The Venus Throw - Roman Sub Rosa 04

by Steven Saylor

  The man walked up behind Vibennius and tapped him on the shoulder. Vibennius gave a start and swung around with a guilty look on his face.

  "Still up to your old tricks, Busy Fingers? Robbing randy bathgoers while your boy leads them on a chase?"

  "What?" The man was dumbfounded for a moment, then flashed an uncertain smile. "Catullus! What in Hades are you doing here? I thought you were off playing imperial governor somewhere."

  "Somewhere, yes, and sort of. A year in Bithynia under Gaius Memmius was quite enough. I thought he was going to make me rich, but Memmius just took me along to read my poems to him. Couldn't blame him for craving a touch of culture; Bithynia's a hellhole. Couldn't wait to get out of the place; came back early, as soon as the weather allowed. It's so good to be back in a truly civilized place like Rome, where a fellow's likely to get robbed while lusting after a pair of hairy buttocks."

  "What are you talking about?" Vibennius giggled nervously and looked about, shifty-eyed.

  "Vibennius, you disgust me. For Cybele's sake, leave the poor sap's things alone. What did you expect to find that would be worth taking? His smelly loincloth?"

  "Catullus, you jest. I was just looking to make sure that my son put his shoes away. Oh, but that explains it — I must have gotten mixed up. I've been looking in the wrong niche. I wondered why everything looked so unfamiliar!"

  Catullus laughed scornfully and shook his head. "Vibennius, I should report you to the management. But they'd probably cut off your busy little fingers and throw them in the furnace, and then we'd all have to suffer the stench. Why don't you go see what your boy is up to? Then the two of you can pull your other bathhouse trick."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know, the one where Junior finds a dark corner and grabs his ankles to lure the unsuspecting sap, and as soon as he's got him in a death grip with that bearded mouth, you sneak up behind and start goosing the fellow with your busy fingers, loosening him up for what's to come."

  "Catullus, you slander me!"

  "On the contrary, Vibennius, your 'massages' are quite famous."

  Vibennius crossed his arms and looked smug. "From your foul mood, I'd say you could use a good 'massage,' Catullus."

  "Get any closer to me with that ugly thing, Vibennius, and I'll tie it in a knot."

  "And what if the rope isn't slack enough for tying?" Vibennius smirked.

  Catullus stepped toward him. I retreated toward Belbo, expecting blows. Instead Catullus grinned. "Oh, Vibennius, it is good to be back."

  Vibennius opened his arms. "You wicked goat, how we've all missed your sharp tongue," he said, embracing Catullus and slapping his back.

  I blinked, not sure what to make of this display, then gave a start when a hand touched my shoulder. "Gordianus?" said a voice be-hind me.

  I turned and saw the vaguely familiar face of a burly young man with a neatly trimmed beard and soulful brown eyes. It was the way his eyebrows grew together into a single line that jarred my memory—he was the slave who had answered Clodia's door. He stood before me fully dressed and slightly out of breath. "Barnabas," I said. "Hebrew for 'consolation.' "

  "That's right." He nodded and lowered his voice. "Chrysis said you were already here. Publius Licinius is on his way now, with the box." I frowned. "You're the one I'm supposed to meet?" "Yes."

  "Then who — ?" I turned toward Catullus and caught just a glimpse of his enigmatic grin before Barnabas pulled me back and hissed in my ear. "Licinius just walked in! Come with me." He took me by the arm and led me across the room with Belbo lumbering behind. "In the green tunic," Barnabas whispered.

  The young man did look familiar, though I had never met him— I had seen him in the Forum, and walking through the streets of the Palatine in the company of Marcus Caelius. He was nervously glancing from side to side and fiddling with something in his hand.

  "We part now," whispered Barnabas. "Just stand aside and watch. Make sure you keep your eyes on the pyxis!" By this he meant the tiny box Licinius carried in his hand, one of those elaborately decorated containers with a hinged lid and a latch, so favored by ladies for keeping their powders and unguents—and by poisoners for keeping their poisons. The pyxis Licinius carried appeared to be made of bronze with raised knobs and inlays of ivory. He turned it over and over in his palm.

  Licinius spotted Barnabas and sighed with relief. He stepped forward to meet the slave, but Barnabas signaled with a nod that they should withdraw to a corner of the room. As Barnabas turned, his eyes very briefly met mine, making sure I would follow. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering where Catullus and Vibennius had got to, but I couldn't find them in the throng of clothed and naked flesh. The dressing room suddenly seemed to have gotten considerably more crowded.

  Barnabas arrived at the corner and turned. Licinius reached him and began to extend his hand, obviously eager to pass along the pyxis. Then the mad scramble and the shouting began.

  Since I had arrived in the changing room I had been studying the crowd, trying to spot Clodia's arm-twisters. I had marked down several likely candidates, judging by their brawniness, and sure enough, these were among the men who suddenly rushed Licinius. But there were more of them than I would have expected, at least ten. Among them, to my surprise, was the busy-fingered Vibennius.

  They moved to apprehend Licinius the moment the pyxis changed hands, but their timing was premature. Someone shouted an instant too early, or someone bolted toward the box before he should have, or perhaps Licinius was simply so nervous that he froze in midtransaction and panicked before the box reached Barnabas's hand. Whatever the exact sequence of events, the pyxis was never handed over. It remained in Licinius's possession as he wheeled about in alarm and began to dodge and dart around the room, slipping through the grasp of his would-be captors. I caught a glimpse of his face and thought I had never seen a man who looked so much like a rabbit, and a frightened rabbit at that. But the pyxis remained tightly grasped in his white-knuckled grip.

  The brawny arm-twisters would have made persuasive captors, but what they had in muscle they lacked in agility. Arms closed on empty air as the rabbit scurried by. Heads banged together as Licinius slipped through their pincers. It was like a comic scene performed by mimes, but more elaborately choreographed than anything I'd ever seen on a stage.

  The rabbit made for the main exit, but the way was blocked. "Hand over the pyxis!" someone shouted. "Yes, the pyxis!" "Hand it over!" "Poison! Poison!"

  The bystanders witnessing this spectacle wore various expressions of confusion, outrage and mirth. Some seemed to think it was merely a game, while a few scrambled for safety under the wooden benches. In the throng I spotted the sharp-tongued Catullus, who watched with wide-eyed surprise.

  Licinius, unable to get out through the blocked entrance, wheeled about and headed for the unguarded door into the bathing rooms. Just as he reached it, the door was opened by an old man draped in a towel. Licinius knocked him to the floor. With a great whoop, Clodia's arm-twisters followed, leaping over the old man like hounds over a log.

  "Damnation!" muttered Barnabas as he rushed by me, grabbing my

  arm.

  We followed in the rabbit's wake, past a giant tub full of shouting and laughing bathers. One of the arm-twisters had fallen on the wet floor and kept slipping as he tried to get up. We angled past him and ran through another door into the innermost room, where the air was thick with steam from the hot pool. Confusion reigned as a tumult of splashing and a chorus of shouts echoed through the dimly lit room.

  "Block the door! He'll try to slip back out!"

  "Poison!"

  "Don't let him throw the pyxis into the pool!" "Did someone say 'poison in the pool'?"

  "Poison? Let me out!"

  There was a great deal of running and slipping and colliding as the arm-twisters tried to find Licinius. Some of them stepped into the piping-hot pool with hisses of discomfort and poked about.

  "He must be here!" said Barnabas. "The door's blo
cked and there's no other way out."

  "Of course there is," I said, pointing to a dark corner. "The door to the furnace room."

  Barnabas groaned and ran to pull the door open. Sweltering air poured out from the dark passage beyond. Barnabas took a few hesitant steps, tripped against something and let out a gasp. "Hades! A corpse!"

  There was something in the darkness at his feet, but not a corpse, unless corpses have two heads and writhe about.

  "Get lost!" moaned one of the heads.

  "Go find your own!" wheezed the other.

  Barnabas gave a start. "What—?"

  "It's woolly-bottom and the bald sap!" I said.

  This meant nothing to Barnabas, but he caught on quickly enough. "Did someone else pass this way?"

  "Yes," gasped one of the voices. "The idiot stepped on my hand! He'll have passed through the furnace room and be out in the alley by now. So — if you don't—mind —"

  Barnabas groaned.

  The writhing figures on the floor thrashed, gasped and bleated in ecstasy.

  I pulled Barnabas back into the bathing room and shut the door behind us. Now the farce had everything, including a climax.

  PART

  THREE

  Nox

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chrysis fretted all the way back to Clodia's house. She insisted

  i that I come along to explain what had happened. I think she was afraid to break the bad news to her mistress alone. The litter bearers turned down the little cul-de-sac, with the bodyguards and Belbo following behind, and deposited us in front of the house. Belbo and I waited on the red and black tiled doorstep, looking up at the towering cypress trees on either side while Chrysis rapped on the door and then clutched my hand to draw me inside. Belbo followed.

  "What do you mean, she's not here?" I heard her say to the slave who opened the door.

  "She's gone off," said the old man. "I don't know where."

  "For what? For how long?"

  He shrugged. "Nobody tells me anything. But—" "Surely she didn't decide to go down to the Senian baths herself," mumbled Chrysis, nipping at a fingernail. "No, she would have seen me. Unless we passed each other on the way. Oh, Attis!" Chrysis made a little yelp of frustration. "Wait here," she called to me as she disappeared down a hallway. "Or in the garden," she added, waving vaguely toward the center of the house.

  While Belbo stayed in the foyer, I walked through the atrium beyond, down a wide hallway, through a colonnaded archway and finally down a short flight of steps into the open air and sunlight. The garden was square, surrounded by a covered portico. There was a low platform at the opposite end, which appeared to be a stage, for behind it was a wall painted with a jumbled cityscape, like a theatrical backdrop. In front of the platform there was a small lawn with room for several rows of chairs. At each of the four corners of the garden were cypress trees taller than the roof. In the center of the garden was a small fountain with a statue of a naked Adonis. Bronze fish beneath his feet emptied water into the pool from their gaping mouths. I walked closer to have a look at the mosaics that lined the bottom. Beneath the splashing water the images of dolphins and octopi quivered against a shimmering field of blue.

  The Adonis was captured in the act of kneeling—knees bent, upraised palms extended, his face turned upward with a radiant expression. It was obvious to whom he was showing obeisance, for on the stairway which I had just descended, atop a high pedestal looking out over the whole garden, was an enormous bronze statue of Venus, even more magnificent and more opulently detailed than the one which decorated Clodia's horti on the Tiber. The goddess was naked above the waist; the folds of cloth gathered about her hips seemed frozen in the act of fluttering to the ground. The curves of her body were sumptuous, and the painted bronze gave the illusion of pliant flesh, but the size of the statue was out of scale, disconcertingly large, more intimidating than beautiful. Her hands were captured in gestures of eloquent tenderness, more motherly than erotic, but this was at odds with her face, which was strangely impassive, severe in its beauty. Her unblinking lapis lazuli eyes stared down at me.

  As I stood before the fountain, studying the Venus from Adonis's point of view, I began to notice the echoing sounds of chanting and music from somewhere nearby, rising and falling and obscured by the splashing of the fountain, but now growing abruptly louder and faster. I heard the piping of flutes, the rattling of tambourines and the jangling of bells, along with a strange ululation that was nothing like normal singing. I thought I heard words, but the splashing fountain kept me from making them out. The music grew louder, the tempo accelerated. I stared at the face of Venus. The longer I looked into her lapis lazuli eyes the more it seemed as if the statue might actually move or speak. She blinked—or I blinked—and I felt a sudden tremor of apprehension. I was not alone.

  But it was not the goddess who had joined me. The voice behind me was decidedly masculine. "They're at it again!"

  I turned around to see a man on the low stage, dressed in a toga. He had been naked the last time I saw him.

  "Every year it's the same." Clodius shrugged and made a face. "If

  I were Clodia, I'd complain, but I suppose my dear sister is too fascinated by the galli to want to stop their fun. And it is only once a year." "What's only once a year?"

  "The Great Mother festival, of course. The Temple of Cybele is just over there," Clodius said, pointing behind him. "The House of the Galli is right beside it. For days before the festival they practice, practice, practice. It all sounds hopelessly wild and discordant to a Roman ear, doesn't it? And the singing—hardly better than screaming. But then, I'd scream too if they'd cut my balls off." He hopped off the stage onto the lawn and sauntered toward me. "You know, it's absurd, but I've forgotten your name."

  "Gordianus."

  "Oh yes. Clodia's new man, the one to get the goods on Marcus Caelius. Been busy?" "Busy enough."

  "Clodia's not here at the moment. Some errand or other. The door slave should have told you. He's getting old."

  "He did say something, actually. But Chrysis suggested I wait here."

  "I see. Oh, that's right, today was to be the little drama down at the Senian baths. How did it go?"

  "That's why I came. To tell Clodia."

  He stared at me with green eyes uncannily like those of his sister. "And? What happened?" When I hesitated, he scowled, which made his face impossible to read. Was he feigning boyish petulance, or showing genuine anger? The scowl did nothing to spoil his good looks; it merely rearranged them. "Oh, I see," he said. "You're here to report to Clodia, not to me. She said you were the loyal type. Rare enough in Rome these days. But my sister and I have no secrets from each other. No secrets at all. And I should hope you have nothing to hide from me, Gordianus. I've certainly hidden nothing from you." He gave me a knowing look. When I said nothing, he laughed. "That's a joke. About what I was wearing the day we met." He shook his head. "She also said that you have no sense of humor."

  "You seem to have discussed me at length."

  "My sister likes to get my opinion of the men she's dealing with. She could use some advice! Clodia hasn't always exercised the best judgment, choosing whom to trust. As in the case of Marcus Caelius, which brings us back to the Senian baths. How did it go? Here, we'll sit on the bench in the shade, and if we're lucky Chrysis will come walking by and I'll send her for some wine."

  As we sat I noticed that another man had stepped onto the stage, a giant whose face glinted like a broken shard of ebony in the sunlight. He leaned against the painted wall with his arms crossed, watching us from a distance. He was incredibly ugly, with a bullish neck and enormous arms. Beside him Belbo would have looked like a child. He curled his upper lip in a snarl that made my blood turn cold.

  Clodius saw my reaction and glanced over his shoulder. "That's the Ethiop. Clodia gave him to me last year. Goes everywhere I go. Keeps an eye on me. The loyal type, like you. A couple of months ago, one of Milo's men came up to me in the For
um and waved a knife at me. He never saw the Ethiop coming—don't let his size fool you, he's fast as lightning. The Ethiop grabbed the fellow from behind and broke both of his arms, just like that." Clodius snapped his fingers twice. "No one's threatened me in the Forum ever since. But don't worry, he's completely harmless to my friends. Oh, that noise! If those galli aren't mad already, they'll surely drive each other crazy by nightfall. Can you imagine being in the same room with them? What sort of goddess would want to go into a temple with such a racket going on? Now, about the baths ..."

  I told Clodius about the farce I had witnessed. He listened in silence, making expressions of disgust and amusement. "So Licinius got clean away?" he finally said.

  "Yes."

  "And the pyxis with him?" "I'm afraid so."

  He sneered. "I wish I'd been there. I'd have grabbed Licinius by the balls and squeezed until he croaked out everything he knew. Then I'd have stuffed the poison down his throat, pyxis and all. Hung the corpse up by the heels and dragged it into the trial that way—an exhibit for the prosecution! You want evidence, Cicero? Here's our evidence!"

  Up on the stage, the Ethiop heard the anger in his master's voice and looked at me as if mulling over which arm to break. I shifted uneasily on the bench.

  "I suppose your sister will be quite displeased."

  Clodius's demeanor changed in the blink of an eye. He laughed. "Don't count on it. She adores a bit of drama, you know. Loves comedy even more. Well, just look at what she's done to this garden. Made it into her private theater so she can bring in mimes from Egypt to amuse her friends, and host recitals for whatever poet has caught her eye lately. No, once Clodia has thrown a priceless vase or two across the room and given a few slaves a good beating, I think she'll see the humor in it. Well, look who's here—and just when my throat was getting dry."

  Chrysis appeared at the top of the steps, beneath the Venus. When she saw us she began to turn back, but Clodius clapped his hands and waved her over.

  "Chrysis, darling, bring us some honeyed wine—I'm in the mood for something sweet. And perhaps some dates. And some of those little seed cakes that Clodia's cook always keeps in the kitchen. Will that suit you, Gordianus?"