“What is beneath the cloth of the other table?” he demanded.
A body shape was clearly evident beneath the folds. Was another corpse being eviscerated here, he wondered? Is there another death involved here?
“It is nothing, my lord, it is not to be considered,” the priest fumbled.
Suetonius took the Clarus approach to simply walk to the table to flip the covering away from its contents. The priest cried “No, no, my lord!”
The Greek workman and his Egyptian assistant stood back smartly as the object beneath was revealed.
A figure of a human body carved into a single log of softwood was lying on the table. Its lower limbs were apparently still incomplete in mid-carve. Tools, chisels, and fine-edged razors lay nearby along with pots of paints and brushes.
The shape of the body conformed closely to the proportions of the figure of Antinous lying on the other bench. The head and facial features were already at an advanced stage of sculpting into a likeness of the Bithynian’s face. Flesh-tone color had been applied to its surface.
“What is happening here, Greek?” Suetonius demanded. “I am an investigator commissioned by the emperor, Caesar Hadrian. Who are you, and what is this effigy? Name yourself and your status.”
The Greek trembled before the man in the toga.
“I am Cronon of the Fayum, sir, registered in my nome as a freeborn artisan” he pleaded in Greek accented with the local guttural Egyptian dialect. “I am a painter of images of the living and the dead, my lord. I prepare coffins with portraits of their inhabitants so the Land Of The Dead can identify the owners throughout posterity. It is my trade, my lord. I have been hired to create an exact portrait of his Great Worthiness, the god Antinous.”
The man was obviously a local born tradesman of Greek immigrant descent. Suetonius had seen such portraits of the Greeks and Romans of the Fayum Oasis and at Canopus in their prime of life which are painted onto coffins in anticipation of the day of their funeral. Many people retain these portraits instead of sculpted busts because they are very realistic likenesses. They are displayed in their homes as a record of their appearance at an earlier time of life.
“But what is it you are performing here? This is an effigy, not a painted image,” the biographer blurted. The man bowed and offered obeisance in an especially demeaning way for a Greek. He had acculturated well to Egyptian values, Suetonius thought.
“My lord, we are preparing an exact likeness of the god. It, it, it ---” he replied, but trailed away uncertainly. The priest interrupted.
“Sirs, Great Caesar and Priest Pachrates have commanded we possess a copy of the cadaver should the god decay beyond acceptance,” he said. “We are creating a true likeness of Antinous of Bithynia. It is done in materials which will sustain exposure to the elements without decomposition. The likeness will be very accurate, my lord. It will be substituted for the fleshly body should spoiling overtake the god.”
“Oh,” Suetonius responded somewhat dismayed, “I see. You are taking precautions against decay?” But somehow Suetonius was not entirely persuaded by these responses. Something was not ringing true. He waved to his companions to gather close out of earshot of the Egyptians.
“Does any of this make sense to us?” he asked, “We have a corpse being eviscerated for priestly divination of its entrails. We have a wooden copy being prepared for its apparent replacement if decay sets in. And we have this magician Pachrates taking full control of the funeral rites in an antique Egyptian ceremony. I recall how Caesar was aghast at the prospect of any form of autopsy! Yet here we have a full-scale disemboweling underway? There’s no consistency in this.”
Clarus raised a question.
“Can someone tell me, what they are on about when they talk about ‘the god Antinous’?” he asked. “In what way is Caesar’s catamite a god?”
“Masters,” Surisca quietly interjected, “with your permission, may I speak?”
They nodded grumpily in unison as people do when there’s no alternative offering.
“It was today’s street gossip at Hermopolis and among the ferrymen when I was traveling to your tent city how a marvelous omen had occurred. A true miracle of The Isia was being touted by the priests. I was told a special sacrifice had been made to the divinities. A very special man had drowned in the River Nile today, the first day of The Isia.
They say someone who drowns in the Nile as a sacrifice to Osiris during The Isia becomes Osiris Himself. It is a tradition. The sacrifice is a miracle which will protect against a poor flood next year. Osiris will protect us in exchange for the life of the sacrificed man.
Is it right to say that your dead friend might be the special sacrifice, the drowned man? If so, he has become the god Osiris on this auspicious day of The Isia.”
The four men glanced from one to the other. None articulated a word, yet each knew what the other was thinking. What is going on here? The coincidences are now becoming too obvious. The Nile floods badly; a sacrifice is called for. On the first day of The Isia Antinous conveniently drowns; etcetera. How much of this is accidental, they were asking themselves?
“May I now continue with my duties, great lords?” the priest asked. “We must work at speed to combat decay, and my master awaits delivery of the sacred tissues.”
“I have two matters to address with the body, Egyptian,” Suetonius stated firmly, “and I have a single question to ask of you and your workers. Firstly, I wish to inspect the wrists and neck of the deceased.”
Suetonius stepped closer to the cadaver of the youth lying askew on the table awash with waters and bodily residues. He pointed to the wrists of both hands.
The nearest worker lifted Antinous’s arms for his inspection so he could achieve a closer view of each wrist. Clarus too moved nearer to view the wrists. Neither was marked or damaged. There was no incision. Yet Suetonius was convinced he had seen an incision when the same corpse lay on Hadrian’s divan in his tents only seven or eight hours previously. The Praetorian Urbicus had confirmed the incision when he and his troops first retrieved the youth’s body from its fishermen finders.
Suetonius looked across to Clarus who was equally as wide-eyed at the lack of an incision.
The Egyptian priest observed the two with some apparent concern but made no comment.
“Show me the lad’s neck,” Suetonius demanded. “Surisca, come closer,” he asked his honorary male associate.
She stepped forward to the table. “I want you to see these markings and tell me what they are,” he asked, quite clearly recalling the several hickey-like bruises or decay blooms on the youth’s throat from the earlier viewing.
Once again a worker lifted Antinous’s head from the supporting woodblock pillow beneath his cranium. Again Clarus, Surisca, and Suetonius peered at the throat and neck of the youth. The markings which were clearly seen only hours earlier were no longer evident.
“What markings, master?” she asked.
Again, Clarus and Suetonius were wide-eyed. The workers were silent. Neither the wrist incision nor the roseate blemishes were visible.
“Egyptian,” Suetonius proclaimed in exasperation, “we are dismayed. There were certain markings on this body only hours ago. And I’m not talking about the faint scar across the lad’s left cheek.”
The priest simply smiled apologetically in feigned humility.
Surisca had an idea.
“May I, master?” she asked the biographer with her eyes firmly on the youth’s neck, “I think I have an answer.”
The courtesan with the full bosom, the luscious flood of hair, and the well-modulated voice wiped a single index finger across Antinous’s throat. After checking her fingertip she held it up for the group to view. The tip was covered in a thin slime of pink-tinted fat. His throat was painted with a cosmetic in a fleshy color and dusted with powders to present a natural appearance.
Surisca then took a kerchief from her sash and wiped it carefully over Antinous’s neck. A thin line of make-up
paint wiped off revealing a streak of yellowed cadaver flesh beneath. It exposed several rosy blemishes.
These were the marks Suetonius recalled, but now the hickeys were no longer pale pink blazons on his throat, they were blue-gray bruises seeping into his tissue. Each was edged in a thin yellow rim. Perhaps corruption was underway?
Surisca continued to swab the paint and reveal the full extent of the bruising. She uncovered four love-bites on the upper left side of his throat, and three on the lower alternate side, in two differing sizes. Suetonius looked directly at the Egyptian.
“Why didn’t you tell us you had painted the marks, priest?” he demanded.
“You did not ask, sir,” was the inadequate reply.
Surisca now applied her cloth to one of the wrists. As she lifted the left arm and wiped her napkin on its inner side a small lump fell to the tabletop. The priest leapt forward and sharply cried “No!” trying to halt the procedure, but Clarus pushed him back.
Surisca continued with her inspection of the fallen item and held it up for the group to view. It was a small wedge of wax embedded with fine pins of ivory. Surisca had bumped a slender molding of wax fitted with pins which had fallen from a deep incision on Antinous’s left wrist. The incision had not been simply sewn together as one does with the cut limbs of warriors; it had been packed with wax to conceal its very existence. Surisca checked the right wrist but found no similar incision.
“Seven bruises and a slash into the left wrist,” Clarus confirmed. “Is there anything else we should note before these people destroy the cadaver entirely? Are there other hidden wounds, I wonder?”
Suetonius took the initiative. “Priest, one further question.”
“Yes,” the Egyptian responded coolly. To date he had not been especially eager to meet requests in a helpful manner.
“How long had your team been assembled at Besa to attend to this preservation of the body?” Suetonius asked, looking him directly into the eye to detect any shiftiness.
“Sir, we are residents of Besa at the Temple Of Amun. We are already here,” he offered as Suetonius sensed a half-smiled quickness to his response. “We assembled only yesterday by instruction of Priest Pachrates on behalf of Great Caesar.”
“I see,” Suetonius said. He took a more audacious path.
“Tell me Greek ---,” he addressed the painter of pictures from the Fayum, “when were you summoned to this place from your home city?”
The priest sharply interrupted the Greek’s reply. He sensed the drift of the query.
“This is irregular, my lord!”, he called.
Clarus simply replied, “Shut up, priest!”
The Greek artisan, a quiet sensitive man who would not have been aware of the nature of the interrogations underway but who was fully aware of the status and powers of the men before him in russet-striped white togas, muttered his hesitant response.
“I was instructed to be at Besa before the first day of The Isia, my lord,” he said plainly.
“By whom?” Suetonius asked as sweetly as possible.
“I was contracted by Priest Kenamun’s servants, my lord,” he responded cautiously, nodding towards the Egyptian priest before them. The priest, now known to the team to be named Kenamun, seethed with suppressed anger.
“And when was that?” the Roman finalized. “When were you asked to come to Besa?”
“Six weeks ago, sir,” he continued. “Priest Kenamun’s servant contracted me at The Fayum six weeks ago. It takes at least three weeks by mule and sail to reach Besa from The Fayum, my lords, where I am a well known painter of portraits for funerals.”
Suetonius looked across at the Egyptian. His brow was furrowed. Clarus, Vestinus, and Suetonius realized they had uncovered something unexpected. Surisca understood the situation as well.
“Six weeks ago? That’s long before the death of your client, isn’t it,” Suetonius offered graciously. “This is such remarkable prescience of mind. Please continue with your duties, gentlemen.”
Outside the pavilion in the balmy night air the group of four took stock of the situation.
“Gentlemen,” Suetonius said, incidentally acknowledging Surisca as a token male, “we have here a circumstance where Caesar’s companion has seven love bites to his throat. This may indicate his last day or night was a time of intimate passion?
His left wrist possesses a deep incision sufficient to bleed fatally, despite his death seeming to be by drowning only a day ago. And yet a specialist painter of funerary portraits was contracted many weeks ago before the lad’s death to fulfill a mission to prepare an effigy of the dead youth. I might also add, the Greek artisan was contracted by a priest who dissembles about the concealment of wounds on a corpse. These might be seen to be a suspicious set of circumstances? What do we make of it?”
They were each silent for a period. Surisca spoke politely again.
“With permission, masters, may I offer an opinion about the marks of his neck?”
Even Clarus now was coming around to an acceptance of the young woman’s contribution to their investigation, though with patrician reluctance.
“Speak.”
“The marks upon the young man’s neck? I have seen many such markings in my time,” she offered in a manner which received little dispute from her hearers.
“To my eye, they are the loving attentions of two people. A woman and a man.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” asked Clarus, surprised. A male was to be assumed. But a female was less expected. Surisca continued in her matter-of-fact way.
“The hickeys at the far right side of his neck are higher up and are of a large size, while the ones to the left of his neck are lower down and smaller in size. The positions of the lower small ones makes me think they indicate a partner who is shorter than the dead youth, and therefore possibly female. The higher large ones suggest a male partner. Also, the female bites were placed several hours earlier than the male ones.”
“Why do you say they were implanted some hours apart, woman?” Clarus queried.
“It has been my observation how hickeys change their coloring over a very short period of time,” she explained. “At first they appear as pale pink blemishes, but over the hours their color changes to a deeper hue and eventually go from rosy to gray with a fine yellow rim. It takes almost a day for a hickey to develop the yellow rim.
The two sets of love bites on your friend’s neck show a distinct difference in color. The smaller ones already possess a graying color and a thin yellow rim, while the larger ones are still at the rose stage. I’ve seen it often on the necks of my colleagues and noted it, too, on my own.”
When they thought about it, they felt Surisca had a point. There was no issue with the young man’s diverse choice of partners, Suetonius acknowledged to himself. Yet Antinous was known by all to be the emotional property of Caesar for the previous five years, so it would be a brave man or woman indeed who would be so unwise as to engage in intimacy with the emperor’s recent Favorite.
“What about the incision in his wrist?” Suetonius asked. “It was deep enough to sever all vital veins. This was no accident. If it were done before his drowning, he would have bled to death long before he drowned. If it were done after his drowning, it would be pointless. Did he do it himself? Or was it done to him? And when? So, is this suicide or murder?”
“Yet I understand Antinous was left-handed?” Clarus reminded. “In wielding a weapon Antinous would logically use his left hand to cut at his right wrist, not at his left wrist. But the incision was in his left wrist. What do we make of this?”
“I have seen the youth playing ball games and casting javelin,” the Special Inspector offered, “and from recall he was adept at utilizing both right and left hands. He often drank from his cups with his left hand, while he also reclined at his dining couch on his left side as is normal. Nevertheless he wore his weapons to his right side. So perhaps he was ambidextrous?”
“That indeed it seems
,” said Clarus with irony, alluding to Surisca’s theory of the hickeys. “And despite these issues not one of us knew of Caesar’s appointment with the magician Pachrates and his ‘holy divination’ ceremony?” Clarus forwarded. “Is this what our two day deadline is all about?”
“I admit it is not the sort of thing I would have thought Caesar would contemplate. After all, only a few hours ago he was utterly distraught at his companion’s demise. I can’t see how an occult reading of the lad’s exposed innards fits my picture of his mood at this time.”
Suetonius scratched his head. “There’s something missing from our understanding of the situation. Hadrian is not a cruel-minded Caligula nor a rapacious Nero, is he? So what could our Princeps hope to gain from such a disrespectful augury?”
“Gentlemen, and the lady Surisca, I’d say it is time for each of us to sleep,” Clarus declared. He was exhausted.
Suetonius was surprised to hear his patron acknowledge his assistant as a ‘Lady’. Perhaps she had earned her acknowledgement in his eyes by her contributions.
“I agree, my good Clarus,” he responded. “I too wish to sleep on the day’s adventures and digest its meaning. Tomorrow will be a very busy day.”
His eyes lingered upon the shapely proportions of his Honorary Male companion, Surisca. Her post-midnight pleasurable potentials skated through his imagination. Perhaps, he considered, it was time the activities rudely interrupted at the House of the Blue Lotus were fulfilled?
CHAPTER 14
Suetonius looked around the chamber. Vestinus had arranged the space for Surisca and him to share. Two simple traveling beds adorned the chamber. Each was dressed with a thin mattress and a linen sheet accompanied by a simple pillow. Considering how Suetonius had been slumming-it in a rented Nile ferry with five antiquarian notables of Alexandria, the encampment chamber was luxuriously appointed.
A single net tumbled from a high pole as protection from the airborne creatures buzzing around. Suetonius instructed a slave to drag the two beds together side by side for Surisca and he to share, despite a central separating ridge. It was as good as excuse as any, he thought, to encourage intimacy for the night.
The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History Page 20