“You don’t think his soul could have darted off?”
I snorted in derision and shook my head.
“You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss something because you don’t understand it, sir,” Chloris said, leaning into me more than she needed to as the raeda took a curve.
“You presume a great deal on my friendship,” I reminded her. “I understand that when we die, that’s the end of our existence. Birds don’t come flying out of our mouths, or out of any other orifice. I’ve stood over a man as he died, so I can bear witness to that.”
“That may be true, sir, for most of us—the ordinary ones. But what about those who are ... extraordinary?”
“Are you saying this man was some sort of god or demigod?”
“He either was or he wasn’t. Aren’t those the only two choices?”
“Yes.” I suddenly felt like one of Socrates’ students being led to a conclusion he didn’t want to agree with. The money my uncle spent on Chloris’ tutor had not been wasted.
“And if he was a demigod, then he was something between a mortal and a god—more than a mortal and less than a god—wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said with a grunt as the raeda hit a hole in the road.
“And the lives of demigods are either the same as ours or different from ours, are they not?”
“Yes,” I said, to Tacitus’ great amusement.
“Then it seems reasonable that Aristeas, if he was a demigod, would have different limits on his life than we do.”
“But I don’t grant that he was a demigod, or anything other than a mortal man.”
“You’ve come down on one side of the question, sir,” Chloris said. “I’m just suggesting that you wait until you’ve examined the matter in greater depth before you decide.”
Tacitus laughed. “Gaius Pliny, the girl is playing Diotima to your Socrates.”
“I believe Diotima taught Socrates about the nature of love.”
“She could do that, too, I’m sure,” Tacitus said. “But her point is valid. Isn’t it at least possible that Aristeas might be something more than mortal? You said he was lifeless but not dead when you found him.”
“But that stinking hulk in the cart behind us is very dead.”
The men who drove Scaevola’s cart refused to unload Aristeas’ body. Members of the guild of mule drivers, they insisted they’d been paid and instructed to drive the body to my villa. Nothing had been said about unloading it. Even when I offered them extra money, they refused the job.
I called out some of my servants and they deposited Aristeas in the same stable he’d been in before, this time laying him on a couple of boards so they could move him out into the sunlight without having to touch him when I was ready to examine him. Which would have to be very soon.
After the servants had sprinkled the place generously with spices and perfume, I sent them to start constructing the funeral pyre and put my seal on the bar across the door.
“You don’t think he’s going to get up and walk out again, do you?” Tacitus said, with his hand over his nose.
“At this point I don’t know what might happen.” I removed the piece of rope Tacitus had used to get out of the stable earlier. “But I’m not going to take any chances. I would put something over the opening in the door, but the stench would become unbearable if the place were completely closed up.”
“I don’t think you have to worry, sir,” Chloris said, waving her hand in front of her face. “I believe he’s finished with this body.”
“Is a body something we just use for a while and then discard?”
“Plato says our souls have been in other bodies before this one and will be in other bodies after they leave this one. Perhaps an animal, or another human.”
I was amazed at the breadth of her reading. I had decided, by the time I was fifteen, that Epicurus was right. There is no such thing as a soul which survives the death of the body. What we think of as the ‘soul’ is made up of atoms that are lighter and more loosely joined than the atoms which make up our bodies. What, then, is the body? Is it a container we just use for a time? Can a human ‘soul’ move from one body to another, human or otherwise? What are we doing when we use another person’s body, as I had used Chloris’ last night—or was she using mine? Cicero says the gods must have physical bodies in order to feel what we feel. Then what makes them different from us?
I looked at the stable door, half expecting to see something other than an odor seeping out through it. “Are you suggesting that he’ll be looking for another body?”
“I would not dare to suggest that I know what a god might do, sir.”
As we left the paddock, trying to get a deep breath of fresh air, Tranio approached us. “My lord, the men you sent to Rome yesterday are here. I told them to wait in the garden, to keep them away from your mother. Will you see them now?”
The man had actually made a decision on his own, and a good one. “By all means.”
I sent Chloris into the house. Turning toward the garden, we passed the spot where the first layer of the funeral pyre was taking shape. In the open space between the paddock and the garden we would be assured of the best breeze, to fan the flames. “Make sure it’s at least as tall as you are,” I told Tranio. “And drive some posts into the ground around the edges to hold it all together.”
Tacitus nodded. “We don’t want a half-burned body tumbling off a collapsing pyre. That happened at my poor mother’s funeral.” He fell silent for a moment. “It’s a ghastly sight.”
“If we had time, I would send to Ostia for a skilled pyre-builder.”
When we entered the garden I was surprised to see not only the two men Tacitus and I had sent to Rome, but a third man with them—Narcissus, the recently appointed chief doorkeeper and assistant to my steward Demetrius. A few months ago he had replaced his father Moschus, who had held that post since before I was born but had become too feeble-minded to recognize people any more. Some days he even seemed unsure of who I was. I could have turned him out, as some masters do when their slaves are too old to be of further use, but in return for a lifetime of service to my family I was quite willing to continue to feed and house him.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked his son.
“No, my lord,”Narcissus said. “These men said you wanted to know everything we knew about that odd little man who came to our door. I was the one who spoke to him, so I thought I would come and tell you directly.”
I would have preferred to see almost any other servant from my house in Rome. Narcissus is not untrustworthy—to the best of my knowledge—but he makes no secret of his desire to be free and rich. He moves toward the second goal by taking small bribes to admit people to my house, even when he knows I do not want to see them. Then he tells me he thought they had something important to tell me. I could rid myself of the nuisance, I suppose, by manumitting him, but that would only reward his arrogance. Having him flogged would probably just make him more difficult to deal with. Since he had inherited his position as rightfully as I did mine, I could do little beyond enduring him.
“What do you have to tell me?”
“Not much, my lord.” But I could see from his face that he was still expecting a reward for his ‘trouble.’ “The man came to the door three days ago, about the third hour. At first I thought he was one of your clients coming late, but I’d never seen him before.”
“Was anyone with him?”
“No, my lord.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“No, my lord. He wasn’t even wearing sandals.”
“What did he want?”
“To see you, my lord, of course.”
“Did he say why he wanted to see me?”
“That’s what I couldn’t make much sense of, my lord. I think he really wanted to talk to your uncle, about something the old gentleman wrote.”
“Can you be more specific? I need to know exactly what he said.”
“Well, my lord,
I didn’t pay close attention. He seemed a bit daft, and I just wanted to get him on his way.”
In other words, I thought, he had no money to grease your palm.
“As best I can recall, my lord, he said, ‘I need to talk to Pliny. In his book he didn’t get it quite right about the raven.’ I figured he must be looking for your uncle, and I told him he was dead. He looked so disappointed I told him he could find you down here, just to get rid of him. I didn’t think he would actually find you. He thanked me and set off right then.”
Tacitus had been quiet up to this point. “Did anyone else in the house hear your conversation with him?”
“Yes, my lord. There’s always a few who hang around to listen whenever a stranger comes to the door. It brings a bit of excitement to the house.”
I knew what Tacitus was thinking. Someone in my house could have let someone in Regulus’ house know about the visitor. And not even maliciously. They could have mentioned it as a curiosity, a tale told over a cup of wine in a taberna or while watching someone’s clothes in the bath.
“Did he seem to be afraid?”
“No, my lord. Just disappointed that he couldn’t talk to Pliny. What did he mean about the raven?”
“If I could answer that question, a lot of other things might make sense too.”
XI
I told Narcissus he could stay the night and return to Rome the next day.
“If you can spare a horse, my lord, I’d better get back this afternoon. My father is not doing well. He seems to be losing more and more of his mind each day. I’m the only person he still recognizes, and he has moments when he doesn’t even know me, so I don’t like to be gone for too long.”
Narcissus’ words made him sound like a sympathetic son, but the tone of his voice revealed him as more like the self-absorbed character from mythology for whom he was named. He clearly saw his father as a burden. I recalled the words of the poet Caecilius, “The saddest thing about growing old is knowing that other men find you tiresome.” I could only hope that Moschus, as his awareness of people and things around him dimmed, didn’t sense how his son felt about him now.
“By all means then,” I said, “get on back. Tranio will give you a fresh horse. Be sure your father is comfortable. I told Demetrius before we left to give him whatever he needs.”
“Thank you, my lord.” He started toward the stable, then turned back. “I almost forgot, my lord. Aurora asked me to give you this.”
He removed a cord from around his neck and under his tunic with a leather tube attached to it. The tube contained a single piece of papyrus, rolled up and sealed with wax. In place of a carved seal, Aurora had pressed her thumb into the wax, a signet she had used since childhood.
“How is she doing?” I asked.
“Well, my lord.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Give her my greetings when you get home.”
Aurora was the daughter of my uncle’s mistress, a slave named Monica, but she wasn’t my uncle’s daughter. She’d been born before he purchased Monica. Being the same age, we had spent a lot of time together as we grew up. My mother resented Monica and, since my uncle’s death, had not been particularly kind in her treatment of the woman’s daughter. I had considered moving Aurora to another of my estates but—
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Tacitus asked.
“Later.” I slipped the cord over my own neck. Tacitus was already too interested in my relationship with Aurora. I didn’t need him reading her note over my shoulder.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t bring her with you when you come down here,” Tacitus persisted. “In Rome she does things for you like a wife. She even shaves you. How do you get along without her?”
I did sometimes ask myself that question. “You know how my mother felt about Monica, and she harbors the same animosity against Aurora. It’s better for them to be apart for a while.”
“Is it better for you?”
I tugged on the cord to make sure the letter was secure. “My friend, that’s enough about Aurora. Right now we need to let Apollodoros and Daphne out of their rooms and tell them what happened to Aristeas.”
“Do you want to bet on whether either one of them is still there?”
As soon as we entered the atrium my mother descended on us.
“Gaius, why haven’t you released Apollodoros?”
“You haven’t done that already?”
“No, dear. You gave very explicit instructions.” She waved her arms in exasperation. “The servants are too terrified to do anything I tell them.”
Perhaps, I thought, this whole business will have at least one positive outcome.
“And what about Daphne?”
“Do what you will about that hideous creature,” Mother said with a shrug. “Just let Apollodoros out.”
I told one of the servants to go tell the guards to unbar the doors and free Apollodoros and Daphne.
“That won’t do any good,” Mother said, hands on her hips. “All they’ll say is that they’re under orders to open the doors for no one but you.”
“Then I’ll be back in a moment.”
Tacitus accompanied me, mostly, I think, to see if anyone was actually in the two rooms. I wasn’t sure what I would do if either room proved to be empty. As we turned a corner we heard a rattling noise and a human voice making a barking sound.
“I think one of your servants just made the dog throw,” Tacitus said.
When we came within sight of the rooms we found the four guards on their knees over a small pile of coins. One of them spotted me and alerted the others. As they all jumped to their feet one scooped up the dice and the money they were playing for.
“Sorry, my lord,” the senior man said. “We was just—”
“It’s all right. At least you were in front of the doors where you were supposed to be.”
“Oh, yes, my lord. Haven’t left all day.” He stood as rigid as a legionary.
“Have you had any trouble back here today?” I asked.
They looked at one another before one said, “Only from your mother, my lord.”
“My mother?”
“Yes, my lord,” another man said. “She’s been back here three times trying to get us to let this Apollodoros character out.”
“But we haven’t, my lord,” the first man said. “We just told her politely that we had orders to open the door for no one but you.”
“Well, here I am and I’m telling you to let them out and bring them to the atrium.”
“Yes, my lord. Of course. Right away.”
“And keep them separated, like wine and vinegar. Bring them out one at a time.”
“Then I think we’d better bring Apollodoros first, my lord, or your mother will—”
“You’re right. She’ll have a fit.”
“Not my words, my lord.”
Tacitus and I returned to the atrium and waited a few moments until Apollodoros was escorted in. Mother embraced him as she does me. With their backs to me, they talked so softly I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Naomi stepped back, the farthest I had seen her from my mother in a long time.
When Daphne was brought into the atrium she stopped just inside the entrance, glowering at us. She had not had a chance to repaint her face—that’s the only way I could think of the heavy make-up she used—so the cracks on her cheeks and forehead made her appear even more gaunt and frightening than she had last night. She drew her cloak close around herself. I remembered what my servant had said about an empusa losing her powers during the day, then chided myself for even thinking about such drivel.
“Both of you listen to me carefully,” I said. “You will have the freedom of the house, only as long as you stay away from one another. If either of you causes any further problems, I’ll lock you both up again. Is that understood?”
They both nodded without taking their eyes off one another.
“Are we still your prisoners then?” Daphne asked.
“You may leave any time you like,” Mother said before I could open my mouth.
“I would prefer that you stay,” I said, “until I can get answers to some questions.”
Apollodoros pulled away from my mother and took a step toward Daphne. “How can you get answers when you can’t believe anything she tells you?”
I stepped between them, forcing Apollodoros to retreat. “We had that argument last night and I don’t intend to have it again. I do have some unfortunate news, and I know of no gentle way to tell you ... Aristeas is dead.”
Apollodoros started to laugh. “Sir, you still don’t understand—”
I turned on him. “No, you don’t understand. He won’t wake up tomorrow morning. This time he is really dead.”
Tacitus ran his finger over his throat. “As dead as it is possible for a person to be. Even deader, perhaps.”
I was glad he didn’t say anything about the blood. I wanted to keep some of what we knew to ourselves, in order to test the answers we might get from these two.
Mother put her arm around Apollodoros to comfort him, and he rested his head on her shoulder. When Tacitus glanced at me, I wouldn’t meet his eye. I wanted to rip the Greekling’s head off and play trigon with it, but I knew the only way I could wean my mother away from him would be to make him show himself for a scoundrel.
“I feared this was going to happen,”Apollodoros said. “No, I knew it.”
“Are you ready to tell him the truth now?” Daphne asked, without showing any reaction to the news of Aristeas’ death.
“As ready as you are, bitch.”
“I never told him a lie.”
“But did you tell him all of the truth?”
Mother insisted that Apollodoros have lunch before I asked him any more questions. “You’re so rough on him, Gaius. He needs food and a bath before he has to face you.” With her arm around his shoulder they headed for the kitchen.
“Sir,” Daphne said, “may I see my father’s body?”
“Soon. I’m not ready to let anyone see it yet. Before you tell me ‘all of the truth,’ why you don’t eat something?”
The Corpus Conundrum Page 16