“We need to hear your story,” I said. “Then we’ll see what we can do. We know something awful happened at Sextus Tabellius’ villa.”
“He kilt my daughter. That’s what happened.” She put her hands over her face, as though trying to blot out something she would never be able to forget, like me trying to forget the eruption of Vesuvius.
“Who killed her?” I knew she didn’t mean Tabellius. He was long-since dead.
“My husband, Popilius. Clodius Popilius. He tied her to that wheel and…”
I put a hand on her arm. “He did that to his own daughter?”
“No. She was my daughter by my first husband.”
“Please start at the beginning,” I said, sitting down across the table from her. Tacitus pulled up a chair at the end of the table and Aurora sat on the bench beside Crispina, putting an arm around her. Under the table her foot touched mine.
Crispina ran her fingers through her disheveled hair and wiped away tears. “I’m not sure where the beginnin’ is. You see, Popilius wanted to marry me almost twenty years ago, but my father and me chose another man, Fabius Albinus. He died ten years ago, and I discovered that he’d gambled away ever’thin’ we had, even the pittance I inherited when my father died. We were never rich, but when he died I had nothin’. I had to marry somebody if my daughter and me was goin’ to survive.”
After a soft knock on the door, Naomi entered with a bowl of stew, some bread, and a jug of wine on a tray. Placing them on the table, with Crispina’s thanks, she stood back by the door until I said, “Have you fed the boy?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then that will be all. And close the door behind you.” I wondered if she had seen where Aurora’s foot was.
Once Naomi was out of the room, Crispina dipped a piece of bread into the stew and bit into it, closing her eyes with a sigh of relief. “I’ve not ate for two days. Anything I could find I give to my son.”
“How did your first husband die?” Tacitus asked.
Crispina wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then wiped that on her tunic. “Our farm is near the coast. He fell off some rocks into the sea and drowned.”
Or killed himself in despair, I thought. Or was pushed by people to whom he owed money…or by someone who wanted his wife. The arch of Tacitus’ eyebrow told me those possibilities, or similar ones, had occurred to him as well. Though she was neither elegant nor young any more, the woman across the table from me was attractive, still slender, with a square face with well-defined features, and must have been quite lovely ten or more years ago. I had no difficulty believing that a man could become obsessed with the idea of having her.
“When Fabius’ body was recovered,” Crispina continued after another bite of bread and stew, “I started to make arrangements for the funeral. That’s when I discovered I didn’t have no money. But Popilius stepped in and paid for ever’thin’, like he was a member of the family.”
“Is Popilius wealthy?” I asked. In some rural villages, a man could be reckoned as well-off with only a fraction of my resources or Tacitus’.
“I never knew him to be, but he had ’nough to give Fabius a nice funeral, with some hired mourners, even.”
“Is that why you married him?” Tacitus asked. “Out of gratitude?”
“Like I said, sir, I had to marry somebody or turn to whorin’ to keep me and my daughter from starvin’ to death. And Popilius still wanted to marry me, even though I rejected him the first time.”
“Why did you chose Fabius over him?” I felt myself beginning to shiver beneath my wet clothes.
“My father and me thought Fabius’d be a better provider. And Popilius has always been given to strange moods and whims. Ever’body in our village knew he was… Well, you never knew what to expect of him.”
“So, unpredictable? Unstable?” Tacitus asked. I sat back and let him take charge, just to see what he had learned from me.
“Yes, sir. Them’s the right words. Only, maybe a little more so. He claimed he was destined for bigger things than just bein’ a farmer in some little pigsty of a village.”
“That must have made him popular with his neighbors,” Tacitus said.
“Actually, sir, there was a small group of men—mostly lazy louts—who looked to him as a leader of some sort.”
Doctors would say Popilius’ humors were out of balance. Others might say a god had inflicted madness on him, like Hera did to Heracles. Whatever the cause, I could imagine how he might have nursed his disappointment when Crispina married Fabius Albinus and plotted—perhaps for years—to get rid of her husband. Maybe he encouraged Fabius’ gambling so that Crispina would have to look to someone for support when her husband was gone. He might even have been the one to whom Fabius had lost his money. And he seemed to have some delusions that he was a leader of men.
“You called him a farmer. He did the plowing?” Tacitus asked.
“Yes, sir. We have a couple of servants on the place, but Popilius did a lot of the work hisself.”
My eyes met Tacitus’. SATOR—the plowman.
“That’s the beginning of the story,” I said. “Let’s move on to the middle part now.”
She looked puzzled—not well-versed in Aristotle’s literary theory, I suppose.
“I mean, in general, what happened after you married Popilius and what led him to kill your daughter?”
“Well, in gen’ral we was all right. He loves me, I know, but in a way that scares me sometimes. And I come to realize he hated Fabia ’cause she was the reminder of me bein’ with Fabius.”
“Did he harm her?” Tacitus asked.
“Not in the way you prob’ly mean. He was cold and harsh to her, though. She always knew she wasn’t his.”
There are so many stories of the sufferings of stepchildren. It’s usually the stepmother, though, who is the guilty party.
“Things got better when I give him a son. When Fabia was ready to be married, I thought we could get her out of the house and we’d be happier after that. But he refused to find her a husband.”
“Why?” I asked. That was one of the most basic duties of a father, even a stepfather.
“He said he didn’t want Fabius’ line—his seed—to survive into another generation. And if Fabia had a child, he knew I would look on it as mine and Fabius’ grandchild. He told me he’d kill her before he’d let her marry.”
And what if he found out she was pregnant without being married? I thought. Carrying the hated Fabius’ seed into the next generation.
“How old was Fabia when you married Popilius?” Aurora asked.
“She was seven.”
“So that would make her seventeen when…”
Crispina nodded and began to rock and keen shrilly. Aurora hugged her more tightly.
When she seemed to be in control of herself again I said, “You saw Popilius kill your daughter. Is that your testimony?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was your son there?” Aurora asked.
Crispina shook her head quickly. “He spared the boy that. He was in another part of the house.”
“Why did Popilius…kill the girl in…such a bizarre fashion?” I asked.
“ ’Cause of that riddle that was scratched on the wall.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, but what else could she be talking about?
“In Marinthus’ taberna there’s some letters in a square—”
“The ROTAS square?” I reached over to the next table where I had left a copy of the puzzle for my scribe Phineas to ponder. “This?”
“Yes, sir. That looks like it. I know a few letters, but I can’t read.”
“This is an exact copy. What does it have to do with Popilius killing your daughter?”
“Well, a month or so past we went to Rome—the four of us—to see the games. On the way back we stopped at Marinthus’ place for a drink. Popilius saw that thing and heard some men talkin’ about what it might mean. One of ’em—some sorta wild-eyed ma
n the others called a prophet—said the only way to understand it was to figure out what that line means.” She pointed to the AREPO line. “He said it would only be understood by the one it was intended for. Popilius made a copy of it and worried over it for days after we got home. A few days ago he said he’d solved it.”
“Solved it?”
“Yes, sir. He knew what that line meant and what he had to do. He wrote it down. He didn’t know I took this.” She pushed the bag across the table to me.
Tacitus leaned toward me as I opened the bag and pulled out and unrolled a piece of papyrus with the square written at the top. Beside it were the letters SPQR and the words SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS, then DM and DIS MANIBUS. Below that were various interpretations of the AREPO line, assuming the letters stood for words, as was the case in SPQR, DM, and any number of other phrases. The last one read AD REG EXCID POPIL OPT.
“By the gods,” Tacitus said. “Does that mean what it seems to?”
I nodded. “Ad Regis Excidium Popilius Optatus. ‘Popilius has been chosen to destroy a king.’ ”
“What on earth does that mean?” Tacitus said. “What king?”
“Domitian,” Crispina said in a whisper. “He believes he’s bein’ sent by the gods to kill Domitian.”
VIII
No one in the room except Crispina dared to breathe. She broke into tears again.
“You can’t mean what you just said,” I told her.
“But I do, sir. He’s plannin’ to kill—”
Aurora clapped her hand over the woman’s mouth. “Please, don’t say another word. We heard you. You don’t have to repeat it. We don’t want you to repeat it.”
“How does he intend to…accomplish this plan?” I asked.
“He says he don’t know yet. He just knows he has to do it. ‘It’s my destiny and the gods will show me a way.’ Them’s his very words. That’s why he sacrificed Fabia that way, to get the gods’ help, like…like…that story with them long names and the long war.”
“Like Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia,” Tacitus said.
“Yes, sir. That’s the one.”
“A goddess substituted a deer for Iphigenia at the last moment.”
“There warn’t no such interference in this case.”
“And why does he think he’s been called by the gods to do this?” I asked.
“He’s actin’ for the people, he says. His name—Popilius—he says it comes from populus, the people. He’s goin’ to cut off the head of Rome, just like he cut off that poor child’s head.”
“Would you say your husband is a madman?” Tacitus asked, folding his hands on the table in front of him. His voice was the same as if he were asking about the color of the man’s hair.
Crispina hesitated at first, then nodded. “I think that’s fair to say.”
“And yet he has followers?”
“Yes, sir. At the villa there was six men with him. I don’t know if there’s any others.”
“How did Popilius get you and your son out there?” I asked.
“He left our farm one day while I was at the market. When I got home my son told me he had took Fabia and said I wasn’t to try to find him. But I couldn’t let him take my daughter, could I? I knew how much he’d been thinkin’ on that square and what he’d written about it, so I figured he was goin’ back to Marinthus’ place. All I could do was go there. This girl was so kind to help me.” She patted Aurora’s arm. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth, dear. I thought it would scare you off, and I needed help.”
“It’s all right,” Aurora said. “You did what you had to.”
I had to admire the woman’s courage. In spite of a warning from a man she knew to be unbalanced and having only limited resources herself, she was determined to save her child.
Crispina took a deep breath and continued. “Two of Popilius’ men saw me at the taberna. They come to see the square for themselves—like it was some kinda holy place—and they reco’nized me. The next day a man drivin’ a raeda come to fetch me and showed me my daughter’s necklace. I had to go with him.”
“I won’t ask you to describe what happened,” I said. “I’m sure that horrible sight will always be with you. You were tied to a post, weren’t you, and forced to watch?”
Crispina nodded, giving way to another flood of tears. A shelf behind us held cloths that my scribes use to wipe the ink off their hands. Aurora found a clean one and gave it to Crispina, then held her again.
“Did he tell you why he did it, other than his hatred of your first husband?”
“He said he was goin’ to cut off the head of Rome. He told his men he wanted them to see that he would stop at nothin’, once he set his mind to somethin’. And he said by helpin’ him do this, they were all guilty, but they would all share in the glory.”
“How did they help him?”
“They tied her up and gagged her. And they… Oh, gods! They raped her.” She collapsed into more tears. Aurora pulled her to her shoulder and let the poor woman sob.
As I watched her shoulders heave, I felt dissatisfied. Somehow the woman’s story seemed incomplete. And yet she was in such obvious distress that I didn’t want to push her too far.
“I have just a couple of more questions,” I said, “then we’ll let you clean up and get some sleep.”
Aurora frowned at me. “My lord—”
I held up a hand to stop her. “How did you get free from the post?”
“I rubbed my hands up and down ’til the ropes come loose.” She held out her hands to show me the redness on her wrists. “Then I found my son and we just started runnin’.”
“Do you know what happened to Fabia’s head?”
“Gaius Pliny!” Tacitus interjected. “Don’t keep dragging the poor woman back into that horror.”
“All right. That’s enough for now,” I said. “Aurora, help her clean herself up and get her another tunic. Put her in a room near yours. After she’s had some sleep, we can talk again.” I laid a hand on Crispina’s arm. “You must not tell anyone else what you’ve told us. Not anyone. Do you understand?”
She nodded and Aurora helped her up and out of the room.
*
As soon as the door was closed Tacitus said, “I’m glad I was here. I never would have believed you if you’d told me what she said.”
I got up and started to pace around the library. “But something’s not right. She said nothing about Fabia being with child and stabbed in the belly. That doesn’t seem to have anything to do with killing a king.”
“Perhaps Popilius wanted to symbolize that there would be no successor in the line.”
“But what about the head? It wasn’t there when we arrived and yet it reappeared in the shed when the girl’s body was burned.”
Tacitus nodded. “That means somebody removed it from the villa.”
“But Crispina says she freed herself, got her son, and ran. Did she pick up the head?”
“That seems highly unlikely.”
I sat back down at the table. “That’s why I want to question her again. Some things just don’t make sense.”
Tacitus picked up the papyrus Crispina had given us and looked over it again. “And this is one of them.”
I nodded. “This most of all. She can’t be serious about this plot, can she? How does some raving lunatic with a handful of followers plan to kill…a certain person?”
“He hatched a rather elaborate plan to kill poor Fabia. And I suspect he killed Crispina’s first husband, don’t you?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it. It’s clear he’s patient and clever.”
“Madmen often are. He might be able to—”
“How could he? He was attacking people who had no one to defend them. Dom—that is, his next intended victim has guards on all sides.”
“But Popilius now believes he’s the messenger of some god. He’s convinced a few others it’s true. Some men have that ability. Remember the fellow in the province of Asia who
convinced hundreds of people that he was Nero returned from the dead. And there was even a false Germanicus after he died. A man with that kind of persuasive power can be hard to stop.” Tacitus leaned back in his chair with a trace of a smile on his lips.
I sat down again and leaned toward him. “And you wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t stopped, would you?”
Tacitus slid the papyrus across the table. “I’m not saying anything. But I think it’s inevitable that someone will kill Domitian—and I’m not afraid to say his name.”
“What would happen then?” A thought flashed into my mind like a lightning bolt striking a roof. “Would Agricola seize power? Is that what you’re hoping for?”
Tacitus waved me away. “Having my father-in-law as princeps would be no improvement over what we have now. As good a man as he is, though, I think Agricola would use his influence to guide us to a restoration of the Republic if Domitian were…out of the way.”
“Are you mad? The Republic has been dead for over a hundred years. No one alive today would know how to make it work.”
“We figured it out the first time. We could do it again. It might be hard, I grant you, as hard as a woman giving birth—”
“Women sometimes die giving birth. Choose your analogies more carefully. There’s no guarantee Rome would survive if…Domitian were…assassinated.” It was hard to say the words, even in a place that was as safe as any I was likely to find.
“We survived after Caligula was killed,” Tacitus said. “And after Nero.”
“But we didn’t restore the Republic.”
“No, and that was where we made the mistake.” Tacitus picked up Popilius’ scribbling again. “Are you going to try to stop him?”
“I think we have to, whatever we think of Domitian. If he succeeds, it will mean chaos. If he gets anywhere near Domitian but doesn’t succeed in killing him, it will just make Domitian more suspicious of everyone. He’ll lash out, you know he will.”
Tacitus stood and sighed heavily. “I can’t say I wish you luck, but I can’t say I don’t.”
“Aren’t you going to help me?”
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