Fortune's Fool

by Albert A. Bell

  “When I was eighteen,” Delius said, “I fell in love with Leucippe, a slave on your father‘s estate.”

  “She’s now the wife of Nereus.”

  “Much to my regret, and hers. She came into the goldsmith’s shop with her mistress, the lady Plinia, wife of Caecilius.”

  “My mother.”

  “That’s right. Well, whenever they came into town, Leucippe would manage to come by the shop or arrange to meet me at a taberna. As often as I could get away from the shop, I went to visit Leucippe. To my amazement, she returned my love, the first person to do so since my mother died.

  “One day a customer brought in three pounds of gold for us to make some jewelry for his wife. I knew this would be my one opportunity to break free. I got a message to Leucippe to be waiting for me. It would take us several days to design the pieces and get the customer’s approval for the designs. The next night I took the gold and headed north.

  “When I got to your father’s estate, Leucippe wasn’t the only one waiting for me. Her brute of a father, Barbatus, and your father himself stood between us. Caecilius told Barbatus he could deal with me in any way he liked. He held Leucippe and made her watch while Barbatus beat me badly, breaking two of my teeth, and sent me away. I will never forget Leucippe’s wailing as he drove me off, bleeding from his attack. I intended to go down to the lake and drown myself.

  “But Fortune has a funny way of dealing with us, doesn’t she? As I escaped from Barbatus, I saw a man I knew, Marcus Livius. I had made a false tooth for him and a brooch for his daughter. That night I hid because he was drawing a boat up onto shore and kept looking around to make sure no one saw him. What caught my attention was his cargo—two boys about six or seven years old.

  “I followed the three of them. Livius kept giving the boys treats and telling them how much fun they were going to have. They finally arrived at this place. I had no idea it was even here.”

  “Hardly anybody does, I gather,” I said.

  “I climbed a tree so I could see over the wall. In the garden of the villa was this large pool.” He waved his sword toward the water. “There were five men in and around the pool, all nude, and eight or nine little boys, also nude. What the men were doing to those boys still nauseates me. I recognized three of the men as customers from the shop.

  “Suddenly three pounds of gold seemed a pittance. I knew I couldn’t approach any of the men at that time. They outnumbered me, and I would disappear if they knew I was there. But one by one I could deal with them. If anyone knew what they were doing, they would become a laughingstock and forfeit any hope for political advancement. Their fear would be my fortune. I hid out around here for a while, keeping an eye on this villa and robbing some of the customers. They couldn’t admit where they’d been, you see. Then I made my way back to Comum, repaid what I had stolen and made abject apologies to the owners. They had to take me back because people liked my work so much, but they kept an eagle eye on me, not that I blame them.

  “One day Marcus Livius came into the shop to buy something for his wife. We were alone, so I asked him if he might like something for a little boy. At first he tried to pretend he didn’t know what I was talking about, but I mentioned the names of the other men I’d seen at the villa whose identity I knew.

  “Livius asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted a job that would get me out of the goldsmith’s shop. He took me to meet two other men, Pompeius and Romatius. Pompeius had been one of the men at the villa whom I did not know. I told them I had written an account of what I had seen and hidden it where it would be found if something happened to me. In exchange for never saying anything, I wanted to be given a position in one of their households.

  “Livius didn’t like the idea of being blackmailed. Pompeius here almost wet himself at the thought of his dirty, secret life being exposed. He said his wife would divorce him, and most of ‘his’ money is actually hers. Romatius was close to tears during the conversation. ‘Give him what he wants,’ was about all he had to say.”

  I turned to Pompeius, who had recovered some of his composure. “Is this true?”

  Pompeius nodded. “We had to take him in, since he knew Livius and he’d seen the boys that Livius was bringing ashore, and he recognized some of the men in the villa. We needed someone to live in the villa and manage the place for us. None of us could be here all the time. Delius wasn’t afraid to enforce discipline, among the boys or among the customers.”

  “You and Romatius were cowards,” Delius sneered. “Not a pair of balls between you.”

  “I can’t deny that,” Pompeius said. “Things went well for several years. Then Livius got greedy. He said he was taking a larger share of the risk than the rest of us, finding the boys and bringing them over, so he wanted a larger share of the profits—half to him, the other half for the three of us. Romatius and I met with him at the villa, to try to talk some sense into him.”

  “But you ended up killing him.”

  “That was my doing,” Delius said. “There’s no point in denying it, since you two aren’t going to live to tell anyone. One night at the villa Livius drank too much and got into an argument with Pompeius and Romatius about the money, like the old man here said. Neither Pompeius nor Romatius was worth anything in a fight, so I had to step in. After all, my job was to keep order at the villa. There were no customers there that night. Livius was strong and determined but drunk. I didn’t really mean to kill him, but I hit him on the head with a rock.”

  “So Livius is the man we found in the wall. Why put him there?”

  “We were in a bind,” Pompeius said. “We couldn’t risk leaving Livius’ body anywhere on our premises or just burying him in the woods. Animals dig things up, you know. Romatius suggested putting him in his boat and setting him adrift, but the blow to his head would make it clear he had been killed. I knew that your father was building a wall, so we took Livius there.”

  “And my father just agreed to this? Why?”

  “Your father had to agree to hide the body, since he was a member of the collegium and his name was on the agreement that we had all signed.”

  So this was the document about an “investment” that my steward Decimus had been unable to explain. “Why was one of Livius’ teeth removed?”

  “I insisted on that,” Delius said. “I had made the tooth.”

  “And it had your mark on it, DEL, like my ring and my wife’s brooch.”

  Delius nodded, with a touch of pride. “At the goldsmith’s shop I gained a reputation for being able to carve or cast anything a customer wanted—a signet ring, a brooch, even a false tooth from ivory. People took pride in having a piece with my DEL on the back of it. I had to remove Livius’ false tooth, just in case anyone ever did find the body.”

  I faced Pompeius, resisting the temptation to kick him. “My father made you sign another agreement, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He insisted that Romatius and I sign and seal a document exonerating him from any guilt in Livius’ death. He promised it would remain sealed and hidden. We didn’t see any alternative. Livius’ body had to disappear. I take it you’ve found that document.”

  “Yes. He hid it with Lutulla.”

  “But her taberna burned,” Delius said.

  “It was under the pavement in the courtyard, so burning the place and killing her did you no good, Delius.”

  “I was acting on his orders.” He waved the sword dangerously close to Pompeius’ head and pushed him closer to the pool.

  “Why was it so important to have that document?” I asked Pompeius. “No one even knew who the man in the wall was.”

  “When I heard what you’d found,” Pompeius said, “I thought we could ignore it. But my sister has talked so much about her son-in-law’s cleverness, and that night when Livia barged in on Tertia, she kept saying you would never let it rest until you’d found out who it was. I couldn’t take that chance. I had to get that document and destroy it. Kidnapping Livia was the first plan I coul
d come up with.”

  “You told me you were going to look for her, but you knew where she was.”

  “No, I didn’t. I handed the plan over to Delius. He said he wouldn’t tell me where he was taking her because he didn’t trust me to keep the secret. And he was right. But when your driver was killed, I knew things had gone too far. There had to be some other way to get that document.”

  “I still don’t understand why it was so important.”

  “Livius was a schoolmate and friend of Domitian. In that summer when Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian were fighting for power, Livius and his aunt, Pompeia Paulina, a cousin of mine, hid Domitian in her house in Rome. Livius and Domitian were students there. If Domitian ever found out that we had anything to do with Livius’ death…well, you know what would happen to us. Probably to you, too, Gaius, since he was found in the wall of your house. What would Regulus do with that information? Think about that for a moment before you condemn me.”

  His words played on my worst fear, but they were true. Marcus Aquilius Regulus and I hate one another. My uncle had hated him, and he hated my uncle. Under Nero, Regulus had made a fortune digging up information with which to ruin people. Vespasian and his son Titus were decent men and paid no attention to Regulus, but Domitian welcomed him back onto the Palatine Hill. Regulus was making up for lost time by reviving charges that Vespasian and Titus had refused to listen to. Domitian took it all in, like a baby bird with its mouth gaping, waiting for its mother to drop something into it. I could say that I was only a child when Livius was buried in the wall of my house, so I couldn’t be held responsible. But what about my mother?

  “I can see why you were worried,” I said. “So you buried Livius in the wall, but his boat sank. My father said he saw it go down.”

  “It did,” Delius said. “We punched a hole in the bottom of the boat. Then we plugged it with Livius’ tunic. I rowed it out a ways and removed the tunic so the boat would sink far enough from shore that no one would find it. Caecilius would put out the story that he had seen the boat go down in the storm that came up that night. Then I swam back and let go of the tunic close enough to shore that it was sure to wash up in a day or two.”

  “It was an excellent plan,” Pompeius said, “worthy of a fox. A man trying to save himself from drowning might well slip off his tunic. All that wool makes the things soak up water like a sponge. We thought someone could identify the tunic.”

  “That is, in fact, what happened,” I said. “Pompeia recognized the stitching around the neck.”

  “When she did,” Pompeius said, “we couldn’t believe our luck. She became an important witness to our story.”

  “But you left Pompeia and her daughter in a very vulnerable position.”

  “I know, I know. I urged Livius’ brother, Quintus, to marry Pompeia. I think he made her happier than Marcus ever did. At least he liked women. Your father told me that he would agree to have Livius’ daughter marry you, to make certain she was taken care of.”

  “And, ironically, because of that marriage and because of Livia’s demand for more space in my villa, I tore down the wall where her father was buried.”

  “Fortune does have a way of making fools of us, doesn’t she?”

  “I’ve seen the mosaic in your triclinium, Pompeius, and heard your favorite saying.”

  “About Fortune having us by the balls? Yes. It surely seems that way. Those of us here at the villa weren’t doing anything that Nero wasn’t doing in Rome, but we weren’t the princeps.”

  “Be honest with yourself,” Delius snarled. “There was the matter of what happened to the boys on those return trips. Nero wasn’t dumping his playmates in a lake when he was done with them. Even if he had been, no one could prosecute him for it.”

  “You came up with the idea of the masks that covered the top half of the men’s faces, didn’t you?” I asked Delius.

  “Yes. I hoped, if the boys couldn’t identify the men, we might be able to get them out of here without killing them. I was sure that’s what Livius was doing. He would take only one boy at a time on those ‘return’ voyages, and he always went at night.”

  Pompeius nodded and appeared about to cry again. I turned back to him and tried to keep him focused. “I’m not sure this is the end of your story, though.”

  “You’re right.” Pompeius cleared his throat. “About a year after that horrible night, your father was having financial problems. That estate never has been very productive, you know.”

  “So I’m learning. And he drained off some of the income to support Lutulla.”

  “Exactly. He told Romatius and me that we would have to pay to preserve his silence. He called it ‘rent for Livius’ quarters.’ He said he had made certain the document we signed would remain hidden and that you would know where it was. Romatius and I talked it over and decided we were safer paying the blackmail, even after your father died.”

  “Were you paying two separate types of blackmail, disguised as interest on a loan?”

  “No. He named one sum we had to pay. A third of it we paid directly to him as interest on that imaginary loan. The other two-thirds we paid through an odd system—”

  “You left the money in the storerooms of his unfinished temple. Lutulla told me.”

  Pompeius sighed. “It has been a burden on us for all these years. Romatius’ son has never had the money to qualify for the equestrian class, something he dearly aspires to.”

  “Did you kill my father?”

  “I swear to you, Gaius Pliny, I did not. What Delius here might have done, I can’t say. He never got over his resentment of having the girl he wanted taken from him and the beating he got, but that was the work of your father’s stable man, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” Delius said, “but Caecilius stood there, egging him on. I hated them both. When Caecilius demanded blackmail, I thought I might get my revenge and pin it on Pompeius and Romatius. I came up to the estate one night to formulate a plan of attack and found your father in the stable, looking after a sick horse.”

  “You struck him, I imagine, and left him for the frightened horse to trample.”

  “Yes. I wanted to get Barbatus, too, but I decided I would have to come back another time.”

  “That leaves me just one more question.”

  “Ask all the questions you want,” Delius said. “You can go to your grave knowing all the answers.”

  Because of something I had heard and a flash of movement I’d seen behind Delius, I had some confidence that my life wasn’t going to end here, so I persevered. “Once Livius was dead, how did you get rid of the boys who had gotten too old to interest your customers?”

  “We didn’t have to worry for a couple of years,” Delius said, “because the boys we had at that time were young. But we were getting close to that dilemma when Nero fell. Some of our customers panicked. They said armies were marching south. They knew this villa would fall and they would be doomed. We had only five boys at that time. I got them together one night and took them to the lake. I stole a boat and took them across. I pointed them in the direction of Old Comum and told them I was sorry I couldn’t do more. Then I sailed back across the lake.”

  “You must have been angry at him,” I said to Pompeius.

  “We were, but we couldn’t do anything. He claimed he had hidden a list of the people who had visited the villa. We couldn’t take the chance that he was telling the truth.”

  “And he still works for you?”

  “I can’t get rid of him, Gaius Pliny. He knows too much about me, and I know too much about him. You’ve seen a monstrous birth, I’m sure, when two animals failed to separate completely in the womb. That’s what Delius and I are. In a sense, I need him. Because of the way I live, I am threatened now and then. At those times, the Fox becomes useful. I’ve never asked him to do something which he found too distasteful.”

  “Even kidnapping your own niece?”

  “No one was supposed to get hurt. I gave strict
orders about that. And it wasn’t Delius who killed your driver. With the short notice I had given him to hire someone, that dolt Aurelius was the best he could find. I’m truly sorry. I hear the fellow has been dealt with.”

  “Decisively.” The image of Aurora plunging her knife into Aurelius sprang up from wherever it had been hiding in my mind since that moment.

  “Well, your questions have been answered, Gaius Pliny,” Delius said, “and this is getting tiresome.” With a final push of his foot he shoved Pompeius into the stinking pool. “Find out what it felt like for those boys, you filthy old bastard!” Pompeius sank beneath the leaves and garbage covering the surface of the water.

  I lunged at Delius, trying to disarm him. He was a wiry man, much stronger than he looked, and I couldn’t get firm footing on the slick paving stones around the pool. As much as I hated to do it, I put my strength into pushing him into the water. He dragged me with him, but at least he let go of his sword.

  The water came up to our chests as we exchanged blows. I was desperate to finish him so I could rescue Pompeius. Delius had his hands on my throat when a woman’s voice screamed, “Gaius!”

  Delius looked up at Aurora standing on the edge of the pool and his grip loosened. That gave me the instant I needed to slam his head back against the edge of the pool. He collapsed and sank under the water.

  “Are you all right?” Aurora cried.

  “Yes. I need to find Pompeius.” I floundered around in the water until I got a grip on Pompeius’ arm, but I knew as soon as pulled him to the surface that he was dead.

  * * *

  I spent a few minutes sticking a finger down my throat to make myself vomit. Water that vile could sicken me, I was sure. Aurora held me as my heaving subsided.

  “A gruesome ending, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Yes, but perhaps the best possible. I believe in justice and courts of law, but airing all of this evil in a court would have done more harm than good to the families of everyone involved.”

  As we loaded the bodies of Delius and Pompeius onto their horses, I was relieved that they had met an appropriate kind of justice. My bastard cousin and brother-by-adoption had killed my father and my wife’s father. I felt like the avenger in a Greek tragedy. I wondered if the Furies would pursue me, as they often do in those stories, for killing a member of my family. Perhaps it was retribution enough that I wore a signet ring he had made and would feel his DEL against my skin for the rest of my life.