Bruce Macbain - Roman Games

Parthenius drew a breath and began again. Over the past months, he explained, he had orchestrated the tyrant’s mounting terror. “We wanted to drive him mad, encourage him to even greater outrages which would eat away at his still considerable support in some quarters. I have sent people to report lightning strikes in every part of Italy. With the help of my colleagues in the palace, we arranged a series of parlor tricks all designed to unnerve him. His morbid imagination did the rest. Not long ago I procured a soothsayer to prophesy the date of his death: tomorrow at the fifth hour of the morning. The unfortunate man paid with his life, but that is no matter. And our campaign of terror has succeeded. Don’t be fooled by the image he displays at the Games. I happen to know that he has scarcely slept in days.

“When I and the empress first combined to plot his overthrow, we knew the importance of horoscopes in molding public opinion and lending nerve to a potential replacement. The empress wished Clemens to succeed, and so we prepared a horoscope predicting his imperial destiny. We gave it to him so that he could produce it at the crucial moment. This was a calamitous mistake. The horoscope can be traced to us. In fact, I composed it myself in my own hand. Foolish, I admit. Two months ago our plans came crashing down. Out of the blue, that snake Verpa astonished everyone by accusing Clemens and his wife of atheism and Jewish practices. We had known nothing of this mania of theirs. We were completely routed, terrified that the conspiracy would come to light. We held our breath and waited for the ax to fall, but it didn’t. Clemens went quietly to his death, his wife was banished to a desolate island, and the incriminating horoscope seemed to have vanished.

“After a time, we gathered our courage once more. We had to begin again to recruit someone to take Clemens’ place. The noble Nerva has courageously accepted our offer.” Parthenius nodded in the man’s direction and favored him with a tight smile. Nerva looked around as though he wanted to bolt for the door and only shame kept him in his place.

“It was during this tense period,” Parthenius continued, “that the Vestalis Maxima, the Purissima, came to our aid. I think most of you know, without my going into the details, the reason for her hatred of the tyrant.” Several heads nodded. “The Cloister of Vesta would be our center of communication. The wives of senators and other allies of ours could go there to leave messages and receive instructions, and the empress’ loyal women would serve as a link between the Cloister and ourselves. This way no senator would ever be seen in a compromising conversation with someone like me or with the empress. This is what we proposed and she undertook it eagerly on behalf of her Order.

“Several weeks went by in this way while we bided our time. Then, just a little more than three weeks ago, Verpa struck at us. It seems Domitilla had managed to get a letter to him revealing the conspiracy and telling where they had hidden her husband’s horoscope. We learned this both from Stephanus, her steward, a most useful man in many ways, who came directly and reported to me, and also from Verpa himself. He wrote a letter to the emperor, well knowing that Entellus here would intercept it. It was his way of announcing himself to us. Over the next days, I bargained with him, but the price of his silence was astronomical, and finally he had the audacity to propose himself as emperor! He wouldn’t tell me what the letter said, but he hinted that he held all our lives in his fist. Maybe he exaggerated, but who could be sure?

“Somehow he had to be stopped. We decided that, while we continued to negotiate with him, we needed a spy in his house. Someone who might be able to find and destroy the horoscope and the letter. Again the Vestalis Maxima came to our rescue. As you know she proposed herself for this mission. We men were reluctant to allow this absolutely unprecedented act by one so holy, but she had her reasons, and our empress seconded her. She is the only one among us whom Verpa and Scortilla would not know by sight or by name. The Vestals are never seen in public without their veils and no one dares to stare at them or enquire too closely about them. We might have sent some low-born person, but the spy, to be effective, had to be someone with breeding and manners, someone who would have the freedom of a guest, sit with them at dinner, befriend them, listen and observe. Her idea was to pose as a devotee of Isis with some story of coming to Rome on a pilgrimage and being robbed. We thought an appeal to Scortilla’s piety and vanity would be most effective, and we were right.

“She took with her one of Corellius’ freedmen, a philosopher, one of the few to escape the recent purge. The man wanted vengeance for many a dead friend. He said he had a smattering of knowledge in the sciences, enough to pass himself off as her physician under the name of Iatrides. And he would be her courier. If she learned anything, he would carry a message to the Cloister and drop it just outside the gate, where one of the Vestals would retrieve it and pass it on to me or the empress.”

Here one of the senators interrupted. “How was a Vestal able to be away from the Cloister for so long? As Pontifex Maximus, the emperor is their religious superior. They can’t just come and go as they please.”

“Quite so. I told him about her hysteria, that it had suddenly become more serious and that she needed medical attention that she could not get in the Cloister. This does happen from time to time. The fact is, she has no living family, I’m told they all perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, so I invented a sister for her in Capua, a woman of impeccable reputation. Oh, believe me, Domitian actually pretends to care about such niceties. He might have looked more closely into the matter except that he has been so distracted with fear. He told me to handle the arrangements. So the tyrant never knew where she was-or is.”

“And where exactly is the woman?” This was Nerva, whose nerves made him petulant.

“She had not been at Verpa’s more than three days,” Parthenius replied, “when the man was killed, under what circumstances we don’t yet know. The information that Pliny has seen fit to release is extremely confusing, and she is now at his house-has been for the past twelve days, apparently without Iatrides, who disappeared around the time of Verpa’s murder.”

“Then how do you know she’s there?” asked a senator.

“The resourceful Stephanus, against my advice, I may say, talked his way inside and got a look at her. He couldn’t speak freely to her, the silly little wife was around, but he tried to convey to her in guarded language that, one way or another, this will all be over soon. That was three days ago. Since then we’ve had no communication with her. The truth of the matter is, I am very concerned.

“I also have an informant, a certain ambitious, foul-mouthed poet, who has attached himself to Pliny like a barnacle and tells me the man is convinced that Verpa’s murder was a family affair, as it very well may be, knowing that family. But Verpa’s son said something about papers-surely our letter and horoscope-and my fear is that Pliny may yet find them or that the Purissima will make some slip. We know she suffers from a weakness of the nerves that could overcome her at any moment, with the anxiety she must be feeling. The fact that nothing has happened to us so far eases my mind only a little. Gaius Plinius is, by all appearances, a loyal soldier of the regime.”

“Chamberlain, I protest!” Corellius quavered, raising himself painfully on one elbow. “I’ve known Pliny all his life. I can vouch for his good character. He will do the right thing.”

Parthenius frowned patiently. “Forgive me, sir, I know he is your protege, but while others spoke out against tyranny and paid with their lives, his career has flourished under the emperor’s patronage. Now he has been given this extraordinary police job under the city prefect, who we all know is the tyrant’s creature. Why?”