Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"And when did you realize the truth?" asked Bethesda, lazily tracing her fingertips over my earlobe and neck.

"When I reread Diana's letter to Meto. She made no mention of Davus, but she knew that we had been attacked and abducted on our way back to the city. How? It was possible that some passerby witnessed the attack, happened to recognize Eco or me, and felt obliged to inform the family. Possible, but not likely. It was also possible that whoever came upon Davus's corpse, if indeed our abductors had left it in the road, just happened to recognize him as my slave and returned him to the family, and that from his condition and the place where he was found, and the fact that we were missing, Diana could have inferred that we had been attacked and abducted. That chain of possibilities seemed unlikely. The simplest thing is often the true thing. Davus must have survived, I reasoned, and brought home the tale of the attack. That seemed unlikely, too, but I wanted to believe it, and so I quietly did. I am more pleased than I can say to discover that I was right. To have first lost Belbo, and then you…"

Davus continued to blush, and would not look me in the eye.

"But we are all well, all together," I said, pulling Bethesda closer to me. The warmth and firmness of her body — the simple, solid reality of it — felt incredibly good to me. With my other hand I reached out to Diana, who sat on a low chair to my left. She smiled and lifted her chin as I stroked her black, shimmering hair. Surely there was no finer or more beautiful thing in all creation, I thought, than Diana's hair. Yet even as she smiled, there seemed to be an anxiety that clouded her face and would not disperse. Perhaps she could not quite trust that all was well again, after so many long days of worry.

Eco reclined on a couch across from me, with Menenia beside him and Titus and Titania at his left hand. We talked for a while longer, about our captivity, about the state of things in Rome, about Bethesda's success in bending Pompey's guards to her will. The sky darkened and stars began to appear. After a while, Eco and Menenia sent the twins to bed and retired to their room for the night. Davus withdrew, and a few moments later Diana left the garden as well, still looking uneasy. Bethesda and I were alone.

She brought her face close to mine. "I missed you," she whispered.

"Oh, Bethesda, I worried for you so much."

"I worried for you, too, husband, but that's not what I said. I said I missed you." She smoothed her hand over my chest and down towards my legs, ending in a place that made her meaning unmistakably clear.

"Bethesda!"

"But husband, you must be voracious after so long."

It was a curious thing, but during our time in the pit I had experienced hardly any amorous impulses or fantasies at all. A few times, purely for physical relief, I had tended to myself while Eco slept. I assumed he had done the same, though probably more often. And on a few occasions, I had resorted to a certain fantasy involving a certain highborn lady and her red and white striped litter. But for the most part I had retreated from my body as much as I could. Denying pleasure was perhaps a way of also denying the more imminent prospects of pain and death. It was as if I had been buried alive — which was not far from the truth.

Now I was free and back in Rome at last, safe and fed and surrounded by my loved ones. But I was also tired, exhausted by four days of riding and still not fully recuperated from the debilitating effects of our captivity. Much, much too tired for what Bethesda wanted, I thought… and yet the movements of her hand began to stir me, and her warmth seemed to pour a kind of vitality into my body, bringing me fully to life again. I felt myself sinking into a state beyond words or caring, like a stone dissolving into water.

"But not here," I whispered. "We should go… inside…"

"Why?"

"Bethesda…!"

So we did it there in the garden like young lovers, not once but twice, with the moon for a lamp. The night air grew chilly, but that only made the places where our flesh touched burn all the warmer.

Only once did I have the sensation that we were being watched, but when I looked around it was only the head of Minerva that looked back at me, lying sideways in the grass. I ignored her until we were finished the second time. When I looked again, she still seemed to be watching me, with a look of hurt in her lapis lazuli eyes. And when will you tend to my needs? her expression seemed to say — as if single-handedly I could put the goddess of wisdom together again and return her to her pedestal.

Bethesda and I eventually retired to the bedroom, but at some point in the night I got up to relieve myself. The hulking shadow I saw across the garden alarmed me at first, until I realized who it was.

"Davus!" I whispered. "Why are you up? Pompey's guards take the night watch."

"I couldn't sleep."

"But you should. I'll' need you fresh and alert tomorrow."

"I know. I'll try to sleep now." He began to walk off, slump-shouldered. I touched his arm.

"Davus, I meant what I said tonight. I thought we had lost you for good. I'm glad it wasn't so."

"Thank you, Master." He cleared his throat and looked away. What was wrong with him? Why did he feel so guilty?

"Davus, no one blames you for what happened."

"But if I'd known how to ride a horse — "

"I've ridden horses all my life, and they pulled me off my mount with no trouble at all."

"But nobody pulled me off my horse. I was thrown! If I'd stayed on, I could have ridden for help."

"Nonsense. You'd have stayed and fought, and they'd have killed you for certain. You did your best, Davus."

"And it wasn't good enough."

Where had he come by such a conscientious nature, having been a slave all his life? "Davus, Fortune smiled on you. The horse threw you, you were left for dead, and you're alive today. Fortune smiled on all of us. We're still here, aren't we? You should let that be enough."

He finally looked me in the eye. "Master, there's something I have to say. You said you were glad to find out I was still alive, but you can't know how glad I was today, when you showed up at the door! Because — well, I can't explain it. I wish I could, but I can't. May I go now?"

"Of course, Davus. Get some sleep." He lumbered away, tongue-tied and close to tears. I thought I understood. Minerva, who could see everything from the place where she had fallen, must have had quite a laugh at me that night.

The next morning I asked Diana to show me the note she had mentioned in her letter to Meto, the one that had arrived by anonymous courier addressed to her mother. It was just as she had transcribed it:

Do not fear for Gordianus and his son. They have not been harmed. They will be returned to you in time.

I showed it to Eco. "Does the handwriting look familiar to you?" "No."

"Nor to me. Still, it tells us something. The parchment is of good quality, as is the ink; it didn't come from a poor household. Moreover, the spelling is correct, and the letters are properly made, so we may assume that the writer is educated."

"Probably a slave, taking dictation."

"Do you think so? To send a message such as this, I imagine a man might actually write the note himself. I think it might profit us to look among my records and correspondence, to see if we can find another example of this handwriting."

"I don't have many such specimens, and neither do you, Papa. Most letters come on wax tablets, so that you can write over them and send them back."

"Yes, but we may find something-a bill, a receipt, anything. Do you see how he's made the letter G in my name? That's rather distinctive. If we could find the man who makes his Gs that way…"

"We'd find a man who must know something about our captivity."