The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (42 page)

I shall not waste your time with fancies, however. You, who bear on your shoulders the responsibility for nothing less than the welfare of all mankind, will doubtless want to know only the facts . . .

Before you departed on your mission, my dear Pliny, I took you aside and requested that you write to me whenever you felt the impulse to do so, not merely in an official capacity
dealing with finances and waterworks, but as a friend might to another friend, to share the experience of his journey with another who is far away and cannot see and hear what he himself sees and hears.

. . . I proceeded from Nicomedia to the shore of the Euxine Sea, and there my party followed the road through one town after the other, staying at the homes of prominent citizens, dealing with such matters as might need to be dealt with. I am accompanied, as you know, by two very capable men, both of whom you met at least briefly before I departed from Rome. They are my Greek physician, a freedman called Arpocras, a wise and inquisitive fellow, whom I fondly call, when he is not within hearing, Little Aristotle, for, like that philosopher he inquires into all things tirelessly; and, secondly, my assistant Servilius Pudens, a Roman knight of unquestionable reliability and loyalty. This Pudens is, however, of a more choleric disposition, easily excited, and quick to leap to conclusions, but sensible enough (especially when moderated by Arpocras’s cooler judgments) not to
act
upon his conclusions until he is more certain of them. I call the pair – when both are out of earshot – my two crows, for their frequent arguments may sound like strident squawking, but in fact they share a kind of philosophical discourse.

It happened on that afternoon when we arrived at Heracleia Pontica, as these two (who shared the carriage with me) were in the middle of some furious sparring-match about which of the heroes of the Trojan War had journeys through these regions in ages past, and whether or not the local monuments to this or that legendary person were of merit or merely a means for the locals to beguile a few
coppers out of the gullible traveller . . . as this well-chewed-over argument drifted somewhere between comedy and tedium, sufficient to distract me for the moment from the documents I was glancing through . . . at this juncture a runner from the town approached and announced that he was a servant of one L. Catius Magnus, who most earnestly desired that we dine with him that night.

“Well, I shall be glad to be free of the dust of the road, and other discomforts,” said Arpocras, rolling his eyes towards Servilius Pudens.

“
I?
I am classified as a discomfort? I am a hardship of the journey?” said Pudens, mortified, as if he were about to leap out of the carriage and stalk all the way back to Rome, which is an absurdity, because the over-large, ever-sweating Pudens would hardly have lasted a mile in the heat. But this was for show, as always. Their friendship is never threatened by such displays.

“We could afford to relax and spend a pleasant evening,” I said.

Arpocras’s gaunt – and indeed crow-like – features narrowed, and he spoke in a low voice. “I think there is more than relaxation here. This Catius Magnus seems a trifle over-eager to make our acquaintance.”

“It’s obvious enough,” said Pudens. “He wants to be seen entertaining the Emperor’s own representative, to make himself seem more important. It’s a great way to impress the natives.”

“I don’t deny that, friend Pudens. Nevertheless, I think there is more to it than that.”

“Indeed, we shall see,” I said, in the tone of a judge, hoping to make peace between them, for, indeed, I was weary from the journey, my head had begun to ache, and just now I was not in a humour to be amused by two squawking crows.

It turned out that Lucius Catius Magnus offered us every
possible comfort. He stood at the doorway of his house as our company approached. Indeed, we must have looked to the locals like an invading army, possibly a hundred persons in all, myself, my staff, servants, many carriages and wagons, and a troop of mounted guards bringing up the rear. All were accommodated. The soldiers and most of the servants camped in a vacant space nearby. Catius Magnus, perceptively discerning that Arpocras and Pudens were more than mere functionaries, invited the three of us to bathe and dine with him.

So the hours passed pleasantly enough. After bathing, we strolled in the cool evening breeze beneath a colonnade, at the edge of a vineyard. The scenery was extremely attractive. I could almost imagine myself back in Italy, gazing out, not over the Euxine, but the Bay of Neapolis towards Capreae. This Magnus had made every effort to transplant a bit of home, here in Bithynia, or, perhaps I should put it, to make at least a patch of this foreign soil truly Roman.

Magnus himself turned out to be a man somewhat younger than myself, about thirty-five, the twice-great grandson of a soldier who had served with Pompey and helped colonize the area when he retired. The family had prospered through investments and trade. By the standards, at least, of a provincial town, they had grown great. Magnus, like his father and grandfather before him, was a member of the local senate. His family held several priesthoods. He himself officiated over regular sacrifices to the gods, to the Emperor’s genius, and also to the spirit of the Divine Augustus, whose small temple the local senators maintained at their own expense.

Magnus went on in this vein – gods, sacrifices, rites, loyalty – for more than I thought ordinary. It piqued my curiosity. Indeed, when, over dinner, I exchanged a glance with my ever-alert Arpocras, he seemed to reply wordlessly,
Ah, we near the heart of the matter
.

Pudens winked. When he is impatient, one side of his face twitches in an odd way.

So we came to the heart of it, suddenly. Imagine some mishap in the theatre and an actor’s mask suddenly falls off. There is his face, revealed, dismayed, and he has no secrets any more.

Catius Magnus interrupted his own small-talk.

“Sir,” he burst out, “the reason I’ve brought you here, what I’m really after . . . is mercy . . . mercy for my only child, my beloved daughter Catia . . .”

“
What?
” exclaimed Pudens, who sounded as if he’d nearly choked.

Arpocras and I exchanged knowing glances.

I bade Catius Magnus explain, trying to be reassuring in my manner. He was almost unmanned by whatever troubled him, close to tears.

Explain he did, somewhat incoherently, though this was, of course, an educated and articulate man. Yes, he had a daughter. I had seen her briefly when we entered the house, a pretty girl of fourteen or fifteen, who had bowed to me demurely, then been led away with apparent haste by two large serving-women. At the time I had wondered if the girl might be ill. Now it was clear.

The girl was, or professed to be, despite her father’s every effort to dissuade her, one of “those of Christ”, called “Chrestianoi” by the vulgar provincials. She had been led into this vice by a servant – who had since been disposed of – a lewd woman who acted as pander between the headstrong Catia and her lover, one Charicles, son of Damon. Now Catius Magnus knew Damon slightly through his business, a respectable enough fellow, a grain merchant, pious enough in his observances of the gods. Prejudice aside, the match might not have been impossible. True, Damon and his son were not even Roman citizens, but Greeks – and when this
was mentioned, my good Arpocras shot me an offended glance, as if to say,
And what is wrong with that?

Otherwise young Charicles was handsome and pleasant, and his family was rich. Not impossible, though he could be nearly as wild as the girl.

So Charicles and Catia became lovers in secret, and in secret descended into much more serious matters. They became Christians. Using various deceits, with the full connivance of Catia’s servant, they secreted themselves, night after night, to a necropolis outside the city, where they participated in the abominable rites of the
Chrestianoi
. The leader of the cult seemed to be some awesome personage, a thaumaturge called the Masked One, who promised, among other things, that his followers would live forever in the flesh and need never fear death. This presumably would allow them to continue in carnal rites until the end of time, when their dead Christ would also rise from the dead, return to them, cast down the gods and rule the world.

“Of course . . . of course . . .” Catius Magnus was almost too beside himself to continue speaking. “It is
complete rubbish
. I knew it. Damon knew it –”

“Damon knew it?” Arpocras asked.

“Yes, yes. He did.
As one father to another
, he came to me. He asked
my
help. He was as appalled as I . . .”

“I should think,” interrupted Pudens, “that a father would be able to control his daughter, and another – even if he is a Greek –”

Arpocras cleared his throat irritably. Pudens continued.

“– even if he is a Greek, would be able to control his son.”

“Have you any children, sir?” Catius said with surprising sharpness. It put Pudens off his balance.

“No, I don’t.”

I waved my hand dismissively, and Pudens said nothing
more. To Catius Magnus I said, “Nor do I. Friend Arpocras has two sons, who are far away. But I think we understand –”

“Can you, sir? Can you really? Can you appreciate how a father’s love for his child might come into conflict with his duty?”

“Duty must prevail,” I said quietly.

“Indeed, sir, it must. Damon and I resolved to do our duty. I ordered my daughter kept under close watch. I got rid of the evil serving-woman. Damon was going to send his son away on a
very
long trading trip away north somewhere – across the sea, wherever they get amber. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But then your instructions were published –”

“I was but repeating those of the Emperor himself, who graciously advised me,” I said.

“Of course. Caesar’s guidelines cannot be questioned. And, I assure you, none of the local officials did question them. That was Damon’s grief. It broke his heart. It killed him well before his time.”

“Killed him?” Arpocras asked, “How?”

I could sense the man’s true grief, his own fear, his confusion, his desire to fulfil his duty as a Roman citizen, and he had only my deepest sympathy. Here was a man who would do, I was sure, the brave and correct thing at the end.

“It killed him, by the failure of his heart, when the police began to inquire after Christians, and, far from attempting to hide his guilt, the young fool Charicles proclaimed his allegiance openly. He even named Catia as a fellow conspirator. He laughed at the judges, claiming that he had no fear of them at all, because death could not touch him, that if they killed him, he would be resurrected immediately. Now, shocking as all of this was, we couldn’t quite put it out of our minds that this was one of our neighbours, a child who had played in our streets, who might yet be saved if properly
guided. Damon wept and got down on his knees, begging his son to repent. Others enjoined him. I did. But in the end I had to try to save my daughter. She shrieked like a fury when brought into the court, clawing at the women who restrained her. That, I think, inadvertently helped, because I was able to convince the judges that she was mad. In the end, though, Charicles was crucified, and Damon, with a dignity that would befit even a Roman, merely announced that he would retire to his house and not emerge again. He died within a few days.”

There was a long pause. Night had long since fallen. Within the house, we were shielded from both city noises and those of nature. Silence prevailed, in the gathering dark. A servant entered the room, offering to refill everyone’s wine cups, but was waved away.

Pudens, large and corpulent fellow as he is, squirmed uneasily as he reclined. The couch creaked.

“A truly terrible story,” I said at last, “but I don’t see how
I
can actually help you. The girl is under no legal judgment, having been declared insane. Perhaps Arpocras, who is very learned in the medicines of the Greeks, can prepare a potion to calm her mind.”

“Thank you,” said Catius Magnus. “Thank you . . .” For a moment he seemed too emotionally exhausted to say much more. But then he rallied. “I fear . . . what I am truly afraid of . . . is that this matter is
not over
. Nothing is over with. The Masked One of the
Chrestianoi
still haunts the night. Some of his followers have been caught, but they will not give up his secret. My daughter would tell nothing, even –”

“There are ways, you know,” Pudens said, “to get anybody to confess anything.”

“Gods!” exclaimed Arpocras. With one savage look he shut up Pudens. I could only concur. We were hardly going to ask Catius Magnus to torture his own daughter!

It took some persuading to get him to continue, but at last I got the extraordinary heart of the story out of him.

“The matter is not over,” he said, “not merely because some masked criminal is still on the loose,
but because his promises have turned out to be true. His followers can indeed transcend death. I know this is so. The boy Charicles has come back from the dead and I myself have seen him!
”

Now
that
, I confess, put even me at a loss. I believe there are such things as ghosts. I had a long discussion with Licinius Sura on the matter once. Both of us knew many stories. The one about the philosopher Athenodorus renting the haunted house, wherein he discovered and laid to rest a chained spirit, is rather famous. But
what
, I could only ask myself, was I, as an Imperial representative charged with legal and financial investigations, supposed to do? I wasn’t sure I had any jurisdiction over ghosts.

It was Arpocras who came to my rescue, who cut his way through the dark clouds of superstition which were gathered all about us.

“What, exactly, did you see, sir?”

“First I
heard
. The servants told me that the girl was talking to someone in the night, calling out in the darkness. The servants were terrified. They thought she was summoning demons. I thought, alas, that she really was mad, and it wasn’t just a convenient plea to save her life for a time. But to be sure I stood by the door to her chamber one night – and I heard her call out, addressing her beloved Charicles – and, incredible though this may seem, I heard the boy reply. I recognized the voice. It
was
Charicles.”