He let the girl’s long hair fall from his fist. “We shall have to continue this another day, my dear. You know the way out I believe. Tell your father he will have to wait a little longer until his debt is paid off.”
With her gaze lowered, the girl picked up her discarded clothes and vanished into the corridor. Tiberius sat on the edge of his sleeping couch and leant back against the cushions.
“So. What was so important that you had to interrupt my evening?” he asked sweetly.
“This was just delivered to my door.”
Crassus threw the papyrus roll down onto the couch next to Tiberius. A few splinters of wax fell from the broken seals, scattering over the black coverlet. Tiberius’s eyes widened but otherwise he evinced no sign of surprise.
“Well, well,” he intoned. He picked up the document between thumb and forefinger and inspected it closely.
“Is that all you have to say?” Crassus ran his hand through his already disheveled hair. “Can’t you see that’s the damned will? The fake one – the one Petro made – the one we planted in the temple archive!”
“Yes, I did understand you the first time.”
“So? We have been discovered!”
“We?” repeated Tiberius slowly, still examining the roll closely. “I think you said this was delivered to you.”
A shadow passed across Crassus’s contorted face. “You know damned well I’ll take you down with me, Tiberius! You killed the priestess, don’t think I can’t pin that on you.”
“I’d be fascinated to see you try, Crassus, but there is really no need for these childish threats. Tell me, out of interest, when did you say this arrived and how was it delivered?”
“About an hour ago.” Crassus flung himself down on a chair and buried his face in his hands, breathing heavily through his splayed fingers. “My slaves say they heard a knock on the door and when they opened it, that was lying on the threshold, wrapped up in a bit of cloth. Any bloody passer-by could have picked it up.”
“I take it there was no note included.”
“None. But the message is damned clear. It must be from Pompey himself, but what I don’t understand is, why send it to me?” He shook his head in frantic bewilderment. “Why not take it straight to the Senate as evidence? Not that it counts as evidence of course. He can’t prove I had anything to do with it. Your men dealt with the scribe, the fire took care of the forger. He’s obviously trying to intimidate me, make me think he’s biding his time. But what does he think he can do? Kill me?” A hysterical laugh escaped him. “How does he propose to explain that away to the Senate?” Crassus continued to brood twitchily, the frown sinking deeper into his brow. “But if not Pompey, then who? What I wouldn’t give to know!” he muttered.
Tiberius, who had been absorbed in his own reflections, raised his eyebrows. “How very interesting. What would you give, out of curiosity?”
“At this precise moment, my entire fortune,” retorted Crassus with a hollow laugh.
“Might I have that in writing? I am still waiting for that other five hundred thousand you know.”
“Why in Jupiter’s name would you want it in writing?”
“Because I know exactly who sent this to you.”
Crassus took his hands away from his face and stared incredulously at Tiberius. “You know?”
Tiberius’s amber eyes seemed to glow as he perused the document in his hand. “Cheeky little minx,” he said, an admiring caress in his voice. “I have certainly underestimated her. Not as much, I fear, as she has underestimated me, but a salutary experience, nonetheless.” He smiled at Crassus, who was still gazing at him open-mouthed.
“Yes, I use the word me on this occasion. This was always going to be my show from here on in anyway. You can tell your balls to come out now, Crassus – the game is still very much on. It includes some new players but that is going to make everything so much more exciting. We will proceed three days hence, on the Ides, as planned, and I will arrange for this –” he held the will between thumb and forefinger “– to be put back where it belongs. I sense that Petro may have betrayed us, slippery customer that he is, but there are other forgers who can counterfeit the seals for us. You, meanwhile, will send five hundred thousand sesterces round to my house tomorrow – cash, Crassus, don’t think you can fob me off with a deed of ownership on some decrepit tower block in the middle of the Subura – and I’ll want another fifty thousand in interest payments. After that you can sit tight and dream of sitting on your throne all by yourself. I’ll send you word when it’s done.”
“But damn it, Tiberius,” spluttered Crassus, “what are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
There was a brief silence, broken by a faint rustling in the corner of the room. Swinging round, Crassus realized that someone was standing there, partially concealed by a tall cupboard. As they emerged into the light of the room, the white of their clothing seemed to glow with an unearthly brilliance and Crassus thought for a moment that he was seeing a ghost.
“You were not my only visitor this evening, you see.” Crassus’s eyes darted in the direction of the door through which the naked girl had disappeared earlier. Tiberius saw it and shrugged. “They live such a sheltered life in the Temple of Vesta. I thought it might be an education of sorts,” he offered by way of explanation.
He put out a hand and beckoned the slim figure further forward.
“Come, don’t be shy, that isn’t like you. Now why don’t you tell the consul here just what you told me a little earlier?”
XXX
HORTENSIA WINCED AS ELPIDIA SCRATCHED HER SCALP WITH YET another wickedly sharp hairpin. “Ouch! I’m sure there must be enough flowers now, Elpidia, please?”
“Just a few more,” said Elpidia coaxingly.
Hortensia squinted at her dim reflection in the polished metal mirror. Elpidia had washed her black hair in scented water and curled it, and was now deftly weaving a crown of violets and white oleander around her head. A garland of the same flowers lay across her breast and she wore a pale dress the color of creamy candle wax. Her rich purple mantle lay on the bed. Outside, she could hear a steady progression of vehicles making their way cautiously down the Palatine toward the start of the Appian Way, where they would join up with the procession making its way to Diana’s shrine at Lake Nemi. Hortensia jigged her knees up and down, earning herself a reproof from Elpidia for making her work more difficult.
There was a knock at the door and Caepio entered. He beamed admiringly and complimented Elpidia on her handiwork. “You look like a dryad, my dear.”
“She’ll look like a hedgehog, if she doesn’t sit still,” said Elpidia admonishingly.
Caepio sat down on the bed and tweaked one of his wife’s curls. “Excited about the festival?”
She nodded and bestowed a happy, self-satisfied smile on him. Caepio tilted his head, a humorous glint in his eyes.
“Anyone would think me a cruel and tyrannical husband to see you so relish the prospect of an evening without me.”
“Well, why do you think men are forbidden to attend the Nemoralia?” she responded with a twinkle. “To give wives a moment’s peace of course.”
“Or husbands. You do seem to be in an extraordinarily good mood.”
“And what if I am?” she said, tapping him nonchalantly on the nose. “Isn’t that what kind and benevolent husbands want for their wives?”
Caepio caught her hand and squeezed it. “I am pleased of course. It’s just that you have been rather distracted these last few days. I was worried about you at the theater the other night, you were very quiet on the way home.”
“I was just tired,” she said heartily, returning the pressure of his hand before disengaging her own.
Caepio nodded and picked up a pin that had fallen to the floor, restoring it to the dressing table. “I wondered if perhaps Claudia’s suggestion wasn’t as silly as it sounded …”
She stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then bur
st out laughing. “Oh. No! No, no, no. I really don’t think it’s that.” She saw the slightly rueful look on his face and put a hand out to squeeze his again. “Not all men can be as potent as Caecilius you know.”
He grinned in response to the mischief in her eyes. “No, indeed,” he replied, his eyes on Elpidia’s deft fingers as they continued to build the elaborate coiffure. “And I trust that business with the Vestals is now over and done with?”
“Completely at an end.” Hortensia seemed absorbed in contemplating her reflection in the mirror but she spoke calmly and reassuringly. “There’s nothing to worry about now. You were quite right. Papa is more than a match for Crassus. I should have known it.”
There was a blandness in her voice and her maidservant eyed her mistrustfully, but Caepio seemed reassured and stayed to watch Elpidia complete her task. “Beautiful,” he said admiringly, as the last flower was gently eased into place and secured with one last long pin. “You look like Diana herself. I trust the journey won’t be too uncomfortable, it’s a cursed long way to Nemi. But you will have your mama for company and there should be enough traffic on the road to deter any lurking pirates.”
“How very comforting,” she said wonderingly.
He laughed. “Well, your papa is going to provide you with a couple of outriders, just in case, and once the festival is over it’s only a short distance to Caecilius and Claudia’s villa at Aricia. You should be safe in their company.”
“As long as Claudia doesn’t provoke the pirates too much by objecting to the cut of their tunics.”
He laughed and kissed her cheek. “I shall see you tomorrow. Enjoy yourself and try to see to it that your mother does too. She hasn’t had an easy time of late.”
He left, and a few minutes later, Hortensia was making the short journey up the Palatine toward her father’s villa, where she had arranged to meet Lutatia. The faithful Eucherius scurried along behind her, holding a canopy over her head to protect Elpidia’s creation from the breeze, and as they made the climb, they passed several descending vehicles containing aristocratic ladies whose hair was garlanded just like Hortensia’s and who were clutching votive offerings for the goddess, which they would eventually lay at her shrine. Under her mantle, Hortensia was herself holding a small figurine of the goddess, very much like the one Lucrio had used to disable Tiberius Dolabella’s henchman.
To reach Hortensius’s villa, they had to pass Crassus’s house. Hortensia tried but failed to resist the temptation to steal a surreptitious glance into the villa’s atrium. It was past the hour of salutatio, and there was no sign either of the illustrious owner or his clients. Hortensia wondered if Crassus was at home, sweating under fear of exposure as he tried to deduce who could have discovered what he was up to. What wouldn’t she have given to see his face when he discovered the will on his doorstep! She had listened first with apprehension, then with a dawning smile of satisfaction as Lucrio told her how he had watched the villa from a safe distance and confirmed the discovery of the will by Crassus’s doorkeeper; then how the consul himself had emerged a short time later, obviously in a state of some disarray, climbed into his private carriage and set off down the Palatine at pace. Hortensia was lured into thinking for a wild moment that the success of her scheme had terrified Crassus into fleeing the city but Lucrio dashed these hopes, saying that the consul had eventually returned, though clearly in a somber state of mind. Hortensia congratulated herself nonetheless on her masterstroke, finding a way of letting Crassus know that his scheme had been discovered without revealing the identity of the one who shared the secret. As long as Crassus labored under this confusion, she was confident that he would not dare to act. The final months of his consulship with Pompey would pass off harmlessly and the mantle would be transferred to her father and Caecilius at the end of the year. Hortensia’s only disappointment was that she was not allowed to tell anyone what she had done.
A few minutes later, as she continued to brood on these gratifying thoughts, closing her mind to a few more troubling ones, they arrived at the villa of Hortensius. Hortensia expected to find the traveling carriage drawn up outside, but to her surprise there was no sign of the vehicle or the two mules that would pull it. Even more surprising was the absence of her father’s door-keeper, Ancho, who usually presided over entry to the villa. Leaving Eucherius outside, Hortensia stepped into the dark cool of the atrium. The house was eerily quiet, but at the end of the long corridor which led toward her mother’s rose garden, she spied Rixus struggling to maneuver a large terracotta pot through the doorway, and called out to him.
“Rixus, where is everyone? Where’s Mama?”
Rixus turned with some difficulty and stared at her in surprise.
“She’s gone to Antemnae, domina. A letter was sent up to you. Did it not arrive?”
“No. What happened?”
Rixus had put down the pot and come hurrying along the corridor into the atrium.
“Your mama’s uncle Gaius is sick,” he announced.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“A note arrived this afternoon. He fell from his horse and has not woken up.”
Hortensia screwed up her face in recollection. She had a dim memory of this gouty relative, recalling that she had met him once at a family wedding and he had let her sip from his wine cup. But other than that there were no ties of affection to make her feel any particular concern on his behalf.
“Has Quintus gone with her?”
“Yes, domina. Reluctantly –” Rixus chuckled conspiratorially “– but yes.”
“Where’s Papa?”
“In court, domina. For the conclusion of the trial. He was out when the letter came. Ancho must have gone to find him. Do you want me to send a message?”
Hortensia shook her head distractedly. “No, there’s no sense disturbing him. But what am I to do now? We’re supposed to be leaving for the Nemoralia.”
Rixus nodded obligingly. “Yes, I heard about this. Your mama said to Ancho that if you still wanted to go to the festival, you could send a message to your sister-in-law and see if she would give you a seat in her carriage.”
Hortensia grimaced. Even at the best of times, she was not terribly fond of Servilia, who had a way of making Hortensia feel uncertain and gauche, and smiling superciliously so that her younger sister-in-law wished she could think of a suitably devastating response, but somehow the right words never came. The thought of a whole afternoon spent in a stuffy, rolling carriage with her was not appealing.
“I don’t see why I have to have company,” she complained. “Has Mama taken the carriage then?”
“No, she went in the two-wheeler, she thought it would get her there quicker. But I don’t think the mistress would want you to travel alone, domina.”
“I wouldn’t be alone,” Hortensia pointed out. “Half the city is on its way to Nemi today.”
Rixus shifted nervously from foot to foot. “Yes but, domina, what about the pirates?”
“Oh, if there are other vehicles around it won’t signify,” insisted Hortensia, who was very attached to the idea of attending her first sacred festival as a married woman but equally determined not to throw herself on Servilia’s mercy. The success of her stratagem with Crassus and Tiberius had emboldened her. There was no chance they could know who had thwarted them so she had no fear of reprisals. Instead, she was enjoying the euphoric sensation of being a force to be reckoned with and even conjured up a pleasing vision of herself confronting a band of swarthy pirates, imperiously demanding what they meant by accosting her. But she realized this portrait was unlikely to placate the anxious Rixus and so added a reassuring postscript. “Besides, Papa said he was going to send two outriders with me. Mama hasn’t taken them, has she? I can always send for Lucrio if she has.”
“No, domina, Antemnae is on the Salarian Way and your mama did not think it necessary, but …”
“Then there is nothing for anyone to worry about,” said Hortensia complacently. “H
ave the carriage brought round and tell Glaucus and the riders to get ready. I shall leave a note for Papa explaining everything.”
Although Rixus would not have hesitated to exert his authority in the days when Hortensia was still a little girl thieving apples from his beautifully tended orchard, he found her grown-up self much harder to argue with. All his suggestions met with resistance. Hortensia had no intention of allowing her pleasure to be spoiled and knowing that Caepio would have seconded her mother’s suggestion to accept Servilia’s escort, she turned down Rixus’s proposal that she seek her husband’s permission for her journey, pointing out that any further delay would mean not reaching Nemi before nightfall. After some more futile pleading for her to at least wait until her father could be consulted, Rixus at last admitted defeat and went to convey Hortensia’s orders to the stables, reasoning that no one could blame him for not being listened to by his owners. His preoccupation with this thought meant that he did not notice the grey-liveried slave taking a close interest in his movements on the opposite side of the street.
Half an hour later, Hortensia was safely ensconced in her mule-drawn traveling carriage, heading for the Porta Capena with two of her father’s grooms bringing up the rear. The sun was high in the sky but she knew it would take until dusk to reach Lake Nemi. So she settled down into the cushions and hoped that the rocking, juddering motion of the wheels and the hot sun flooding the carriage with its soporific warmth might eventually lull her to sleep.
XXXI
HORTENSIA OPENED HER EYES AND SHUT THEM AGAIN QUICKLY against the strong glare from the sun, uttering a small moan of protest. She twitched the drape slightly and realized with a pang of frustration that they were no more than three or four miles outside the city limits. She knew the route well, having traveled it every summer on their way to family holidays at Laurentum, and could tell their rate of progress by the names on the tombs lining the roadside. When she was little, Hortensius had made her practice her letters by picking out the inscriptions on the mausolea of the more famous occupants.
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