“I’d like to think so, but—”
“Be reasonable, Gaius Pliny,” Tacitus said. “It’s a dangerous journey in the dark. And we wouldn’t be able to see anything when we got there.”
“I’m concerned about them moving the body before I can see it. You know how important that is to me.”
“They’ve no place else to put it, sir,” Chloris said. “I think they plan to leave him in Myrrha’s room tonight and send to Rome tomorrow for someone to take charge. That’s what Saturninus said. He was unhappy about it. Nobody’ll want to buy cheese in his shop, he said, when there’s a corpse in the back room.”
“I imagine a dead man on the premises would dampen sales,” Tacitus said. “Perhaps Saturninus could charge admission to see the fellow. That might offset his losses. Oh, and an extra fee to touch him. A bit more, even, to put your finger in his throat.”
Chloris looked at him in dismay. “Sir, you can’t be serious.”
“You need not ever take Tacitus seriously,” I said. “For him the world is a funny place.”
“Not funny, my friend. Bizarre.” He turned to Chloris. “Gaius Pliny, on the other hand, is never anything but serious. Since the day I met him, I’ve been trying to loosen him up. To no avail. I can’t even get him drunk.”
Ignoring him, I sent Blandina to get Hylas with his writing gear. When he arrived and was set up, I dictated a note to the duovirs, offering my services in determining what had happened to the man found in Myrrha’s room and asking them to leave him there until I arrived. I also dictated a letter to Saturninus, asking him to do whatever he could to keep anyone from moving the body until I got there.
“I’ll send these first thing in the morning, my lord,” Hylas said.
“No. Find a couple of men and send them tonight. It’s imperative that no one move that body.”
“Isn’t it risky, my lord, to have them on the road at night?”
“Give them money to stay overnight in Laurentum. I’ll get there as soon as there’s enough light to travel and try to get to the bottom of this.”
I sealed the notes, looking at my signet ring in a new light, and Hylas went off to find messengers.
“But you’re not a magistrate, sir,” Chloris said.
“That’s never stopped him before,” Tacitus said.
“We’ve got the duovirs in Laurentum. Shouldn’t they be the ones investigating?”
I snorted in disdain. “The Licinius family are still treating that office like it’s their birthright, aren’t they?
“Yes, sir. At least one of them holds it every year.”
“They seem to have an endless supply of cousins and nephews.”
“This year it’s Scaevola and his son Strabo.”
“Oh yes, those two. My uncle had some choice things to say about them. And they’ve not made any better impression on me in the past couple of days. They have no more idea of how to determine what happened in this case than they would of how to command a legion in battle.”
“And you do, sir?”
“I have learned how to observe.”
“Doesn’t everyone do that, sir?”
“Everyone sees, few observe.” That was one of my uncle’s favorite aphorisms.
“Now, see,” Tacitus said. “That’s exactly what I mean. Have you ever heard anything so pompous?” He drew himself up and put his hand on his chest like an orator stressing his main point. “ ‘Everyone sees ... few observe.’ ”
I looked him right in the eye. “And fewer still know what to make of what they observe.”
I slept very little. Three strangers were housed under my roof, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust any of them, not even the one who wore a ring my uncle had given her. I locked my door, though I wasn’t sure what good that would do against some sort of mythical monster, if that was in fact what I had confined in one—or more—of my bedrooms.
I felt I had gleaned one bit of useful information from talking with Chloris. It could not be coincidence that she and her sister had both been hired to be away from their home for the entire day. And whoever hired both women had tried to insure that no one saw them or the women leaving.
During one of my waking spells I decided to see whether the guards at Daphne’s and Apollodoros’ rooms were on duty. My suite of rooms is separated from the rest of the house by the long arcade where Tacitus and I had talked with Daphne and then Chloris. I built it that way, with its own latrine, furnace, and a small library, to assure me of privacy. Tonight, though, the walk over to the main part of the house seemed unusually long. I realized an empusa could devour everyone else in the house and I would have no knowledge of what was happening, just as I could not hear the merry-making when the servants were celebrating the Saturnalia.
Or something could kill me and no one else in the house would hear anything.
I stepped through one of the doors in the arcade onto the terrace overlooking the shore. The breeze extinguished my lamp, but my eyes quickly adjusted to the dark and the moonlight. Listening to the sea lapping against the rocks below me, I chided myself. The sea and the rocks were real. The moon that was trying to shine through the thin clouds was real. I would not let myself believe for even an instant that an empusa was real. As Tacitus said, it was just a story told by ignorant nurses trying to frighten their charges into behaving themselves.
When I got to the rooms where Daphne and Apollodoros were confined, next door to one another, I was relieved to see the guards safe and alert.
“Have you heard anything from inside?” I asked.
“No, my lord,” one said and the others shook their heads.
I almost wished they had heard a complaint or a song. Without opening the doors, I couldn’t guarantee there was anyone in either room. And I couldn’t bring myself to open the doors, because I wasn’t sure exactly who, or what, was in either room. A conundrum indeed.
“Do you want us to roust ’em out, my lord?” one of the guards asked. His face showed his lack of enthusiasm for the prospect.
“No. As long as everything is quiet here, I’ll assume we have no problem. If we have to deal with something in the morning, then so be it.”
“Yes, my lord,” another one said. “At least it’ll be morning. The empusa loses its powers when the sun comes up.”
I let out a groan. “Who’s been spreading that ridiculous story?”
“I’ve heard about the empusa all my life, my lord. My father swears he saw one when he was a boy.”
“There is no empusa in there,” I said, pointing to Daphne’s room. “There’s a woman named Daphne in there. And a man named Apollodoros in the other room.”
“Whatever you say, my lord.”
The only way I could win this argument would be to open the door. I stepped up to Daphne’s door and moved the heavy post which Tranio had set up as a brace to hold the door closed. My servants stepped back, hands on their swords.
“Everyone, be absolutely quiet,” I said.
I pulled the door open just enough for us to peek in. The bed was at the far end of this room. The lamps outside the door cast barely enough light for us to see Daphne’s sleeping form, with her face turned toward us, her garish white make-up clearly visible.
“Now, are you satisfied?” I whispered, closing the door and replacing the brace, jamming it in solidly. “There is no empusa. Just remember my orders: do not open these doors under any circumstances until I tell you to. And I mean I, in person, not my mother or anyone else who claims to be acting on my authority.”
“Yes, my lord,” they chorused.
The walk back to my room, even without a lamp, did not seem as long as the trip over here. The moon had broken through the clouds, giving me enough light, and my uncertainty was quieted by finding Daphne sleeping soundly in her room. And yet I was angry at myself for letting the fear of some monster creep into my mind. That was not how my uncle and my tutors had taught me to think. What’s real is what you can see and touch and hear. If you have
a report of something, even from someone you trust, you have to reserve judgment about it until you can verify it for yourself.
Chloris said she spent the day with some Mentula named Marcus. How would I ever prove that? Daphne said she was the daughter of the man I knew as Aristeas. Apollodoros said he was the son of that same man. The only way I might have verified either claim was to ask Aristeas, who was now lying on a prostitute’s bed with his throat slit. If that was, in fact, what was real.
As I neared my room, I stopped. The door was open. I was sure I had left it closed. Straining to listen for any suspicious sound, I took a few steps toward the door. Something bumped.
Someone was in my room!
IX
I couldn’t decide whether to call for some of my servants or risk going into the room alone. If I went to get help, the intruder could be gone by the time I got back. I wasn’t afraid that there was a monster in my room. I don’t believe in such things. And, besides, I had just seen Daphne asleep in her room.
Something bumped and a woman’s voice said, “Ow!”
I stuck my head in the door and saw a form standing near the door to the latrine—the back of a very human form. Whoever it was had bumped into a small three-legged table and was rubbing the spot. That wouldn’t have bothered an empusa. They supposedly have bronze legs.
Regaining some confidence, I called out, “Who’s there?”
“Oh, good evening, sir.” Chloris turned around toward me, straightening her gown. “I know this is forward of me, but I hope you don’t mind if I make a claim on your friendship.” She held up the hand on which she wore the ring my uncle had given her. In the moonlight coming through the windows the pale skin of her face and arms took on an alabaster sheen. Her red hair gleamed like a highly polished copper bowl. Her pale green gown seemed to shimmer. “I was frightened, being on that side of the house with some monster.” Her voice had a convincing—or well-rehearsed—quaver to it.
“You’ve heard my servants jabbering, I take it.”
“They say you have an empusa locked up over there.”
“No. I have two people—admittedly two unusual people—locked up because they’ve told me very different, and very bizarre, stories about the man who’s lying dead in your sister’s room.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Keep them locked up until this is all sorted out.”
“You don’t think they killed him, do you?”
“It seems unlikely, but I can’t say until I know how the man died and how long he’s been dead.”
“How can you tell that?”
“There are signs I’ve learned to recognize.”
She stepped close enough to me to put her hand on my arm. “I really am frightened, sir. Would you mind if I stayed the night here?”
“Not at all. There’s a second bed in that alcove, behind the curtain.” I pointed to a corner of the room. I liked to sleep there on the hottest summer nights. “You’re welcome to use it.”
From the slumping of her shoulders I could tell that wasn’t what she had in mind when she came into my room. “Thank you, sir.”
She drew back the curtain and left it open. Standing in front of the window she slipped off her gown and stood looking out at the bay for a moment.
In one respect Tacitus is right about me. I think about things too much, analyzing them from every possible angle, looking for analogies from things I’ve read to help me understand. This was one of those times. A beautiful woman was standing nude a few feet away from me, waiting for me to let her know that I wanted to get in bed with her. What was going through my head, though, was a Socratic argument about absolute beauty. One always seems to be able to find another woman more beautiful than the last woman one saw. If there is such a thing as absolute, perfect beauty, shouldn’t one be able to find the absolutely perfect beautiful woman? Plato, of course, would argue that she could exist only on the level of the forms, to be known only—
Chloris turned away from the window and got into the bed. “Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Chloris. I ... I hope you sleep well.”
“Thank you, sir. And you too.”
But I did not. I hardly slept at all. What kept me awake was Chloris’ question: ‘You don’t think they killed him, do you?’ She said they. It was just a slip of the tongue, I was sure, but it caused me to reconsider everything. I had been thinking of Daphne and Apollodoros as adversaries. What if they were in collusion?
I was thinking about getting up and walking on the veranda when Chloris slipped into my bed. I was lying on my side, facing away from her. Her breasts pressed against my back.
“Is this all right, sir? I could tell from your tossing that you weren’t asleep.”
Her sultry voice made Daphne, Apollodoros and the whole business vanish from my mind. She reached one hand around me and began to stroke me, turning me into an instant Priapus.
“Did Tacitus pay you to loosen me up, to make me less stiff?”
“If he did, I’m not doing such a good job, am I?” Her voice was low and throaty, as warm as a fire on a January night. “You seem to be getting even stiffer.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. As good as it felt, I really didn’t want to be just one more Mentula to her, or to any woman.
“You don’t have to talk so much, sir.” She kissed me on the shoulders and gently turned me onto my back.
Before I could tell her again that she didn’t have to do anything, she took me in her mouth. Oh, well, I thought as my mind went blank. There’s no sense making her give the money back. I’d never hear the end of it from Tacitus.
When we were finished, Chloris started to get out of the bed, her usual practice with most Mentulas, I presumed. There was always another one waiting outside the door.
“Please, stay,” I said, patting the spot beside me where she had just been lying. Unable to hide her surprise and pleasure, she slipped back into the bed and I drew her close to me. Once she was settled, with her head on my chest, I realized I didn’t know quite what to say. Not sending her away had felt like the right thing to do, but what now? Finally I came up with, “Thank you.”
“Thank your friend Tacitus. He’s very generous. I hope you got his money’s worth.”
I stared at the ceiling. It saddened me to think that such a moment of pleasure and intimacy as we had just shared was, in her mind, reduced to a commercial transaction. Was value received for money paid? The same question could be asked when I bought cheese in Saturninus’ shop. I recently read a treatise by Musonius Rufus, a man whom I admire immensely, on why women should study philosophy. He says that, “above all a woman must be chaste and self-controlled ... pure in respect of unlawful love, not a slave to desire.”
But in Rome how could a woman ever live such a life? If she was a slave, she could be bought and sold, used and abused, on a man’s whim. If she was free, we men made certain that she went from her father’s house to her husband’s. If, like my mother, she found herself a widow, she had to depend on a male relative, unless she managed to outlive them all. The only women who weren’t constantly under a man’s direct control were those who sold their bodies to us, one Mentula at a time. Even they could be obligated to a man if they fell into the clutches of a procurer. I wondered how Myrrha and Chloris had avoided that fate.
The itch that I get to know things compelled me to ask. “How old were you the first time you were ... with a man?”
Chloris’ voice got very soft and I felt her whole body tense. “I was ten.”
“By the gods! That young?” I held her closer and looked at her. Marriages are often arranged for girls of twelve or thirteen, if they have started their monthlies by then, but ten?
“A Mentula came to see Myrrha one day.” Chloris pulled the blanket up over her. Her voice took on a child-like quality. “She had gone out on an errand. He was angry because she wasn’t there when he expected her to be. He said I would have to do.”
“Who was the monster?”
“It doesn’t matter. He turned up dead a few days later.”
“Dead?” I was surprised, but I thought it was exactly what he deserved. “What happened to him?”
She pulled me closer beside her and patted my chest. “Please, sir. I don’t ... want to talk about it.”
“All right. I’m sorry to dredge up such an awful memory.”
“We all have them, sir. They spring up of their own accord at times, it seems.”
I could feel her relaxing as she leaned into me. I ran my hand over hers as it rested on my chest, tracing the lettering on her ring. “Did my uncle give a ring like this to Myrrha?” I asked.
“No, sir. He said mine was the only one he’d ever had made.”
“Did he tell you why he gave it to you?” The reason seemed obvious—after tonight I would gladly give her a lot more than a ring—but I still had to ask the question.
“No, sir.” She rested her chin on my shoulder. “And it’s not what you’re thinking. I never coupled with him.”
“You never—?”
“No, sir. Never.”
“Then why did he come to see you?”
“He said he liked to talk to me. I think he was lonely after his woman Monica died. He talked a lot about her.”
“And you didn’t mind? You weren’t jealous?”
“Jealous of what? He paid me for my time, just like any other man, but he wasn’t just like any other man.”
“He wasn’t a Mentula?”
I could feel her cheek warming as she blushed. “No, sir. He was very kind, and very generous. He hired a tutor for me to teach me how to read and write, and he gave me books to read. You should be proud to carry his name.”
By the time the sun was fully up the next morning we were on the road to Laurentum. Because the road is unpaved, riding horses is faster, but, with rain threatening, I thought we would welcome the cover of a raeda. Mine carries four comfortably. It had been delivered just a month ago, so the paint and decorations were still fresh. The scent of the wood permeated the interior and the cushions on the seats were plump. Chloris sat in the rear-facing seat, with Tacitus and me opposite her, facing forward.
The Corpus Conundrum Page 13
