“Then he dragged me to his room. This was before Pollux came on duty at the second hour of the night. He told me to stay there and make no sound. He would be back for me later. ‘In the meanwhile,’ he said, ‘you will have time to study my murals. They’ll instruct you in the arts of Venus, a far more endearing goddess than Vesta.’
“He went away then, and in the interval before he returned I tried to make ready the poisoned needle. I intended to kill myself.”
“Whose idea were these needles?” Pliny asked.
“One of us—I’ll tell you no names—knew someone who could prepare them and we all agreed to carry them. In case the worst happened, none of us could denounce the others.”
“It didn’t work for Iatrides, though.”
“No, sadly. I kept mine knotted in a corner of my palla. But when the time came, my hands shook so badly I couldn’t untie it. What I suffered that night was horrible enough. And now I must tell it to you—a policeman, a man.”
Pliny held up his hands. “Not all of it, lady. I’ve already guessed a good deal.”
“Have you. How very clever. But you can’t know what it was like. I was so frightened I couldn’t even scream. I knew I couldn’t resist his strength. When he returned, I wept and pleaded with him. He laughed and kissed me with his obscene mouth and stripped me of my clothes…” Her words came in little gasps, in a voice so low that Pliny had to strain to hear her. He couldn’t take his eyes from her face which was flushed and beaded with sweat.
“He made me drink wine with him. Then, holding a lamp in one hand and gripping my wrist with the other, he took me around the room to look at his filthy pictures. Things I never imagined people did! Meanwhile I heard Pollux outside taking up his post, rocking his chair back against the door. Verpa said he would do me the favor of saving my virginity technically—he had that much fear of the gods in him—but he would use me in every other way…” Amatia’s breath began to come hard, her hand went to her throat and Pliny was afraid she was going to have another attack, but with a violent shake she mastered herself.
Listening to her relive this horror, Pliny gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white. As bad as he knew Verpa to be, this was almost inconceivable. A Vestal abused like this! He was shocked down to the soles of his feet.
“He mounted me from behind, like an animal, but while he couldn’t see my hands I got hold of my palla where it lay on the bed, put the knotted corner in my teeth and freed the pin at last. I kept the cork between my teeth, careful not to let my lips touch the poisoned tip. Somehow I must kill him and then myself. After he had finished, he turned me toward him and poured a goblet of wine for us. I kept my head lowered so he couldn’t see my face.
“You admire it, eh?” He thought I was staring at his thing, still swollen with lust. “Well, now, I’ll teach you a whore’s trick. Kiss, it, darling.” He thrust it up in my face—and I struck like a viper!
“He let out a yelp, jerked away, looked at his thing with disbelieving eyes, the needle still stuck in the flesh. Faster than I could have imagined, he doubled up in pain and clutched at his throat. I think he tried to scream but only a gurgling noise came out, not loud enough for Pollux to hear through the door. As he fell back on the bed I pried myself loose from his grip. With a final spasm he rolled over on his stomach, covering the needle with his body. I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. He was still alive but unable to move—I don’t know for how long. Only his nostrils moved in and out with his breathing. I remember that.”
Pliny felt humbled by this woman’s strength. She was like some heroine of ancient days, a modern Lucretia.
“Then it seemed like only a moment later that I heard a noise outside the window. I only had time to roll off the bed onto the floor. I heard the shutters swing open. A figure slithered through.”
“And that was Ganymede,” said Pliny. “There is no coincidence. Lucius chose that night because, by counting the slave girls and finding them all in their own beds, he naturally concluded that his father was sleeping alone, as he occasionally did. In fact, he had you there with him.”
“I couldn’t imagine what this marauder’s purpose was, but he crept toward the bed and I saw in the lamplight that he carried a dagger. Still naked, I scuttled back into the farthest, darkest corner of the room and crouched in front of one of the figures on the wall. From there I watched the intruder throw himself on Verpa, hacking and slashing until his breath came like sobs. He seemed not to notice that Verpa never stirred, never let out a sound. And he didn’t see me! Finally, he tossed the dagger on the floor beside the bed and, with a piece of charcoal that he had with him, sketched some sort of figure on the wall. Then out he went again through the window. I could hear him drop to the garden pavement below.
“As soon as he was gone, I dressed again. I can’t describe the thoughts that whirled through my brain after that. Somehow I must get out without being seen. But how? The window—impossible! I looked down at that two-story drop and my head swam. After that, the hours dragged by. The oil lamp guttered and went out. I was in despair.
“And then, as it was growing light, I heard muffled voices outside. Verpa’s servants coming to wake him. They knocked on the door, waited, knocked louder. I did the only thing I could; realizing how I’d escaped assassin’s notice, I thought maybe it would work a second time. I undressed again and matched myself to the figure of the woman on her hands and knees being mounted by the Satyr—”
Pliny stopped her with a gesture. He didn’t need her to describe the trick, he had seen it. “No more, please, I know how it was done. Only I thought it was Scortilla!”
Amatia answered with a bleak smile. “I wish it had been. I could hear them talking outside the door though I couldn’t make out the words. For a while nothing, then the voice of Lucius calling out Verpa’s name. My clothes! I had left them in the middle of the floor. I raced to get them and stuffed them under the bed, then back to the wall again. My heart was pounding so, it nearly broke my ribs. Then the door burst open and they all tumbled in, Lucius in the lead, holding a lamp. They saw the body tangled in the sheets. For an age, it seemed, they milled around the bed, while I, only a few steps away, pressed myself against the painted figure, trembling, and praying with all my might to Vesta to help me. ‘Bring more light,’ one said. ‘No carry him outside.’ Then, all shouting and gesticulating, they carried his body out and left me there alone.
“I threw my clothes on again. But still, how could I leave? The atrium below was full of people. If someone were to look up and see me sneaking away…I did the only thing I could think of, gave a loud scream and backed out of the room. Of course, everyone looked up: and all they saw was the invalid guest who must have been roused by the commotion, entered the room, saw the blood and become hysterical; she was known to be suffering from weak nerves anyway. And that is all that happened.”
Martial runs down the Via Sacra, his heart pounding in his shaggy breast. His knees are aching and his chest is on fire. How much farther to Verpa’s house? Up the Citadel steps and down the other side, not the easiest route but the most direct. He doesn’t think he can make it. But he must!
He hadn’t meant to tell Stephanus so much—not about Amatia! But the man had threatened to knife him right there in the street and, after wringing everything out of him, had dashed off somewhere. Parthenius’ creature!
At last! He stumbles against Verpa’s door. A trooper opens the door cautiously, recognizes him, and pulls him inside. In the atrium the others are sitting about, grim-visaged and talking in low voices.
“Valens!” The poet is panting so hard he can barely speak. “Gaius Plinius—needs you—at once! What? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we’ve been ordered to return to barracks and surrender our arms to the fucking Praetorians. If we’re seen in the city we’ll be treated as rebels. We’ve just been talking about what to do.”
“What you must do is come wi
th me, now! I’ll explain on the way.”
“Your pink-cheeked senator friend has gotten himself in trouble? How is that our problem?”
Assenting grunts from the men.
“Valens, that will he was going to write for you? You may need it sooner than you think!”
“And why, madam, are you here in my house?” Pliny challenged.
“You invited me,” Amatia said simply. “And there was no more to be done at Verpa’s house. Without Iatrides I had no way of communicating with the others. So, on my own, I decided to spy on you, I confess it gladly. You insisted on investigating the case, day after day, with your obnoxious friend, as if it actually mattered whether a few slaves were executed or not! What if you somehow stumbled on the truth? I had to steer you away from that.”
It dawned on Pliny then how easily he had let himself be fooled by this woman. There were a dozen ways he could have checked her story, but it had simply never occurred to him. Why should it have? He was so bent on exposing Lucius and Scortilla, and Amatia was so good to his wife. Was that only a charade too?
“Now, I have told you everything,” she said, “I appeal to you. If you simply do nothing, all of this will be over in a matter of hours. Today is the appointed day.”
Do nothing? His anger flared. “You speak so contemptuously of the slaves, lady. Does justice mean nothing to you? You are willing to sacrifice the lives of forty innocent human beings who will be punished for murdering their master when it was you who committed the crime?”
She rounded on him, matching her anger against his. “You expect me to risk all our lives for slaves! Tell me, Pliny, aren’t we all slaves? Slaves to the tyrant? Have you no tears for us? Or for yourself? For you are as much a slave as any of us. You know what kind of man he is, don’t deny it. I studied your face when you returned from those midnight visits with him. I saw the fear in your eyes. You know what that monster will do to us and to our families and friends if we fail. We’ve suffered him for fifteen years. He could live for another twenty or thirty. The fate of Rome is more important than your wretched handful of slaves!”
“No, madam. I sympathize, I understand, but I do not agree. The Deified Julius was murdered, Claudius murdered, Caligula murdered, Galba and Vitellius murdered amid the horrors of civil war when blood ran in our streets. And now Domitian, too? Do you want that again? He’s popular with the legions in Germania. They’ll demand blood for blood. We have been lucky in Vespasian and Titus, not so lucky in Domitian. But we must endure him. Otherwise it is back to the old ways where everything is decided by the knife. Are we a great and noble people or are we a pack of savages?”
“You little prig!” She was on her feet, her small fists clenched. “Don’t talk to me of nobility. My family was noble when yours was still hoeing turnips. You have the soul of a subordinate, you will always have a master, if not Domitian, then someone even worse. You were the emperor’s praetor three years ago, weren’t you, when the philosophers were purged. On your watch, good men like Rusticus and Senecio and their noble wives were executed or deported to prison islands. These men were your friends, your mentors. Was one word heard from you?”
He looked away. He remembered that Scortilla, on the day of the funeral, had called him an informer. Then it had merely exasperated him. But coming from this brave woman, the words cut like a knife. “I loved them, I admired their courage. Secretly, I wept for them.”
“Secretly,” she sneered.
“Dammit, they went too far. They would have plunged us into civil war!”
“For the last time,” she demanded, “what will you do? There is no more room for excuses. Are you going straight to denounce me? If you don’t then you are one of us.”
The room seemed to contract around him. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. How easy it would be to do nothing…But no. His duty was clear. Not even for Amatia—and his heart ached for her—could he allow this reckless attempt to go forward.
“Zosimus,” he called out, “come here.”
The young man appeared in the doorway. “Patrone?”
“You will prevent the Lady Amatia from leaving until I return. I’m going to the palace. I’ll knock Parthenius down if I have to, but I’ll get to the emperor’s ear.”
“So he can reward you yet again?” Her lip curled. “And just what will you tell your precious Lord and God? That Verpa raped me and I killed him? Go ahead then. But I’ll deny everything else. I don’t fear torture or death. And you have no proof, no evidence of any conspiracy.”
“Oh, but there is evidence, madam. The horoscope and Domitilla’s letter, naming all of you. Where are they?”
“I told you I couldn’t find them. The night Verpa died, I searched the tablinum in vain. So did Lucius—I nearly collided with him in the dark. The next morning men from the Prefecture came and carted everything away.”
“But the prefect couldn’t find them either. I suspect they never were in the tablinum. Come now, you haven’t told me quite the whole story of that night in Verpa’s bedroom, have you? What did you do during those long hours alone with his corpse. Merely tremble? No. You noticed his bedside table with its locked drawer, the only place in the house where neither you, nor Lucius, nor the prefect’s men had looked. You had the dagger that Ganymede dropped and you had plenty of time. You pried open the drawer—we’ve seen the gouges in the wood—you found those dangerous papers there and you took them out with you. When I brought you here you wouldn’t have left them behind and, since you haven’t left my house since you came here you have them still. I ask you again, where are they?”
“And I tell you again, I don’t have them!”
“I don’t believe you. They’re here and I will find them. Zosimus, keep an eye on her.”
The room he had given Amatia for her bed chamber was small and uncluttered. It had hardly a place to hide anything. She had brought with her a bag containing some belongings. Pliny dumped it out on the bed. There wasn’t much—combs, a few pieces of jewelry, some coins, an amulet. He tossed them on the floor and ripped off the bedclothes. He shook the sheets and coverlet, tore open her pillow. Nothing. He flung it away from him. He got on his knees and looked under the bed, he peered into her chamber pot, felt along the top of the doorjamb. His eyes darted everywhere. Where had the damned woman put them? He felt no pity at all for her now. Anger had driven pity out.
He ran back to where he had left her. “Give them to me!”
Young Zosimus blinked, he had never seen his master in a rage before. But Amatia did not flinch and, after a moment, Pliny sank into his chair, baffled, not knowing what to do next. He had been so sure. Just then a slave appeared in the doorway. “Master, that doctor, the one you just chased away—he’s back. He begs to see you.”
“Send him away, I’ve no time for him.”
“Yes, master.”
But Soranus pushed past the slave. Pliny glowered at him.
“Look, sir, I am sorry. You’re quite right to be angry with me.” He avoided looking at Amatia. “I wouldn’t trouble you further but for this.” He held out a small roll of papyrus, tied with a string. “When I loosened the lady’s girdle, it fell from her underclothes.”
Amatia drew a sharp breath. Her hand went to her waist.
“I tucked it in my belt,” he explained, “meaning to give it back to her later. But then you, ah, requested me to leave your house. On my way home, I realized I still had it. Allow me to return it to her now together with my apologies.”
“I will take charge of it, doctor. Thank you for your trouble. I was too hasty with you. Good night.”
Pliny undid the string and spread the two sheets out on his knees. The horoscope, the letter. He felt Amatia’s eyes on him as he read. Then he let the papers fall and buried his face in his hands. Amatia retrieved them.
“Does this change anything for you, Gaius Plinius?” Her voice was almost gentle; there was no mockery in it, and no triumph. “You know these names, don’t y
ou? The empress, the senators, your friend Corellius Rufus—I’ve heard you mention him. Will you send them all to their deaths? You can’t do it, can you?” When he made no reply, she stood beside him and touched his arm. “I was wrong to hide this from you. I should have shown it to you straightaway. I should have trusted you. In a little less than three hours the deed will be done. You only need to wait…”
Her words were cut short by a commotion outside. Then the front door opened with a crash and the atrium filled with armed men. At their head was the Praetorian commandant. “Purissima, you’re coming with us to Corellius’ house!” Petronius shouted. “And him, kill him!” Rough hands seized Pliny, twisting his arms behind him. He felt a blade pressed against his throat. Felt it begin to cut.
Then, from somewhere a body hurtled toward him, grabbed his assailant by the throat and right arm and flung him away. Valens! Swords flashed out of scabbards, the clang of steel on steel filled the house. Years of hatred boiled up between these two forces. Here was a chance to even scores. Insults flew back and forth. “Cocksucker!” “Faggot!” The City Troopers formed a ring around Pliny. But they were outnumbered by the Praetorians and were no match for them in fighting skills. One went down, then another, while the house slaves and freedmen ran back and forth screaming. In a moment the polished floor was slick with blood. Valens, his cloak wrapped around his left arm, was doing his best to shield Pliny.
“How…?” Pliny managed to gasp.
“Your friend the—” Valens started to answer just as he received a sword thrust in the belly and went down.
Roman Games Page 23