The Bull Slayer (9 page)

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she said, “why didn’t you wake me this morning?” He sank down on the bench beside her. She took his hand. “You look tired.”

“And you look more beautiful than I even remembered. You’re thriving here, aren’t you? I knew you would. What are you reading? Homer?” He picked up the
capsa
and read the label: “
Chaireas and Callirhoe by Chariton of Aphrodisias.
One of those romances the Greeklings are so fond of?” He put it down with an indulgent smile. “Is it any good?”

“It’s silly. A girl who’s captured by pirates on her wedding day. Husband goes searching for her.”

“Where did you get it?”

“At a book stall.”

How easy the lie. She had not premeditated it, yet there it was on her tongue as though only waiting to be spoken. “Gaius, tell me what’s going on. Balbus is missing? I couldn’t get much out of Suetonius.”

“I’m calling the staff together now. We have to do something, though damn me if I know what. I’ll leave you to your book. We’ll talk at dinner.”

***

Pliny paced up and down the room with his hands behind his back while the others followed him with their eyes. Nymphidius, the old soldier, scarred and lame, who had come out of retirement to serve with him; Postumius Marinus, his physician, always frowning through his tangle of gray beard; Caelianus, his clerk, a precise, observant little man; Aquila, his chief centurion, a hard-featured man, armored in greaves and a corselet of bronze scales; Suetonius, a shade too clever and rather too full of himself, the object of the others’ jealousy; and Zosimus, the lowest in status but the closest to Pliny in affection.

Pliny had just finished the recitation of his interviews with Fabia and Silvanus.

“You’re thinking he’s embezzled tax money and run off?” said Caelianus. “Why?”

“Because if we assume that he’s disappeared of his own volition, it has to be something at least that serious. And it will be your job to see if he has. I’m sending you over to the treasury tomorrow. I want it all counted down to the last
obol
and compared to the tallies. Take as many men as you need but work fast.”

Suetonius adjusted the fold of a new cloak so that it hung just so. “And if he hasn’t disappeared on purpose?”

“That is an alternative I would rather not contemplate. The assassination of a Roman official could set this province on fire.”

“Still, I just don’t see it. Balbus has been in public service for twenty-some years and no one’s ever accused him of anything, so far as we know. The emperor appointed him, after all, and Trajan is scrupulous about these things. And does he strike you as a runner? Running is a last resort. Surely he’d try other ways to protect himself first—trying to bribe
you
, for example. He hasn’t has he?”

Pliny gave him a wry smile. “I like to think my reputation for probity has preceded me.”

“Oh, quite.” Only Suetonius could banter with him like this.

“Still,” said Zosimus. He was careful to raise his hand and wait to be called on like a bashful schoolboy, conscious that the others wondered why Pliny included him in these meetings at all. “Still, that villa, all that art? Could he afford all that on a procurator’s salary?”

“Excellent point, my boy,” said Pliny. Zosimus, at thirty-four, was far from being a boy, but to Pliny he was still “my boy” and probably would be until he sprouted grey hairs. “But not conclusive. No one doubts that a procurator squeezes people, accepts
presents
, maybe persuades his
friends
to sell him things at knockdown prices. You know how it goes. It’s a fine line, and I’m sure Balbus knows how to walk it carefully. Helping himself to the taxes, however, is another thing.”

Nymphidius massaged his swollen knee; he suffered cruelly from arthritis. “I agree with Suetonius, I don’t think he’s run. And if he hasn’t, then someone’s done away with him. Not bandits, you’re right about that, Governor. The coast road’s busy in the morning, someone would have seen, and he disappeared before he ever reached the treasury—that is if we believe Silvanus.”

“But can we believe him?” said Pliny, throwing himself into his chair. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “They could be in it together. I don’t like the looks of that man.”

“And we can’t tickle this fellow Silvanus, just a little?” Aquila growled, flexing his fingers as though in anticipation of having a go at the chief accountant.

“A Roman citizen? You know better than that, Centurion. Trajan would be furious if he found out.
Not in keeping with the spirit of our reign.
No. If I find prima facie evidence of guilt, I can send him to Rome for trial, but that’s all I can do.”

“On the other hand,” Suetonius put in, “you remember them at the dinner. The way Balbus humiliated him, called him ugly and stupid in front of all of us. I should think if anyone would like to put a knife between Balbus’ ribs it’s our friend Silvanus.”

“
If
we find him with a knife in his ribs I will give that serious consideration.”

“So, then, Governor,” said Marinus, “we wait until the money’s counted?”

“I have no better idea at the moment. We simply have nothing to go on.”

“And in the meantime, will you continue your circuit of the province?”

There was a long silence while Pliny sat with his chin in his hand. “I’ll give it a few more days here,” he said at last, “and hope that something turns up. Then I must go back. Damn the man, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to disappear! What I’m uncovering at Prusa, Nicaea, Caesarea—the rot goes much deeper than I thought. Rich men are lining their pockets while the province is on the brink of rebellion. And meanwhile our procurator is—where? He tried to conjure some mental image of Balbus—Balbus on a ship, sailing for a distant port; Balbus in a coach, racing for the Persian frontier; Balbus lying dead and unrecognized in a gutter somewhere; even Balbus hiding in his own house right under their noses. He couldn’t make any of it seem real. He stood up. “Enough for this evening, gentlemen. Thank you. I’ll let you go to dinner. Perhaps tomorrow our minds will be sharper, I hope mine will.”

***

Ione tucked Rufus in and kissed him. The little boy clutched the front of her dress with his small hands. “It’s all right, darling, we’re right next door, I’ll leave the lamp on. If you have bad dreams again you can come and get in our bed.” He had been like this ever since the earthquake.

Zosimus was already undressed and in bed. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like,” he said. “I don’t know how the master keeps going. I’ve seen him stopping on stairs sometimes to catch his breath. I’m worried about him. His uncle had a weak chest too, it’s what killed him. Marinus wants to bleed him but he keeps putting him off. And now this other business. Anyway, how are you? What’s my girl been up to?”

“Oh, it’s been quite dull around here. Must you go back soon?”

“Who knows?” He reached up and drew her down to him. “I love you.”

She purred, “Are you sure you’re not too tired?”

“Not a bit.”

She took his
mentula
in her hand. “Has it missed me?”

“Terribly.”

“It hasn’t been anywhere else, has it?”

“Promise.”

She pulled her
tunica
up over her head and tossed it across the room. She straddled his hips as he lay on his back and he rose up to meet her.

***

“’Purnia, I’ve missed you terribly,” Pliny said. They had shared a light meal together in their chambers and were now undressing for bed, though it was still early. “I brought you a present. Here, unwrap it.”

“Oh, Gaius, it’s beautiful!” It was a necklace strung with pearls and little gold oak leaves. “I’ll wear it tomorrow.”

He lay down on the bed, closed his eyes, stretched, and sighed. She lay down beside him. “Have you been keeping busy, my dear?” he asked. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

And she might have said,
I’ve met a charming young Greek, a local landowner’s son. And guess what, he knows about painting, he’s actually taught me a few things. Of course, he thinks he’s in love with me—an old matron like me! You must ask him to dinner one night soon, you’ll like him.

But the words would not come.

Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll tell him tomorrow. In fourteen years of marriage she had never kept a secret from her husband. Her dear husband, so good, so loving—although, she thought, he had never really been a boy, not an impertinent, winking, charming boy like Agathon. No, don’t think of Agathon. That was over, a brief fantasy, like a waking dream, and now her life would flow again in its accustomed channel. As she wanted it to. Truly she did.

Pliny’s eyes were closed and he snored softly. She suddenly felt a great tenderness for him. She pressed her body against his and slid her hand between his legs. He stirred but did not wake.
The poor man, let him sleep.

But there was no sleep for her.

Chapter Ten

The 13th day before the Kalends of November
The first hour of the day

The next morning Caelianus was ushered into the dining room just as Pliny was finishing his breakfast. The clerk looked worried.

“I’ve just been to the treasury, sir, to start the counting. Silvanus isn’t there. No one’s seem him since yesterday.”

Pliny was gripped by a sudden premonition. He threw down his napkin, called for his bearers, and the two men set off at once.

“Where are the chief clerk’s living quarters?” he demanded of the door slave who admitted them.

It was a bare, cold room—almost a cell—that Silvanus called home: the furnishings Spartan, the floor bare stone, the walls unadorned save for a threadbare tapestry that covered the wall behind his narrow cot.

“Look over here, sir,” said Caelianus. “Scuff marks on the floor, like something might have been dragged over it.”

“Leading to or from his bed, no, more likely from the wall behind it. Here, help me move the bed.”

Pliny tore aside the tapestry and ran his fingers over the plastered wall. “Look here, there’s a crack. He thumped the wall, producing a hollow sound. In an instant he and Caelianus, on hands and knees, had pulled away a low door cut into the false wall and exposed Silvanus’ secret. The compartment was just large enough to hold three or four of the regulation treasury chests. Only two were still there.

“He got away with as much as he could carry, Caelianus. It must have hurt to leave the rest. Damn the man! How did he get out of the building without being seen? How did he carry it at all? The strength of desperation, I suppose.”

Pliny confronted the clerks, the door slaves, the sentries, every last inhabitant of the building, all herded together in the big counting room.

“None of you saw anything, heard anything last night?”

They looked at one another and shook their heads.

“The chief accountant has been stealing, probably for a long time. Did any of you suspect? Speak up, I promise you won’t be punished.”

Now there were knowing looks on a few faces and muttered words quickly exchanged. Then one of the junior clerks, a fat-bellied youth, stepped forward. “We knew, your honor. He let us get away with a bit too.”

“Thank you,” said Pliny. “And now I will ask you a very important question and I want a careful answer. Did Vibius Balbus know that Silvanus was stealing?”

The fat young man looked around at his comrades; two or three of them nodded encouragement. “He asked some of us if we thought so. Not long ago. Said there was a new governor now, meaning yourself, sir. That you were going to poke your nose in where it didn’t belong and things had better smell like roses, or else. Well, I didn’t like to snitch on Silvanus but the procurator was that angry I was afraid not to tell the truth in case it came out some other way and I was caught lying. So I told him ‘yes.’ He turned so red in the face I feared he’d have an apoplexy then and there.”

“And what happened after that?”

“Don’t know, sir. If he had it out with Silvanus it wasn’t in our hearing. And that man always looks so sorrowful you don’t rightly know what he’s thinking.”

Within the hour, Pliny had men at the harbor and at every stable in the city that rented coaches. But no one answering Silvanus’ description had been seen. The man might be anywhere.

And so might Balbus—if he was still alive.

***

That night Pancrates, as always, toiled with his assistants over the day’s haul of queries.

“Have a look at this one, Master.”

He took the tablet from his oracle writer, held it near the lamp, and squinted at it:
Will I be punished for slaying the lion? Glaucon, son of Phormio.

“A lion? Is the man a
venator
?”