“Was it the ice?”
“Your mother and Naomi did help me keep ice on my forehead until late in the night, but the swelling was going down and they finally went to bed. They said we’d resume the treatment in the morning. Then the strangest thing happened after that. At least I think it happened.”
“You think it happened? What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure it wasn’t a dream. Sometime during the night, Jacob came to see me.”
“Jacob? You mean Nestor? Regulus’ servant?”
“Yes. How many Jacobs do you know?”
Of course it had to be that Jacob. I just couldn’t fathom how he could have gotten into my house. I knew Demetrius would not have answered a knock on my door at that time. “He came in the middle of the night? How did he get in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Demetrius must have forgotten to bar the back gate in all the confusion after they brought me in. But how would Jacob know that? Tell me, from the beginning, what happened.”
“I woke up when I heard a man calling my name.”
“Didn’t you scream?”
“No, I recognized Jacob’s voice. I was puzzled, but I knew I had no reason to be afraid.”
“What did he say?”
“He said to keep my eyes closed. I didn’t see the point in that, because I was blind, but I did as he said.”
“And you’re sure it was Jacob?”
“Absolutely. When you can’t see people, you become very aware of their voices.”
“Why did he come to see you?”
“He said his god had sent him to heal me.”
Still on my knees, I leaned back, in shock. “To…to heal you? What did he do?”
“I heard him spit several times—”
“You heard him, but you couldn’t see him?”
“Remember, dear Gaius, I was blind. And I kept my eyes closed, like he told me to.”
“So he spat several times?”
“Yes. Then he put something wet on my eyelids, and he said something in a language I didn’t understand. Then he kissed my forehead and left.”
“Had he ‘healed’ you? Could you see?”
“When he left, I got up and opened the door.” There was a catch in her voice. “I could see, Gaius! I could see!”
“But the ice could have restored your sight, even before Jacob got here.”
“It could have.” She shrugged. “This room is so dark. I was asleep when he came in, and he closed the door behind him. And I had my eyes closed. There were several reasons I couldn’t see anything. Take your pick.”
“When you opened the door to your room, did you see Jacob in the garden?”
“No. The garden was empty. I walked over to the rear gate.”
“That had to be how he got in and out. Did you bar it?”
“No.” She paused. “I know you won’t want to hear this. The gate was barred.”
“That can’t be.”
“I saw it.”
“Then how did he get in and out?”
“I can’t explain it, Gaius, not any of it. I was so overwhelmed that I sat on the bench by your uncle’s bust and looked at the stars for a while. I’d been so afraid I would never see them again.”
“I wish you had wakened me.”
“I did think about coming into your room, but I decided I wanted to surprise you this morning. I was going to pretend to still be blind, but when I saw your face I couldn’t help but say something.”
None of this made any sense. As unlikely as it was that putting ice on Aurora’s forehead would enable her to see again, that technique had the cogency of an Aristotelian syllogism compared to spitting on her eyes. At least Jacob’s “treatment” hadn’t done the damage that Democrites’ had. I looked more closely. Could it have taken care of that problem, too? Aurora’s eyelids weren’t the least bit red or swollen.
“There has to be a logical explanation,” I insisted. “I wonder if the ice had restored your sight. While you were sleeping, you had a dream about Jacob. That wouldn’t be unusual. He’s someone you know and respect, although I would prefer to think you dream about me.”
“More than you know,” Aurora said. “And this seemed too real to be a dream. I felt his touch on my eyelids.” She took my hand and guided one of my fingers over her eyelids. “Just like that.”
“If the rear gate was barred from the inside, how could anyone have gotten in or out of the house? It’s just not possible, unless we resort to fables about gods popping up wherever they damn well please.”
“It’s hard to explain, isn’t it?” she said, touching her eyes and then reaching out to me. “We’ll just have to ask Jacob. All I know is that I can see again. But this isn’t what I wanted to see. What happened to you?”
I cringed when she touched my jaw. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Nothing? But your face is swollen. Here, put this on it.” She reached into the basket on the floor beside her bed and pulled out a small chunk of ice, wrapping it in a piece of cloth. “It’s all that’s left, but maybe it will help. Hold it to the side of your face.”
“Maybe we can ask Jacob to spit on me.”
Aurora laughed. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Placing the ice to my face, I sat down on the bed beside her, took her hand, and told her about my conversation with Domitian.
“Do you think you’re going to be arrested?” she asked when I finished. Her grip on my hand got tighter.
“No, but I think I’m going to be ruined if he makes me look like one of his supporters.”
“Are Tacitus and Agricola in any danger?”
“I’m not sure. I need to talk to Tacitus, but I don’t feel like going to his house this morning. I’ll have to send someone to ask him to come over here. I can’t risk writing any of this down.”
“I’ll go,” Aurora said immediately.
“You’ve just recovered. I don’t want you running around the city.”
She put a hand on my leg. “I’m fine. And you can trust me to tell Tacitus what happened. You won’t have to write it down and he won’t have to come over here. Besides, I want to get out to find out if I notice things differently after being unable to see. Will my eyes be better since, for several days, I had no eyes?”
I knew that what she said made sense, and she had been navigating the streets of Rome by herself since she was twelve, often in disguise. But I wanted her here with me. To feel her hand resting on my leg was restoring my spirits faster than any doctor’s nostrum could ever do.
“I’ll send a couple of men with you.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You know I can take care of myself in the streets.”
“All right. Here, at least take this.” I removed the Tyche ring on its leather strap from around my neck and placed it over her head. “Not that it did me much good last night.”
She clutched the ring and kissed me softly on my aching cheek. “You’re still alive, aren’t you? And you’re not in a cell somewhere in the bowels of the Praetorian Camp. I’d call that very good luck indeed.”
*
Of course I wasn’t going to let Aurora go out on the streets of Rome by herself, not with Crispina’s servants keeping an eye on my house for some reason. The previous day I had sent two of my servants—taller than Phineas—to follow Crispina’s man when he left his post. They tracked him to an insula but saw no sign of Crispina. I probably needed a wider net of spies to find her, but I was not going to involve Regulus any further.
When Aurora left, I sent two of my servants to follow her without her knowledge. Walking to Tacitus’ house, delivering a message, and returning to my house shouldn’t take Aurora more than two hours, even at a leisurely pace. Given the time when she left, I expected her to return well before noon. I spent the morning dealing with a few of my clients whom I’d been passing off to Demetrius for several days and then listening to Hashep and Dakla do their lessons with Phineas.
I could
not understand how a man like Popilius could have desired Fabia when she was Hashep’s age, the way a man desires a woman. Hashep was truly a beautiful girl, nearly ten, but she was still a child. Popilius would have wanted Aurora, I assumed, when she was still my playmate. It weighed on me that, thanks to my generosity, Popilius was going to a place where no one knew his proclivity. Tacitus’ letter had warned Julius Fortunatus, but was that enough? Had I turned a predator loose, sent a fox into a house of unsuspecting baby chicks? On the other hand, did I have the right to appoint myself his judge and executioner? By warning Fortunatus in Massilia about him, I consoled myself, I had done all I could.
Philosophers tell us that we should not wish evil on other people, lest the very thing we wish for them be inflicted on us in order to achieve some kind of balance in the universe. The Stoics say we should regard everything that happens with indifference, apatheia, because we cannot change anything. But I would not regret hearing that the ship carrying Popilius and Segetius had gone down, with everyone on board except them surviving. Or perhaps the ship had run into a storm and the crew had drawn lots and thrown someone overboard to satisfy the angry gods. I suppose that sort of thing happens only in stories, though, stories like Arion and the dolphin. I always enjoyed that one when I was a child. I wondered if Hashep and Dakla knew it.
*
When the short shadows in my garden indicated it was midday and Aurora hadn’t gotten back, I began to worry, pacing—albeit slowly, because of my beating by the Praetorians—around the peristyle. I told myself I would wait another half hour and then go out to look for her. She was probably just taking her time, savoring her ability to see and move about on her own again. I was relieved a few moments later when I heard Tacitus greeting Demetrius. He must have returned with Aurora, I thought. But when he came into the garden, he was accompanied only by the two men I had sent to follow her.
“Where’s Aurora?” I asked.
“Good day to you, too, Gaius Pliny. How should I know where Aurora is? She’s your…servant. And isn’t she blind?”
“Her sight returned overnight. She was supposed to go to your house to tell you that and deliver some other news.”
Tacitus clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, that’s wonderful, but she hasn’t been at my house. The only servants of yours that I’ve seen are these two.”
I turned on my servants. “What happened? Where is Aurora?”
“My lord, we were following her until she went around a corner, just a few blocks from here. By the time we got there, she was nowhere to be seen.”
“Why didn’t you come back here and tell me?”
“We thought we should try to find her, my lord. We looked for her all the way to Cornelius Tacitus’ house, but there was no sign of her.”
I lashed out and struck the man across the face. “You fool! If anything happens to her, you will pay more dearly than you can possibly imagine. Both of you!”
“Gaius Pliny,” Tacitus said, “it won’t help to lose your temper. You don’t know that anything dire has befallen her. She’s very resourceful. From what you’ve told me, she’s always been able to take care of herself on the streets.”
“She’s alone, and she may not be entirely recovered. We have to find her!”
“Of course, you’re right. Let’s go. And, on the way, you can tell me what happened to you.” He lifted my chin like a parent examining a child’s injury.
Accompanied by the servants Tacitus had brought—a couple of whom had seen Aurora before—and a few of my men, we set out on the most logical route to Tacitus’ house.
“Look down every alley,” I told them. “Stick your head into every taberna. Ask if anyone has seen her. Lift the covers on the sewers. Look behind piles of trash. Don’t miss any place where she might be…hidden.” I couldn’t let myself imagine her lying dead or injured somewhere.
By the time we reached Tacitus’ house I had given him a quick account of my interview with Domitian, but we had found no trace of Aurora. His servants assured us that they had not seen any sign of her, either before or after Tacitus left.
“Is there some favorite spot of hers along the way where she might have stopped?” Tacitus asked.
“She wouldn’t have stopped anywhere until she had delivered the message at your house,” I snapped.
“You don’t have to bite my head off, my friend,” Tacitus said. “I’m just as concerned about her as you are. But the fact is, she never got here.”
“That means something happened to her on her way to your house. Let’s go back along a different route. Perhaps she went through the Forum.”
Putting an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into a corner of his atrium, Tacitus lowered his voice. “Gaius, I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but you said Domitian told you that, in his view, Agricola’s promise of protection covers only you and your mother. Likewise, I doubt if anyone in my household, beyond myself and Julia, is safe.”
He was expressing my worst fear. “But why would Domitian take Aurora? She’s just one servant out of more than a hundred in my house.”
“You said Regulus made it clear he knew of your relationship with her, when you were out at Martial’s farm.”
I knew that had to be the answer, as unhappy as I was to hear it. “Yes, he must have a spy at Marinthus’ taberna. My money would be on Marinthus’ son, Theodorus.”
“Well, whatever Regulus knows, Domitian knows.”
I leaned against the wall, feeling the hope drain out of me. If Domitian had taken Aurora, what chance did we have of finding her? “Are we just supposed to give up?” I asked.
“No. We don’t know what happened, and we’ll keep looking. I’m just telling you to be prepared for the worst.”
Heading back toward my house, we searched as diligently as we could, but—even if she hadn’t been snatched by Domitian’s thugs—what hope did we have of finding one woman in a city of over a million people, with streets and buildings that spread out in chaotic fashion for almost two miles in any direction from the Forum?
“Something has happened to her,” I told Tacitus as we started up the Esquiline. “Something dreadful.”
“Maybe her blindness returned,” he said. “I hate to think of her wandering these streets, unable to see.”
“Somebody could take advantage of her.” I felt my panic rising. On the streets of Rome a helpless woman—especially one whose dress marked her as coming from a noble house—would be set upon like a deer falling prey to a pack of wolves. I didn’t want to carry that analogy any further because I had seen what the wolves leave behind.
When we arrived back at my house it was late afternoon. I rushed into the garden, hoping to find Aurora calmly sitting there, wondering where I had been. But my mother was the one who asked that question.
“You’ve missed taking a bath,” she said, “and we’re preparing dinner. Oh, and there’s someone waiting to see you.” She pointed to the back of the garden. “It’s a messenger from Livilla.”
Tacitus and I exchanged a puzzled glance. Why would Livilla be sending me a message? She would be my sister-in-law, it seemed, instead of my wife, but I could think of no reason for her to be communicating with me this soon after the end of our engagement.
The messenger was sitting beside my uncle’s bust. He stood when I approached him. “My lord, my lady Livilla sent me to give you this.”
He handed me a piece of rolled-up papyrus. Instead of being sealed with wax, it had the leather strap bearing the Tyche ring tied around it. My stomach felt like one of the Praetorians had punched me again.
“This came from Livilla, daughter of Pompeia Celerina?”
“Yes, my lord.”
I didn’t understand. Aurora might have sent me a message tied up with the Tyche ring in order to guarantee its authenticity, but how had the thing come into Livilla’s possession?
“I don’t like the look of this,” Tacitus said as I untied the strap and opened the note. “Aurora would never hav
e willingly parted with that ring.”
The message bore no sender’s name and was addressed to Livilla.
Come with this messenger if you want to see the dawn of a new era in your life. Do not bring anyone else with you.
Below that was written: AREPO—Aurora Remotura Ex Plinii Orbe.
“ ‘Aurora will be removed from Pliny’s world’? It has to be from Crispina,” I said. “She’s the one who’s obsessed with this AREPO nonsense.”
“But why would she threaten Aurora, after Aurora was so kind to her?”
“Because she’s mad. She doesn’t need a reason.” I turned to the messenger. “How long ago did your mistress receive this note?”
“Less than an hour, my lord. She sent me to you right away and I came straight here without stopping. She said it was urgent.”
“Where is she?”
“She went with the messenger, my lord. He said he had a raeda waiting outside the walls.”
“Do you know where they went? Did Livilla know?”
“No, my lord. She said you would know.”
“And yet she went with him? Why?”
“She said she had to do something to protect Aurora until you could get there, my lord.”
“Get there?” Tacitus said. “How can we get there when we don’t know where ‘there’ is?”
“She’s been taken to Tabellius’ villa,” I said. “That’s the only thing that makes any sense.”
“Do you think Crispina would risk going back to that place?”
“She’s obsessed with it. We have to get out there.”
“But if you’re wrong, Gaius, it will mean Aurora’s life.”
I put the Tyche ring around my neck. “That’s why I can’t be wrong.”
* * *
Where am I? What’s going on? By the gods, am I blind again? No, there’s something over my head. A gag in my mouth. Hands and feet are tied. I must be in a wagon, and it’s moving. Something over me. Don’t panic. I can’t think straight if I panic. What happened? How long have I been unconscious?
Think! Think! Let’s see. I was on my way to…to Tacitus’ house. I had not gotten far from Gaius’ house at all. He sent two men to follow me, just as I thought he would. I was proud of the way I eluded them. Suddenly a woman stepped out of an alley and took hold of my arm. It was Crispina. For an instant I was too shocked to do or say anything. That gave her time to pull me into the alley. Two men grabbed me. One put his hand over my mouth. He was holding a cloth, so I couldn’t bite him.
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