A Gladiator Dies Only Once (25 page)

I tried to keep my face a blank, but Lucius Claudius saw the wheels spinning in my head. He narrowed his eyes. “Gordianus—what are you up to? How did we get onto the subject of Poplicola, anyway? Do you know something about this rumor?”

I was trying to think of some way to honor my oath to the censor without lying to my friend, when I was saved by the arrival of Lucius Claudius’s beloved Momo. The tiny Melitaean terrier scampered into the room, as white as a snowball and almost as round; lately she had grown as plump as her master. She scampered and yapped at Lucius’s feet, too earthbound to leap onto the couch. Lucius summoned a slave, who lifted the dog up and placed it on his lap. “My darling, my sweet, my adorable little Momo!” he cooed, and seemed to forget all about Poplicola, to my relief.

Bitter-almond is a difficult poison to obtain. I am told that it is extracted from the pits of common fruits, but the stuff is so lethal—a man can die simply from having it touch his skin, or inhaling its fumes—that most of the shady dealers in such goods refuse to handle it. The rare customer looking for bitter-almond is usually steered into purchasing something else for his purpose, “just as good,” the dealer will say, though few poisons are as quick and certain as bitter-almond.

My peculiar line of work has acquainted me with all sorts of people, from the highest of the high, like Poplicola, to the lowest of the low—like a certain unsavory dealer in poisons and potions named Quintus Fugax. Fugax claimed to be immune to every poison known to man, and even boasted that on occasion he tested new ones on himself, just to see if they would make him sick. To be sure, no poison had yet killed him, but his fingers were stained permanently black, there was a constant twitch at the corner of his mouth, his skin was disfigured with strange splotches, his head was covered with scabs and bald spots, and one of his eyes was clouded with a rheumy yellow film. If anyone in Rome was unafraid to deal in bitter-almond, it was Quintus Fugax.

I found him the next day at his usual haunt, a squalid little tavern on the riverfront. I told him I wanted to ask some general questions about certain poisons and how they acted, for my own edification. So long as I kept his wine cup full, he agreed to talk with me.

Several cups later, when I judged that his tongue was sufficiently loosened by the wine, I asked him if he knew anything about bitter-almond. He laughed. “It’s the best! I always tell people so, and not just because I’m about the only dealer who handles it. But hardly anybody wants it. Bitter-almond carries a curse, some say. People are afraid it’ll turn on them, and they’ll end up the dead one. Could happen; stuff can practically kill you just by you looking at it.”

“Not much call for bitter-almond, then?”

“Not much.” He smiled. “But I did sell a bit of it, just yesterday.”

I swirled my wine and pretended to study the dregs. “Really? Some fishmonger wanting to do in his wife, I suppose.”

He grinned, showing more gaps than teeth. “You know I never talk about my customers.”

I frowned. “Still, it can’t have been anyone very important. I’d have heard if some senator or wealthy merchant died from sudden convulsions after eating a hearty meal.”

Fugax barked out a laugh. “Ha! Try a piece of cake!”

I caught my breath and kept my eyes on the swirling dregs. “I beg your pardon?”

“Customer wanted to know if you could use bitter-almond in an almond sweet cake. I said, ‘just the thing!’”

“What was he, a cook? Or a cook’s slave, I suppose. Your customers usually send a go-between, don’t they? They never deal with you face-to-face.”

“This one did.”

“Really?”

“Said she couldn’t trust any of her slaves to make such a sensitive purchase.”

“She?”

He raised his eyebrows and covered his mouth, like a little boy caught tattling, then threw back his head and cackled. “Gave that much away, didn’t I? But I can’t say who she was, because I don’t know. Not poor, though. Came and went in a covered litter, all blue like her stola. Made her bearers stop a couple of streets away so they couldn’t see where she went and I wouldn’t see where she came from, but I sneaked after her when she left. Watched her climb into that fancy litter—hair so tall she had to stoop to get in!”

I summoned up a laugh and nodded. “These crazy new hairstyles!”

His ravaged face suddenly took on a wistful look. “Hers was pretty, though. All shiny and black—with a white streak running through it, like a stripe on a cat! Pretty woman. But pity the poor man who’s crossed her!”

I nodded. “Pity him indeed . . .”

The enviable corner spot on the street of the bakers was occupied by a family named Baebius; so declared a handsomely painted sign above the serving counter that fronted the street. A short young blonde, a bit on the far side of pleasingly plump but with a sunshiny smile, stepped up to serve me. “What’ll you have today, citizen? Sweet or savory?”

“Sweet, I think. A friend tells me you make the most delicious little almond cakes.”

“Oh, you’re thinking of Papa’s special. We’re famous for it. Been selling it from this shop for three generations. But I’m afraid we don’t have any today. We only make those every other day. However, I can sell you a wonderful cheese-and-honey torte—very rich.”

I pretended to hem and haw and finally nodded. “Yes, give me one of those. No, make it three—hungry mouths at home! But it’s too bad you don’t have the almond cakes. My friend raves about them. He was by here just yesterday, I think. A fellow named Lucius Gellius.”

“Oh, yes, we know him. But it’s not him who craves the almond cakes, it’s his father, the censor. Old Poplicola buys one from every batch Papa bakes!”

“But his son Lucius
was
here yesterday?”

She nodded. “So he was. I sold him the sweet cake myself and wrapped it up in parchment for him to take to his father. For himself and the lady he bought a couple of little savory custards. Would you care to try—”

“The lady?”

“The lady who was waiting for him in the blue litter.”

“Is she a regular customer, too?”

The girl shrugged. “I didn’t actually see her; only got a glimpse as Lucius was handing her the custard, and then they were off toward the Forum. There, taste that and tell me it’s not fit for the gods.”

I bit into the cheese-and-honey torte and feigned an enthusiastic nod. At that moment, it could have been ambrosia and I would have taken no pleasure in it.

I made my report to Poplicola that afternoon. He was surprised that I could have concluded my investigation so swiftly, and insisted on knowing each step in my progress and every person I had talked to. He stood, turned his back to me, and stared at the somber red wall as I explained how I came to suspect the use of bitter-almond; how I questioned one of the few men who dealt in that particular poison, plied him with wine, and obtained a description that was almost certainly of Palla; how the girl at the bakery shop not only confirmed that Lucius had purchased the cake the previous day, but saw him leave in a blue litter with a female companion.

“None of this amounts to absolute proof, I admit. But it seems reasonably evident that Palla purchased the bitter-almond in the morning, that Lucius was either with her at that time, and stayed in the litter, or else joined her later, and then the two of them went to the bakery shop, where Lucius purchased the cake. Then one or both of them together sprinkled the poison onto the cake—”

Poplicola hunched his gaunt shoulders and produced a stifled cry, a sound of such despair that I was stunned into silence. When he turned to face me, he appeared to have aged ten years in an instant.

“All this is circumstantial evidence,” he said, “not legal proof.”

I spoke slowly and carefully. “Legal proof is narrowly defined. To satisfy a court of law, all the slaves involved would be called upon to testify—the litter-bearers, your doorkeeper, perhaps the personal attendants of Palla and Lucius. Slaves see everything, and they usually know more than their masters think. They would be tortured, of course; the testimony of slaves is inadmissible unless obtained by torture. Acquiring that degree of proof is beyond my means, Censor.”

He shook his head. “Never mind. We both know the truth. I knew it all along, of course. Lucius and Palla, behind my back—but I never thought it would come to this!”

“What will you do, Censor?” It was within Poplicola’s legal rights, as
paterfamilias,
to put his son to death without a trial or any other formality. He could strangle Lucius with his own hands or have a slave do it for him, and no one would question his right to do so, especially under the circumstances. He could do the same thing to his wife.

Poplicola made no answer. He had turned to face the wall again, and stood so stiff and motionless that I feared for him. “Censor . . .?”

“What will I do?” he snapped. “Don’t be impertinent, Finder! I hired you to find out a thing. You did so, and that’s the end of your concern. You’ll leave here with some gold in your purse, never fear.”

“Censor, I meant no—”

“You vowed an oath, on your ancestors, to speak of this affair to no one but me. I shall hold you to it. If you’re any sort of Roman—”

“There’s no need to remind me, Censor,” I said sharply. “I don’t make oaths lightly.”

He reached into a pouch within his purple toga, counted out some coins, laid them on the little table before me, and left the room without saying another word.

I was left to show myself out. On my way to the foyer, addled by anger, I took a wrong turn and didn’t realize it until I found myself in a large garden surrounded by a peristyle. I cursed and turned to retrace my steps, then glimpsed the couple who stood beneath the colonnade at the far corner of the garden, their heads together as if engaged in some grave conversation. The woman was Palla. Her arms were crossed and her head was held high. The man, from his manner toward her, I would have taken to be her husband had I not known better. Lucius Gellius looked very much like a younger replica of his father, even to the chilly stare he gave me as I hastily withdrew.

In the days that followed, I kept my ears perked for any news of developments at the house of Poplicola, but there was only silence. Was the old man plotting some horrible revenge on his son and wife? Were they still plotting against him? Or had the three of them somehow come together, with confessions of guilt and forgiveness all around? I hardly saw how such a reconciliation could be possible, after such a total breach of trust.

Then, one morning, I received a note from my friend Lucius Claudius:

Dear Friend, Dinner Companion, and Fellow Connoisseur of Gossip,

We never quite finished our discussion about Poplicola the other day, did we? The latest gossip (horrible stuff): On the very eve of the great purge in the Senate, one hears that certain members are planning to mount a prosecution against the censor’s son, Lucius Gellius, accusing him of
sleeping with his stepmother
and
plotting to kill Poppy.
Such a trial will stir up a huge scandal
—
what will people think of a magistrate in charge of morals who can’t stop his own son and wife from fornicating and scheming to do him in? Opponents (and likely targets) of the purge will say, “Clean up your own house, Poplicola, before you presume to clean ours!”

Who knows how such a trial might turn out? The whole family will be dragged through the mud
—
if there’s any dirt on any of them, the prosecutors will dig it up. And if Lucius
is
found guilty (I still can’t believe it), they won’t allow him exile
—
he’ll be put to death along with Palla, and to save face, Poplicola will have to play stern
paterfamilias
and watch while it’s done! That would be the death of Poppy, I fear. Certainly, it would be the end of his political career. He’d be utterly humiliated, his moral authority a joke. He couldn’t possibly continue as Censor. No purge of the Senate, then, and politics can go on as usual! What an age we live in.

Ah well, come dine with me tonight. I shall be having fresh pheasant, and Cook promises to do something divine with the sauce . . .

The pheasant that night was succulent. The sauce had an intriguing insinuation of mint that lingered teasingly on the tongue. But the food was not what I had come for.

Eventually we got around to the subject of the censor and his woes.

“There’s to be a trial, then,” I said.

“Actually . . . no,” said Lucius Claudius.

“But your note this morning—”

“Invalidated by fresh gossip this afternoon.”

“And?”

Lucius leaned back on his couch, stroked Momo, and looked at me shrewdly. “I don’t suppose, Gordianus, that you know more about this affair than you’re letting on?”

I looked him in the eye. “Nothing that I could discuss, even with you, my friend, without violating an oath.”

He nodded. “I thought it must be something like that. Even so, I don’t suppose you could let me know, simply yes or no, whether Lucius Gellius and Palla really—Gordianus, you look as if the pheasant suddenly turned on you! Well, let no one say that I ever gave a dinner guest indigestion by pressing an improper question. I shall simply have to live not knowing. Though in that case, why I should tell
you
the latest news from the Forum, I’m sure I don’t know.”

He pouted and fussed over Momo. I sipped my wine. Lucius began to fidget. Eventually his urge to share the latest gossip got the better of him. I tried not to smile.

“Very well, since you must know: Poppy, acting in his capacity as censor, has convoked a special Senate committee to investigate his own son on a charge of gross immorality—namely this rumor about adultery and attempted parricide. The committee will take up the investigation at once, and Poppy himself will preside over it.”

“But how will this affect the upcoming trial?”

“There won’t be a trial. The investigation supersedes it. It’s rather clever of Poppy, I suppose, and rather brave. This way he heads off his enemies who would have made a public trial into a spectacle. Instead, he’ll see to the question of his son’s guilt or innocence himself, behind closed doors. The Senate committee will make the final vote, but Poppy will oversee the proceedings. Of course, the whole thing could spin out of his control. If the investigating committee finds Lucius Gellius guilty, the scandal will still be the ruin of Poppy.” He shook his head. “Surely that won’t happen. For Poppy to take charge of the matter himself, that must mean that his son is innocent, and Poppy knows it—doesn’t it?” Lucius raised an eyebrow and peered at me expectantly.