John Roberts - Oracle of the Dead

Still, this said nothing about the murder of the priests of Apollo. I could not tie them to a ten-year-old murder, and the circumstances of their deaths had no apparent connection with the fraud, larceny, and murder perpetrated by the Oracle below them. There was always the possibility that the woman had some other motive entirely. Perhaps she had some personal grudge against the cult of Hecate and merely wished to blacken them in my eyes, not that I required much in that direction.

At the public stable by the gate, I retrieved my horse and mounted. The guard at the gate gave me directions to the villa where Sabinilla lived. The ride was pleasant and nothing occurred to disturb my fruitless cogitations. A fine, paved road turned off the main road, leading to the villa. It was situated on a cliff-lined spit of land jutting into the sea, with breathtaking views in all directions. I could hardly have imagined a more dramatic setting. The main house occupied the very tip of the spit, so that a suicidally inclined occupant could simply dive off a back terrace to end all his problems. There were times when that extreme act seemed attractive to me. As I had feared, Julia was waiting for me at the top of the steps leading to the house.

Of course she didn’t shout. She was too proper a patrician wife for that.

“Decius!” she hissed. “Have you lost your mind?” Her hiss could probably be heard in Rome. Maybe in Gaul. “What are you doing wandering off alone?”

“I’m grown, my dear. I don’t require a pedagogues .”

“You require bodyguards! In fact, you require a keeper, like those idiot children of the richest families! Have you any idea of the danger you are in? Quite aside from the local feuds you’re meddling in, there are probably idiots around here who think your head would make a fine gift to Pompey or Caesar or any of the other rivals for power. In any case, it is beneath the dignity of a Roman praetor to gad about like a carefree bachelor, without a following or even his lictors.”

“Yet,” I told her with a broad smile for anyone who might be watching us, “one may learn things in this fashion that would be impossible otherwise. Let me tell you all about it.”

“You’d better!” she hissed again. She led me to our quarters, a cluster of rooms with balconies overlooking one of the cliffs. The geography of the spit of land made the standard domestic design unfeasible, so the house was long and rather narrow in conformity with the plot, though it lacked nothing in luxury and splendor.

“So,” she said, when we were alone, “what did you learn?” So I told her what the woman Floria had told me.

“It seems too fortuitous,” I said, when I had finished my recitation. “What are the chances that I should just happen by the doorway of this woman who had information vital to my investigation? Yet I can’t imagine how she might have been planted in my path.”

Julia nodded, her natural curiosity and prying instincts at last overcoming her righteous rage. “It does seem improbable. Still, there might be an explanation.”

“What might it be?”

“It is possible that this town and all the others around here are full of people with similar stories to relate, only they are afraid to approach you. Most of them are probably slaves, as this woman was when this vicious deed occurred. At least she was manumitted, and this may have given her the courage to approach you, even if in a fearful manner. At least, as a free woman, she can’t be made to testify under torture.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “I may have passed the doorways of many people victimized by the Oracle. This one saw me alone and took a chance. But I am certain she gave me a false name.”

“Nothing strange about that. She hopes not to be drawn into it at all, but you can find her house again.” She looked at me sharply. “Don’t tell me you didn’t memorize its location.” It was an order, not a question.

“Have no fear, my dear. I could lead you there blindfolded on a moonless night.” This was a bit of an exaggeration, but I was pretty sure that I could find my way back. Stabiae was not as chaotic as Rome, but it wasn’t designed as a rigid grid like Alexandria.

“And we now know something: The voice of the Oracle is false.” She seemed bitterly disappointed at this, whereas I was not at all surprised. Julia dearly loved her oracles, prophets, augurs, and haruspexes.

“At least,” I said, “we know that it was ten years ago, assuming that this woman’s tale is true. I was surprised at her use of the word ‘priests.’ I should have questioned her more closely about it. Perhaps the Oracle had a different staff then. We shall have to make inquiries.”

“Cordus may know, or at least he may know how to find out.”

“I’ll send a letter to him at once,” I said, gratified to see that Julia’s anger had cooled, distracted now by a question to solve. She had philosophical leanings and considered these investigations to be philosophical conundrums. I approached them in a different way, knowing that they were shaped by human passions and weaknesses rather than by mathematics or natural forces at work, and I relied as much on instinct and inspiration as on rigid logic. Between us, we usually got to the bottom of whatever was going on. Unless, of course, it involved her uncle.

That evening, we were entertained by Sabinilla. For the evening she had chosen a startling silver wig, and in the odd fashion of such things, this set me to pondering almost obsessively what her real hair might look like. This is one of my many failings, though I hope a minor one. She took us on a tour of the strange villa, which was built on several levels to accommodate to the slope of the stony spit. We climbed many stairs and saw odd-shaped dining rooms and reception areas, colonnades and courtyards. All of the walls were decorated with beautiful frescoes, none of them the then-popular black walls decorated sparsely with fantastic vegetation and spindly pillars, a style I found intensely depressing. These were colorful paintings of the doings of gods and goddesses, heroes, demigods, nymphs and satyrs, fauns and other sylvan deities. Campanians like color, as do I. The floors were uniformly covered with vivid picture-mosaics, mostly displaying marine subjects. To my astonishment, even the ceilings were painted, this time with Olympian gods disporting themselves among the clouds, and one astonishing room had its floor decorated with night-blooming plants while on the ceiling above Diana and her retinue hunted constellations in the night sky. Julia immediately wanted our ceilings painted.

Most unusually, Sabinilla showed us her personal gladiator troupe. Many wealthy Campanians invest in gladiators, but seldom keep them in their own houses. The schools are usually located in the countryside, well away from the towns. She had a barracks for twenty of them, and an oval exercise yard surrounded by a low stone wall lined with seats. For our amusement she had them come out and go through their paces, mock-fighting with wooden practice swords. They fought almost naked, wearing only the bronze belt and brief subligaculum traditional to Campanian gladiators, their skins oiled to catch the torchlight prettily. They were all Gauls, which was no surprise. Caesar’s wars had flooded the market with cheap Gallic slaves, many of them warriors too dangerous for domestic service. They were armed in their native fashion, with a long, narrow, oval shield and a long sword. They wore no protective armor at all save for a simple pot-shaped helmet.

“How can you sleep,” Julia asked, enthralled, “with such men so nearby?”

“Oh, these fellows seem quite content with their lot,” Sabinilla assured her. “You should have seen them when I bought them: filthy and verminous and wearing enough chains to anchor a ship. Once I had them washed, barbered, and fed decently, and I assured them all they had to do was fight, they couldn’t have been more grateful.”