The Bull Slayer (23 page)

“I’ve spoken to the Persians,” said Pliny. “They don’t know you.”

“I have nothing to do with them, they worship Mithras in their own way. My mission is to the Greeks, and even to you Romans. And I am not alone. There are others of us in every corner of your empire, even in Rome itself, who even now are spreading the Faith. One day soon the whole world will know the power of my god. You want to be initiated? First, you must master the science of the stars. You must pay a fee. You must prepare yourself by fasting and purification—”

“I say,” Suetonius spoke for the first time, sniffing and wrinkling his nose. “I would have thought a prophet might live in a sweeter-smelling part of town.”

Great Zeus,
Pliny cursed silently,
shut up!

But the spell was broken.

Barzanes blinked. His head swung from Pliny to Suetonius and back. “You’re lying! You think you’re clever. You’ve only cheated yourselves. Get out.”

Pliny drew a deep breath and stood up. “All right, old man. I leave you with this warning. These rich and powerful men whom you’ve somehow attracted—don’t trust them. They are drawing you into more trouble than you will ever be able to get out of. Think about that, and then come and talk to me.”

“I am sorry,” said Suetonius as they emerged into the street. “Couldn’t help myself. The pretentious old fool. I hate these filthy barbarian cults.”

“No more than I do,” said Pliny. “Well, what’s done is done. But I think we’ve stung him. He won’t sit still now. He’ll make a move.”

He spoke to his
lictors
, who were waiting outside. “Galeo and Marius will wait here tonight, across the alley where you can watch the building without being seen. I’ll send men to relieve you in the morning. You’re watching for an old man who walks with a stick. Wherever he goes, follow him.”

***

Barzanes sank onto his chair and stared at the open doorway. He took a rattling breath and tried to still his heart. It fluttered like a trapped bird in his breast. Another fit of coughing seized him and brought tears to his eyes.
Too old, I’m too old. I’ll die before my work is done.

Was it possible, what the Roman said? The Persian a murderer? For what possible reason? He wouldn’t believe it. But could it be? He must tell this to the Sun-Runner. He would go to see him in the morning. Risky, to meet outside the cave, they seldom did it, but now he must.

He struggled to his feet and went to shut the door. Seeing that the bolt was broken, he pushed the chest, the small box that contained his few possessions, up against it. The effort brought on another fit of coughing. Then he took his plate from the table and scraped the uneaten bits of bread and cheese out the window and tossed out the lees from his cup of vinegary wine. He closed the shutter and latched it against the night vapors. He shivered. The night was cold and his watery blood had no warmth in it. The coals that glowed in the brazier hardly sufficed to warm the little room. He lowered himself onto his cot and removed his sandals and foot cloths. He rubbed his thin shanks to bring a little warmth to them. He put the butcher knife under his pillow as he always did. He blew out the lamp and eased himself under the covers, his ankles, like sharp stones, grated one on the other.

He had been strong once, equal to the hardest labors. When he and his four brothers—all of them so many years dead—had come here from Commagene, on fire to spread the gospel of Mithras. He remembered how they had bought a piece of worthless land, honeycombed with caves, and with their own hands had fashioned it to their purpose. How, with masons tools and paint and plaster, they had made the image of their beautiful god in the act of slaying the bull; how they had painted the mystery of the zodiac on the walls and ceiling. How they had sought converts—secretly, quietly; only a few, but all of them rich men, important men. Men who gave generously to the work of spreading the Faith. And if they served their own purposes as well, if they conspired to break Roman laws in the privacy of the cave, well, what did that matter to him? And they offered to make him rich too, but he had never taken a drachma for himself. It was all for Mithras: to send missionaries, others from the royal clan of Commagene, to the West, to the army camps—because Mithras was a soldier’s god—and to the great City itself, the beating heart of the Empire. To this great purpose he had devoted his life; he had taken no wife, fathered no children. And he would not live to see it, but someday tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of men would worship at the altar of his god.

Barzanes lay, lost in his memories, waiting for sleep to come. He heard the ceiling creak as the family that lived above him made ready for bed—a laborer in the fullery and his slattern wife and their four snotty-nosed brats who loved to taunt him. He heard some drunken late-night revelers shouting in the street outside. He heard—what? The chest grating on the floor, his door opening?

“Who is it? Who’s there?” The Romans again? He fumbled for his knife under the pillow.

The shadow, black against black, came at him swiftly. He struck out with the knife and felt the point graze his attacker’s cheek. Then powerful fingers found his throat, a hand covered his mouth. He felt the assassin’s hot breath on his face. He kicked out with one leg, knocking over the brazier, spilling the coals onto the mat of dried rushes.

By the time he was dead, the room was in flames.

Pliny and Suetonius had scarcely arrived back at the palace when Galeo, panting from having run all the way, caught up with them. They returned at once to find the building ablaze, smoke pouring from its windows, flames shooting up through the roof. The inhabitants of the street were fetching buckets of water from the fullery and flinging them uselessly on the flames. The old wooden structure burnt like tinder. Pliny recognized the man whose door he had knocked on standing in the crowd with his wife and baby. The flames lit up his oily face.

“Where are the others, man?”

Tears ran down the man’s cheeks. “The couple on the second floor got out, and us. The family on the fourth—all those children…”

“The old man on the third?”

He shook his head. “The stairway was all flame.”

Pliny stayed through the night, supervising the bucket brigade, and sent Suetonius back to the palace to fetch Aquila and a squad of soldiers. It would be daylight before the fire burned itself out.

He questioned Galeo and Marius. They had seen a man enter the building, they assumed he lived there. He must have run out with the others who escaped, they couldn’t be sure.

***

The Sun-Runner was grim-faced. “Idiot! Was is necessary to burn the building down?”

The man held a bloody rag against his cheek. “Was an accident,” he mumbled. “Just as well, though. Covers our tracks.”

“It was supposed to look like the old man had a heart attack. It’s hardly likely that he set his room on fire.”

“Could have.”

“Let’s hope the Romans are stupid enough to think so.”

“My silver, sir?”

The Sun-Runner tossed a bag of coin which the man caught in one hand. “Go get your face looked at, you’re dripping blood on the floor.”

The Sun-Runner poured himself a goblet of wine and drained it in one gulp. He raked his fingers through his hair. He needed to think. Sad, of course, that the Father had to die, but there was no alternative. Sooner or later the Romans would get the old man to talk—if he hadn’t already. It was a risk the Sun-Runner couldn’t afford to take. And the cult had clearly outlived its usefulness. Mithras, he hoped, would be understanding. Mithras who eternally plunged his dagger into the bull’s throat.

More blood than that would be spilled before this was over.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The Ides of November

“…therefore, Sir, if you will authorize the rebuilding of Nicomedia’s aqueduct and the refurbishing of the baths, I will see to undertaking these works at once. With respect to the Balbus investigation, I have to report—” Pliny paused, sighed. Zosimus, who sat at the foot of the dining couch with his stylus and tablets in hand, looked up questioningly.

What did he have to report to Trajan? That his procurator was mixed up with some barbarian religious fanatics? That more people had been murdered and he was no nearer the truth? How would all this sound in Rome? Like pure lunacy. Like incompetence.

The embers of Barzanes’ apartment were still smoldering. They had gone in this morning and uncovered his charred corpse—which told them nothing.

“Uncle Pliny, play
Latrunculi
with me. Please. You can be the soldiers this time.” Little Rufus climbed up beside him on the dining couch. Pliny had given him the board game of Soldiers and Brigands and he loved to spend time, when he could snatch a few minutes, to play with the child. At four, Rufus was an enthusiastic, if reckless, player.

Pliny tousled his hair and kissed him. “I’m afraid you’ll beat me again.”

“I will, I will beat you. I want a grape. Don’t eat ’em all.”

“Don’t bother master now, he’s busy,” Zosimus said, trying to sound like the stern father.

“Where’s his mother?” Pliny asked.

“With the mistress, I suppose. They spend so much time in the temples these days looking at statues and paintings Ione says she could write a book on the subject, if she could write.”

There was a knock at the dining room door. A servant entered followed by a figure that Rufus had never seen before. The child clapped his hand to his mouth and shrank back, trying to hide himself behind Pliny. The figure approached the couch with jerky steps like a puppet on strings. Its face was pinched and pale, its neck ropy, its arms and legs like sticks. Rufus began to whimper.

“Take him away, Zosimus.” Pliny handed the child to him with a swift motion. “And leave us for a while.”

“Aulus, what a pleasure to see you. Sit down here beside me.” Pliny made room for the boy on the couch. “What brings you here? You don’t leave home often, do you?”

Aulus sat stiffly, twisting his hands. “I—I haven’t told mother. I took a horse from the stable. Asked the way to the palace. They didn’t want to let me in until I told them whose son I am.”

“Well, I’m very glad to see you. Have you eaten? Try these, they’re very good.” Pliny handed the boy a plate of grapes. “Will you take some wine? What’s that you’re holding?”

“A letter, sir. No wine, it does things to my head.”

“A letter. What sort of letter?”

“I found it amongst a lot of papers in my father’s desk. I am the man of the house now, the
paterfamilias
. I have a right to sit at his desk, look at his papers.” He spoke with a fierce insistence as though he expected contradiction.

“And so you do.” Pliny took the rolled sheet of parchment from his hands.

“It’s in Greek, I can’t read it,” Aulus said.

“Your education has been neglected.”

The boy gave a helpless shrug. “The tutors always run away when they see how—how I am. But I can make out the letters. There’s the word
leon
in it. That means lion, doesn’t it? And so I thought—”

Pliny held up a hand to silence him and quickly scanned the page. Then he read it again more slowly, translating it aloud to Aulus.

“
From the Heliodromus
—that’s an odd word. What would that be in Latin?
Cursor Solis—S
un Runner? Something like that.
From the Sun Runner to the Lion, Greetings.You say the Persian has refused to repay you the money he owes you. That is a serious charge, I understand your anger. You demand that we expel him from our worship. This is a drastic step, not to be taken lightly. I have questioned him and he denies your charge, though I made him swear by Lord Mithras, who sees into every heart. I beg you to reconcile with him. You are both too important to our enterprise. I have not brought this matter to the Father and hope that will not be necessary. Farewell.”

Pliny set the letter down. “I thank you for bringing me this. You can’t imagine how important it is. It is dated only a few days before your father disappeared.”

“Why? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know what it all means, but I begin to glimpse the outlines of what must have happened. This Persian murdered a man called Glaucon, who, we think, murdered your father together with the Persian. You had just lost consciousness, you never saw them, but they were there on the path, waiting to ambush him. The motive, I see now, was a quarrel about money. The Father is, or rather was, the leader of the Mithras cult. He could have named the Persian and the Sun-Runner and all the others had he not died, quite conveniently, last night. All these men, including your father I’m sorry to say, were involved in an illicit cult, as you know. A cult riven by discord, leading to murder. What united them in the first place—this ‘enterprise’ to which your father and the Persian are so important—I don’t yet know, although I have my suspicions. I’m afraid that when we find out it will not reflect well on your father. Are you prepared for that?”

Aulus attempted a smile. “I have no reputation to lose. It will be hard on mother, I suppose.”