Bruce Macbain - Roman Games

Corellius looked about him helplessly. “I yield to no one in my hatred of Domitian, but Pliny must have a career, mustn’t he? He still has years of service ahead of him. It isn’t his fault if he has had to serve a bad master; he’s guilty of no evil himself. I defy you to prove otherwise.”

“Then how do you account for his nocturnal meetings with the tyrant?”

Suddenly everyone looked sharply at the grand chamberlain. Even in the empress’ eyes there was a flicker of what might be fear. “What nocturnal meetings are these, chamberlain?”

Parthenius was never a man to conceal his air of superior knowledge, and he didn’t now. “I have not told you the worst. They have met twice in the emperor’s private rooms until the small hours of the night. No one has overheard them except little Earinus, who is, of course, feeble-minded and incapable of understanding anything. Believe me, I tried. I had thought at first that Pliny was going to be punished for the way he behaved at Verpa’s funeral. But on the contrary, the emperor seems to dote on him. And now Pliny has suddenly left the city, pretending, according to my informant, that he is going “north” on some undisclosed business. He was seen leaving by the Flaminian Gate.”

“North,” said the Praetorian commandant. “North.” Then he slapped his palm with a heavy fist. “I’ll tell you what’s north of here, the town of Reate! The home of the Flavian clan, where the family estate and all their clients are! The townsfolk there are fanatically loyal to the Flavian name! Domitian knows what’s coming, and he’s preparing a bolt hole. A place where he can defend himself until the German legions can come to his support. And this Pliny, whom no one suspects, is preparing the way for him! What else can it be?”

Suddenly everyone was speaking at once. Parthenius with difficulty brought them back to order.

“Titus Petronius, I think you may be right. But that only means that we must be resolute. I have my poet friend in Pliny’s house and the reliable Stephanus is watching at the Flaminian Gate. If Pliny doesn’t return before tomorrow then there is nothing we can do.

“If he does return…” Parthenius let the sentence hang in midair. ???

Half an hour before dawn, the pair of spent horses trotted through the Flaminian Gate. Zosimus steered for Verpa’s house. As they turned off the Via Flaminia onto the Vicus Pallacinae, Pliny ordered him to pull up. He saw leaning wearily against a wall what he had been looking out for. She wasn’t very pretty, but she was young and slim.

She yawned, almost ready to go home and sleep after a night that had brought her little profit. But then it seemed her luck had turned. When a couple of well-dressed fellows invite you into their coach and wave a coin under your nose, even at this ungodly hour, a working girl doesn’t have to think twice.

The fourteenth day before the Kalends of Domitianus.

Day fourteen of the Games. The first hour of the day.

“Wait with the carriage, Zosimus. What I have to do here is not for your chaste eyes.” The sun was not yet a hand’s breadth above the housetops, a pink smear on the horizon; the street still in deep shadow, exactly as it had been on the morning Verpa’s body was discovered. Pliny knocked on the door. No answer. He pounded harder, using his fist, and shouted at the window. If the sun rose higher, his experiment would be ruined. At last, a tousle-haired slave opened the door a crack, recognized the familiar face of the vice prefect, and admitted him.

“Wake my centurion and tell him to meet me upstairs with the lady Scortilla-but she is to wait outside the bedroom until I call her.” Pliny raced up the stairs with the prostitute in tow.

Valens, his face creased with sleep, came grumbling into the bedroom and stopped abruptly. He broke into a gap-toothed smile.

“Eyes front, centurion,” said Pliny. “You’re not here to gawk. Be good enough to light the lamp on that stand next to the bed.” Pliny moved back and forth across the room while he examined the shadowy figures that populated the walls. “Now girl,” he addressed the prostitute, “no one’s going to touch you, that’s not what we’re here for. Undress. Yes, and now go and stand in that corner-yes, that’s right, flat up against the wall. No, not her, I think. The one to your right. Yes. Now, on your knees, fit yourself to her form, head a little up. Yes, you understand what I mean, don’t you? And now I’m going to turn down the lamp a little. Yes-remarkable, remarkable.” The girl vanished, perfectly fitted to the painted figure behind her. In the feeble penumbra of the single lamp, unless you put out your hand and touched her, you could not have told she was there in the flesh.

“And now we are ready for the lady!”

Scortilla was ushered into the room by two troopers, who shut the door behind her. She was in her nightdress. Without her wig, sparse tufts of graying hair stuck out from her head. And she was very, very angry. “You!” she snarled. “Again! Haven’t you played the fool enough already? This is harassment. I warned you, I will complain to the emperor personally. He will have you crucified!” “Do you find it dark in here, Scortilla?” “What?” “Valens, open the shutters, will you?” The open window was a pale rectangle of light that left the room still in deep shadow. “Would you say, lady, that we are alone here-you, me, and the centurion?”

Her eyes were suddenly wary. Her head swiveled in quick jerks like a bird’s. She took a step toward the bed, back again, looked behind her. “Answer me, woman. Are we alone?” “Yes, damn you!” What else could she say? “Girl, show yourself!”

Like one of those islands in the lake, detaching itself from shore and swimming into view, the naked girl emerged from the wall. Scortilla clapped her fist to her mouth to stifle a scream. It was as though the mural had come to life.

“’Ere, this is going to cost you, whatever this is,” the girl complained. “I ain’t used to being made a show of in front a’ ladies. And my neck is stiff besides.”

“Centurion, give her a silver denarius, more than she earns in a week. Thank you. You may go now.”

Pliny bent his brows on the speechless Scortilla. “Woman, I charge you with the murder of your husband by poisoning. And I will tell you how you did it. You and Lucius planned this together, one murder concealing another.”

“Centurion, go and get Lucius out of bed and bring him here.” He turned to Scortilla. “Your mutual hatred is all a charade, isn’t it? You both wanted Verpa dead. You, Scortilla, had the poison and knew how to administer it, but Lucius contributed the idea of using Ganymede and the dagger and candelabrum to make it look like a political assassination. You could easily make Pollux, the Jew, out to be an accomplice. You went to Verpa’s room before he went to bed and before Pollux came on duty on a pretext of wanting a private word with him or something. You must have enticed him sexually and poisoned him with that needle, just as I thought. Then Lucius sent Ganymede in to stab him. You didn’t expect much from that nerveless youth, it only had to look like a fatal stabbing, but he was even more inept than you expected; he managed to not inflict a single fatal wound. But you, because of your arthritic knees, couldn’t escape through the window the way he did. Instead, you hid yourself against the wall and slipped out in the confusion when everyone ran in-you obviously practiced this ahead of time when the room was empty and chose your spot carefully. As for your motive, perhaps you would like to tell me about your nocturnal meetings with Alexandrinus, the Egyptian priest. No doubt Lucius never dreamed that you and that priest planned to take a full two million out of the estate.”