The Venus Throw - Roman Sub Rosa 04

by Steven Saylor

  But my smile stiffened when we reached the top of the Ramp and I saw what was in front of my house.

  "Belbo, I must be seeing things. I hope so."

  "What do you mean, Master?"

  "Do you see a group of idle bodyguards lounging outside my front door?"

  "Yes, Master."

  "And do their faces look familiar?" "They do, Master. An ugly lot."

  "And is that not a litter in their midst, set against the wall while the bearers relax in the street?" "It is, Master."

  "And does the litter not have red and white striped curtains, drawn back so that we can see that the box is empty?" "That is so, Master."

  "Do you know what this means, Belbo?" He quailed at the realization. "I think so, Master ... " "Cybele, spare my manhood! Clodia is in my house—and so is Bethesda."

  One of Clodia's bodyguards had the temerity to challenge me outside my own front door. Fortunately the man's captain recognized me. He berated his underling and then actually had the manners to apologize to me. Not all of Clodius's gangsters were completely uncivilized, but every one of them looked capable of killing a man without blinking. Seeing them gathered outside my house set my teeth on edge.

  Once inside, I drew aside a slave girl who was passing through the foyer. "Is your mistress here?"

  "Yes, Master. In the garden."

  "Shhh. Keep your voice down. Do I have a visitor?" "There is a visitor, Master, yes."

  "Tell me that your mistress is napping in the garden, and that my visitor is quietly secluded in my study."

  The slave looked at me, perplexed. "No, Master. The mistress is entertaining the visitor in the little garden at the back of the house." "Oh, dear. Has the visitor been here long?"

  "Quite some time, Master. Long enough to have finished the first ewer of wine and sent for another."

  "Have you heard . . . shouting?" "No, Master." "Harsh words?"

  She frowned. "Please, Master, I never eavesdrop."

  "But you'd notice if your mistress had, say, strangled the other woman, or vice versa?"

  The girl looked at me strangely, then managed an uneasy laugh. "Oh, you're making a joke, aren't you, Master?"

  "Am I?"

  "Shall I go tell the mistress that you're home?"

  "No! Just go on about your business, as if I'd never come in."

  I quietly made my way to the back of the house. It was possible, from a little passageway off my bedroom, to look through a screen of ivy into the small private garden where Bethesda and Clodia were sitting. They were not alone. Chrysis sat on a pillow at her mistress's feet. Diana was seated next to her mother, holding her hand. Their voices were low, hardly more than a murmur. Their tone was somber. They seemed to be deep in serious discussion. That was the last thing I had expected. What on earth could these women have in common?

  I reached out with my forefinger and pushed aside an ivy leaf to get a better look at Clodia. Even in an unassuming stola of soft gray wool she was stunningly beautiful. At least she'd had the sense to put on decent clothing before she came calling at my house. I looked at Bethesda, expecting to see jealousy on her face. Instead her expression was pensive and melancholy, mirroring that of the other women.

  Clodia's voice was so low that I had to strain to hear.

  "With me, it was an uncle, not blood-kin, but one of my step-mother's brothers. Like you, I kept it a secret. I was fifteen, a bit older than your Diana. My father had just betrothed me to my cousin Quintus, but with Father away from Rome the wedding had to wait. That was quite all right by me. I wasn't eager for marriage, like some girls. But of course, if I had been married, then perhaps ... " She took a breath and went on. "Uncle Marcus had always looked at me in a certain way. You know what I mean." The other women nodded sympathetically. "Perhaps it was the betrothal that set him off, thinking that once Quintus took me he would never have the chance again. One day, at the family horti, he caught me alone." She took a deep breath. "Afterward, one wonders how the gods could allow such a thing to happen."

  "You never told your stepmother?" said Bethesda.

  "I hated her then. I hated her even more after what Uncle Marcus did. He was her brother, after all. I didn't trust her. I thought she might take his side."

  "What about your own brothers?" said Diana.

  "I should have told them. I did tell Publius, but not until many years later, after Uncle Marcus was dead."

  "But your sisters—surely you told them," said Bethesda.

  "My half sisters were closer to their mother than to me. I couldn't trust them not to tell her. No, the only person I told was an old slave woman who had been with my father since long before I was born, and I told her only when I began to realize that Uncle Marcus had planted a baby in me. She showed me what to do, but she warned me that if I aborted the child I might never be able to have sons."

  "A Roman superstition!" Bethesda clucked her tongue.

  "Still, it proved to be true. That was another reason I never told my husband about what Uncle Marcus did to me, and what followed; Quintus would have blamed me for giving him a daughter instead of a son. He would probably have blamed me for tempting Uncle Marcus. It's the way men think. Quintus knew he wasn't the first, but he never knew about Uncle Marcus. He died, never knowing."

  I listened, disturbed, and then astonished by what Clodia did next: she leaned forward and took Bethesda's hand, the one Diana was not already holding, and pressed it between her palms. "But you said that it was the same with you, Bethesda—that you kept it a secret."

  Bethesda lowered her eyes. "Who could I have told? A free Roman girl might have recourse to law or family—but an Egyptian slave girl in Alexandria? The man had done the thing often to my mother while she lived; she told me that the master's abuse would kill her in the end, and it finally did. After she died, he turned to me. I was much younger than you were, Clodia, not even old enough to bear a child. He did the thing to me only once, or tried to. I suppose he thought I would be docile, like my mother, but after the things she had told me I knew what to expect and I decided I would die before I let him have his way with me. He tied my wrists with a rope, the way he had tied her so many times. He liked to hang her on a hook on the wall. I had seen her like that, seen what he did to her, and when he tried to do the same things to me a kind of madness came into me, the madness the gods put into men and women to give them strength beyond their bodies. I was more limber than he realized. I wriggled free. It turned into a battle. I bit him as hard as I could. He threw me against the wall, so hard I thought I'd been crushed like a beetle. I couldn't breathe. My heart stopped beating. He could have had his way with me then. He could have killed me. He was a powerful, respected man. No one would have thought the less of him for the death of a slave. No one questioned the death of my mother. No one would have questioned my death."

  "Oh, Mother!" Diana drew closer to her. Clodia bit her lip. Chrysis bowed her head. Bethesda's eyes glittered, but her cheeks remained dry. "I lay on the floor, stunned. I couldn't move, not even a finger. I waited for the sky to fall. But do you know what he did? He turned as white as a cloud, mumbled a curse and left the room. I think the shade of my mother must have spoken in his ear, shaming him. Instead of having me killed, he simply got rid of me. He sent me to the slave market. I was not a very satisfactory slave, apparently." She managed a brittle smile. "Men would buy me and return me before the day was done. I was sent back to be resold so many times that the man at the slave market made a joke of it. I was still young. I suppose I was beautiful—almost as beautiful as you, Diana. But word spread among the buyers that I was poison, and no one would bid on me. Finally, of course, the right man came for me. I think it must have been a whim of the goddess the Romans call Venus that sent him to the slave market that day, with barely enough coins in his purse. I was the cheapest slave on the block, and still he could barely afford me!"

  The other women laughed at that, even as they wiped their eyes.

  "And your husband knows no
thing of what happened to you before you met? Of what the man did to you, and your mother?" said Clodia.

  "Nothing. I never told him, and I think I never will. I told my daughter, because I thought she should know what befell her grand-mother. And now I have told you."

  I was appalled, bewildered, dumbfounded—not only at what Bethesda had said, and the fact that she had kept such a secret from me, but at the unaccountable intimacy between the women in my garden. What strange alchemy had transpired to make them so unguarded with one another? Where were the normal barriers of slavery and status that should have separated them? The world seemed to tremble beneath my feet, just as my fingers trembled as I closed my spy-hole in the ivy and silently fled to my study.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At length, I sent a slave girl to inform Bethesda that I had returned and was in my study. Clodia appeared soon after, along with Chrysis. They were both smiling, as if they had just shared a good laugh. The visit with Bethesda and Diana had apparently ended on a happy note, which confused me all the more—how could they speak of such dreadful things and then part laughing?

  "I dropped by to see if you had anything to report, and you weren't here," said Clodia, feigning petulance. "I trust you've been busy on my behalf, out scraping up something useful about Caelius—perhaps some fresh news about those slaves he bribed to poison Dio?"

  "Nothing as useful as that, I'm afraid. Have you been here long?"

  "A while."

  "I hope you weren't bored."

  "Not at all. Your wife made me feel very welcome." "Did she?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  That was the gist of the interview, and Clodia and Chrysis soon departed.

  Darkness fell. Dinner was served. I was uneasy, unable to look at Bethesda or at Diana in quite the usual way. I asked Bethesda what she had thought of our visitor.

  "An interesting woman" was all she said.

  "I take it she put your mind to rest, concerning my whereabouts last night."

  "Yes." Bethesda did not elaborate.

  "Well, good. All's back to normal, then?"

  "I was never aware of any disruption to our routine," said Bethesda.

  I bit into a crust of bread. This saved me from biting my tongue.

  It was a quiet meal. As the last course of savory onions with wine was served, Bethesda cleared her throat. "Our visitor invited us to a party."

  "A party?"

  "The day after tomorrow. Clodia says she has a party every year, to mark the beginning of the Great Mother festival." "And she invited you?"

  Bethesda bristled at my skepticism. "She invited both of us."

  "I don't think the sort of parties Clodia throws are likely to be —"

  "I shall be hard pressed to find a suitable stola for the occasion."

  She peered thoughtfully into the middle distance, contemplating her wardrobe.

  I sighed. For Bethesda, a personal invitation from a patrician like Clodia must have seemed almost too good to be true, an opportunity not to be missed, an acceptance into Palatine society. I was surprised myself, though I was beginning to learn not to be surprised by anything Clodia did.

  Later that night, in bed, Bethesda pressed herself against me and asked me to hold her. As I took her in my arms, I longed to tell her that I knew her secret, that I understood her silence, that it made no difference. But the words did not come. Instead, I used my hands and lips and tongue to show her what I felt. Afterward, contented, she fell into a deep sleep. But I remained awake long into the night, staring into the darkness above, wondering how a man can ever think he knows the whole truth of anything.

  The next morning I sent a messenger to Eco's house, to see if he had returned. The messenger came back with the news I expected: Eco was not yet back. He would come to me as soon as he arrived, I thought, no matter what the hour.

  If he didn't arrive soon, anything he discovered would be of no use. The trial would begin the next morning.

  I decided to spend the day in my study rather than to go down to the Forum again to search for evidence concerning Caelius and poison.

  I had spoken in enough ears; word of what I was seeking would continue to spread without me. Perhaps a limb that was barren yesterday would bear fruit today. If so, it would be wise to stay where any messenger could be sure to find me. And of course, Eco might arrive at any mo-ment.

  I began another letter to Meto, and ended by burning it, as I had the last. The thing on my mind was not something I could share with him in a letter. Bethesda and Diana spent the day sewing in the garden. They seemed to be in good spirits, talking to one another in low voices and laughing. I watched in silence, content merely to observe, like a guardian keeping watch on the living.

  It was not an informer, but Trygonion who finally came knocking at my door that afternoon, so frantically that Belbo made no effort at all to restrain the little gallus from rushing into my study.

  "Come!" he cried, trembling and gasping for breath. "Come at once!"

  "What now, Trygonion?" I sighed.

  "He's done it! He's actually done it!

  Despite all her precautions. Oh, Cybele, damn his eyes!" He clutched his face and stamped his feet. "Trygonion! What's happened?"

  "He's poisoned her. She's dying! Oh, please, come at once!"

  It was no wonder that Trygonion was out of breath; he had run all the way from Clodia's house, and expected me to run all the way back with him. We arrived in the little dead-end street like gasping runners after a marathon. The door to Clodia's house was not even shut, but stood open as Trygonion had left it.

  "Hurry!" He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him. He was surprisingly strong for one who looked so delicate. I tried to keep up, but he was faster, and ended up dragging me through the foyer and the atrium, across the central garden, under the portico and down a long hallway. Outside a doorway hung with a heavy curtain a group of slaves were gathered, murmuring among themselves. They parted for Trygonion, who pulled me past the curtain into the room beyond.

  Outside was bright sunshine, but inside the room it might have been midnight. The windows, like the door, were covered with heavy curtains. The only illumination came from a few lamps, which burned very low.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw Clodia reclining on a sleeping couch with ornately carved ivory legs and plush pillows. She was covered with a woolen blanket. Her face and hands looked pale and waxen in the dim light. "Trygonion?" she whispered.

  "Mistress!" he cried, addressing her as if he were her slave. He ran to her side and took her hand. "I came back as quickly as I could."

  "Is Gordianus with you?"

  "Yes. Save your breath, please."

  "Why? Do you think I have so little left?" She laughed weakly. The gallus contorted his face. "Trygonion thinks I'm going to die," she said, turning her glittering eyes to me.

  "What happened, Clodia?"

  "I think it must have been something I ate." She made an arch expression, then winced.

  "Have you summoned a physician?"

  "My brother owns a very skilled healer who happens to know a great deal about poisons. Publius has reason to be concerned about poi-son, as you can imagine. The physician came while Trygonion was gone. He's outside the door now, I imagine; I couldn't stand having him in the room with me."

  "What did he say?" asked Trygonion frantically.

  "He said, 'I think it must have been something you ate.' " She smiled wanly. "He wanted to know how much of the powder I swallowed, and when. Early this morning, I told him, but I felt no ill effects until almost midday. He says I'm very lucky to have eaten so little of it. As it is —"

  "What powder?" I said. "Didn't Trygonion explain?"

  "No time. We ran all the way," the gallus said.

  "The powder that I came across in the kitchen," she said. "Imagine that! How many mornings have I ventured into the kitchen before my breakfast is ready? Never. But today, for some reason, I was awake early, and hungr
y, and when I called for Chrysis she didn't come, so I went to the kitchen myself. You should have seen how Chrysis jumped when I stepped into the room. She stood by a little table, and on the table was a bowl of honeyed millet. 'Is that for me?' I said. Chrysis said nothing. I walked to the bowl and saw the little box beside it, and the crumbly yellow powder inside the box. 'Some sort of spice?' I said. I suspected nothing, you see."

  "A crumbly yellow powder?"

  "Yes, not like any spice I know of. I touched my finger to my tongue, dabbed it in the powder and touched my tongue again. I did it without thinking. The powder didn't taste at all bad, really, only a bit earthy. Then I saw the look on Chrysis's face. All at once I knew."

  I heard a strange whimpering behind me. I turned my head. The whimpering seemed to come from the opposite corner of the room, from near the floor. I thought it might be a dog. Then my eyes caught a slight movement, higher up. I peered into the deep-shadowed gloom, confused, then suddenly perceived the shape of a body suspended upside down from the roof. It was a nude woman hanging from a rope tied around her ankles, twisting very slightly. She whimpered again.

  "Silence!" shouted Clodia. She sat upright, then fell back against her pillows. Trygonion fretted over her until she slapped his fawning hands away. "I sent for Trygonion at once. He came running from the House of the Galli. He was the one who thought of sending for Publius's physician. I waited and waited for the man to come; it turned out he was down at the herb market and no one knew where he had gone. At first I wasn't worried. I felt fine. Then at midday the discomfort began, and the physician still hadn't arrived. I took to my bed, and Trygonion kept fretting over me until I thought to send him for you, Gordianus."

  "Why me?"

  "You must know more than most men about poisons. I thought you might be able to tell me something about the yellow powder. Fetch it, Trygonion."

  He tore himself from her side and went to a little table crowded with tiny boxes and bottles. A burnished mirror was hung on the wall above the table, reflecting the somber light of the lamps and affording a startling glimpse of Chrysis hanging from the ceiling across the room. Trygonion returned with a little pyxis. I stepped to the nearest lamp and studied the contents.