Bruce Macbain - Roman Games

“Valens!” The poet is panting so hard he can barely speak. “Gaius Plinius-needs you-at once! What? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we’ve been ordered to return to barracks and surrender our arms to the fucking Praetorians. If we’re seen in the city we’ll be treated as rebels. We’ve just been talking about what to do.” “What you must do is come with me, now! I’ll explain on the way.” “Your pink-cheeked senator friend has gotten himself in trouble? How is that our problem?” Assenting grunts from the men. “Valens, that will he was going to write for you? You may need it sooner than you think!” ???

“And why, madam, are you here in my house?” Pliny challenged.

“You invited me,” Amatia said simply. “And there was no more to be done at Verpa’s house. Without Iatrides I had no way of communicating with the others. So, on my own, I decided to spy on you, I confess it gladly. You insisted on investigating the case, day after day, with your obnoxious friend, as if it actually mattered whether a few slaves were executed or not! What if you somehow stumbled on the truth? I had to steer you away from that.”

It dawned on Pliny then how easily he had let himself be fooled by this woman. There were a dozen ways he could have checked her story, but it had simply never occurred to him. Why should it have? He was so bent on exposing Lucius and Scortilla, and Amatia was so good to his wife. Was that only a charade too?

“Now, I have told you everything,” she said, “I appeal to you. If you simply do nothing, all of this will be over in a matter of hours. Today is the appointed day.”

Do nothing? His anger flared. “You speak so contemptuously of the slaves, lady. Does justice mean nothing to you? You are willing to sacrifice the lives of forty innocent human beings who will be punished for murdering their master when it was you who committed the crime?”

She rounded on him, matching her anger against his. “You expect me to risk all our lives for slaves! Tell me, Pliny, aren’t we all slaves? Slaves to the tyrant? Have you no tears for us? Or for yourself? For you are as much a slave as any of us. You know what kind of man he is, don’t deny it. I studied your face when you returned from those midnight visits with him. I saw the fear in your eyes. You know what that monster will do to us and to our families and friends if we fail. We’ve suffered him for fifteen years. He could live for another twenty or thirty. The fate of Rome is more important than your wretched handful of slaves!”

“No, madam. I sympathize, I understand, but I do not agree. The Deified Julius was murdered, Claudius murdered, Caligula murdered, Galba and Vitellius murdered amid the horrors of civil war when blood ran in our streets. And now Domitian, too? Do you want that again? He’s popular with the legions in Germania. They’ll demand blood for blood. We have been lucky in Vespasian and Titus, not so lucky in Domitian. But we must endure him. Otherwise it is back to the old ways where everything is decided by the knife. Are we a great and noble people or are we a pack of savages?”

“You little prig!” She was on her feet, her small fists clenched. “Don’t talk to me of nobility. My family was noble when yours was still hoeing turnips. You have the soul of a subordinate, you will always have a master, if not Domitian, then someone even worse. You were the emperor’s praetor three years ago, weren’t you, when the philosophers were purged. On your watch, good men like Rusticus and Senecio and their noble wives were executed or deported to prison islands. These men were your friends, your mentors. Was one word heard from you?”

He looked away. He remembered that Scortilla, on the day of the funeral, had called him an informer. Then it had merely exasperated him. But coming from this brave woman, the words cut like a knife. “I loved them, I admired their courage. Secretly, I wept for them.”

“Secretly,” she sneered.

“Dammit, they went too far. They would have plunged us into civil war!”

“For the last time,” she demanded, “what will you do? There is no more room for excuses. Are you going straight to denounce me? If you don’t then you are one of us.”

The room seemed to contract around him. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. How easy it would be to do nothing…But no. His duty was clear. Not even for Amatia-and his heart ached for her-could he allow this reckless attempt to go forward.

“Zosimus,” he called out, “come here.”

The young man appeared in the doorway. “Patrone?”

“You will prevent the Lady Amatia from leaving until I return. I’m going to the palace. I’ll knock Parthenius down if I have to, but I’ll get to the emperor’s ear.”

“So he can reward you yet again?” Her lip curled. “And just what will you tell your precious Lord and God? That Verpa raped me and I killed him? Go ahead then. But I’ll deny everything else. I don’t fear torture or death. And you have no proof, no evidence of any conspiracy.”

“Oh, but there is evidence, madam. The horoscope and Domitilla’s letter, naming all of you. Where are they?”

“I told you I couldn’t find them. The night Verpa died, I searched the tablinum in vain. So did Lucius-I nearly collided with him in the dark. The next morning men from the Prefecture came and carted everything away.”

“But the prefect couldn’t find them either. I suspect they never were in the tablinum. Come now, you haven’t told me quite the whole story of that night in Verpa’s bedroom, have you? What did you do during those long hours alone with his corpse. Merely tremble? No. You noticed his bedside table with its locked drawer, the only place in the house where neither you, nor Lucius, nor the prefect’s men had looked. You had the dagger that Ganymede dropped and you had plenty of time. You pried open the drawer-we’ve seen the gouges in the wood-you found those dangerous papers there and you took them out with you. When I brought you here you wouldn’t have left them behind and, since you haven’t left my house since you came here you have them still. I ask you again, where are they?”

“And I tell you again, I don’t have them!”

“I don’t believe you. They’re here and I will find them. Zosimus, keep an eye on her.”

The room he had given Amatia for her bed chamber was small and uncluttered. It had hardly a place to hide anything. She had brought with her a bag containing some belongings. Pliny dumped it out on the bed. There wasn’t much-combs, a few pieces of jewelry, some coins, an amulet. He tossed them on the floor and ripped off the bedclothes. He shook the sheets and coverlet, tore open her pillow. Nothing. He flung it away from him. He got on his knees and looked under the bed, he peered into her chamber pot, felt along the top of the doorjamb. His eyes darted everywhere. Where had the damned woman put them? He felt no pity at all for her now. Anger had driven pity out.

He ran back to where he had left her. “Give them to me!”

Young Zosimus blinked, he had never seen his master in a rage before. But Amatia did not flinch and, after a moment, Pliny sank into his chair, baffled, not knowing what to do next. He had been so sure. Just then a slave appeared in the doorway. “Master, that doctor, the one you just chased away-he’s back. He begs to see you.” “Send him away, I’ve no time for him.” “Yes, master.” But Soranus pushed past the slave. Pliny glowered at him.

“Look, sir, I am sorry. You’re quite right to be angry with me.” He avoided looking at Amatia. “I wouldn’t trouble you further but for this.” He held out a small roll of papyrus, tied with a string. “When I loosened the lady’s girdle, it fell from her underclothes.”