Bruce Macbain: The Bull Slayer

“Long life to Pancrates! Oracle of Asclepius!”

The crowd surged forward as the object of their adulation was helped down from his litter-he and the astonishing snake. At that point she lost sight of him as he passed within the bronze doors of the temple. But a herald stood on the topmost step and cried out, “The god has returned to his house. Present your questions and they will be answered to your heart’s desire for the fee of one drachma.”

The crowd was mostly male but there were women too, Greek women modestly veiled as their custom was. But then, to her surprise, Calpurnia saw Roman faces too, unveiled and elaborately coifed like herself. One towering hairdo atop a whitened face and fat neck forced its way toward her through the press of bodies.

“You remember me, Lady Calpurnia? Last night-the reception-such an honor…”

“Yes, of course,” Calpurnia murmured. What was the woman’s name? “So many new faces-Atilia, isn’t it?”

“Philomela, you stupid little bitch, where are you?” The woman looked around angrily as a little slave girl, who couldn’t have been more than ten, struggled after her, fighting with both hands to hold up a large parasol.

The woman turned back to Calpurnia. “Impossible to find decent slaves in this country. But isn’t it wonderful, he’s returned at last!”

Calpurnia looked at her blankly.

“Pancrates, of course. Our oracle.”

That night. The villa of Marcus Vibius Balbus

Balbus snapped his fingers. Thick fingers covered with coarse hairs. Fingers that in their day had gripped a centurion’s vitis , bringing it down hard across the shoulders of any legionary who didn’t jump to attention quick enough. Fingers that lately wielded nothing heavier than a stylus-but even a stylus was a weapon in those fingers. Marcus Balbus snapped his fingers and a young slave boy ran up to refill his goblet.

“More wine, Governor?”

Pliny, reclining beside him in the place of honor, hastily covered his cup with his hand. He’d drunk too much already. Balbus preferred his wine unwatered and forced his guests to do the same.

“Another bite of turbot?” He held out the morsel dripping with sauce on the point of his knife. Eat.” It was very nearly a command. Balbus’ face, square, brown, and hatched as a chopping block, leaned close, smiling unpleasantly. He was a man made entirely of bone and gristle, a man who kept himself fit, with big-knuckled hands and a shock of stiff red hair speckled grey. Gaulish blood there somewhere, Pliny imagined, or even German.

Pliny waved the food away. The dishes were all too sauced and spiced for his frugal tastes. And he would not allow this man to bully him. After a long moment, Balbus withdrew his hand and shrugged.

Conversation, which had died momentarily, resumed with pretended gaiety. There were nine of them at table, the usual number for a triclinium . In addition to Pliny and Calpurnia, the guests included Suetonius, who was always reliably entertaining at affairs like this; two wealthy Roman merchants, one accompanied by his wife, and a man named Silvanus, who was Balbus’ chief accountant. The merchant’s wife seemed to know Calpurnia and conversed with her throughout the evening with great animation. “Thrilled to see you again…this morning…a god…miraculous man…you must ask him…yes, a snake…” Calpurnia had that fixed smile on her face that meant she was bored to tears.

Again Balbus brought his battered face close to Pliny and said in a whisper that was meant to be heard around the table, “We’ve met before, you know, you and I.”

“Have we? I’m afraid I-”

“Don’t remember my face? Well, I was younger and handsomer then, and I was only one of many. The night before Emperor Domitian was murdered. I was a Praetorian Guardsman then. We paid you a little visit, didn’t we? Almost cost you your life, didn’t it? And your charming wife’s.” He smiled at Calpurnia the way a crocodile smiles.

Pliny felt the blood drain from his face. That was a night that still, after fourteen years, haunted his dreams. And Calpurnia’s. And why was Balbus mentioning it now? To make him squirm, why else? Suetonius shot Pliny a worried look. Calpurnia felt for his hand.

Pliny drew a long breath. “Those were difficult days, my friend. Thank the gods we live in happier times.”

Eager noises of assent around the table. Then Fabia, Balbus’ wife, a big-boned woman all bosom and jewels, hastily changed the subject to her favorite, her only, topic of conversation.

“These Greeklings,” she said, “scoundrels every one of them. They don’t love us.” She spoke in a fluting, gentrified Latin that didn’t quite disguise something foreign in the accent-Thracian, it was rumored. Pliny had heard that she concealed barbarian tattoos under her clothing. He could almost believe it.

“No reason why they should,” he answered mildly.

“We’ve brought them peace, haven’t we?”

“Peace, lady Fabia, has never been what they wanted. If the Empire were to disappear tomorrow they would all be fighting each other again and loving it.”

“Strange words for a governor,” Balbus struck in.

“I’m a realist. They pay a high price for Roman peace as you, of course, would know, Procurator.”

Balbus eyed him suspiciously. “Is there a question buried in that remark, Governor?”

Marcus Vibius Balbus was not accustomed to being questioned. Trajan had appointed him Fiscal Procurator of the province. For over two years now he had wielded absolute authority to raise taxes and pay the soldiers, answerable to no one but the Emperor. He had his own office and staff and lived lavishly with his family in a spacious seaside villa south of the city, while Pliny and Calpurnia camped out in the shambles of their ruinous palace. Balbus’ power had equaled that of the governor himself. Not bad for a man who had started life as a common soldier, and clawed his way up the ranks: Chief Centurion of a legion, then a stint in the Night Watch, the City Battalions, and the Praetorian Guard, and finally a succession of civil posts in every corner of the world. The typical procurator’s career, it produced the tough, experienced men who made the Empire run.

Balbus was a man whom no governor questioned. Until now. Pliny’s extraordinary commission from the emperor overrode his authority. Balbus knew it. Pliny knew that he knew it. How long would it be before they had to confront it?

The procurator pulled in his horns just a little. “You have questions about the taxes, Gaius Plinius, speak to my man Silvanus. You there, Silvanus, are you still sober enough to speak? Introduce yourself. Where’re your manners, you ugly fellow? This is our new governor, come all the way from Rome to help us count our pennies. Show him some respect. Perhaps you’ve brought your abacus with you, show him how well you do sums.”

The man addressed was short-necked, beak-faced, and bald but for a few sparse hairs combed ear to ear; he resembled, Pliny thought, nothing so much as a tortoise. His eyes were narrow and nearly without lashes. He blinked them myopically. He stared at his food, his jaws working, and said nothing.

“The man’s as dumb as he is ugly,” Balbus said in a loud voice and laughed.

But Fabia, Pliny noticed, did not laugh. What was it that crossed her face for an instant? A tightening of the jaw muscles, the eyes moving to Silvanus and then sliding quickly away. Perhaps it was only his imagination.

“But he’s loyal,” Balbus continued. “Loyalty’s the great thing. Been with me for years.”

Another uncomfortable silence. Broken by Suetonius, who asked, “What can you tell us about the former governor?”