The House of the Vestals rsr-6

by Steven Saylor

  "Naia sighed. 'Like you,' she said, 'I'm not sure which is which. I think my greatest trick was discovering the thief who has been robbing King Rhampsinitus's treasure house, and my greatest crime will be when I hand him over to the king! Or perhaps it will end up being the other way around…

  "The young man gave a start and came to his senses. He rose and ran toward the window, but a great iron cage, like the one that had trapped his brother, came down on him from the ceiling. He could not escape. Naia sent her servant to fetch the king's guards.

  " 'And now,' she said, 'while we wait, perhaps you can explain to me what I don't already know about the plundering of the king's silver.'

  "The young man was at first furious, and then he began to weep, realizing the fate that awaited him. Death was the sweetest punishment he could hope for. More likely he would have his hands and feet chopped off and would live the rest of his life as a cripple and a beggar. 'But you must know everything already,' he cried. 'How did you find me out?'

  "Naia shrugged. 'I thought for a while that the two guards might be in collusion, and that the headless body was a third confederate, whom they killed when he was captured so that he could not betray them. But the guards knew of the traps, and so could have avoided them; and I doubt that any man in Memphis would allow himself to appear half-shaven before the king, even to disguise his own guilt. Besides, everyone agrees that the treasure house doors cannot be opened without breaking the seals. So there must have been some other way in. How could that be, unless the architect planned it? And who could know of any secret entrance except the architect's two sons?'

  " 'It's true,' the young man said. 'My father showed it to before he died-a secret entrance opened by pressing on a single stone in the palace wall, impossible to find unless you know the exact measurements. Two men, or even one, can open it with a simple push, take whatever they can carry from the treasure house, and then seal the door behind them so that no one could ever find it. I told my older brother that we were taking too much, and that the king would notice; but our father had told us that the king sorely underpaid him for all his years of effort, and that by his design we should always have a steady income.'

  " 'But then your brother was caught in the iron cage,' said Naia.

  " 'Yes. He could stick his head outside the bars, but nothing more. He begged me to cut off his head and take it with me; otherwise, someone in the palace would recognize him and all our family would be brought to ruin.'

  " And you did as he demanded. How terrible for you! How brave! But you were a good brother. You reclaimed his body, united it with the head and sent him on his way to the afterlife.'

  " 'I might not have done so, but my mother insisted. I disguised myself and deceived the guards into drinking drugged wine. In the darkness I cut down my brother's body and hid him among the wineskins in the cart. Before I carried him off, I shaved the guards, so that the king would not suspect them of conspiring with me.'

  "Naia looked out the window. 'And here are those two guards now, hurrying this way across the square.'

  " 'Please,' the young man begged, thrusting his head outside the cage, 'cut off my head! Let me share my brother's fate! Otherwise who knows what horrible punishments the king will inflict on me?'

  "Naia picked up a long blade and pretended to consider it.

  'No,' she said at last, even as the guards' footsteps were booming on the stairs. 'I think we will let justice take its course.'

  "So the young man was brought before King Rhampsinitus, along with Naia, who came to claim her reward. The thief's cache of silver was found hidden in his home and restored to the treasure house. The secret entrance was sealed over, and Naia was allowed to load a mule with as much silver as the beast could carry.

  "As for the fate of the thief, Rhampsinitus announced that he would allow the dishonored guards to take their revenge on him first, and in the morning he would decide on the punishment, either beheading him or chopping off his hands and feet.

  "As he was leaving the audience chamber, Naia called after him. 'Do you remember the rest of our bargain, great king?"

  "Rhampsinitus looked back at her, puzzled.

  " 'You said you would grant me a wish,' Naia reminded him.

  " 'Ah, yes,' the king nodded. 'And what is it you wish for?'

  " 'I wish for you to forgive this young man and set him free!'

  "Rhampsinitus looked at her aghast. What she asked was impossible-but there was no way to deny her request. Then he smiled. 'Why not?' he said. 'The mystery is solved, the silver is restored, the secret entrance is sealed. I had thought that this thief was the cleverest man in Egypt-but you are even cleverer, Naia!'"

  Another shooting star passed overhead. The crickets chirred. I stretched my limbs. "And I suppose the two of them married."

  "So the story goes. It makes sense that a woman as clever as Naia would settle only for a man as clever as the thief. With the silver she had obtained, and the combined quickness of their wits, I have no doubt that they lived very happily."

  "And King Rhampsinitus?"

  "His memory is still revered as the last of the good kings before Cheops began a long dynasty of disasters. They say that after the mystery of the missing silver was solved, he went down to the place the Greeks and Romans call Hades and played dice with Demeter. One game he won, and one game he lost. When he came back she gave him a golden napkin. And that is why the priests blindfold themselves with yellow cloths when they follow the jackals to the Temple of Demeter on the night of the spring festival…"

  I must have dozed, for I missed the rest of whatever new story Bethesda had begun. When I awoke, she was silent, but I could tell by her breathing that she was still awake. "Bethesda," I whispered. "What was your greatest crime? And your greatest trick?"

  After a moment she said, "I think they are both yet to come. And you?"

  "Come here and I'll whisper them to you."

  The night had grown cooler. A steady breeze wafted gently up from the valley of the Tiber. Bethesda rose from her couch and came to mine. I put my lips to her ear, but I did not whisper secrets. Instead we did something else.

  And the next day, down on the street of the silversmiths, I bought her a simple silver bracelet-a memento of the night she told me the tale of King Rhampsinitus and his treasure house.

  A WILL IS A WAY

  Lucius Claudius was a sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, cherry-nosed nobleman with a fuzzy wreath of thinning red hair on his florid pate and a tiny, pouting mouth.

  The name Claudius marked him not only as a nobleman but a patrician, hailing from that small group of old families who first made Rome great (or who at least fooled the rest of the Romans into thinking so). Not all patricians are rich; even the best families can go to seed over the centuries. But from the gold seal ring that Lucius wore, and from the other rings that kept it company-one of silver set with lapis, another of white gold with a bauble of flawless green glass-I suspected he was quite rich indeed. The rings were complemented by a gold necklace from which glittering glass baubles dangled amid the frizzled red hair that sprouted from his fleshy chest. His toga was of the finest wool, and his shoes were of exquisitely tooled leather.

  He was the very image of a wealthy patrician, not handsome and not very bright-looking either, but impeccably groomed and dressed. His green eyes twinkled and his pouting lips pursed easily into a smile, betraying a man with a naturally pleasant personality. Wealthy, well born and with a cheerful disposition he struck me as a man who shouldn't have a worry in the world- except that he obviously did, or else he would never have come to see me.

  We sat in the little garden of my house on the Esquiline Once upon a time, a man of Lucius's social status would never have been seen entering the house of Gordianus the Finder, but in recent years I seem to have acquired a certain respectability. I think the change began after my first case for the young advocate Cicero. Apparently Cicero has been saying nice things about me behind my back to his colleagues
in the law courts, telling them that he actually put me up in his house once and it turned out that Gordianus, professional ferret and consorter with assassins notwithstanding, knew how to use a bowl and spoon and an indoor privy after all, and could even tell the difference between them.

  Lucius Claudius filled the chair I had pulled up for him almost to overflowing. He shifted a bit nervously and toyed with his rings, then smiled sheepishly and held up his cup. "A bit more?" he said, making an ingratiatingly silly face.

  "Of course." I clapped my hands. "Bethesda! More wine for my guest. The best, from the green clay bottle."

  Bethesda rather sullenly obeyed, taking her time to rise from where she had been sitting cross-legged beside a pillar. She disappeared into the house. Her movements were as graceful as the unfolding of a flower. Lucius watched her with a lump in his throat. He swallowed hard.

  "A very beautiful slave," he whispered.

  "Thank you, Lucius Claudius." I hoped he wouldn't offer to buy her, as so many of my wealthier clients do. I hoped in vain.

  "I don't suppose you'd consider-" he began.

  "Alas, no, Lucius Claudius."

  "But I was going to say-"

  "I would sooner sell my extra rib."

  "Ah." He nodded sagely, then wrinkled his fleshy brow. "What did you say?"

  "Oh, a nonsense expression I picked up from Bethesda. According to her ancestors on her father's side, the first woman was fashioned from a rib bone taken from the first man, by a god called Jehovah. That is why some men seem to have an extra rib, with no match on the other side."

  "Do they?" Lucius poked at his rib cage, but I think he was much too well padded to actually feel a rib.

  I took a sip of wine and smiled. Bethesda had told me the Hebrew tale of the first man and woman many times; each time she tells it I clutch my side and pretend to bleat from pain, until she starts to pout and we both end up laughing. It seems to me a most peculiar tale, but no stranger than the stories her Egyptian mother told her about jackal-headed gods and crocodiles who walk upright. If it is true, this Hebrew god is worthy of respect. Not even Jupiter could claim to have created anything half as exquisite as Bethesda.

  I had spent enough time putting my guest at ease. "Tell me, Lucius Claudius, what is it that troubles you?"

  "You will think me very foolish…" he began. "No, I will not," I assured him, thinking I probably would. "Well, it was only the day before yesterday-or was it the day before that? It was the day after the Ides of Maius, of that I'm sure, whichever day that was-"

  "I believe that was the day before yesterday," I said. Bethesda reappeared and stood in the shadows of the portico, awaiting a nod from me. I shook my head, telling her to wait. Another cup of wine might serve to loosen Lucius's tongue, but he was befuddled enough already. "And what transpired on the day before yesterday.?"

  "I happened to be in this very neighborhood-well, not up here on the Esquiline Hill, but down in the valley, in the Subura-"

  "The Subura is a fascinating neighborhood," I said, trying to imagine what attraction its tawdry streets might hold for a man who probably lived in a mansion on the Palatine Hill.Gaming houses, brothels, taverns and criminals for hire-these came to mind.

  "You see," he sighed, "my days are very idle. I've never had a head for politics or finance, like others in my family; I feel useless in the Forum. I've tried living in the country, but I'm not much of a farmer; cows bore me. I don't like entertaining, either-strangers coming to dinner, all of them twice as clever as I am, and me, obliged to think up some way to amuse them- such a bother. I get bored rather easily, you see. So very, very bored."

  "Yes?" I prompted, suppressing a yawn.

  "So I go wandering about the city. Over to Tarentum to see the old people easing their joints in the hot springs. Out to the Field of Mars to watch the chariot racers train their horses. All up and down the Tiber, to the fish markets and the cattle markets and the markets with foreign goods. I like seeing other people at work; I relish the way they go about their business with such determination. I like watching women haggle with vendors, or listening to a builder argue with his masons, or noticing how the women who hang from brothel windows slam their shutters when a troupe of rowdy gladiators come brawling down the street. All these people seem so alive, so full of purpose, so-so very opposite of bored. Do you understand, Gordianus?"

  "I think I do, Lucius Claudius."

  "Then you'll understand why I love the Subura. What a neighborhood! One can almost smell the passion, the vice! The crowded tenements, the strange odors, the spectacle of humanity! The winding, narrow little streets, the dark, dank alleys, the sounds that drift down from the upper-story windows of strangers arguing, laughing, making love-what a mysterious and vital place the Subura is!"

  "There's nothing so very mysterious about squalor," I suggested.

  "Ah, but there is," insisted Lucius; and to him, I suppose, there was.

  "Tell me about your adventure two days ago, on the day after the Ides."

  "Certainly. But I thought you sent the girl for more wine?"

  I clapped my hands. Bethesda stepped from the shadows. The sunlight glinted on her long, blue-black tresses. As she filled Lucius's cup he seemed unable to look up at her. He swallowed, smiled shyly and nodded vigorously at the quality of my best wine, which was probably not good enough to give to his slaves.

  He continued.

  "That morning, quite early, I happened to be strolling down one of the side streets off the main Subura Way, whistling a tune, noticing how spring had brought out all sorts of tiny flowers and shoots between the paving stones. Beauty asserts itself even here amid such squalor, I thought to myself, and I considered composing a poem, except that I'm not very good at poems-"

  "And then something happened!" I prompted.

  "Oh, yes. A man shouted down to me from a second-story window. He said, 'Please, citizen, come quick! A man is dying!' I hesitated. After all, he might have been trying to lure me into the building to rob me, or worse, and I didn't even have a slave with me for protection-I like going out alone, you see. Then another man appeared at the window beside the first, and said, 'Please, citizen, we need your help. The young man is dying and he's made out a will-he needs seven citizens to witness it ad we already have six. Won't you come up.?'

  "Well, I did go up. It's not very often that anybody needs me for anything. How could I refuse? The apartment turned out to be a rather nicely furnished set of rooms, not at all shabby and certainly not menacing. In one of the rooms a man lay wrapped in a blanket upon a couch, moaning and shivering. An older man was attending to him, daubing his brow with a damp cloth. There were six others crowded into the room. No one seemed to know anyone else-it seemed we had each been summoned off the street, one by one."

  "To witness the will of the dying man?"

  "Yes. His name was Asuvius, from the town of Larinum. He was visiting the city when he was struck by a terrible malady. He lay on the bed, wet with sweat and trembling with fever. The illness had aged him terribly-according to his friend he wasn't yet twenty, yet his face was haggard and lined. Doctors had been summoned but had been of no use. Young Asuvius feared that he would die at any moment. Never having made a will-such a young man, after all-he had sent his friend to procure a wax tablet and a stylus. I didn't read the document as it was passed among us, of course, but I saw that it had been written by two different hands. He must have written the first few lines himself, in a faltering, unsteady hand; I suppose his friend finished the document for him. Seven witnesses were required, so to expedite matters the older man had simply called for citizens to come up from the street. While we watched, the poor lad scrawled his name with the stylus and pressed his seal ring into the wax."

  "After which you signed and sealed it yourself?"

  "Yes, along with the others. Then the older man thanked us and urged us to leave the room, so that young Asuvius could rest quietly before the end came. I don't mind telling you that I was weeping
like a fountain as I stepped onto the street, and I wasn't the only one. I strolled about the Subura in a melancholy mood, thinking about that young man's fate, about his poor family back in Larinum and how they would take the news. I remember walking by a brothel situated at the end of the block, hardly a hundred paces from the dying man's room, and being struck by the contrast, the irony, that within those walls there lurked such pleasure and relief, while only a few doors down, the mouth of Pluto was opening to swallow a dying country lad. I remember thinking what a lovely poem such an irony might inspire-"

  "No doubt it would, in the hands of a truly great poet," I acknowledged quickly. "So, did you ever learn what became of the youth?"

  "A few hours later, after strolling about the city in a haze, I found myself back on that very street, as if the invisible hand of a god had guided me there. It was shortly after noon. The landlord told me that young Asuvius had died not long after I left. The older man-Oppianicus his name was, also of Larinum- had summoned the landlord to the room, weeping and lamenting, and had shown the landlord the body all wrapped up in a sheet. Later the landlord saw Oppianicus and another man from Larinum carry the body down the stairs and load it into a cart to take it to the embalmers outside the Esquiline Gate." Lucius sighed. "I tossed and turned all night, thinking about the fickleness of the Fates and the way that Fortune can turn her back even on a young man starting out in life. It made me think of all the days I've wasted, all the hours of boredom-"

  Before he could conceive of yet another stillborn poem, I nodded to Bethesda to refill his cup and my own. "A sad tale, Lucius Claudius, but not uncommon. Life in the city is full of tragedies. Strangers die around us every day. We persevere."

  "But that's just the point-young Asuvius isn't dead! I saw him just this morning, strolling down the Subura Way, smiling and happy! Oh, he still appeared a bit haggard, but he was certainly up and walking."