I had not examined the blanket earlier, beyond noting that there were no visible urine or excrement stains. “It was clean, even if a bit worn.” I knelt down to examine the stains.
Tacitus knelt beside me and ran his finger along some of the lines. “Am I seeing a man’s face?”
I put my face down close to the blanket, then pulled back. “All I see are some stains, and they’re blurred at that.”
“You said you were sitting on it,” Tacitus said. “Did you leave a stain?”He picked up the blanket, sniffed at it suspiciously, and turned it one way and another so the light fell on it from different angles. AI definitely see the outline of a face. Right there.”He poked his finger at one end of the thing. “Was the blanket over the man’s face?”
“Yes, we covered him decently. I thought he deserved that.”
“And you really can’t see a face there?”
I could see a couple of my servants at the gates of the paddock, acting like their work had brought them there. I wasn’t sure which of them could speak Greek, so I said in Latin, “No. I just see ... some stains. What you’re claiming to see must not be very clear if you can’t tell the difference between a butt and a face.”
“They both have a hole in them. Very useful orifices, too.”
I lowered my voice and shifted back to Greek. “If you’re worried about creating hysteria among the women and slaves, you shouldn’t be talking so loudly about a face.” I took the blanket from him and folded it with the stain on the inside.
“What’s wrong, Gaius Pliny? You seem almost afraid of something.”
“Come with me.”
I led him back into the house and into the small library. It holds only a fraction of the scrolls that are contained in my library in Rome, but I have encouraged Hylas to borrow works from my neighbors and copy them.
Hylas jumped up as we entered. “Good afternoon, my lords. May I help you with something?”
“I need to see that picture you drew of Nobody,” I said.
Tacitus gave me a blank stare. “Nobody? How can you draw a picture of nobody?”
“That’s just how I thought of the man. Nobody, like Odysseus in the Cyclops’ cave.”
“So, you would be telling the truth whether you said nobody is in the stall or Nobody is in the stall.”
“I thought it quite clever, my lord.” Hylas shifted a few pieces of papyrus around on the table where he was working. “Ah, yes, here’s the drawing.”
“I’ve discovered that Hylas here has an artistic gift I hadn’t appreciated before.” I held up the drawing. “He made some copies of this face and I’ve sent them around to the neighboring villas and into the village up the road.”
G. PLIN. CAECIL. SECUND. SEEKS INFORMATION
ABOUT THIS MAN.
100 DENARII WILL BE PAID.
Tacitus studied the portrait and pointed to the blanket. “But that’s—”
I cut him off. “Of course it is. I’m not blind. Now, could we go somewhere else and talk in private?”
We were halfway across the atrium when I heard someone coming toward us and turned to see Tranio running into the house.
“My lord,” Tranio said as he caught his breath, “one of our men saw someone in the woods, near the place where we found that fella.”
“Was it the man we found?”
“I don’t know, my lord. The man who brought this message didn’t see the first fella.”
“What was this man doing?”
“Just sittin’ near that same clump of bushes, my lord.”
“We’d better get out there,” I said.
“How long will it take?” Tacitus asked.
“About half an hour.”
“Then what would be the point of all that trooping around? It must have taken the man who saw him that long to get back here. This intruder will have an hour’s start on us and be long gone. Then it’ll take us another half hour to get back.”
“Are you afraid of not finding him or of walking for an hour?”
“I’m reluctant to walk for an hour and not find him.” Vigorous exercise is never Tacitus’ choice of a way to pass the time.
“He was sitting down half an hour ago,” I said. “That suggests he’s not in any hurry to dash off.”
“If he is gone, my lord,” Tranio put in,“perhaps the hounds can track him.”
“Perhaps?” Tacitus chuckled. “Do your dogs have a cold?”
I told him about their odd behavior when they found Nobody.
“Hector’s body was protected by Aphrodite, as I recall,” Tacitus said.
“There was no goddess hovering over this fellow, I’m sure.”
“Then perhaps they smelled rotten meat,” Tacitus said.
“That’s what was so unusual it. There was no smell at all that I could detect.”
“Dogs can smell and hear things we never notice.”
“I’m aware of that. But you weren’t there. I’ve never seen dogs act that way around a person or an animal.”
“If he’s up and moving around, my lord, I think they’ll go after him,” Tranio assured us.
“All right, then, let’s go. Tranio, get me several men and a couple of dogs. Then you store this somewhere safe.” I stuffed the blanket into his hands.
“You don’t want me to go with you, my lord?”
“No, I want you to put this out of sight, in the most secure place you can find. Immediately.”
In short order we were off into the woods at a good pace, with four servants leading the way, two of them with dogs on leashes.
“Why can’t we take horses?” Tacitus asked.
“The woods are thick, as you’ll see. We can move faster on foot.”
“Half an hour, you say?” Tacitus was already breathing hard.
“A little less, if we keep up a good pace.”
“A forced march, eh? Did you look there this morning when you were searching for Nobody?”
“No, I thought he would be trying to get away from here.”
“He might have had some reason for being there in the first place. Perhaps he was planning to meet someone.”
“I hadn’t considered that.” There were too many things about this puzzle, it seemed, that I hadn’t considered. I started to chide myself for not being as observant as I’ve tried to train myself to be, but then I had never encountered a situation quite like this one.
The day had turned warm, but the woods grew thicker and the air cooler as we put distance between ourselves and the house. The need for wood to fire our kitchen stoves and bath furnaces compels all of us who own houses here along the shore—and there are many—to gradually strip the forests, starting at our doors and moving inland. My uncle, though, had established the practice of sending servants farther into the woods to begin with and first using any trees that had fallen from age or in storms. The practice involved more labor, but he used to tell me how bleak Judaea looked when the army had stripped it to get wood for its war machines and the ramp up to Masada. “I’m not sure that poor province will ever be green again,” he said. So he had preserved some of the old trees closest to the house, and he planted more trees than our neighbors do. Those were still too small to serve for firewood, but they were large enough by now to offer some shade to the house and would eventually fuel stoves and furnaces for my heirs or whoever owned the place after me.
“I think the spot is just over this ridge, my lord,” one of the servants said.
The hounds were straining at their leashes and barking, but at least they weren’t baying the way they had yesterday. “They seem to sense something,”I said.
“Yes, my lord. The wind is from that direction. It could be an animal, though.”
When we got to the top of the ridge we did see something moving, but on two legs. A man, with his head down, was walking around the spot where we had found Nobody. He appeared to be looking for something.
“And there he is,” Tacitus said. “Puzzle solved.”
&nb
sp; “No, a new puzzle,” I said. “That’s not the same man.”
Whoever the intruder was, as soon as he saw us, he began to run as best he could over the rough terrain. The dogs strained at their leashes.
“Stop, or I’ll turn the dogs loose!” I shouted.
The man looked back, stumbled, but got up and kept running.
I nodded to my servants. “Turn them loose.”
As soon as the first dog was set free, the other one tore the leash out of his handler’s hands. Competing against one another as much as chasing their prey, they quickly overcame the intruder’s head start and narrowed the distance between them.
“We’d better try to keep up with them, my lord,” the servant said. “They might hurt him.”
We hurried after the dogs, hampered, as the man was, by the uneven ground and the thick trees, which proved no serious obstacle to the dogs. The man disappeared over the next ridge with the hounds on his heels. We heard a loud cry—a very human cry—and, when we topped the ridge, we saw him scrambling up a tree. One of the dogs had the hem of the rascal’s tunic in his teeth and, as the man struggled to a higher branch, the garment ripped. The dogs circled the base of the tree, leaping and barking. My servants had difficulty getting them back under control.
“Come down from there,” I ordered as Tacitus and I came up to the tree.
“I don’t speak Latin, sir,” he said in an accented Greek.“I don’t speak Latin.”
I was relieved to hear him say that. None of the servants I’d brought along could speak Greek. I hadn’t chosen them for that reason, but now at least I could talk with this man without giving rise to any more fantastic stories than had already sprouted in the few hours since we found Nobody. I repeated my order in Greek.
“With all due respect, sir, I feel safer up here.”
“Your comfort is not my concern. You’re trespassing on my land and I’m ordering you to come down. The dogs won’t hurt you, unless I tell them to.” I motioned for my servants to pull the excited animals farther away from us.
That seemed to satisfy the man. He dropped from the tree and brushed himself off. He was about my height, thirty or so, with dark hair, high cheek bones, and smooth swarthy skin, a color which looked like he’d been born with it and not acquired it from long hours in the sun. His garment was a Greek chiton, dyed a pale green. The chunk my dog had torn out was not the only worn spot. The man wore no sandals.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” I demanded.
“My name is Apollodoros, sir, and I’m looking for my father.”
“Why do you think your father might be in my woods?”
“I’ve been following the signs, sir.”
“Signs? What signs?”
“They’re his way of letting me know where he’s been and where I’m to go.”
Tacitus broke in. “Show us these signs.” He’s taller than I am and better at intimidating people.
But this intruder didn’t seem impressed. A faint smile even played on his lips. “I can’t do that, sir, with all due respect.”
“Are you a Roman citizen?” Tacitus asked. It was an important question. How we could treat him depended on his answer.
“No, sir. I am a citizen of Alexandria.”
“Alexandria in Egypt?”
“Yes, in Egypt. One would not boast of being a citizen of any other Alexandria.”
“But we have to ask,” Tacitus said, “because that egotistical Macedonian named so many places after himself.”
“Yes. Almost as many as your Julius Caesar,” Apollodoros shot back.
Since ‘Caesar’ sounds the same in Latin as in Greek, my servants picked up on that last word. I stepped in before the conversation went any further. All of our rulers since the deified Julius have taken his name. I did not want my servants to think we were talking about the current resident on the Palatine Hill, whose family had taken Rome by force and treated the name ‘Caesar’ as part of their booty.
“I want you to come with us,” I said. If the man’s claim was true, we owed him a degree of civility. Alexandrians guard their citizenship jealously. It’s difficult to obtain except by birth. We Romans, on the other hand, like whores, give ours to any man who will meet our price.
Apollodoros remained where he was. “Are you Roman magistrates? Are you accusing me of a crime?”
“No, but I am the owner of this land and I want to know why people have taken to traipsing over it like it was a public garden.”
Apollodoros’ face brightened. “There have been others? Have you seen my father then, sir?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” I said. “What were you looking for back there?” I nodded in the direction of the spot where I had found Nobody.
“I would not know it until I found it.”
“Seize him!” I ordered my servants.
As two of them grabbed his arms he said, “This is not necessary, sir. I’ve done nothing.”
“You haven’t answered any of my questions, and I am tired of evasive responses.” I was also tired of disappearing bodies—even if there had been only one—and was determined that this one wasn’t going anywhere except where I wanted him to.
“But am I under arrest?”Apollodoros asked. “You said you weren’t magistrates.”
“No,” I said. “We’re simply escorting you back to my house where we can talk more comfortably. I can summon the local magistrates if I’m not satisfied by your answers. Now, you can come with us or you can take your chances with the dogs.”
The animals barked like actors on their cues.
“And, as you can see, our dogs understand Greek,” Tacitus said.
Apollodoros drew back, pressing himself up against the tree he had climbed. Looking from the dogs to me, he gave a mocking bow of his head. “Thank you for your hospitality, sir.”
I signaled for my servants to release him. “On our way we’re going to stop by the spot where you were looking for your father.”
“Have you seen my father?” His voice was insistent, almost demanding. “Do you know something about him that you’re not telling me?”
“I don’t know who your father is, so I wouldn’t know if I had seen him.”
“His name is Aristeas, son of Caystrobius. He’s a bit taller than I am and has a short beard.”
“Many men would fit that description.”
“Do many men have a birthmark here?” He touched the left side of his chest, below his shoulder, exactly where the mark was on the man we found.
“I imagine some do,” I said.
“One shaped like the head of a raven?”
“I suppose it might look like that ... to some people.”
His annoying smile told me he had seen through me. “Is my father well?”
“Do you have any reason to think he might not be?”
“You are capable of evasive answers yourself, sir. And you have not yet told me who you are. I believe Roman law allows me to know my accusers.”
“We’re not accusing you of anything.”
“Except trespassing,” Tacitus put in. “This is Gaius Pliny, the owner of this land. I am Cornelius Tacitus.”
Apollodoros seemed pleased. “Gaius Pliny? The author of the Natural History?”
I get so tired of people confusing us. “No, that was my uncle. He died in the eruption of Vesuvius.”
“My condolences. But I am where my father wanted me to be.”
“Why would your father want you to be on my land?”
“He wanted to talk to your uncle about what he wrote about him.”
“My uncle wrote something about your father?”
“Yes, in the Natural History.”
I found it difficult to believe that someone from Alexandria was aware of what my uncle had said about him. The massive Natural History takes up thirty-seven of the longest scrolls one can buy and it hasn’t been translated into Greek. There must be thousands of people named in it, as examples of whatever condition or si
tuation my uncle was examining. Tacitus’ father and brother are mentioned because my uncle knew of the brother’s physical abnormality. The boy grew almost to adult size by the time he was only a few years old. I haven’t read the entire work, so I wasn’t aware of the passage before I met Tacitus. The brother lives on Tacitus’ farm in Gaul and is cared for by servants there.
“What did he say about your father?”
“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you. If you have a copy in your library, I can show you the passage. It’s brief and it wasn’t so much what your uncle said, but the skepticism with which he said it. My father wanted to show him that his skepticism was unfounded.”
“There is a copy of the work here. I’ll have my scribe gather it off the shelves. Do you know in which scroll the passage appears?”
Apollodoros shrugged. “In one of the early scrolls. I’m sorry, but that’s all I know.”
“It will take some time to find it then. Now, what kind of sign were you looking for when we spotted you?”
“I think I’ve found it, sir, in my meeting with you.”
On our way back to the house we stopped at the spot where Nobody—or I should now say Aristeas—had been found. Even with a careful examination, I could not discover anything that had been disturbed. Like his “father,” Apollodoros was not carrying a bag so he could not be concealing anything. I wondered if he could be the man I’d seen on the beach last night. That man had not been carrying anything, but in the dark I couldn’t tell what color his tunic was.
Tacitus and I kept Apollodoros between us as we walked back to the house. In Latin I instructed the servants, who were walking behind us now, to unleash the dogs if the man made the slightest movement that looked like he was going to bolt. In Greek I repeated to Apollodoros what I had told them.
“I will not run away,” he promised. “I have no desire to play Actaeon for your hounds, and I think I have a better chance of finding my father if I cooperate with you.”
“I told you, I don’t know where he is.”
“But you know where he was. That can be an important clue to where he is now. And you are Pliny. That is my most important clue.”
As we got closer to the house Apollodoros seemed to settle down, like a horse that has accepted the bridle. He looked around, taking in everything with a faint smile—almost a smirk—as though he understood it all or was too simple-minded to understand anything. His expression reminded me of a slave my uncle once owned, the witless child of an overseer on one of his farms. The poor creature had perished when he managed to set the family’s small house on fire and had no idea how to get out.
The Corpus Conundrum Page 5