The Bull Slayer

“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?”

“Hardly. We know who Glaucon is. Comes from a wealthy family, big local landowner. What do you think he means?”

Pancrates chewed on the end of his moustache. “Let’s put a scare into him and see what happens. Tell him he’s angered Hercules, who slew the Nemean lion and resents competition, something like that, you know what to say. We will keep an eye on this Glaucon.”

Chapter Eleven

Nothing was said publicly about Silvanus’ disappearance. Pliny put Caelianus in charge of the treasury with orders to carry on counting the money. The clerks were confined to the building day and night. But Balbus’ disappearance was the only topic of conversation in the Roman community. According to Calpurnia, the wives were in a state of near panic, and it wasn’t long before word spread among the Greeks as well. Wild rumors circulated, and reported sightings of the procurator came in daily. He was seen in a harborside tavern, or lurking around the temple of Zeus, or on the road to Prusa, or in a dozen other places, all equally improbable. Nevertheless, Pliny sent his men to investigate each report. Meanwhile, Fabia kept to herself.

With a confidence he did not feel, Pliny sought to reassure the local grandees. Diocles, whose network of connections reached everywhere, was the obvious choice to receive this message. Pliny had asked him to come in the morning, unobtrusively, for a private meeting with himself and his staff. Instead, he had arrived with a small army of his cronies, including most of the city magistrates and his colleagues on the council, and trailed by a crowd of idle and curious citizens, who milled outside the palace gates. Typical of this little man with his outthrust chest and swept back hair and booming voice, who seemed never to overlook an opportunity to tweak their Roman noses. Pliny was forced to move the proceedings from his office to the audience hall and scare up refreshments for forty people.

“Of course, Governor, we loyal citizens of Nicomedia will do everything in our power to assist you in this crisis.” Diocles seemed to linger over the word crisis. And his voice, Pliny feared, could probably be heard out in the street-the man never merely spoke, he orated. “And you have no idea where he might be? With your permission, my people will begin a thorough search for the procurator. It is, after all, our city, you will grant that we know it better than you do.”

Pliny murmured his thanks. The last thing he wanted was for the Greeks to find Balbus before he did. “Diocles, you can help me best,” he said, “by telling me everything you know about the procurator. You’ve known him, I gather, since he took up his post here some two years ago.”

“Indeed I have, Governor, and found him an excellent man, too. Fair and honest, which, I may say, has not always been the case with our Roman masters.” The arms spread wide in a gesture of confiding frankness, the voice so well-modulated that just the merest note of resentment fell on Pliny’s sensitive ear. Did the man think he was living in Pericles’ Athens? The Bithynians had had one master or another for three centuries.

“But how well did you know him personally,” Suetonius asked, “his habits, his foibles, weaknesses?”

“I’m afraid I can be of no help to you there.” The bland expression never wavered. “We did not socialize.”

“Really,” said Pliny. “I would have thought he was a man worth your while to cultivate.”

“And why would you think that?”

There were more questions to Diocles and his friends, all of them artfully evaded. Finally, Pliny stood up. “Thank you all for coming.” There was no point in prolonging this charade. If they knew anything, they were not going to share it with him, and Diocles was too powerful a man to be pushed. “Whatever has happened to Vibius Balbus,” Pliny assured them, “the administration of the province is unaffected. I am in full control here. It would be unfortunate if this were a cause for civic unrest.” Just a little emphasis on unfortunate, which Diocles surely did not miss.

“Oh, to be sure,” the orator agreed. “But you will-keep us apprised?”

“Of course.”

As the delegation filed out of the audience hall, Diocles turned back. “And your lovely wife, Governor, how is she progressing in the mastery of our language? I hope Timotheus has proved a satisfactory tutor?”

“What? Oh, yes, quite. I think she told me they’ve just started book two of the