The Bull Slayer (34 page)

“Your wife is not exactly the faithful Penelope, fending off the suitors—how far we have sunk since the days of Homer!—still, I suspect that you don’t want to divorce her. She’s a charming and beautiful woman, after all. Your man Suetonius was good enough to lend me his copy of your published letters. I had them translated and read them with interest. You see, I believe in knowing my adversary. I was impressed by the touching love letters to your wife. The picture of domestic bliss you paint! Did she really sleep with your speeches when you were away from her, and set your poetry to music? I can scarcely credit it. Young love! Indeed, I envy you. Now surely those tender feelings aren’t entirely extinguished? You and she may yet spend many happy years together with this unpleasantness forgotten. And I suspect you are not prepared to play the outraged husband now and disembowel young Agathon here. Are you? Let us see.”

He went to the wall of weapons, took down the sword of Mithridates from its peg and tossed it on the table in front of Pliny. Agathon blanched. Pliny did not move.

“Well? Have you the stomach for it? No? I didn’t think so.” Diocles seated himself again, not bothering to look at Agathon. “You’ve done an admirable job here, Gaius Plinius, helping us poor Greeklings to put our sorry affairs in order. But your labors have taken a toll on your health. Time to rest on your laurels then? Time to return home after a job well done? The emperor will understand if you beg to be relieved of your post. You and I are reasonable men, we don’t need to resort to violence. You may frighten young Agathon here but you can’t frighten me.”

“You have misunderstood our law,” Pliny said very softly. “I can only kill him if I actually find him in my bed.” Then with one swift motion he seized the sword, drew it from its scabbard, and struck at Agathon’s head with the flat of the blade. The boy let out a scream and fell backwards, clutching his head. “If you ever approach my wife again you will wish I had killed you!”

Agathon scuttled crab-like toward the door.

***

They dismounted at the foot of the hill.

“It’s halfway up the hillside and to your left. You can almost see it from here.” She pointed.

“Come in with me?”

“No, you go, I’ll stay here with the horses.” She felt the panic rising in her breast again. This was close to the spot where the soldiers had surprised them. She pulled her hooded cloak tighter around her shoulders. “It’s cold. Don’t be long.”

Aulus held a trussed up cock in his arms; it struggled and he felt its heart beating as fast as his own heart. Over his shoulder he had slung a wineskin. His offerings to the god.

He found the entrance and descended the seven steps. A dim and dusty light sifted through the cave’s mouth. He looked around in wonder at the dully glowing stars strewn across the walls and ceiling. What message might they hold for him if only he knew the key? Slowly, feeling his way, he walked down the nave, forty paces, until he was face to face with Mithras. The beautiful youth—manly, fearless, plunging his dagger into the bull’s neck, shedding its blood for him, for
him.
Aulus sank to his knees in front of the altar. With what words could he pray to this strange god? His yearning was beyond words—an end to shame, an end to self-loathing. Mithras would hear him and understand. He drew a knife from his belt and cut the cock’s throat, letting its blood spurt over the altar. “Are you here, Lord Mithras? I give you this. Help me, come to me…”

And he
felt
it, he felt the god near him, felt his power and his indescribable sweetness. And he understood in an instant of clarity that all his visions, the exploding bursts of light inside his skull had been mere glimpses of this reality beyond reality, of Mithras’ starry realm. And the lights were exploding in his head now—he was shaken, he was lifted up, his chest swelled with such joy that he thought it would burst…

And as Aulus slumped, twitching and jerking, before the altar, the earth did rumble with the bellow of a subterranean bull, and shake and split open, and the roof of the cave came down on him, burying him under a ton of rock.

***

The horses reared and screamed as the earth heaved under them. Calpurnia was thrown to the ground half-stunned. Was this her punishment? Were the Furies coming for her? She looked up in time to see a tree—the very tree under which she and Agathon had coupled—lift its roots from the quivering earth and slowly, slowly fall toward her.

***

“Well, Governor, you surprise me. But you should have killed him, you know. It’s too late now. This is your last chance to be reasonable. I’m offering you a way out. Simply resign and go home, with or without your wife, it’s up to you. But if you refuse, consider that you are in my house, far from home. And though, as I have said, I personally dislike violence…”

The antique vases began to vibrate.

A bronze shield fell from its hanger with a ringing crash.

The bust of blind Homer, leapt from its pedestal and rolled crazily across the floor.

Diocles looked around, wild-eyed. “No!”

With a groan of splitting timbers, the floor buckled and the ceiling cracked. Pliny and Diocles were both on their hands and knees, Pliny nearest the door, which hung from one hinge.

Diocles, crouched against the farther wall, was trying to get to his feet when the wall fell inward, pinning him under a weight of brick and plaster. Pliny, in the doorway, glanced back and, through a choking cloud of plaster dust, saw Diocles stretch out his arm. “Help me!”

Pliny crawled back, picked up the marble bust of Homer where it lay and lifted it high. Their eyes met. “You won’t kill me,” Diocles whispered.

Pliny brought it down on his head. Again. And again.

Then he dashed for the door just as the ceiling collapsed in a cloud of choking dust.

Chapter Forty-four

One week later
The Nones of December

Pliny sat in his office—its walls disfigured with cracks and fallen plaster—numb with exhaustion, trying to pull his thoughts together as he dictated a letter to the emperor. Philo, his new secretary, sat beside him with his stylus poised. Zosimus had died on the journey back to Nicomedia without ever regaining consciousness. In the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake there had been no time to build him the splendid tomb he deserved. His ashes rested, for the time being, in an underground crypt on the palace grounds. Pliny had composed the epitaph himself.

DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT

OF GAIUS PLINIUS ZOSIMUS . FREEDMAN OF GAIUS .

WHO LIVED XXXIV YEARS . VIII MONTHS . AND XV DAYS

BEST OF SCRIBES . BEST OF FRIENDS

MAY THE EARTH REST LIGHTLY ON YOU

How inadequate those formulaic words to express his sorrow. He would have other secretaries, but never another Zosimus. He felt lost without him. He had decided to acknowledge little Rufus as his own son and raise him with all the advantages of his rank and fortune. That meant, of course, that Ione would have to stay on. He found her presence distasteful but the poor child, having just lost the man he believed was his father, could hardly be separated from his mother as well. If only he and ’Purnia could have raised the boy together…He drove his thoughts back to the task at hand.

…and so, Sir, the city is in need of architects and engineers to repair the damage to buildings which were already in a ruinous state from the previous earthquake. Destruction in the countryside is widespread too, with several villages obliterated. I am making what provisions I can for the refugees…

He had been in constant motion day and night, surveying the damage, issuing orders. It was the only thing that was keeping him sane.

…The province is mourning the loss of one of its leading citizens, Diocles, son of Hypatius, called the ‘Golden Mouth’, who died when his house collapsed. I have issued a proclamation in his honor…

In a moment of murderous rage he had killed a man with his bare hands. Was it possible? He had discovered something about himself that he would far rather not have known—how little it took to strip away the thin skin of civilization, of humanity and reveal the savage that lives in all of us. He knew it would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. The body was eventually found, crushed almost beyond recognition, and given a public burial. To expose Diocles publicly as a criminal now would be impolitic. The cult of Mithras was no more. Some of its members had escaped detection but in time he would find them out. Pliny had already written to Trajan informing him of Balbus’ corruption and the arrest of Didymus for his murder. More than this he would not entrust to a letter; time enough when he returned to Italy (which he prayed would be soon) and made his report to the emperor in person.

Balbus’ widow has asked me to intercede for her. I suspect she was not innocent in his corruption but now she has lost not only a husband but a son as well. It think it befits your magnanimity not to confiscate her property…

He hoped he would never lay eyes on the woman again. Where she should have begged, she demanded. And she seemed, in some unreasoning way, to be blaming him for Aulus’ death. That poor boy. In all this sad business his death seemed to Pliny particularly tragic. What might he have made of himself if he had lived?

…I am deeply indebted, Sir, to my senior lictor, Titus Asinius Galeo, to whose courage and quick thinking I owe my life twice over. I ask that you enroll him in the equestrian order. I myself will endow him the necessary four hundred thousand sesterces…

A soon as the ground began to shake, Galeo had raced to Diocles’ apartment, where he found Pliny staggering through the doorway. He had half carried him to the courtyard and then, leading the other
lictors
, gone back inside for Marinus and Zosimus and got them out before the whole building fell in.

There had been many dead among the guests—not, however, Agathon. Ironically, Pliny mused, he had probably saved the boy’s life himself by driving him out into the courtyard just before the quake hit. And what should he do about him now? Banish him? Have him murdered? The act of a tyrant. No, he would not stoop to that. And any move he made against Agathon might only bring the whole story out into the open. For the moment he would do nothing and rely on the boy’s innate cowardice to seal his lips.

…finally, Sir, I have dealt with a most troublesome character—one Pancrates, an oracle-monger who dabbled in sedition. I have arrested him and, with your permission, will have him taken under guard to an island in the Propontis where he will live out his life.

Pancrates had a large and loyal following in the city. Pliny knew he was taking a risk. But perhaps this was the best time to strike, when the people were distracted by their own misery.

“Thank you, Philo. You’ll see that that’s sent off at once.”

The young man bowed himself out.

And now for the letter that he dreaded writing—the one he must write to Calpurnia’s grandfather. He would write this one with his own hands; he did not want the scribe to see him weeping.

Calpurnia had vanished.

Suetonius said she and Aulus had gone out to the cave, but when he went with a search party to look for her they could find no trace. The cave itself had vanished. He had lost her already in a way—lost her love—but that was no consolation. Her death was more than he thought he could bear. He would forgive her her infidelity a thousand times over if he could only see her dear face again, hear her voice…

Suetonius knocked and came in. “Is this a bad time…?”

“No, it’s all right.” Pliny wiped the back of a hand quickly across his eyes.

It pained Suetonius to see him like this, grey-faced with grief and exhaustion. He wanted to put an arm around his shoulder, but he was afraid he might not tolerate the familiarity. He had tried once before to talk to him about Calpurnia but Pliny had cut him off. For a man with such a talent for friendship, Pliny was the one now who needed a friend—and yet he couldn’t allow anyone into his private world of pain.

“At last, we’ve had a letter from the emperor!” Suetonius did his best to sound enthusiastic. “The courier says the Via Egnatia has been blocked for weeks by one blizzard after another.”

Pliny touched the familiar objects on his desk, avoiding his friend’s eyes. “Read it.”

Suetonius unrolled the scroll, studied the page for a moment, and cleared his throat.
I am delighted, my dear Pliny, to hear of your safe arrival in the province. You must be diligent in examining the financial accounts of the cities, for it is clear that much is amiss. Still, in every province trustworthy allies can be found if you carefully seek them out. I needn’t tell you what great confidence I place in your judgment. Please do not hesitate to consult me when questions arise. Trajan.

Post scriptum: The empress sends her fondest greetings to your lovely wife who, we both feel, will be a support to you in the difficult days ahead.

Suetonius went out, closing the door softly behind him.

***

“She still doesn’t speak?”

“A god has taken away her wits.”

“Broken her shoulder and one leg too. Scratched up her face pretty badly.”