What we were looking at was a modest villa, obviously long deserted. Trees grew up through the opening above the atrium. Because it was so deep in the woods, it had been surrounded by a wall to keep out animals. The wall had been breached in several places. We made our way down the rise and stepped through one of the openings. We entered the house itself through a broken place in the back wall of the peristyle garden.
In its shape and arrangement of rooms the house was ordinary, if somewhat small. An exhedra dominated the back wall of the garden, and small bedrooms ran along the side walls. The first feature that differentiated this house from anything I’d ever seen was the large pool in the center of the garden.
“That’s no piscina,” I said. Like the soaking pool in a bath, this pool was clearly intended for human occupants, not fish. It was filled now with leaves and debris from the trees and the carcasses of several small animals. The smell of decay permeated the whole place.
“This certainly could have been the place where Rhoda was kept,” Tacitus said.
“Gaius, come look at this,” Aurora called from where she was looking into one of the rooms.
We joined her and peered into the dimness of the room. It contained a broken-down bed, but what stopped us was the frescoes. Erotic scenes on the bedroom walls of a house are nothing unusual, but erotic scenes featuring men and very young boys were something I’d never seen.
“That’s revolting,” Tacitus said. “Yes, I said it’s revolting. I can find a young man attractive now and then—you both know that—but a child? No, never! Not a child!”
Aurora shuddered. “This is an evil place.”
Tacitus went off to check the rooms on the other side of the garden. Aurora and I made a quick survey of the rest of the house. All of the rooms were decorated in a similar fashion. One of them, off the atrium, seemed to show signs that someone had been there recently—especially the remnants of a small fire.
I knelt and looked more closely at the floor, which was covered with same green moldy material that was engulfing the whole house. In this room there was a smear on the floor. I bent lower and sniffed at it. “You don’t need Brennus’ nose to tell that this is what was on Rhoda’s gown. This must be where she was lying on the floor.”
“Why don’t we take a sample,” Aurora said, “and compare it to what’s on her gown, just to be sure. I’ll use the hem of my gown. There’s no point in messing up your tunic.”
“And you’ll get a new gown in the bargain.”
She smiled. “That thought did cross my mind. I don’t think this stuff will ever wash out.”
Tacitus came back into the room, carrying a small wooden animal and a peculiar mask. “This looks like a child’s toy,” he said. “The mask is designed to cover the upper part of the face. It would make it difficult to identify the wearer, while leaving the mouth unobstructed for…” He pointed to the paintings on the wall.
“I wouldn’t call it a skeleton mask,” I said. “Would you?”
“No, there’s nothing skeletal about it.”
“Well, let’s bring those things with us.”
* * *
We agreed not to talk about what we had seen when we rejoined my servants. None of us really wanted to talk about it. I couldn’t help but wonder why an entire house was devoted to such disgusting activity. Where did the boys come from? What happened to them? Had there actually been boys there, or was this just someone’s demented fantasy? The toys and the mask that Tacitus had found were certainly real.
I had to get my focus back on Livia’s kidnapping. The villa was probably just a convenient hiding place that the kidnappers were aware of. I couldn’t see any connection beyond that.
“What I don’t understand,” I said to Tacitus and Aurora as we rode toward my villa, with my servants a discreet distance ahead of us, “is how someone knew where Livia would be, and when.”
“You don’t think it was a random attack?” Tacitus asked. He sounded relieved to have something else to talk about.
“I know it wasn’t random.”
“Oh, yes, the note that you won’t tell me about. Have you told anyone else? While you were in the woods, perhaps?”
“I think someone knew she was going to be on the road,” Aurora said, earning my gratitude for cutting off the argument about the note.
“So it had to be someone in Gaius’ house,” Tacitus said.
Aurora shook her head. “Not necessarily. They were attacked while returning from visiting Tertia at Pompeius’ house. Isn’t it more likely that the plan was initiated from there?”
“How would someone know it was the right raeda?”
I snorted. “With those garish colors, how could you miss it?”
“But what would anyone in Pompeius’ house have to do with this business—whatever this business is?” Tacitus asked.
“He and Livia’s father were business partners,” I pointed out.
“What kind of business?”
“That’s the question I can’t answer, and it may be the crucial question.”
“Is any of this going to help you locate Livia?” Tacitus said. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll do something to her?”
“The note did promise no harm would come to her. I can tell you that much.”
Tacitus snorted. “And you trust the word of kidnappers?”
“What choice do I have? They did no harm to Rhoda, beyond frightening her.”
“Gaius, they killed the driver.”
“Rhoda said the leader was angry about that. No one was supposed to get hurt, he said. I’m going to find Livia as quickly as I can, but where would you have me start?” I gestured at the woods around us. “Which direction? Tell me, which direction?”
* * *
We returned to the stable around noon, and Barbatus, full of questions as usual, was helping us dismount when Pompeia came rushing out to meet us, with my mother, Naomi, and several other women around her like her clientela. I sent Aurora to compare the smear on her gown with whatever was on Rhoda’s, though I had no doubt they would match.
“You’ve come back without her,” Pompeia said angrily.
“We couldn’t find her,” I said.
“You didn’t have any trouble finding somebody else, apparently.” She glared at Aurora’s departing back. “I thought that one was with her husband.”
“We ran into them, on their way back from the quarry, while we were looking for Livia. Aurora helped us see where the kidnappers’ trail went. Or at least one of the kidnappers’ trails.”
“Well, then, why aren’t you still looking for my daughter?” Her complexion reddened to almost match her gown.
“Because the trail ran out,” I said. I would have preferred that it run out rather than leading us to that damnable villa. “We have no idea where to look, and we need to think about what we’re going to do before we go dashing off in all directions, or in any direction.”
I tried to turn away, but Pompeia shifted her bulk to stay in front of me.
“What did that note say?” she demanded. “If they’re asking for ransom, you’d better not hesitate to pay it.”
“There was no mention of ransom.” At least not ransom money, so, fortunately, I wouldn’t be faced with that dilemma. Not that it really would be a dilemma. Regardless of how I felt about Livia, I would do whatever was necessary to get her back. And then I would find the bastards who took her and killed one of our servants and make them—
“If not ransom, then what do they want?” Pompeia asked.
“All I can tell you is that they promised not to hurt her.”
“Oh, and you believe them?” She put her hands on her broad hips and jutted her chins at me defiantly.
“They didn’t hurt Rhoda,” I countered. “All we can do right now is accept what they say. That gives us time, I think, to formulate a plan. But, before I can do anything, I need to talk to my mother, in private.”
Everyone fell quiet and stood away from us as I took my mothe
r’s arm and led her from the stable through the rear gate of the house and to my room. Sitting in one of the chairs and folding her hands—looking more drawn and frailer than usual—she didn’t say anything until I had lit a couple of lamps and closed the door.
“This is about something in that note, isn’t it?” she asked as I took a seat across from her, at the writing desk. “Something you haven’t told anyone yet.”
I had told Aurora, but I nodded. Unlocking the small box where I keep a bit of money and my most important documents pertaining to this estate, I took out the note and broke the two seals I had put on it. “Let me read it to you.”
Mother raised her eyes to me expectantly.
“It says, ‘We will give you back your wife in return for a document of your father’s written on parchment and sealed with a skull. It must be unopened. In two days you will be told where to deliver the document. You will have one day after that to comply. Your wife and servants will not be harmed. We regret the death of the man who fought against us. We didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. Do not inform the magistrates. Remember, you have three days.’”
Mother’s face clouded in confusion. “What document?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. I have no idea what they’re talking about.”
“But how can you—”
“That’s exactly the problem, Mother.” I snapped the words. “I can’t give them what I don’t have. But if I don’t give it to them, I don’t know what they’ll do to Livia.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
I had to work to keep my voice from rising. “I don’t know that either, so I can’t communicate with them and tell them that I don’t have what they’re asking for.”
“Do you think they’ll harm her?”
“They say they won’t, if I do as they ask. And they did regret the death of our driver.”
“How nice of them to apologize.” She took the note from me and looked it over.
“Is anything about it familiar? The style of writing, perhaps?”
She shook her head.
“You’re the only person who might know what they mean. What sort of document could they be talking about and where could my father have put it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Gaius. By the gods, I wish I did. Your father was a secretive man. He had business dealings he never told me about. Remember, I was only fourteen when I married him. He was forty. He always treated me like a child.”
“Can you tell me anything about what he might have been involved in that someone doesn’t want me to know about? Whatever this document is, they specify that it has to be unopened. That sounds more than just secretive to me. It sounds sinister.”
She shrugged and looked up at me apologetically. “All I know is that he had various business dealings with Livius, Pompeius, and the elder Romatius. The four of them sometimes did things together. At other times I think your father would work with one or the other of them. Livius was his best friend in that group.”
“Were they his only business contacts?”
“No, but they were the most frequent.”
“Did he ever form a collegium with any of them?”
“I heard that term a few times, when they didn’t know I could hear them, but they always stopped talking about it as soon as I came into the room.”
That might be my first clue about what I was looking for. A collegium is always formed for a specific purpose. The partners record how much they’re investing and how the profits are to be shared. “Do you know what business they had together? Were they insuring something? Importing something?” I’ve found that, even when someone says they don’t know anything, if I keep asking questions, I can sometimes jar a memory loose.
“All I know is that something your father and Livius were doing had some connection with the village on the other side of the lake, near Old Comum.”
“Did they cross the lake often?”
“Livius did, perhaps twice a month. That’s why it wasn’t anything unusual that last time he made the trip. He would go across, spend a day doing whatever it was he did, and then sail back. That’s what Livius had done. He was on his way back when he drowned.” She paused, as though she had to force herself to continue. “Your father seemed a very different man after that night. I think he blamed himself for Livius’ death.”
“Why? You said he wasn’t with him.”
“He thought he should have persuaded him not to go, or somehow been able to save him.”
“Were you aware of any conflict between them?” A disagreement over some business matter could have led to a falling out between the partners of a collegium, particularly if there was a great deal of money involved.
“No, dear. As I said, they were quite good friends. From the time you and Livia were babies, they talked of a marriage between you two. And now that’s come about, long after both of them died. It’s as though Fortune ordained it.”
I nodded, but I thought Nemesis—Fortune’s evil sister—might be a more appropriate divine power to be invoked in this case.
“Someone other than Livius and my father—someone who’s alive now—must have known about this collegium,” I said, “if that is in fact what’s involved here. And they must know it has some connection to the body in our wall. That’s why this is happening now. Pompeius and Romatius are still alive, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They both must be about sixty or older, and the last I heard Pompeius wasn’t in very good health.”
I knew the elder Romatius was bedridden and losing his mind in Comum, living with his son. “Where does Pompeius live?”
“With Tertia and her husband, in the house where Livia went to visit. Or I should say, Tertia lives there with Pompeius. It’s his house.”
The place Livia visited right before she was kidnapped! That couldn’t be a coincidence. “What dealings did Pompeius have with Livius or my father?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I intend to.” I picked up a stylus and writing tablet. “Now, one more thing. What can you tell me about a deserted villa deep in the woods a few miles from here?”
“Is there really such a place?”
“Yes, I saw it this morning. So you’ve heard of it?”
“Only rumors, years ago. What does this have to do with finding Livia?”
“The green slime that was on Rhoda’s gown came from that villa. It’s where she was taken after the women were kidnapped.”
“Livia wasn’t there, though?”
“No, but whoever took her knows that place. And they know the story behind the body in the wall and don’t want me to learn any more. All of this trouble started when we found that body. There has to be a connection between it and my father’s business dealings. But what could he have been involved in—”
“Gaius, I wish your father had been the paragon of virtue you think he was.”
IX
No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
—Plutarch
Tacitus, Julia, and Aurora sat in silence as I finished reading the kidnappers’ note to them. The light from the lamps on each end of the table flickered across their faces. We had gathered in the library, with the door closed and Phineas on guard against any interruptions. I sat down on a bench next to Aurora. She moved her leg so that it was touching mine, sending a surge of comfort and desire through me. Tacitus and Julia were sitting on the other side of the table. I passed the piece of parchment around so each of them could examine it.
Tacitus spoke first. “And you have no idea what this document is or where it might be?”
“Absolutely none. Nor does my mother. Phineas hasn’t found anything with that seal on it in my father’s papers.” I waved my hand over the next table, strewn with my father’s letters, contracts, and other personal papers. I had told Phineas to put everything else aside and concentrate on sorting those out. “It might be some sort of collegium agreement—”
“Sealed with a skull?”
“That’s what sounds so bizarre,” Julia said.
“So what are you going to do?” Tacitus asked. “Ride down to Pompeius’ house and demand he give you back your wife?”
“What makes you think Pompeius is behind this?”
Tacitus raised his hands in a gesture I’d seen him use in court to direct a jury’s attention. “Isn’t it obvious? Livia visits his house, says something about the body in the wall, and is kidnapped.”
“But what about the skull and the warning on our way back from Comum? That must have been prompted by our questions in the taberna. Pompeius couldn’t have known anything about that. And there were two other men in the taberna who showed an unhealthy interest in what we were saying.”
“What about the elder Romatius? You talked to his son.”
“Whom I’ve known since we were children.” I didn’t like Tacitus’ accusatory tone. “His father’s bedridden. How could he be involved?”
“A man can give orders from his bed and pay people to do things.”
“And other people couldn’t help but hear us because you wouldn’t keep your voice down, and then your loose-tongued servant—”
Tacitus tried to glare me into silence, but Julia turned to him. “What is he talking about?”
“Unfortunately,” Tacitus said, lowering his head, “Marullus, the servant who accompanied me, told one of the serving girls in the taberna about the skeleton. Apparently he thought it would impress her enough to…”
Julia gave her husband a withering glance. “I wonder where he learned to do that. But it means, within hours, the story was being told—and no doubt embroidered—all around Comum.”
Aurora put a calming hand on my arm. “If Pompeius or Romatius is behind it, would they have done something so blatant? They might as well step forward and confess.”
“She’s right,” Julia said. “Men of our class don’t go around threatening and kidnapping people.”
“No,” I said. “We do worse. We take them to court.”
“So who are we looking for then?” Tacitus asked. “Somebody we’ve never heard of?”
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