Steven Saylor - The Venus Throw

All around us were sepulchers of weathered marble, adorned with plaques and inscriptions, carved tablets and statues. Cypress and yew trees reared up from the jumble of marble. The brick wall shut off the teeming city behind us. The sheer base of the Capitoline loomed before us, with blue sky above.

"There's no more secluded spot anywhere in the city," said Clodia.

"What is this place?"

"The ancient burial ground of the Claudii. It was granted to us back in the days of Romulus when our ancestors moved to Rome from the Sabine lands. We were enrolled among the patricians and given this

parcel, just outside the old city boundaries, to be our family burial ground. Over the centuries it's become filled with shrines and sepulchers. Clodius and I used to play here as children, imagining it was a little city all to itself. We hid from each other in the sepulchers and walked down the pathways in make-believe processions. The sepulchers were great palaces and temples and fortresses, and the pathways were broad avenues and secret passages. I could always scare him, pretending to raise the lemures of our ancestors." Clodia laughed. "Five years is such a difference between children." She pushed the cape from her shoulders and carelessly laid it atop a stone bench.

The westering sunlight, reflected off the stony face of the Capitoline, cast a faintly orange glow over everything, including Clodia and her shimmering stola. Trying not to stare, I found myself pondering the wall of a nearby tomb, on which a carved tablet depicted the stained and weathered faces of a husband and wife long dead.

"Then, when I was older, I would come here to be alone," Clodia said. She walked among the monuments, running her hands over the pitted stone. "Those were the bad years, when my father was always away, either exiled by his enemies or off fighting for Sulla. My stepmother and I didn't get along. Looking back now I know that she was sick with worry, but then, I couldn't stand to be in the house with her, so I would come here. Do you have children, Gordianus?"

"Two sons and a daughter."

"I have a daughter. Quintus always wanted sons." There was an edge of bitterness in her voice. "How old is your girl?" "Thirteen. She'll be fourteen in August."

"My Metella is just the same! Just beginning that difficult age, when most parents are glad to shuttle a girl off into marriage so that she can become someone else's problem."

"We've made no plans yet for Diana."

"She's lucky to be home, and lucky to have a father there. Girls need that, you know. Everyone always talks about boys and their fathers. It's only the male children anyone cares about. But a girl needs a father as well, to dote on her, to teach her. To protect her."

She was lost in thought for a long moment, then seemed to wake to her surroundings. She smiled. "And of course, when I got a little older still, I brought boys here. My stepmother allowed my brothers to do whatever they wished, but she was strict with her daughters and with me, or tried to be, though it brought her nothing but grief. Oh, there was many a secret tryst in this place, beneath these trees, on that very bench. Of course, all that ended when my father betrothed me to cousin Quintus," she said glumly.

"And now that you're a widow, do you still bring suitors here?"

Clodia laughed. "What an absurd idea. Why do you ask?"

"Something Chrysis said as I was leaving the litter."

"Naughty Chrysis. She was teasing you, I'm sure. Oh, I suppose the gossips say such things about me-'Clodia meets her lovers at midnight in the Claudian graveyard! She drags the young men into the sepulchers and deflowers them while her ancestors gasp in shame!' But these days I really much prefer a couch and pillows. Don't you?" She stood sideways and turned her face to look at me straight on. The reflected sunlight seemed to turn her stola to a thin mist that clung to her naked flesh and could have been dispelled with a puff of breath.

I looked away, and found myself nose to nose with a stately bas-relief of a horse's head, the ancient symbol of death. Death as departure; death as something more powerful than man. "You were going to explain this talk of poison."

She sat on the bench, using her cape for a cushion. "Marcus Caelius is plotting to murder me before the trial."

She allowed this statement to reverberate for a moment, then went on. "He knows that I have evidence. He knows that I'm planning to testify against him. He wants me dead, and if he had his way, I'd be joining the shades of my ancestors before sundown tomorrow. Fortunately, the slaves whom Caelius thought he could seduce have remained loyal to me, and have informed me of his plot."

"What plot?"

"This very morning Caelius obtained the poison he plans to use. He bought a slave to test it on. The wretched man died in horrible agony while Caelius watched. It took only moments. Caelius wanted a quick-acting poison, you see, and had to make sure it would do the job."

"How do you know this?"

"Because I have spies in Caelius's house, of course. Just as he thinks he has spies in mine." She stood up and began to pace. "This was his plot: to have a friend of his meet some of my slaves tomorrow afternoon at the Senian baths and hand over the poison to them, whereupon they would bring the poison home and Chrysis would put it into my food. His agent approached the slaves yesterday, including Chrysis. The slaves pretended to agree, but instead they came to me and told me everything."

"What made Caelius think he could suborn your slaves?"

"Marcus Caelius used to be a welcome guest in my home. He got to know some of the slaves, including Chrysis, rather well-well enough, I suppose, that he thought he could sway them with promises of silver and freedom if they would help him murder their mistress. He under-estimated their loyalty to me."

I stared at her, trying to decide whether I should believe her, and found myself studying the shape of her body instead. I shook my head. "So the plot has been uncovered. You've nipped it in the bud. Why all this secrecy? Why tell me about it at all?"

"Because Marcus Caelius doesn't know that his plot has been spoiled. He thinks my slaves have agreed to follow his orders. He still plans to go through with it. Tomorrow afternoon, his agent will arrive at the Senian baths, carrying the little box of poison. My slaves will be there to receive it from him — along with witnesses. We shall seize the poison, expose the agent, produce the evidence in court, and add another count of attempted murder to the charges against Marcus Caelius."

"And you want me to be there?" I said.

She drew close to me. "Yes, to help seize the poison. To witness everything that happens."

"Are you so sure you can trust your slaves, Clodia?" "Of course."

"Perhaps they're not telling you everything."

"We all have to trust our slaves in the end, don't we?"

"Then why have you brought me here, away from your house, away from your bodyguards and litter bearers, where even Chrysis can't hear?"

She lowered her eyes. "You see through me. Yes, I can't be certain. No one can ever be certain of anything in this world. Yes, I'm a little frightened-even of my slaves. But for some reason I trust you, Gordianus. I imagine you've been told that before."

With her head bowed and her eyes lowered, I noticed the remarkable line of her eyebrows, like the wings of a bird in flight. Then she turned her face up and all I could see were her deep, luminous green eyes.

"Clodia, you asked me to find evidence that Marcus Caelius tried to kill Dio. Whether you're pursuing this matter for the sake of justice, or for political gain, or simply to hurt Caelius, I don't know, nor do I really care. I agreed to take part for one reason: to do what I can to put Dio's shade at rest. This warfare between yourself and Caelius-broken love affair, festering hatred, whatever-is of no concern to me."