The Corpus Conundrum

by Albert A. Bell

  I turned to Strabo. “So you decided to take all of his blood.”

  He looked up at me, moving nothing but his eyes. The bad one almost kept pace with the good one. “I wanted to put his body where it would make Myrrha look like she had killed someone else. That meant I would have to slit his throat. As long as I was doing that, I thought we might as well drain the blood. We would both drink it and then sell vials of it, like Apollodoros was doing. I knew people who would pay dearly for it.”

  “Did Apollodoros tell you that you must never drink more than one vial?”

  “Oh, yes,” Nephele said. “Only one vial.”

  “If you drink a second one,” Strabo added, “you’ll die, right on the spot.”

  It was sad to see people deluding themselves like this. They were little different from Daphne and her delusions about being a monster.

  “Did you drink the blood?” Scaevola asked his son. “And you believe it will let you live forever?”

  “Of course I drank it. I want to be sure I live long enough to see you die, Father.” Strabo spat out the last word. “And I’m going to become rich beyond your wildest dreams, or mine.”

  “Where is the blood?” I asked.

  “I’ll never tell you.”

  I didn’t pursue the question. I would come back to it later. I’ve learned that, when I’m interrogating someone, I can get answers more readily if I circle around a question and pounce on it unexpectedly, rather than keep battering from the front. “You went to a lot of trouble to set up a scheme to get Myrrha and Chloris out of their rooms. How did you manage that?”

  “I wanted them gone the whole day, so I would have plenty of time. I didn’t know how long it would actually take to drain a man’s blood. I arranged to have them taken to a villa not far from yours, Gaius Pliny.”

  Scaevola perked up. “A villa? On the shore? How could you get into one of those places? We can’t afford one.”

  “No, but I know people who can. There’s one on the south side of the bay that belongs to Marcus Aquilius Regulus.”

  That name thundered through my groggy head. “Regulus? He owns a villa here?” No one had ever told me that. Had my uncle even known it?

  “He hasn’t lived in it in years,” Scaevola said. “He lived here, let’s see, twenty-five years ago, perhaps. That was before your uncle bought his place. His father was in exile, but when Agrippina died and Nero began to rule in his own right, Regulus went to Rome and made a name for himself.”

  “A name for betraying people and seizing their fortunes.” A delator was paid a quarter of anything the emperor took when someone was accused of treason or any other crime against the state. Regulus had begun his insidious career under Nero.

  “Why doesn’t he ever come back here?”

  “He prefers his estates north of Rome,” Scaevola said. “Or so I’ve been told. I think he had some problem with a woman around here. He rents this villa out or allows friends of his to use it. I don’t know why he doesn’t sell it.”

  Because, I thought, it gives him a spot from which to keep track of my family.

  “How did you become acquainted with Regulus?” I asked Strabo.

  “The steward of his house died about ten years ago. As duovir that year I kept an eye on the place until Regulus could appoint someone else. He appreciated it, and allows me to use the house whenever it’s not being rented. I also knew a couple of men in Ostia who owed me money, so I told them they could settle the debt by helping me out for one day.”

  “Both women were at the same place?” Tacitus asked.

  Strabo nodded.

  I rubbed my chin, almost in admiration for Strabo’s ability to organize a complicated plot on such short notice. He wasn’t the fool his father took him for. “That meant you had men Myrrha and Chloris wouldn’t recognize, and a place to take them for the day. Everything you needed.”

  “And that’s why you were pushing me,” Scaevola said, “to get the woman to Rome and into the arena before anyone could figure out she wasn’t guilty.”

  “I knew, if you thought we had punished Macer’s killer, you would be satisfied and I could quit worrying about the whole business.”

  Scaevola pushed me aside, grabbed Strabo’s dinner gown, and pulled his son to his feet. “I won’t be satisfied until the man who killed Macer is dead.”

  “But how can you kill me?” Strabo said with a smirk.

  Scaevola threw Strabo back on the bed so hard the ropes holding the mattress sagged. We heard a crunch and then a red liquid began to seep out from under the bed.

  Nephele screamed and fell to her knees. “No! No! Quick, get something to scoop it up. We’ve got to save as much as we can.” Tacitus grabbed her and pulled her away from the bed.

  Scaevola threw his son off the bed and tossed the whole thing up on end. There was the broken amphora with Aristeas’ blood flowing out of the crack. There was still a pool of it on the bottom side of the amphora. Scaevola grabbed a silver cup off the table beside the bed and scooped up some of the blood.

  “Father, no!” Strabo screamed. He realized what Scaevola intended to do before I did. He bolted out the door, knocking Nephele on her back. Scaevola ran after him.

  “Gaius Pliny, aren’t you going to do something?” Tacitus said.

  “Why should I? Drinking somebody’s blood can’t kill a man, any more than it can make him live forever.”

  We followed the two men out the door while Nephele scrambled out the window, screaming all the while. I was sure Laurentum had seen the last of her.

  As the handful of patrons ran out the door, Scaevola caught Strabo in the dining room and grabbed his son by the hair, bringing him to his knees. Yanking his head back, he held the cup of blood to his son’s lips. Strabo couldn’t scream any more without opening his mouth. All he could manage was a pitiful moaning as he turned his eyes toward me.

  Scaevola finally managed to get the lip of the cup between Strabo’s lips. Strabo tried to spit the liquid out, but his father kept jerking his head back and forcing more blood into his mouth. Tacitus and I watched from the head of the stairs as Strabo swallowed in spite of himself. His eyes widened and his breath came in short gasps. He started to shake and grabbed at his chest. His body gave a violent spasm, and he collapsed.

  Dead.

  XIX

  “You can arrest me for murder now,” Scaevola said. He was sitting in a chair with Strabo’s body across his lap. I wondered if he’d ever held his son like that when Strabo was a little boy. One of the few memories I have of my father is sitting in his lap and rubbing my hand over his chin on a day when he hadn’t been shaved yet.

  “I have no authority to arrest anyone,” I replied, “and a father has the right to punish his own son for any crime he may commit. I am sorry for the death of your nephew.”

  “He wasn’t my nephew.”

  “What do you mean?” To stop my head from spinning I sat down at the table next to Scaevola’s and Tacitus pulled up a chair beside me.

  “Macer was my son,” Scaevola said, and a weight seemed to slide off his shoulders. It had to have been the first time he said those words to another human being. “My son by my brother’s wife, Apulia. I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I was never able to tell her how I felt. Our father arranged for my brother to marry her. There was nothing I could do about it. When, after three years of marriage, she and my brother proved unable to have children, she approached me and asked if I could father a child on her.”

  “That was a daring step for her to take.”

  “She was a bold woman. That was one thing I loved about her. My brother wanted a son and was talking about divorcing her and remarrying. She wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “Did she suspect that your brother was unable to father a child?”

  Scaevola stroked Strabo’s hair. “She thought that was possible. We always blame the woman when she can’t have a child, but who’s to say the man might not have something to do with i
t—not enough seed or the seed not strong enough. We see that when crops don’t grow well. Apulia wanted to save her marriage. I think she actually loved my brother.”

  “Couldn’t you have married her if your brother divorced her?”

  “I was already married, to Apulia’s younger sister, and my wife was pregnant. It would have been heartless to divorce her, especially to marry her sister. I, of course, was happy to oblige Apulia. We were together several times over the course of four months, the most wonderful four months of my life. Then, once she knew she was pregnant, she stopped seeing me.”

  “You never told her how you felt, even when you were coupling?”

  Scaevola shook his head. “I knew she felt nothing for me. If I said anything, it would only complicate matters. Sometimes it’s best just to remain silent. I thought a day might come when I could say something. Perhaps if she and I outlived our spouses. … Then she died in childbirth. My brother grieved deeply. I did, too, of course, but he could show his grief, I couldn’t. His son became almost a symbol of the loss of Apulia, for both of us. My brother couldn’t bear the sight of Macer because he reminded him of her. I loved him because he was all I had of her. My wife took Macer as her own—he was her nephew, after all—and we practically raised him alongside Strabo. She nursed both boys herself.”

  “And you showed your favor for Macer.”

  “I couldn’t help it, I guess. The child of the woman I loved on the one hand, the child of a wife I could barely tolerate on the other—”

  “The resentment you felt toward your wife must have come out in your treatment of Strabo,” I said.

  Scaevola nodded slowly, pensively. “I guess you’re right. It wasn’t her fault that I didn’t love her. She was a good wife.”

  “She’s dead now?”

  “Yes, eight years ago. Thank the gods. I mean because she didn’t live to see this.”

  “I take it Strabo and Macer were about the same age?” Tacitus said.

  “Yes. Strabo was four months older. It didn’t help that I already felt like Macer’s father before Strabo was born. And it didn’t help that Macer was a beautiful boy—strong, intelligent, happy. From the first Strabo was difficult—slow in his schooling, always doing the opposite of what I wanted him to. And that damned eye.”

  “Did you give him his name because of the eye?” I asked.

  “Yes. We noticed it when he was just a baby. ‘Strabo’ isn’t a cognomen my family uses, but I almost felt like I wanted to punish him.”

  “For not being Macer?”

  Scaevola nodded. “Then my brother died when Macer was ten, and he did become my son in everything but name.”

  “Strabo was aware of how you felt about him.”

  “He couldn’t help but be aware of it, even as obtuse as he was. I told him enough times.” Scaevola bowed his head and began to weep. For himself? For Strabo? For Macer? For all of them?

  As Scaevola regained control of himself, Tacitus asked, “Has it ever occurred to you that Macer might not have been your son?”

  “What—?”

  “Apulia must have been coupling with your brother during those months she was with you. She would have to, in order to convince him that any child she had was his.”

  “But they hadn’t any children, and they’d been married for three years. My wife was pregnant within six months after we married.”

  “That often happens. It can take longer, though. My wife and I have been married for five years, but she didn’t get pregnant until a few months ago.”

  The realization swept over Scaevola’s face. “Macer looked … so much like me.”

  “The sons of brothers can bear a family resemblance.”

  I knew Tacitus had just inflicted a worse punishment on Scaevola than any court could have.

  “I’ve never seen a man as terrified as Strabo was,” Tacitus said as we crossed the street back to the cheese shop. “Socrates couldn’t have been that frightened when they gave him the hemlock.”

  “I think Socrates was ready to die. He knew the hemlock was a poison. The fact that it would kill him was inevitable. But drinking someone’s blood can’t really kill a man.”

  “Apparently it can if he believes it can.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Can the mind actually have that much control over the body?”

  “Something makes us want a partner for sex. And some men can’t stop doing certain things, like gambling. Our bodies must not be the ultimate arbiters of our destiny.”

  I put a hand to my aching head. “Human beings are confusing enough. If what you say is true, I despair of ever understanding us.”

  The rain had let up, but the clouds still hung low. We had agreed we would let Scaevola announce that Strabo had died suddenly of an illness. Something he ate, I thought it would be a good explanation, but I didn’t suggest it. In a sense, that second dose of the blood of Aristeas had been what killed him. No one else had been in the tavern when Strabo died, and Tacitus and I weren’t going to spread any stories. Nephele was probably halfway to Rome by now.

  We left Scaevola cradling his son in his lap and mourning the wreckage of his life. He had lost the woman he loved, his brother, his wife, his son, and a nephew who might also have been his son. How many blows that hard could a man withstand? Just as the gate of a city being battered by a ram will eventually splinter and then crash, admitting an invading army, so a man’s spirit could not hold out forever. The woes besetting him must finally take their toll.

  What if a man could live for centuries? How many misfortunes would he have to endure? The sea, pounding even the hardest rock, wears it away over time. Death, while not something I look forward to, at least promises an end to the torments of life, just as sleep lets us escape from the worries of the day.

  “You’re very pensive,” Tacitus said.

  “Watching a man kill his own son leaves me that way.”

  Tacitus nodded. “Yes, it was unsettling, like watching a legion being decimated. But it answered a lot of questions.”

  “Not as many as it raised.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You heard Strabo. Regulus has a villa near here, practically next door to mine.” I waved an arm in that direction. “He maintains an interest in what my family does down here.”

  “But now he’s lost his informant.”

  We paused on the sidewalk outside the cheese shop.

  “Only until he finds someone else. And years ago he had a problem with a woman in this area and hasn’t been back here himself since then.”

  “That could mean just about anything.”

  “I’m willing to bet it means he got a woman pregnant and wouldn’t marry her.”

  “Wait a minute! Myrrha?”

  “The timing is right. Regulus left here and went to Rome just after Agrippina’s death. That’s twenty-five years ago. And that’s how old Chloris is. I have to ask her.” I paused before giving voice to the most unsettling thought I’d ever had. “What if I … have been coupling with Regulus’ daughter?”

  “Is that a question you really want answered, Gaius Pliny?”

  “If the answer is no, I certainly do.”

  “But how could you ever be sure of the answer?”

  “If Myrrha tells me Regulus was the father of her child and that he was the only man she had ever coupled with before she got pregnant, then I have my answer.”

  Tacitus put a hand on my shoulder. “Could you at least wait a day or two before you ask her? You’ve just found out about this possibility. Think it through first, like you always do. What could it mean to you—and to Regulus—to have this kind of connection?” He gave a short laugh. “By the gods! What if Chloris is Regulus’ daughter and what if you fathered a child by her? She could be pregnant right now, for all you know. That would make you … the father of Regulus’ grandchild, practically his son-in-law.”

  When the situation was explained that way, I had to ask myself if I really was that eag
er to know who Chloris’ father was.

  “Let’s go home,” I said. “My horse is under the aqueduct. Where’s yours?”

  We were halfway back to my house when I heard a high, piercing sound. Stopping my horse, I looked around, hoping to hear the sound again so I could locate where it came from.

  “What was that?” Tacitus said.

  “The sound of a bat.”

  “Why are you looking for a bat?”

  “I said it was the sound of a bat, but it wasn’t a bat that made it.”

  The sound—something between a screech and a whistle—rang out again.

  “Over there.” Tacitus pointed to our left.

  I dismounted and tied my horse to a bush. “Come on.”

  Tacitus followed me as I tromped through the brush and low tree limbs away from the road.

  “There she is,” I finally said.

  “She? Who?”

  Without answering him I made my way to a pile of gray huddled under a bush, barely visible. Tacitus hung back.

  “I’m here, Daphne,” I said, kneeling beside her.

  She looked up, her eyes red from fever, her body contorted with pain. Could the infection have spread so much farther than when I saw her earlier in the day? I held out my hand and she took it, squeezing it tightly.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said. “I’ll get you to my house—”

  “No, sir,” she gasped. “I can’t fool myself any longer. I’m dying. And soon. Will you stay with me until … ?”

  “Of course. Can I do anything to make you more comfortable?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes. “This is … all I need.”

  I waved Tacitus back toward the road and mouthed, “Get help.”

  “Thank you, Gaius Pliny, for everything you tried to do for me. You and Aristeas were the only people … who weren’t afraid of me. I just wish we could have gotten to Metapontum. I would have loved to see that statue.” She groaned. “Will you take care of …?”

  “I’ll see to everything. Would you like for your ashes to be taken to Metapontum?”

  “Oh, that would be lovely … So lovely.”