."
