The Bull Slayer (8 page)

“Ten days ago, the fourth day before the Ides, the Day of the Sun. I saw him off in the morning. He didn’t return for dinner.”

“The Day of the Sun? That’s a Chaldean custom, I believe, to name the days after the seven planets. Was your husband interested in that sort of thing?”

“He had an interest.”

“Did he show any signs of unusual behavior in the days before he disappeared?”

She hesitated a fraction. “What do you mean,
unusual
?”

“What sort of mood was he in—worried, irritable, distracted? Did he say anything that struck you as out of the ordinary? Was he in difficulties of some sort? Are any of his belongings missing, any money?”

“What are you suggesting? You think he’s run off?”

“Let’s be frank with each other. Such things happen. Has he done anything like this before?”

“Anything like
what
? My husband was a good man and a loyal servant of the government. I defy you to prove he wasn’t.”

The short hand writer scratched away furiously on his tablet.

“I notice you just spoke of him in the past tense. You believe he’s dead, then?”

“Well, what else?” Her color darkened, she half rose out of her chair.

“Then I must ask you who his enemies are.”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, what do you think happened to him?”

“Murdered by bandits, obviously. None of us is safe in this wretched country. They’re all itching to cut our throats. I told him so but he wouldn’t listen, not him.”

“And yet the coast road is a busy thoroughfare all the way from here to the city, I’ve just been on it. And we’ve had no reports of bandits in the area.”

She glared at him in silence. He felt as though he were interrogating a hostile witness on the stand instead of a woman who wanted her husband found. Pliny was more than a lawyer; he was the servant of an autocratic regime—even if, at the moment, it wore a benevolent face. Survival in this world meant being sensitive to every look, every word—spoken and unspoken, from a rival, a palace official, even a slave. Pliny had survived and thrived. His thoughts turned back to the Verpa case—that senatorial informer whose murder he had investigated fourteen years ago. How naïve he had been then, how easily taken in by appearances. He had learned much in the years since then. He felt certain she was concealing something, but pressing her further now would accomplish nothing. Unsympathetic as she was, she was still the wife of a high-ranking official who, one hoped, was still alive somewhere. There was nothing to be gained by making an enemy of her.

“May I just have a look in the
tablinum
?”

She looked for a moment as if she would refuse, then shrugged, got heavily to her feet, and led him into Balbus’ office. The procurator plainly did not share Pliny’s tidy habits. The room was strewn with scrolls,
tabellae
, and heaps of loose sheets piled everywhere. While Fabia stood watching him, Pliny made an attempt to sort through the mess in the hope that something would catch his eye. And something did: a sheaf of star charts and, underneath these, what appeared to be a handbook of astrology.

“Your husband is a
mathematicus
? You mentioned he counts the days as the Chaldeans do. Frankly, I wouldn’t have suspected it of him. He strikes me as too practical a man for this sort of thing.” Pliny, like his idol Cicero, was not a believer in that arcane science.

“He tries. He says it makes his head hurt. I don’t know why he bothers.” Pliny noted that Fabia was now being careful to speak of her husband in the present tense.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow this.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m not sure. There may just be something helpful in it.”

She shrugged. “Take it then.”

“Well, I think I’ve seen enough for the moment. Might I just go out to your stables before I leave and speak to the stable hands.”

“Why?”

“You have some objection?”

“I’ll come with you.”

“If you like.”

“Mother—!” Just then a figure darted into the room. Pliny, with only a moment to observe him, got the impression of a youth of about sixteen, tall and painfully thin, the muscles and tendons like knotted cords under his skin. When the boy saw Pliny, he stifled a cry, turned and fled. Almost without thinking, Pliny rose and started after him but Fabia blocked his way, looking as if she might fight him. He stepped back and spread his hands in a placating gesture.

“Your son?” He recalled the figure that he and Calpurnia had glimpsed on the night of the dinner party.

“He isn’t well. You’ll leave him alone.”

“I meant him no harm. May I talk with him?”

“You wanted to see the stables. Come, then.”

The stableman and three young grooms leapt to their feet as Pliny and Fabia and the shorthand writer appeared in the wide doorway. They had been playing knucklebones on the floor. Pliny loved horses and passed many happy hours in his own stables, trading advice with his grooms. The stableman, a swarthy, bewhiskered man of middle age, came forward and ducked his head in respect. Pliny gave him an encouraging smile.

“How did your master travel to the city? By carriage?” There was no carriage anywhere that he could see.

The stableman shook his head. “Horseback, your honor. He liked to ride, for the exercise. Always said the city streets were too crowded for a carriage anyways.”

“And who would ride with him?”

The man’s eyes flickered for a second. “He rode alone.”

“Always?”

“Yes.”

“Where is his horse?”

“Missing.”

“Really. In my experience, a riderless horse will nearly always find its way home. Was there anything unusual about that particular day when he left for the last time?”

The stableman studied his feet.

Fabia struck in, “I’ve already told you there was nothing unusual. If you don’t mind, Governor, these men have work to do.”

“Of course, madam. I have no more questions for the moment.” He looked at her levelly. “If anyone has done harm to an officer of the Roman State, I will not rest until I bring that person to book. Rely upon it.”

Fabia stood in the doorway and watched Pliny and his men mount their carriage and drive off. The boy came up silently and stood beside her. She circled his thin shoulders with a vast, protecting arm. “It’s all right, my baby,” she said.

Chapter Nine

Suspicion was written across Silvanus’ beaky face. Pliny and his two attendants had gone straight from interviewing Fabia to the treasury building in the precinct of the Temple of Rome and Augustus in the center of the city. Sentries at the door had jumped to attention and Pliny sent one of them to fetch the chief accountant.

He eyed Pliny warily. “This is no place for you, Governor.”

“That is not for you to say,” Pliny snapped. “I’m here to learn what’s become of your procurator.” They sat in the accountant’s cramped office. There was no chair for the shorthand writer, who was forced to take his notes standing up. Towering bookcases, crammed with scrolls, lined every wall. Only a small window admitted any light. A fit habitation for a mole, perhaps; scarcely for a human. No wonder the man was so pasty-faced. “Did you see Balbus the day he disappeared?”

Silvanus’ jaws ground as though he were masticating food. It was a disconcerting habit that Pliny had noticed that night at Balbus’ dinner party. His words came slowly as though each one must be thoroughly chewed before it could be spat out. “He never arrived that day.”

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you do the next day when he didn’t arrive?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, what did you
think
?”

“That he was ill. The next day I inquired of his wife. Then I sent someone to your office.”

“To your knowledge has he ever disappeared like this before?”

“No.”

“Where do you think he might be?”

Silvanus’ eyes focused somewhere over Pliny’s right shoulder. The jaws went on working. “I don’t know.”

Pliny tried a different tack. “Tell me about yourself, Silvanus. Have you a family? Where do you live?”

The eyes momentarily met Pliny’s with a look of alarm.
Am I being accused?
“I live here. I have no family.”

“And you’ve been with Balbus a long time?”

“Eleven years. I was his slave at first. He emancipated me before a magistrate, all legal, I can prove it. I’m a Roman citizen.” The point was clear.
You can’t torture me.

“What kind of administrator was he?”

“I’ve no complaints.”

“Right.” Pliny got swiftly to his feet. This was getting him nowhere. “Until Balbus reappears, if he does, I am assuming control of the treasury. Don’t bother asking if I have the authority. I do. Now, I want a thorough tour of the premises and a rundown of your procedures, omitting nothing. Lead the way.”

The jaws—just for a moment—stopped grinding.

Pliny had served a term as head of the Treasury of Saturn—the Roman State treasury—and knew what to look for. What he saw did not please him. The building, which had once housed the royal treasure of the kings of Bithynia, was a warren of cluttered rooms and crooked corridors built around a wide courtyard. One whole side of it was the counting room. Here were long tables at which sat public slaves. They should have been hunched over ledgers, calculating with their fingers. Instead, they sprawled idly on their benches, talking, throwing knucklebones. They barely looked up when Silvanus and Pliny entered. It seemed pointless to ask why no one was working.

“Take me to the vault,” Pliny commanded.

The chief accountant lifted a trap door that lay at one end of the counting room and they descended a flight of stone steps that ended at an oaken door, secured by a massive bronze padlock. Silvanus produced the key from a wallet that hung at his belt and, with a grunt of effort, swung the door open. He lit a lamp inside.

Pliny found himself in a brick-lined chamber whose walls were lost in shadow. The air was hot and stale. A pyramid of iron-bound chests reached nearly to the low ceiling. Each chest was fastened with a lock and from each hung a parchment tag imprinted with a signet.

“How many keys are there?”

“Two. One for the procurator, one for me.”

“And where is his?”

“Hanging in his office. I’ll show it to you, if you like.”

The land tax in silver was, as Pliny knew, assessed by the procurator upon each city in the province. Local magistrates apportioned the tax among the landowners, collected it, and sent the required amount in chests like these under seal to Nicomedia. Some of it moved overland in cumbersome wagons guarded by soldiers, the rest, collected from the coastal cities, came on navy warships. Everything possible was done to secure these shipments. Was it enough? Probably not. And in Bithynia-Pontus where corruption ran so deep? The question answered itself. Suspicions—almost certainties—were starting to take shape in his mind.

“Is all of this year’s collection in?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I count the chests as they come in.”

“And if a chest went astray? Would you know?”

“If the total didn’t add up to the assessment, of course I would know. But it does add up.”

“But do you open each chest and actually count the coin?”

“Of course not. We open them when we need to make disbursements.”

“Open that one—over there.”

“Why?”

“Open it.”

Silvanus drew another key from his pouch, a smaller one, and unlocked the chest. Pliny looked in. It was full to the top with silver drachmas—the lifeblood of the Roman Empire. The tag read
Three talents, eleven minas, fifty-three drachmas. Sent under my seal. Polemon, Treasurer of Heraclea Pontica.
At a glance, it looked about right.

“Are you satisfied, Governor?”

“I am far from satisfied. I want a count of every coin of this year’s collection. Tomorrow I will send you my clerk, Caelianus, to supervise this. As of this moment, I am posting guards at this door. No one, including you, is to enter until I say so. Hand over your key.”

“But we have disbursements to make. The garrison to be paid, the sailors of the Pontic fleet, road repairs, earthquake damage, and the amount we have to send to Rome.”

Pliny left the chief accountant still protesting—the man seemed to have found his voice at last—and returned to the palace, suddenly overcome with a feeling of infinite weariness.

***

He found Calpurnia in the garden, reading in the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. It was early October yet the weather continued unseasonably mild. Soon enough, though, they would be driven indoors by frigid winds blowing in off the sea. She put down her scroll when she saw him and offered her mouth to be kissed.