Steven Saylor - The Venus Throw

"He would hardly be the first young man to lie to a beautiful woman to get her money."

Clodia smiled at this, and I realized that I had called her beautiful without even thinking; I had meant to say 'an older woman,' surely. The flattery was all the more sincere for being spontaneous, and I think she sensed this.

Her smile faded. "I believe Marcus Caelius used the money to obtain poison and then to bribe one or more of Lucceius's slaves to try to kill Dio with it."

"You said it was a large sum of money."

"Poison isn't cheap; the stuff has to be reliable, and so does the person selling it. Nor is it cheap to bribe the slaves of a rich master to commit such a crime." Clodia spoke with authority, as if she had personal knowledge of such matters. "The connection occurred to me only later, after Dio was dead. Little things-the tone of Caelius's voice and the look on his face whenever the subject of Dio arose, cryptic comments he would make, my own intuition."

"These are hardly evidence."

"Evidence is what I want from you, Gordianus."

"Whatever the truth of the matter, it wasn't the poison attempt that killed Dio. What about the stabbing?"

"Early on the evening of the murder, Caelius was at my house, which isn't far from that of Titus Coponius, where Dio was killed. Caelius was carrying a knife, concealed inside his tunic."

"If it was concealed, how-"

"I assure you, nothing on Marcus Caelius's person was hidden from me that night," she said with a brittle smile. "He was carrying a dagger. He was also nervous and fretful, in a state such as I had never seen him in before, and drinking more than was good for him. I asked what was wrong; he said there was an unpleasant task ahead of him, and that he would be relieved when it was done. I pressed him to tell me what it was, but he refused. You men, with your little secrets. I said, 'This unpleasant task which you dread so much-I hope it's not the task I asked you here to perform.' 'Of course not!' he said, and proceeded to demonstrate as much. But our lovemaking that night was a disappointment, to say the least. Caelius was about as effectual as one of our shriveled friends in the river today. Later, when his friend Asicius came by to collect him, Caelius was eager to leave. Well then, I thought, let the boys go off and play with each other. A little later that night-only moments after the two of them left my doorstep, I imagine-Dio was stabbed to death."

I paused for a long moment before speaking, puzzled not by the details of Clodia's story but by her whole manner of speaking. I had never heard a woman talk of her sexual relations in such frank terms, and with such acid in her voice. "You realize that everything you've told me connecting Caelius with Dio's murder is merely circumstantial."

"Then here is another circumstance: the next night, when Caelius came calling on me, he brought me a little gift-a silver necklace with lapis and carnelian baubles-and boasted that he could now repay every sesterce of the money he had borrowed from me."

"And did he repay you?"

She laughed. "Of course not. But from the way he talked, I had no doubt that he had come into some money. He had performed his task, you see, and been handsomely paid off."

"Is this merely your assumption?"

Clodia wasn't listening. She stared at the roof of the tent, remem-bering. "Our lovemaking that night was quite the reverse of the previous evening. Caelius was a veritable Minotaur-horns rampant, eyes aflame, his flanks glossy with sweat… "

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could interrupt her it was done for me by the approaching sound of a man's laughter, deep and throaty, accompanied by splashing footsteps. Clodia snapped out of her reverie and sat forward on her couch. On her face was a look of pure joy.

I turned to see a man taking high steps through the shallows along the riverbank, striding toward the tent. Like the other men in the river he was naked. The light of the lowering sun glittered on the water behind him, casting him in shimmering silhouette; beads of water on his shoulders and limbs sparkled like points of white flame outlining the dark mass of his body. As he emerged from the river he raised his hands and pressed the water from his hair, showing the sleek muscularity of his shoulders and arms. On dry land his stride became a swagger, and though his features were still shadowed in silhouette, I could see the flash of a broad smile on his face.

"Darling!" The word emerged from Clodia's lips like a breath made audible, as uncalculated as a moan or a sigh. There was no pretense or teasing in her voice, no slyness or innuendo. She sprang from the couch to meet the man as he stepped into the tent. It was hard to say which of them looked more naked, the sinewy, long-limbed man wearing nothing but beads of water, or Clodia in her gown of transparent yellow silk. They embraced and kissed each other on the mouth.

After a moment Clodia drew back and took his hands in hers. Where her gown had become wet from being pressed against his body, the silk was even more transparent and was molded to her like a second skin. She turned her head, saw me gaping and laughed. The man did likewise, as if he were her mirror image.

"But darling," she said, squeezing his hands and giggling like a girl, "why didn't you simply come in through the tent flap? What on earth were you doing out in the water with the others? And when did you join them? How could I not have noticed?"

"I only just arrived," he said, with a laugh deeper than Clodia's but uncannily similar. "I thought it would be fun to slip in among your admirers and see if I could attract your notice. Which I didn't, apparently!"

"But I was distracted, darling, by something very important!" She nodded toward me and affected a sober expression. The teasing tone had returned to her voice. She was performing again, but for whom? "It's about Dio, darling, and the trial. This is Gordianus, the man I told you about. He's going to help us punish Marcus Caelius."

The man turned his beaming smile on me. I recognized him now, of course. I had seen him at a distance in the Forum on many occasions, haranguing his mob of followers or keeping company with the great powers of the Senate, but never naked and wet with his hair slicked back. How very much like his sister Publius Clodius looked, especially when one saw the two of them together, side by side.

I remember something you used to tell me, Papa, when I was starting out on my own: 'Never accept a commission without obtaining

some sort of retainer, no matter how small.' " Eco cocked his head and gave me a penetrating look. "What is your point?" I said.

"Well, when you left Clodia's horti this afternoon, was your purse heavier than when you arrived?" This was his way of asking if I had accepted Clodia's commission to investigate the murder of Dio- how typical of Eco to get directly to the heart of the matter!

Despite the summerlike warmth of the day, darkness had fallen early; it was still the month of Martius, after all. By the time I left Clodia's horti, shortly after her brother's arrival, the sun was already sinking, turning the Tiber into a sheet of flaming gold. It was twilight by the time Belbo and I reached home, trudging back across the bridge, through the shut-down cattle markets and back up the Palatine. Night fell, with a slight chill in the air. After a hurried meal with Bethesda and Diana, despite the tiredness of my legs I again set out with Belbo across the city to take counsel with my elder son.

We sat in the study of the house on the Esquiline Hill, which had once been my house and my father's before that. Now it belonged to Eco and his brood. His wife Menenia was elsewhere, probably trying to put to bed the squabbling twins, whose high-pitched screams of laughter occasionally rent the cool evening air.