Tiberius Dolabella subjected Hortensia to a long, appraising scrutiny. He seemed to appreciate her attempt to wrong-foot him.
“That seems unlikely. I can quite understand your outrage, my dear. But I am afraid you may be laboring under a misapprehension. I did not kidnap your servant. Indeed I cannot imagine why you think I would have. He was apprehended fleeing the scene of an amatory adventure.”
“A what?” exclaimed Hortensia, much taken aback.
“Yes. One can sympathize, can one not? Apparently the girl is a neighbor of mine – from the servile classes herself you understand – and in his doubtless weakened state, the lovesick fellow lost his footing and tumbled from the roof into my garden.”
Hortensia felt strangely incensed for a moment but then she realized that Tiberius Dolabella did not believe this story any more than she did. Whether it was his invention or Lucrio’s she did not know. But for some reason she did not understand, it suited her host to play a game with her. She decided the best course of action was to play the innocent. The sooner she and Lucrio were away from here the better. So she drew herself up to her full height and said, “I am shocked indeed and assure you I shall punish him suitably. Thank you for sheltering him and I apologize for any inconvenience he has put you to. Perhaps you would bring him to me immediately and then he will not trespass on your hospitality any longer.”
“Of course. But I am not such a poor host. You will not disappoint me by refusing refreshment.”
He proffered an amphora of wine and gestured toward a bowl of figs. Hortensia shook her head but instead of accommodating her obvious desire to take leave of him, Tiberius sat back down, selected one of the fruits himself and began to slice it into segments with a thin knife.
“These figs come from a tree near your house, just outside the Lupercal, perhaps you know it?”
“Of course,” answered Hortensia scornfully. “It grows at the site where the founder’s cradle washed up. I was under the impression though that it was an offense to eat the fruit from that tree.”
Tiberius raised an eyebrow. “When pleasure is at stake, my dear, what are a few archaic superstitions?” He sucked loudly on the fig’s soft ruby flesh. “You are obviously well read. I suppose I should have expected as much from a daughter of Hortensius. Tell me, do you perhaps also know the other myth connected to the Lupercal? Not the story of Romulus and Remus – every child knows that. I refer to the legend of Hercules and Omphale.”
“No, I’m afraid I do not and since my Papa made sure I was educated in all of the important myths, I cannot therefore think it worth knowing.”
“Oh but it is, I assure you. Though perhaps Papa didn’t think it fitting for you to know.” He watched her for a moment while he continued to flourish his knife. “You must be familiar, I am sure, with the Lupercalia festival, held near the cave in February, in honor of our twin founders. Have you by any chance ever wondered why the young priests of Faunus who preside over the festival perform their peculiar rituals without clothing. No? It all goes back, so I am reliably informed, to an encounter between Hercules and the Lydian queen Omphale. Hercules had killed the brother of the woman he loved, you see, and on the orders of Apollo, was sold into slavery for a year as punishment. Omphale purchased him and while in her service, forced him to wear women’s clothes and do feminine chores. Some say that he and the queen also became lovers … Well, one night, Hercules and Omphale were forced to take shelter in a cave and as usual she commanded him to exchange clothes with her. He put on her jewels and her girdle – far too narrow for his thick waist of course! – while she donned his lion’s skin and slung his quiver of arrows over her shoulder.” Tiberius took another sip of wine and studied Hortensia to gauge her reaction to his tale before continuing.
“After a wine-soaked meal, they fell asleep, he still wearing her clothes, she clothed in his. Now Faunus, the patron god of shepherds as you well know, had seen Hercules and Omphale go into the cave. Faunus was passionately in love with Omphale and now he spied his chance. He crept into the cave and in the darkness, had a good feel around the first bed he came to and jumped back pretty quickly, as you can imagine, on feeling the rough texture of lion skin. So he switched his attention to the other sleeping figure, confident that he was now on the right track. Lying down behind the person he thought was Omphale, he gripped his manhood firmly, lifted up the soft, gossamer fabric of her dress and … well. You can imagine the shock he got. As a consequence, Faunus ordered that all his followers should ever after conduct their worship in the nude, thus preventing the repetition of so painful a mistake in the future.”
Tiberius smiled politely at Hortensia and took a sip from his goblet. She could hear him drawing the liquid through his teeth before swallowing it.
“Your stories do not interest me, sir,” she said coldly. “Where is Lucrio?”
“Lucrio? So that’s his name.” He was completely unabashed by her froideur. “My men reported that he wasn’t very chatty. Of course. I was enjoying our conversation so much that I had quite forgotten all about him.”
To Hortensia’s relief, he rang a bell and a slave in grey livery appeared almost instantly.
“Would you please fetch our guest? His mistress is anxious to take possession of him.”
When Lucrio was brought in, Hortensia gasped in horror. His lip was cut, his face puffy and bruised, and the swelling around his right eye had forced it shut. He was able to walk unaided, but was hobbling badly on his weak knee and there were dried smears of blood all down his tunic.
Hortensia whirled on Tiberius. “How did he get like this?” she demanded angrily. “He did not receive those injuries falling off a roof.”
Tiberius spread his palms apologetically. “You must forgive me. My slaves are very assiduous in their duties. They could not be expected to take the soft option with what they quite understandably thought was a common housebreaker.”
The shaven-headed slave who had brought Lucrio in bowed slightly as though in mock apology.
“I shall make sure my father hears of this!”
“You know best of course, my dear, but do you really think it wise to tell him about your visit here?”
Hortensia did not trust herself to say another word. She motioned to Lucrio to follow her and marched out into the atrium. Tiberius came outside with them and observed as Hortensia climbed into her litter.
“I do hope we shall meet again soon. Perhaps at Pompey’s games,” he called out. “I must say, I don’t often find myself sympathizing with Publius but I can fully appreciate his disappointment.”
He watched as the litter moved off slowly down the street, Lucrio hobbling in its wake. Then he turned to the shaven-headed slave now standing next to him.
“If you see that Spanish cripple anywhere around here again, you will inform me immediately.”
“What if he says he’s just here to meet his girlfriend?” asked the slave with a gap-toothed grin.
“He was no more here to screw slave-girls than he was just taking a moonlight stroll on my roof. Someone sent him. Someone perhaps who knows I have some incriminating items in my possession that they would like back.”
“You think she knows?” asked the slave, tilting his head in the direction of the receding litter.
“No. But it’s an interesting idea to play with. No father wants his little girl to be disappointed in him, after all.”
Tiberius continued to watch as the litter trundled slowly down the hill.
XIX
HORTENSIA STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF HER STUDY, A STORMY EXPRESSION in her eyes. She spoke in a low, fierce voice.
“You will tell me right here and right now, what you were doing at that man’s house. Why you abandoned me in the forum, why I have not seen you for two days, why I just had to go through that embarrassing scene. I almost started to believe my father. He said you had probably always meant to leave us as soon as you got to Rome and laughed at me for trusting you.”
Lucrio stared back
at her, not a trace of emotion in his eyes.
“But I knew you wouldn’t do that to us,” she continued, a pleading note entering her voice. “Not after everything we’ve done for you. I knew there must be another reason. So I will ask you one more time. Who is that man to you and why did you seek him out?”
For several long moments, it seemed as though Lucrio still did not mean to reply. He stood with his weight resting heavily on one leg, the heavy bruising around his right eye giving him a squint which only added to his air of bored defiance. Silence hung heavy between them and the only sound in the room was the faint noise of children playing outside in the street. Then, just as Hortensia was on the verge of dismissing him angrily, Lucrio spoke.
“He is the man who took everything from me.”
Hortensia’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
Lucrio’s gaze shifted to some point on the wall beyond her head. His voice was cold and dispassionate.
“When I was a boy, a Roman tribune came to my village. We lived on a farm close to the river Tagus, on one of the main routes used by the Roman army. My parents did their best to be on good terms with the Romans and did not object to supplying the passing troops with milk and fresh bread. But when this tribune arrived, he demanded more than we could afford. My father refused the tribune’s request. Then the tribune ordered his companions to force my father’s head into a water trough. They held him there until he drowned. When my older brother Taio tried to stop them, the tribune cut his throat. He attacked my mother and killed her too. I could hear her screaming but I couldn’t get to her.” Lucrio paused and took a deep breath before resuming in the same emotionless tone.
“One of the other soldiers put me across his horse. They sold me to a slave dealer whom they met on the road, and he traded me on to a garum merchant. When I was fifteen, I escaped and offered myself in service to Sertorius as a kitchen hand. Later they made me a soldier. I did not much want to serve under a Roman but I thought it my best chance of learning how to fight and finding the man who killed my family – and Sertorius took an interest in me. Every time we met the Roman army in battle I looked for the tribune. I thought I saw him once, at Sucro, when we met Pompey’s army, but I lost sight of him. For many years, I kept looking. Then, two days ago in the forum, I found him at last.”
His gaze settled on her again. Hortensia’s eyes were glittering with tears.
“Why did you not tell me?” she whispered. “Did you think I would not understand?”
Lucrio shrugged. “You would have felt sorry for me, domina. But no, you would not have understood what was inside me.”
She bit her lip. “Did you go there to kill him last night?”
He nodded. “I was very close.”
“So what stopped you?”
“I overheard something.” For the first time, Lucrio hesitated and looked uncertain. “Something … I thought your father should know about.”
“My father?” asked Hortensia, mystified.
Carefully omitting any reference to Hortensius himself, Lucrio recounted as much as he could remember of the conversation he had overheard between Tiberius and Crassus, the exchange of money for the unknown document, the mystery man in the Subura and the death of the unnamed woman.
“I couldn’t tell you the woman’s name,” he concluded. “But it sounded as though she was killed because she discovered something she shouldn’t have. I think her death may just be the beginning through. There is something else they are planning, something more serious, perhaps another man’s death.” He studied Hortensia’s face closely. “You need to tell your father what you know, domina. So that he can stop it … before it goes any further.”
He waited for her reaction, but it was not what he had expected. Hortensia’s hand was pressed to her mouth yet the look on her face was not of bewilderment or horror, but of fearful understanding. “Helena,” she whispered through her fingers. “Her name was Helena …”
She closed her eyes. So the Vestals had been right to be afraid. Her mind was in turmoil, darting through a gallery of different images, sifting through the pieces of information in her possession. The dead Vestal in the river, the archive room, the message beside the hearth. Suddenly she opened her eyes with a snap.
“You said it was a document that Tiberius gave to Crassus? And that he kept it, in case he needed it to be put back? You’re sure that’s what he said?”
Lucrio nodded. He was now watching her in some concern. Hortensia distractedly rearranged her veil about her head.
“Listen to me. Tell Elpidia to come to me in my room, I shall need her escort. If Caepio comes home and asks where you have been, tell him he can come to me for an explanation and that I shall return home shortly.”
Lucrio frowned. “Where are you going?”
“I have to go and see the Chief Vestal.”
She was about to head for the door but Lucrio blocked her path with his arm.
“If what I have told you has put you in danger, domina, you must allow me to come with you.”
“If we are to speak of danger,” retorted Hortensia, “you were going to kill that man and count your own life for nothing. Now you listen to me, Lucrio.” She fixed him with her most tigerish stare. “I forbid you to return to that man’s house tonight.”
Lucrio’s green eyes became still and cold again. “There is nothing you can say that will stop me, domina. I have sworn to kill him.”
“It was an order, not a request. You will stay here. I know that you want that man’s blood, Lucrio, and I know that in the end I may not be able to stop you. But if you kill him now … you do not know what you may set in motion. I do not yet know what is behind all of this, but I may know more soon. There are many people who could be in danger because of it. People I care about. That may not mean much to you, but it does to me.”
Lucrio was silent for a moment.
“As long as you promise me I have not put you in danger, domina, I will let you go and I will give you a little more time. But I have waited fourteen years and I will not wait much longer.”
“Then just obey me for now, please. And fetch Elpidia to me.”
She swept out of the room.
XX
“ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE?”
Felix, the little Greek slave, had been surprised to see her but had greeted Hortensia with a bashfully welcoming smile and led her through the beautiful colonnade, bowing her into the Chief Vestal’s private apartment just as before. But now it was Hortensia who had taken charge of the interview, pacing about restlessly while Cornelia watched from her high-backed-chair, a hint of defensiveness in her manner.
“Of course I am sure. We have accounted for every document,” insisted the priestess. “We checked every individual archive, there was nothing missing from any of them.”
“But have you really checked them? Have you made sure they are all what they claim to be, I mean?”
Cornelia looked offended. “It is a sacred crime for anyone, let alone a Vestal, to read the private papers of a Roman citizen,” she said repressively. “We do not break the seals. We just confirm that the item is in our inventory and move on to the next.”
Hortensia threw up her hands in exasperation.
“But don’t you see? If all you are doing is checking that the same number of documents are there as before, anyone could have replaced one document with another and you would be none the wiser!”
Cornelia pursed her lips. “I do not understand what it is that you want.”
Hortensia took a deep breath. “I need to see Pompey’s archive.”
Cornelia’s eyes widened. “Then, the inscription on the floor, do you think …?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“I do not know what I think until I see the archive.”
Cornelia was silent for a moment and then rose reluctantly to her feet.
“I suppose there cannot be any harm when you have already seen the room once, though I shall be in trouble if we are discovered. For
tunately, Fabia is by the hearth at the moment.” She led Hortensia back into the colonnade where Felix was hovering obediently.
“This lady is here to make a special offering to the goddess, Felix. Should the Pontifex arrive early for our meeting, you will ask him to wait in my chamber and inform him that I will return shortly.”
Felix bowed reverently and Hortensia followed the Vestal down the steps to the lower courtyard, through the latticed door behind the statue and along the dark, musty corridor up into the temple sanctuary once more. Hortensia waited while Cornelia disappeared into the chamber. She heard her having a brief conversation outside before returning.
“I told Fabia what we are doing. She will keep watch for us but we must hurry, another priestess will come to replace her soon.”
Pompey’s personal archive was on a shelf opposite the door and Cornelia had to fetch a small portable ladder-chair so that Hortensia could reach it. Balancing precariously on the narrow rungs, the soles of her slippered feet rocking back and forth, Hortensia climbed slowly until her nose was level with the niche labeled “Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.” It was much fuller than most of the others, stuffed almost to its roofline with wax tablets and papyrus rolls, their yellowing edges tightly wound around wooden rollers. Leaning over and trying not to overbalance, Hortensia peered inside the musty cavity, scanning the little crimson labels attached to every roll by leather thongs which dangled limply down the wall. A few bore the name of Pompey’s father Strabo; some appeared to be property documents relating to Pompey’s various estates, others had the look of private letters.
Without really knowing what she was looking for, Hortensia began pulling the rolls and tablets half-out of the niche one by one and inspecting them closely in the dim light filtering through the latticed door before slotting them back into place. After several minutes of futile activity, she stopped abruptly and went back to a slim roll she had just partially withdrawn and then replaced. The red label attached to the end of its wooden cylinder was inscribed in tiny black lettering, barely legible in the murky light of the sanctuary: “The Will of Gn. Pompeius Magnus.” Hortensia stared at the roll, and then back at the others in the archive, trying to work out what had caught her notice.
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