SPQR III: the sacrilege (21 page)

"I cannot tell you how relieved I am. Anything that gets me away from these stacks of bills and records. I was about to send a man around to your house. Just today I found out about the woman who was murdered."

"Splendid!" I said. "Who was she?"

"She was from an estate not far from the city, born a slave but manumitted six years ago."

"Whose estate?" I asked. "Who manumitted her?"

"Caius Julius Caesar," he said.

Somehow, I was not surprised. It always came back to Caesar. Caesar's house, Caesar's debts, Caesar's ambitions. Now, Caesar's freedwoman. One might as well throw in Caesar's unfortunate wife, who must be above suspicion. Her husband was not. I had been so distracted by Pompey and Clodius that I had not given Caius Julius the attention he deserved. And, I confess, I had been reluctant to make him a primary suspect because of his connection to Julia.

It was not that I was besotted with Julia, as once I had been with Clodia, but I sensed in her one who shared my peculiar leanings. I also sensed a goodness and decency of a sort growing rare among Roman women, at least among the intelligent ones. Caesar's seeming proposal of a match had distracted me from my duties. There was no excuse for exempting anyone involved from suspicion save evidence of innocence. My personal wishes and feelings should play no part in it.

So much for the idealized, iron-willed servant of the Republic. What I was stuck with was Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, a man whose susceptibility to feminine charms was all but legendary. And Julia had mentioned that her uncle took a more-than-passing interest in me and my activities.

As I walked from the Temple of Ceres, my head ached. Why did all this have to be so complicated? Worse yet, I seemed to have reached a blind alley in my investigation. I had questioned everyone except Pompey himself, and he was one man I was not about to annoy. Then I remembered that there was one person involved with whom I had yet to speak. And this one was hardly in a position to cause me any grief, which suited my mood. I was not up to any major challenges. I began to walk toward the house of Lucullus.

The majordomo came up to me as I entered the atrium.

"May I help you, Senator? The master and mistress are not at home just now."

"No matter. I've been commissioned to investigate the late unpleasantness at the house of the
Pontifex Maximus
."

"Yes, sir, the master has informed us and instructed us to cooperate in any way you desire." That was helpful of Lucullus.

"Excellent. I have been informed that among your staff you have a slave woman who plays the harp, and that this woman actually discovered the interloper. I would like to question this woman."

"I shall fetch her at once, Senator." The majordomo showed me to a small waiting room off the garden and hurried off. It seemed odd to me that so lofty a personage as the majordomo of a great house would attend to such a task personally, rather than employ one of the legion of slaves who lounged about with far too little to do. When he returned I understood. He was accompanied by not one but two women. One was a lovely young Greek in a simple shift. The other was a middle-aged woman in a rich gown, whose facial features resembled those of Lucullus.

"I am Licinia," said the older woman, "eldest sister of General Lucullus. My brother has instructed that you are to receive all the aid we can give, but I must attend this interrogation to ensure that this girl does not reveal anything forbidden."

"I fully understand, my lady," I said. What a way to conduct an investigation, I thought. I sat in one of the chairs and the two women sat on a bench facing me. The Greek girl looked nervous, as slaves usually do when then are being questioned by someone in authority.

"Now, my dear, I want you to have no apprehension whatsoever. I merely wish to establish the exact sequence of events as they occurred that night. No one suspects you of any sort of wrongdoing. Now, first, your name?"

"Phyllis, sir." She smiled shyly.

"And you are a musician?"

"Yes, sir, a harpist."

"And you were employed in that capacity on the night of the rites of Bona Dea? These questions may seem simple-minded, but this is how they would be asked at a trial."

"I understand, sir. Yes, I was there to play the harp."

"Good. And just when did you make the discovery that a man had intruded upon the rites?"

"It was when--" She glanced at the older woman, who gave her a sharp look. "Well, it was at a time when we musicians were not playing. I glanced at a hallway entrance and I saw the herb-woman and the one with her. The herb-woman hung back in the hall, but the other came into the atrium. The herb-woman reached out and took his arm, as if to stop him, but he pulled loose and walked into the atrium. That was when I recognized him."

"I see. I've heard from others that he was veiled. Was the light sufficient for you to see that it was a man's face?"

"No, sir. It was more the way he walked. You see,I have seen Clodius many times in this house, when he has come to visit his sister, my mistress Claudia. I felt sure it was him; then I recognized a ring on his hand and I yelled that a man was in the room. The mother of the
Pontifex Maximus
rushed over and tore off the veil. There was a great deal of screaming after that."

"I should imagine. And I understand that they had just arrived?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no, sir. They must have been there for quite some time. I saw them arrive early in the evening, when most of the other ladies were arriving."

"What? Are you certain?"

"Oh, absolutely, sir. This was the third year that I've played my harp at the rites, and I knew the herb-woman from that purple dress she wore."

I tried to keep a self-condemning curse behind my teeth. This was what came of giving too much credence to secondhand information. Somebody makes a mistaken assumption, and for lack of contradiction it gains the stature of fact. If I had come to question this girl first, I would have got my facts straight and perhaps the herb-woman would be alive. It struck me that the purple dress was her professional trademark, since her name was Purpurea. Then something else struck me.

"You recognized the herb-woman from her dress, not her face?"

"She also wore a veil, Senator."

"There seem to have been a number of veils that night. Clodius, naturally enough, now Purpurea. I've also heard that Fausta was veiled."

"Then you heard wrong, Senator," said Licinia. "The lady Fausta"--she gave the little sniff that highborn women perform when they mention their scandalous sis-ters--"was here in the home of Lucullus that night."

"I see," I said. "And you did not attend the rites?"

"I was unwell that night. As for Fausta, she has no respect for religion and did not wish to attend the preliminary ceremonies, as unmarried women should."

So now the argument as to Fausta's presence stood at one for, two against. But the vote for was Julia's, and I was still reluctant to discount her words. I rose.

"Thank you. I think that this will prove useful to my investigation."

"Good," said Licinia. "There must be a trial. What will become of Rome if we allow our sacred rituals to be violated? The gods will take a terrible vengeance."

"We certainly can't have that," I said. I no longer had the slightest interest in the sacrilege. I was burning to find out what else had been going on that night. I was about to leave, but I turned back. "Phyllis?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You've said that Clodius and the herb-woman were standing in a hallway entrance. Do you know where that hall leads?"

"It's one of the ones that lead to the rear of the house, Senator."

"Where the unmarried women retire at a certain stage of the rites?"

The girl thought for a moment. "No, that is on the other side of the house. The hall where I saw the two of them leads back to the living quarters of the
Pontifex Maximus
. Some years, we slaves were sent to wait there when we were not needed."

"But not this year," I said.

"No, Senator."

I thanked the two women and left the house. I was still thoroughly mystified, but now I was excited as well. I felt sure that I now had the crucial piece of evidence that would resolve the puzzle of what had happened on that very odd evening, if I could just figure out where it fit. There had been too many anomalous women present, and too damned many veils.

Hermes was waiting outside the gate. He had taken the opportunity to return my bath gear to my house. He fell in beside me, and after a few minutes of walking I noticed that he was imitating me, walking along with his head down and his hands clasped behind his back. I stopped.

"Are you mocking me?" I demanded.

"Who, me?" His eyes went wide with innocence. "They say that slaves always come to look like their masters, sir. That must be what it is."

"That had better be the case," I warned him. "I will not be treated with disrespect."

"Certainly not, sir!" he cried. We resumed walking. "But I was wondering, sir. All this questioning and people trying to kill you and all--what's it all about?"

"That is exactly the sort of thing that I am famed for detecting," I said.

"And have you figured it out?"

"No, but I expect to have everything sorted out soon. A little time for peaceful reflection is all it takes."

"I don't know about you, sir," he said with heavy insinuation, "but I never think my best on an empty stomach."

"Now that you mention it, it's been a while since breakfast. Let's see what the district offers." Luckily, you never have to go far in Rome to find someone selling food. Before long, we had acquired bread, sausages, pickled fish, olives and a jug of wine and retired to a public garden to restore the mental faculties. We sat on a bench and watched the passing show for a while as we attacked the food and drained the jug. The streets were unusually crowded and many vendors were setting up, although it was an odd hour for it.

"Jupiter!" I said. "Tomorrow is Pompey's triumph! I'd all but forgotten. They're setting up now to have good spots in the morning."

"I hear it's going to be a great show," Hermes said, munching and nodding eagerly.

"It ought to be," I said. "He's robbed half the world to finance it."

"That's what the world's for, isn't it? To make things good for Romans?" He did not say this bitterly, as a foreign-born slave might. Like most native domestics, he expected to be manumitted and made a citizen someday. We are far more easygoing about such things than most nations.

"I'm not sure that was the original intention of the gods, but that is how things turned out," I said.

"Then it ought to be a good show," he maintained. "I mean, who cares about a bunch of barbarians?"

"Spoken like a true Roman," I said. "You have real citizen material in you, Hermes, even if you were given a Greek name."

Men in blue tunics were running down the streets with paint pots and brushes in their hands, posting the schedule of events, writing with incredible speed upon walls already thick with such writings. Other graffitists had been through earlier in the day, whitewashing patches on the walls to carry the glorious news. I called a painter over and tossed him a coin.

"What's the lineup?" I asked.

"The games will go on for days, Senator," he said. "Just now, we're posting the schedule for tomorrow. We'll be posting each day for the following day's entertainments. The big
munera
won't be for three days. That's what everybody's waiting for."

"What's on for tomorrow?" I asked him.

"To begin with, there'll be plays. Italian mime in the two old wooden theaters, but a full-dress Greek drama with masks in Pompey's new theater on the Campus Martius. The theater's still under construction, but there's enough finished to hold the highest classes."

"That's unfortunate," I said. "I'd prefer the mimes to Greek drama, but I suppose the Senate will have to go to Pompey's theater. What's the play?"

"
Trojan Women
, sir."

"Sophocles, isn't it?" I said. "Or was it Aeschylus?"

"Euripides, Senator," he said, with a slightly pitying expression.

"I knew it was one of those Greeks. May we hope for something more lively later in the day?"

"After the plays there will be
lusiones
. All the men to fight in the great
munera
will be fighting demonstration bouts with mock weapons."

"That's better," I said. "Not as exciting as the real death-fights, but fine swordplay is always a joy to watch. When will the great triumphal procession be?"

"The day after tomorrow, Senator, and it will be a ceremony of unsurpassed magnificence. Leading off will be the beasts General Pompey has collected in his travels, all to fight in the morning shows before the gladiators. Besides the usual lions, bears and bulls, he has collected leopards, Hyrcanian tigers, the biggest wild boar ever seen, a white bear from the far north..."

"It all sounds inspiring," I said. "There's nothing like a triumph to stir the blood and remind people what Rome is all about. And what embodies Rome these days better than Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus himself?"

"Quite right, Senator," said the sign painter a little hesitantly. He left and went back to his task.

"Uh, master, maybe you'd better be more careful how you talk, right out in public." Hermes looked around, distinctly ill at ease.

"Why?" I demanded. "Have we reached such a pass that a Roman citizen--a Senator, no less--can't publicly express his opinion of the likes of jumped-up would-be monarchs like Pompey and Crassus and even Julius Caesar?"

"I take no more than a slave's interest in political matters," the boy said, "but as I understand it, we've reached exactly such a pass."

"It's intolerable!" I said, out-Catoing Cato. "I tried to behead Clodius right in front of the senior praetor and I'll probably have to pay a fine for it. But say the wrong thing in public about a lowbred military adventurer, and I'm supposed to worry that he will try to kill me."

"Maybe he already has," Hermes said. "Tried to, I mean."