Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (152 page)

‘And the other house guest?’

‘Metrobius, up from his villa across the bay in Pompeii.’

‘Metrobius? The name sounds familiar.’

‘Famous from the stage, once the best-loved female impersonator in Rome. A favourite of Sulla’s. That’s how he got his villa, back when Sulla was dictator and was handing out the confiscated property of his enemies like party favours to his inner circle.’

‘Ah, yes, I did once see Metrobius perform.’

‘I never had the privilege,’ Mummius said, with a sarcastic edge in his voice. ‘Doing Plautus, or some creation of his own?’

‘Neither. He was performing a rather lewd mock homage to Sulla at a private party in the house of Chrysogonus, years ago.’

‘And you were there?’ Mummius seemed sceptical that I could have moved in such rarefied and debauched circles.

‘I was an uninvited guest. Very uninvited. But what is Metrobius doing here?’

‘He’s a great friend of Gelina’s. The two of them can carry on for hours, trading local gossip. Or so I’m told. Between us, I can’t stand to spend more than a few minutes in a room with him.’

‘You dislike Metrobius?’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘But you don’t suspect him of murder.’

Mummius snorted. ‘Let me tell you something, Gordianus. I have killed more than my share of men, always honourably and in battle, you understand, but killing is killing. I’ve killed with a sword, I’ve killed with a bludgeon, I’ve even killed with my bare hands. I know something of what it takes to snuff out the life of another man. Believe me, Metrobius hasn’t the mettle to have bashed in Lucius’s skull, even if he did have a reason.’

‘What about Zeno, or Alexandros, the two slaves?’

‘It hardly seems likely.’

‘But not impossible?’

He shrugged.

‘So,’ I said, ‘we know that these people were in the house on the night of the murder: Dionysius the resident polymath, the Puteolian businessman Sergius Orata, and the retired actor Metrobius. Iaia the painter and her assistant Olympias are often here, but not on that night.’

‘So far as I know. Of those who were here, each was alone and asleep in his or her own private bed, or so they say. None of them heard anything, which is perfectly possible, given the distance between rooms. None of the slaves claims to have heard anything either, which also seems plausible, since they sleep in their own quarters out by the stables.’

‘Surely at least one slave has the duty to keep watch through the night,’ I said.

‘Yes, but on the grounds, not in the house. He’s supposed to make a circuit, keeping one eye on the road in front of the house and another on the coast behind. Pirates have been known to attack private villas on the coast, though never in Baiae, so far as I know. When the slaves made their escape the watchman must have been at the back. He saw nothing.’

‘Is there anyone you suspect? Any of the residents or guests in Gelina’s house who seem more likely to have killed Lucius than the slaves?’

In answer he only shrugged and scowled.

‘Which makes me wonder, Mummius, why you’ve expended so much of your own time and energy to help Gelina prove that the slaves are innocent.’

‘I have my reasons,’ he said curtly, thrusting out his jaw and staring straight ahead. He spurred his horse to a gallop and raced on to the villa alone.

Part Two

The Jaws of Hades

VII

Dinner began at the twelfth hour of the day, just after sundown, in a modestly appointed room in the southeast corner of the upper floor. Windows opened onto views of Puteoli to the east and Vesuvius farther south. A coterie of slaves unobtrusively hurried about the room and the adjoining hallways, lighting braziers against the slight chill in the air and illuminating the richly coloured walls with an array of hanging lamps. The air was windless, empty of bird song or the noise of any other living thing; the only sound from the world outside was the vague murmur of the sea, like a distant sighing. Looking out of the southern window, I saw a single star glimmering above Vesuvius in a sky of darkest blue. A sensation of hushed luxury descended upon the villa, that special feeling of comfort and sumptuous privilege peculiar to the homes of the rich at twilight.

Gelina, already reclining on her divan, welcomed her guests as they arrived separately or in pairs, all dressed in sombre dark blue or black. There were places for eleven people in all, an awkward number for a dinner, but Gelina managed it by placing the company in a square with three divans on each of three sides and two on the last, one for herself and another reserved for Crassus. The small tables before each divan were already set with cups of honeyed wine, white and black olives, and an appetizer of sea urchins in a cumin sauce.

The painter Iaia and her protégée Olympias, along with the polymath Dionysius, sat opposite Gelina; Marcus Mummius, Faustus Fabius, and Sergius Orata sat to her right; Eco and I were to her left, along with the actor Metrobius. Gelina introduced us simply as Gordianus of Rome and his son, with no further explanation. From their expressions, I gathered that Gelina’s guests already had some idea of my purpose in being there. In their eyes I saw varying degrees of scepticism, suspicion, and disinterest.

Iaia, striking in her jet-black stola, silver jewellery, and voluminously coiffed magenta hair (surely dyed), had clearly been a great beauty in her day; now she exuded that mellow, self-confident appeal of women who have lost their youth but kept their charm. Her high cheekbones were generously rouged, her eyebrows shaved and pencilled.

While Iaia gave me cool glances, her young protégée, a dazzling blonde, stared at me brazenly as if my presence were some sort of affront. Olympias could afford to be careless with her beauty; her undressed hair was like a mane of spun gold and silver in the lamplight, her eyes an almost purple shade of blue that would have made the least trace of makeup, had she bothered to use it, look pale and tawdry on her perfect flesh. Her sleeveless, dark blue stola was absolutely plain, even plainer than the tunics Eco and I wore, having no embroidery or border. She wore no jewellery. I noticed traces of pigment on her fingers, and a few dabs of paint near the bottom hem of her gown.

Dionysius, a gaunt greybeard with a supercilious expression, gave me shifty-eyed glances between dabbing at his olives with the fingers of his left hand. He was almost silent during the first part of the evening, as if holding his words in reserve for later use. He looked to me like a man with a secret, but perhaps that was only due to the appearance of smug sagacity which he affected, like so many other philosophers.

Dionysius’s reserved, sour countenance offered a striking contrast to that of the local businessman and engineer, Orata, who shared the polymath’s corner. Almost bald except for a fringe of orange hair like a victory wreath, Orata had the portly build of a man grown fat on his successes. His plump, bemused face seemed out of place amid the general gloom. When he happened to look my way, I could not tell whether he liked me at first sight or was craftily smiling to conceal some other reaction. For the most part he seemed to take little notice of me at all as he busily ordered the table slaves assigned to his divan to slice the pits from his olives and fetch more cumin sauce.

The elderly actor Metrobius, who reclined at my right, gave me a nod as I was introduced and then immediately turned his attention to Gelina. He reclined on his right side, she on her left, so that their heads were together. They spoke to each other in hushed voices, and occasionally Metrobius would reach out and clasp her hand reassuringly. His long, flowing robe covered him from head to foot; the finely spun linen appeared funereal black at first glance, but upon closer inspection I saw it was actually a very dark purple. He wore gold around his neck and wrists, and a great jewel-encrusted ring on his left hand, which flashed in the light whenever he lifted his cup. Metrobius had been Sulla’s great love, it was said, the dictator’s companion and friend throughout his life, outlasting all of Sulla’s many marriages and liaisons. Whatever physical allure he had possessed in youth was long gone, but there was an assertive dignity in his great mane of white hair and a kind of robust beauty in the weathered wrinkles of his face. I recalled the night ten years ago when I had seen him perform for Sulla, and remembered the spell cast by his presence. Even with his attentions directed toward Gelina, I could feel the charismatic power he exuded, as palpable as the smell of myrrh and roses that spiced his clothing. His every movement was accomplished with an unstudied grace, and the low, calm murmur of his voice had a soothing quality like the drumming of rain on a summer night or the soughing of wind in treetops.

Except for Eco and myself, it seemed a typical dinnertime gathering for a Baian villa – a military man and a patrician, a painter and her protégée, a polymath and a builder, an actor, and their hostess. The host was missing – or more precisely, laid to rest on an ivory bier down in the atrium – but to take his place we would have the richest man in Rome. So far, however, Marcus Crassus had not deigned to appear.

Given such a sparkling gathering, the conversation was surprisingly desultory. Mummius and Faustus quietly discussed the day’s business and the provisions for Crassus’s camp on Lake Lucrinus; Iaia and Olympias exchanged inaudible whispers; the philosopher brooded over his food while the businessman relished each bite; Gelina and Metrobius seemed oblivious of everything but each other. At length the slave boy Meto entered and whispered in Gelina’s ear. She nodded and sent him off. ‘I fear that Marcus Crassus will not be joining us tonight,’ she announced. I had thought that the vague tension in the room was due to my presence, or to the air of death in the house, but in that instant the gathered household seemed to give a collective sigh of relief.

‘Detained by his business in Puteoli, is he?’ asked Mummius through a mouthful of sea urchin.

‘Yes. He sends word that he will make provision for his own supper and ride back afterwards. So we need not wait any longer.’ She signalled to the slaves, who cleared away the appetizers and served the main dishes – a sweet citron ragout of ham and apples, seafood dumplings spiced with lovage and pepper, and fish fillets with leeks and coriander, all served on silver platters, along with a barley soup with cabbage and lentils that we sipped from tiny clay pots.

As the meal progressed the conversation grew more animated. The principal subject was food. Death and impending disaster, political ambition and the threat of Spartacus were ignored in favour of the relative merits of hare and pork. Beef was debated, and roundly declared inedible. Faustus Fabius declared that cattle were useless except for their hides, but the philosopher Dionysius, who spoke in a lecturing tone, claimed that the barbarians of the North actually preferred the milk of cows to that of goats.

Sergius Orata seemed to be something of an expert on trading spices and other delicacies with the East. Once he had travelled as far as Parthia investigating the potentials of the market, and on the Euphrates had been induced by good manners to drink a local beverage made of fermented barley, which the Parthians preferred to wine. ‘It was the exact colour of urine,’ he laughed, ‘and tasted like it!’

‘But how would you know? Are you in the habit of drinking urine?’ asked Olympias, who demurely lowered her face so that a strand of blonde hair fell over one eye. Iaia looked at her sidelong, suppressing a smile. Orata’s bald pate blushed pink. Mummius laughed raucously.

‘Better urine than beans!’ exclaimed Dionysius. ‘You know the advice of Plato: one must set forth for the realm of dreams each night with a pure spirit.’

‘And what does that have to do with beans?’ asked Fabius.

‘Surely you know the opinion of the Pythagoreans? Beans produce great flatulence, which induces a condition at war with a soul in search of truth.’

‘Really, as if it were the soul and not the belly that gets filled with wind!’ exclaimed Metrobius, who leaned towards me and lowered his voice. ‘These philosophers – no idea is too absurd for them. This one is certainly a windbag, but I think it all comes out his mouth and not the other end!’

Gelina seemed immune to both wit and crudity and ate in silence, picking restlessly at her food and calling for fresh wine in her cup more often than any of her guests.