'Not another bite until tomorrow evening. Imagine that!' Sergius Orata stood alone on the terrace outside the dining room. He looked over his shoulder at my arrival, then gazed wistfully toward the lights of Puteoli, as if he could smell the aroma of a late dinner being served across the bay. 'Fasting is bad enough, but to do it after such a dreary meal. My stomach will be growling all through the funeral orations. Lucius Licinius wouldn't have wanted it that way. With Lucius here, every night was a feast.'
Around us the treetops soughed in the breeze. Within the house the slaves were quietly gathering up the remains of the evening's repast with a muffled clatter of knives and spoons. Fitting the solemnity of the occasion, there had been no entertainment following the meal. As soon as Marcus Crassus had risen and excused himself, the other guests had dispersed like anxious children dismissed by their tutor. Eco, hardly able to keep his eyes open, had gone straight to bed. Only Orata and I remained. I imagined that he lingered close by the ghost of the dinner as a frustrated lover might linger about his beloved's empty bed, brooding over the smell and the memory of what he craved but could not have.
'Was Lucius Licinius so extravagant?' I asked.
'Extravagant? Lucius?' Orata shrugged his round shoulders. 'Not by Baian standards. By Roman standards I suppose he might be the sort against whom the Senate is always threatening to pass
some punitive sumptuary law. Let us say he spent his money with relish.'
'Or spent Crassus's money?'
Orata wrinkled his brow. 'Stricdy speaking. And yet…'
I stood beside him and leaned against the stone railing, After the first chill of evening the air seemed to have calmed and grown slightly warmer, as sometimes happens on the Cup. I studied the line of lights, as tiny as stars, that ringed the coastline. Areas of darkness alternated with clusters of muted fire, where the towns sparkled like jewels in the crystalline air.
'You were here the night Lucius was murdered, weren't you?' I said quiedy. 'It must have been a considerable shock to awaken the next morning and find-'
'A shock, indeed. And when I learned of the name scrawled at his feet, and the fact that his slaves were responsible – imagine, they might have murdered us all in our sleep! Such a thing actually happened only a few weeks ago down in Lucania, when Spartacus was fighting his way to Thurii. A wealthy family was massacred in the night, along with all their house guests. The women were raped; the children were made to watch their fathers beheaded. It makes the blood run cold.'
I nodded. 'Your visit here – it was strictly for pleasure?'
Orata smiled faintly. 'I seldom do anything strictly for pleasure. Even eating serves a vital purpose, does it not? I do a great deal of visiting around the Cup at all seasons of the year; I enjoy it immensely. But there's always time for business. To be utterly idle and to pursue pleasure for its own end is decadent. I must always be striving towards some object; I was born in Puteoli, but I think I follow the Roman virtues.'
'Then you had business with Lucius Licinius?' 'There were plans afoot.'
'You had already rebuilt his baths – a stunning piece of work.' He smiled at the compliment. 'What more was there to do? Build a fish pond?'
'To start with.'
'I was joking.'
'Do not joke about fish ponds here in Baiae. Here, great men weep tears of grief when their mullets die, and tears of joy when they spawn.'
'In Rome they say that the Baians have developed a positive mania for pisciculture.'
'They've turned it into a vice,' Orata confided with a laugh, 'the way the Parthians are said to turn simple horse racing into a vice. But it brings a tidy profit for the man who knows the secrets of the trade.'
'It's an expensive hobby?'
'It can be.'
'And Lucius was prepared to indulge in it? I don't understand. Was he wealthy or not? If he had so much money, why did he not own his own home?'
'Actually…' Orata paused and his face lengthened. 'You must understand, Gordianus, that after my ancestors and the gods there is nothing I respect so much as the confidentiality of another man's private finances. I'm not the sort to gossip about the source or extent of someone else's wealth. But since Lucius is dead…'
'Yes?'
'May his shade forgive me if I tell you that there was more than met the eye when it came to Lucius's finances.' 'I don't follow you.'
'Lucius had all sorts of improvements in mind for this villa. Expensive renovations and additions. That was why he asked me to the house for a few days, to discuss the feasibility and expense of some projects he had in mind.'
'But why would he spend so much to improve a house in which he was only a tenant?'
'Because he was planning to buy the house from Crassus, very soon.'
'Did Crassus know this?'
'I think not. Lucius told me he would be approaching Crassus with an offer within a month or so, and he seemed quite confident that Crassus would accept. Do you have any idea what a villa like this costs, especially when you consider the expenses of running the place?' Orata lowered his voice. 'He told me, very confidentially, that his chance to break away from Crassus had come at last. He suggested that he and I should launch a partnership; my business expertise matched with his capital, he said. He came up with some good ideas, I must admit.' 'But you were wary.'
'The word "partnership" always makes me wary. I learned early on always to make my own way.'
'But if Lucius was offering the money-'
'That's just it: where did he get it? When I rebuilt the baths here, it was Crassus who signed the final contract, and Crassus always saw that I received my payments on time. But occasionally there were incidental expenses, little things about which Lucius hated to bother Crassus, so Lucius would pay for them himself. He always acted as if it were a great sacrifice just to come up with a few sesterces to buy a wagonload of lime.' Orata wrinkled his plump brow. 'I told you earlier that Lucius always served sumptuous dinners, but that was only in the last year or two. Before that, he always pretended to be better off than he was. You could see the brass beneath the gold, so to speak – the oysters might be fresh, but you could see that the slaves kept washing the same silver spoons to serve each new course because there weren't enough silver spoons to go around.'
'A subtle point, surely.'
'In my line of work one learns to observe the fine distinctions between true wealth and pretence. I hate being left with a bill I can't collect.'
'And in the last year or so Lucius had managed to buy all the silver spoons he needed?'
'Exactly, And he seemed to be in the market for more.'
'I suppose he must have been saving his stipend from Crassus for a long time.'
Orata shook his head glumly.
'Then what? Did he have some other source of income?'
'None that I know of. And there is very little that transpires on the Cup that I don't know about – very little of a legitimate, legal nature, that is.'
'Do you mean-'
'I only mean that Lucius's sudden wealth was an enigma to me.'
'And to Crassus?'
'I don't think Crassus knew about it.'
'But what could Lucius have done, without Crassus's even knowing? Are you suggesting some clandestine-'
'I suggest nothing,' Orata blandly insisted. He turned from the view of the bay and looked into the house. The last traces of the dinner had vanished; even the serving tables had been taken away. He sighed and suddenly seemed to lose all interest in our conversation. 'I think I shall go to my room now.'
'But, Sergius Orata, surely you have some ideas, some suspicions-'
He shrugged quite extravagandy, a well-practised gesture good for escaping unwanted investors and clients too small to bother with. 'I only know that one of Marcus Crassus's reasons for coming here was to have a careful look at Lucius's financial records, so that Crassus might assess his own resources on the Cup. If he looks long and hard enough, I suspect that Crassus may uncover some very unpleasant surprises.'
On my way to the library I avoided walking through the atrium where the remains ofLucius Licinius were displayed; if a part of my mission now included uncovering some embarrassing transactions or even criminal activity on his part, I did not care to encounter his shade in the middle of the night. I took a lamp to find my way through the unfamiliar halls, but hardly needed it; moonlight poured like liquid silver through the windows and skylights, flooding the halls and open spaces with a cold luminescence.
I hoped to find the library empty, but when I turned the corner I saw the same bodyguard who had attended the door the previous night. At my approach he turned his head with military precision and fixed me with a piercing gaze. His stare softened when he recognized me. The frigid mask of his face loosened; indeed, the closer I came the more chagrined he looked. When I was close enough to hear the voices from within, I understood his embarrassment.
They must have been speaking quite loudly for the sound to pass through the heavy oak door. Crassus's voice, with its oratorical training, penetrated more clearly; the other voice had a lower, rumbling timbre that was less easy to distinguish, but the bombastic tone unmistakably belonged to Marcus Mummius.
'For the last time, there will be no exceptions!' This came from Crassus. A rumbling retort from Mummius followed, too muffled for me to catch more than a few words – 'how many times… always loyal, even when… you owe me this favour…'
'No, Marcus, not even as a favour!' Crassus shouted. 'Stop dredging up the dead past. This is a matter of policy – there's nothing personal in it. If I allow even a single sentimental exception, there will be no end to it – Gelina will have me save them all! How do you think that would look in Rome? No, I won't be made a fool of because you lack the good sense to avoid this kind of petty attachment-'
This evoked angry shouting from Mummius; I was unable to make out the words, but there was no mistaking the note of anguish amid the fury. An instant later the door abruptly opened, so violently that the bodyguard started back and drew his sword.
Mummius emerged, red-faced, his eyes bulging, his jaw set hard enough to grind stones. He turned back towards the room and clenched his fists at his sides, making the veins in his thick forearms writhe like the one that pulsed across his forehead. 'If you and Lucius had allowed me to buy him for myself, this wouldn't be happening! You wouldn't be able to touch the boy! If Jupiter himself tried to harm a hair on his head, I would-'
He made a choking noise and began to shake, unable to go on. For the first time he seemed to notice that someone else was in the hall. He turned to look blankly first at the guard and then at me. His furious expression never changed, but his eyes began to glisten hotly as they filled with tears.
Farther down the hall, toward the atrium, a door opened. Gelina, her hair awry, her makeup smeared, peered toward us with a look of confusion. 'Lucius?' she whispered hoarsely. Even from such a distance I could smell the wine from her pores.
Crassus emerged from the library. There was a moment of strained silence. 'Gelina, go back to your bed,' Crassus said sternly. She drew her eyebrows together and meekly obeyed. Crassus dilated his nostrils with a deep breath and lifted his chin.
For a long moment Mummius returned his stare, then spun around and hurried down the hallway without a word. The young guard silently sheathed his sword, clenched his jaw, and stared straight ahead. I opened my mouth, searching for some way to explain my presence, but Crassus relieved me of the obligation. 'Don't stand there gaping in the hall. Come inside!'
With the typical good manners of the nobility, Crassus said nothing at all about the argument I had just witnessed. Except for a slight flush across his forehead and a sigh that escaped his lips as he shut the door behind us, it might never have happened. As on the night before, he wore a Greek chlamys rather than a cloak to ward off the chill; apparently the altercation had warmed him enough, for he stripped off the garment and tossed it onto the centaur statue. 'Wine?' he offered, taking a cup from the shelf. I noticed there were two cups already on the table, one for himself and another for Mummius; both were empty. 'Are we not fasting?'
Crassus raised an eyebrow. 'I have it on good authority that one need not abstain from wine while fasting for the dead. The custom can be bent either way, I am told, and in my experience it is always best to bend custom to present need.'
'On good authority, you say?' I accepted the chair that Crassus offered while he turned his around and leaned against the table, which was littered with documents.
Crassus smiled and sipped his wine. He shut his eyes and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. He suddenly looked very weary. 'Good authority, indeed. Dionysius tells me that wine is the metaphysical equivalent of blood, and so should not be denied to a fasting man, any more than the air he breathes.'
'I suspect that Dionysius is ready to tell you anything he thinks you might want to hear.'
Crassus nodded. 'Exactly. A hopeless sycophant – and sycophants are not what I need at the moment. What was all that nonsense this evening, about his being your rival? Have you offended him?'
'I've hardly spoken to him.'
4Ah, then he's concocted this scheme to solve Lucius's murder on his own, thinking he can use it to impress me. You see what's happening, don't you? With Lucius gone and the household about to dissolve… one way or another… he'll be needing a new patron and a new residence.'
'And he would like to attach himself to you?'
Crassus laughed mirthlessly and drank more wine. 'I suppose I should be flattered. Clearly he thinks I'm on my way up. Spartacus has only humiliated two Roman consuls and defeated every army that's been sent to destroy him; what do I have to worry about?'
This note of self-doubt was so unexpected that for a moment I missed it entirely. 'Is it so certain then that you'll be given the command against Spartacus?'
'Who else would take it? Every politician in Rome with military experience is quaking with fear. They want Spartacus to be someone else's problem.'
'What about-'
'Don't even say his name! If I never heard it again, I could die happily.' Crassus slumped against the table. His expression softened. 'Actually, I don't hate Pompey. We were good comrades, under Sulla. No one can say that his glory is unearned. The man is brilliant – a great tactician, a splendid leader, a superb politician. Handsome as a demigod, too. He really does look like a bust of Alexander, or used to. And rich! People say that I'm rich, but they forget that Pompey's as wealthy as I am, if not wealthier. Pompey, they say, is brilliant, Pompey is handsome, but rich is something they say only about me -"Crassus, Crassus, rich as Croesus."' He reached for the wine and poured himself another cup. He offered more to me, but I showed him that my cup was still half full. 'Besides, Pompey has his hands full in Spain, mopping up that rebel Sertorius. He can't possibly get back in time to put an end to Spartacus. Actually, he could, but he won't, because I'll have done the job already. What do you know about Spartacus, anyway?'
'No more than the merchants down at the Subura markets know, when they tell me their prices have tripled because of someone called Spartacus.'
'It all comes down to that, doesn't it? They can burn a whole town in the countryside and hang the city fathers by their ankles, but the real rub comes when Spartacus and his nasty little revolt start making life uneasy for the rabble in Rome. The situation is so absurd that no one could have invented it; it's like a nightmare that won't go away. Do you know where it started?' 'Capua, wasn't it?'
Crassus nodded. 'Just a short ride from here, up the Via Consularis from Puteoli. A fool named Batiatus ran a gladiator farm on the edge of town; bought his slaves wholesale, weeded out the weak, trained the strong ones and sold them to clients all over Italy. He came into a number of Thracians – good fighters, but notoriously temperamental. Batiatus decided to put them in their place from the very start, so he kept them in cages like beasts and fed them nothing but thin gruel and water, letting them out only for their exercises and training. The idiot! Why is it that men who would never think of beating a horse or salting a patch of good earth can be so reckless with their human property? Especially a piece of property that knows how to carry a weapon and kill. A slave is a tool – use it wisely and you profit, use it foolishly and your efforts are wasted.
'But I was talking about Spartacus. In the normal course of things these Thracians would have been broken to Batiatus's will, one way or another, or they might have revolted against him and been killed on the spot, putting a sorry end to a sorry episode. But among their number was a man called Spartacus. It happens sometimes that even among slaves you'll find a man of forceful character, a brute with a way of making other brutes gather around him to do his will. There's nothing mystical about it – I suppose Dionysius has babbled on to you about his history of the supposed magician Eunus and the slave revolt in Sicily sixty years ago, a thoroughly disgusting episode; at least it was contained on an island. They're already saying the same sort of rubbish about Spartacus, that before he was sold into slavery he was seen sleeping with snakes coiled around his head, and the slave he calls his wife is some sort of prophetess who goes into convulsions and speaks for the god Bacchus.'
'So they say down in the Subura markets,' I admitted.
Crassus wrinkled his nose. 'Why anyone would live in the
Subura when there are so many decent neighbourhoods in Rome-'
'My father left me a house, up on the Esquiline,' I explained.
'Take my advice and sell whatever sort of rattrap you've got on the Esquiline and buy a newer place outside the city walls; out on the Campus Martius beyond the Forum Holitorium there's a lot of new building going on, by the old naval yards. Close by the river, clean air, good values. More wine?'
I accepted. Crassus rubbed his eyes, but from the way he ground his jaw I could see he was not sleepy.
'But we were talking about Spartacus,' he said. 'In the beginning there were only seventy of them – can you imagine, just seventy miserable Thracian gladiators who decided to escape from their master. They didn't even have a plan; they were going to bide their time and look for an opportunity, but then one of their number betrayed them – slaves always betray one another – and they acted on impulse, using axes and spits from the cookhouse for weapons. The goddess Fortune must have looked down and been amused, because on their way out of town they came upon a driver with a cart full of real weapons, headed for Batiatus's gladiator farm. From then on it seemed that nothing could stop them. To be sure, the threat was badly gauged at the start; no one in Rome could take a revolt of gladiators seriously, so they sent out Clodius with a half legion of irregulars, thinking that would be the end of it. Ha! It was merely the end of Clodius's career in politics. Victory feeds on victory; every time he triumphed over Roman arms Spartacus found it easier to incite more slaves to join him. They say he now commands a movable nation of over a hundred thousand men, women, and children. And not only slaves; even freeborn herdsmen and shepherds have cast their lot with him. For one thing, they say he hands out the booty with no regard for rank or station; his foot soldiers get as great a share as his generals.'
Crassus curled his lip as if his wine had gone sour. 'The whole affair is perverse! To think it should come to this, that I should be scrambling for glory by pitting myself against a slave, a gladiator. The Senate won't even allow me a triumph in Rome if I win, never mind that Spartacus is a greater threat to the Republic than Mithridates or Jugurtha ever were. I'll be lucky if they give me a garland. And if I should lose…' A shadow crossed his face. He muttered a prayer of supplication, dabbed his fingers in his wine cup and tossed the drops over his shoulder.
It seemed a good time to change the subject. 'Was it true, the story that Dionysius told this evening, about the sea cave?'
Crassus smiled, as he had at dinner. 'Every word. Oh, I suppose it's become a bit embellished in the retelling over the years, given a nostalgic polish. In many ways those were terrible times for me, miserable months of anxious waiting. And grief He swirled his cup and studied its depths. 'It is a hard thing for a young man to lose his father, especially to suicide. His enemies drove him to it. And an older brother, assassinated only because Cinna and Marius were bent on destroying the best families in Rome. They would have wiped out the nobility altogether if they could have. Thank the gods, and especially Fortune, that Sulla rose up to save us.'
He sighed. 'Do you know, stuck in that miserable cave day after day, month after month, I made a vow to myself every morning: they won't get me, I said. They struck down my father, they struck down my brother, but I will not be struck down! And so far I haven't been.'
He swirled his cup and blinked, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them wide, looking weary but far from sleep. 'I did the right thing, you know, the pious thing. I honoured the gods and the shades of the dead. I paid my father's debts, though it left me with nothing, and I took up his cause, and when the times became more settled I married my brother's widow. I married Tertulla for piety, not love; even so, I have never regretted the choice. Not all of us can indulge ourselves in cheap sentiment, like Lucius Licinius. Or Mummius!' he snorted. 'Now Lucius is dead, and I – I am either the man of the hour, as Dionysius will gladly tell you, or else a man who is marching steadily and without the slightest hesitation towards his utter ruination at the hands of a slave. I would rather see my wealth vanish than to hear them whisper behind my back in the Forum: "He was brought low by a mere gladiator…" '
While I shifted uneasily in my chair, he paused to sip from his cup. 'You think I should spare the slaves, don't you, Gordianus?'
'If I can prove to you that they should not die.'
He shook his head sadly. 'All men are fated to die, Gordianus. Why does the idea fill them with such abhorrence? Wealth and possessions, joy and pain, even the body – especially the body – all these vanish in the well of time. Only honour matters in the end. Honour is what men remember. Or dishonour.'
Such a way of thinking sums up the difference between nobles and ordinary men, I thought; it excuses the most horrifying atrocities and lets go the simplest opportunities for charity and mercy.
'But you must have come here for a reason,' said Crassus, 'unless you were merely eavesdropping. Do you have something to report, Gordianus?'
'Only that we found the body of one of the missing slaves.'
'Yes?' He raised an eyebrow. 'Which one?'
'The old secretary, Zeno.'
'Where was he? My men supposedly searched every possible hiding place within a day's ride.'
'He was in plain sight. Or at least what was left of him. Somehow he ended up in Lake Avernus. We found his remains on the shoreline; most of his body had been eaten away. Fortunately, enough remained of his face for Olympias to recognize him.'
'Avernus! I know for a fact that before he left for Rome Mummius assigned a group of men to search the whole area around the lake, including the shore. How long had Zeno been there?'
'For days, at least.'
'Then somehow they missed finding him. Probably one of them saw a bit of mist in the shape of his dead wife, or the lake spat like a baby with colic, and the whole lot of them turned and ran, then they lied when they reported there was nothing to find. They will have to be disciplined; the time to make one's authority clear is long before the fighting starts. Just another of the endless details I shall have to attend to tomorrow!' He turned wearily toward the table and rifled among the documents until he found a wax tablet and stylus. He scribbled a note and tossed the tablet back onto the table. 'Where is the body of Zeno now, or what remains of it?'
'There was very little of him left, as I said. Unfortunately, my son Eco slipped in the mud while he was carrying the head along the shore; it fell into a boiling pool of water…' I shrugged. I was uncertain why I lied, except that I wanted to avoid calling attention to Olympias.
'You mean you have nothing to show me?' Crassus suddenly seemed to have reached the end of his patience. 'This whole business is absurd. Between you and Gelina and Mummius – really, it's been a very long day, Gordianus, and tomorrow will be even longer. I think you may go now.'
'Of course.' I stood and began to turn, then stopped. 'One other thing, if I may impose on your patience for another moment, Marcus Crassus. I see that you've been looking over Lucius Licinius's documents.'
'Yes?'
'I wonder if you've come across anything… untoward?' 'What do you mean?'
'I'm not sure. Sometimes a man's records can reveal unexpected things. There might be something among all those documents that might have a bearing on my own work.'
'I can't imagine how. The truth is, Lucius usually kept impeccable records; I required him to do so. When I was here in the spring I looked over his ledgers and found everything accounted for, using the methods I had prescribed. Now it's all a puzzle.'
'In what way?'
'Expenses have been entered with no explanation. There are contradictory indications of how often he used the Fury, and on what errands. Stranger still, it seems to me that some documents must be missing altogether. I thought at first that I could reconstruct and make sense of them by myself, but I think I shall be unable to. I'd have brought along my chief accountant from Rome if I'd known the state of things, but I had no idea that Lucius's affairs were in such chaos.'
'And do you find any of this suggestive?'
'Suggestive of what?' He looked at me quizzically, then snorted. 'With you, everything comes back to the murder. Yes, it suggests something to me – namely, that the old secretary Zeno had made such a muddle of things that Lucius decided to give him a sound beating, whereupon the hotheaded young stableman Alexandros exploded in a Thracian rage and killed his master, where upon the two slaves fled into the night, only to find themselves swallowed up by the Jaws of Hades. There, I've done your work for you, Gordianus. Now you can go to bed content.'
From the tone of his voice I knew that Crassus insisted on having the final word. I was at the door, reaching to open it, when my hand froze. Something had been not quite right from the moment I entered the room; I had felt an apprehension so vague that I had dismissed it as one blinks away a mote of dust. At that instant I knew what it was, and that I had seen it not once, but over and over as I had sat listening to Crassus and letting my eyes wander about the room.
I turned and walked to the little statue of Hercules in his lion hood.
'Marcus Crassus, was there a guard on this room during the day?'
'Of course not. My bodyguards go where I go. The room was empty, so far as I know. No one has legitimate business to come into this room except me.'
'But someone might have entered?'
'I suppose. Why do you ask?'
'Marcus Crassus, you mentioned the blood on this statue to no one?'
'Not even to Morpheus,' he said wearily, 'with whom I have a meeting long overdue.'
'And yet someone else in the house knew of it. Because since last we spoke someone has done a thorough job of removing the dried blood from the lion's mane.'
'What?'
'See here, where last night there was plentiful evidence of blood trapped in the sculpted furrows, someone has since then deliberately and carefully scraped them clean. You can even see where the metal has been newly scratched.'
He pursed his lips. 'What of it?'
'The rest of the room isn't freshly cleaned; I see dust on the shelves, and a circle from a wine cup on the table. It seems unlikely that a slave would have given such a thorough cleaning to this particular object in this particular room, with so much other work to do in preparation for the funeral. Besides, any domestic slave fit for this house would have known how to clean a statue without scarring the metal. No, I think this was done hurriedly by someone who didn't know that the blood had already been noticed, and hoped to prevent us from seeing it. That someone was not Alexandros, and it surely was not Zeno. "Whereby it follows that the murderer of Lucius Licinius, or someone who knows something about die murder, is here among us, actively concealing evidence.'
'Possibly,' Crassus admitted, sounding weary and cross. 'It's getting chilly,' he complained, plucking his chlamys from the centaur statue and wrapping it across his shoulders.
'Marcus Crassus, I think it might be a good idea to place a guard inside this room at all times, to make sure that nothing else is taken or altered without our knowledge.'
'If you wish. Now, is there anything else?'
'Nothing, Marcus Crassus,' I said quietly as I left the room, walking backwards and nodding my head in deference.