Leaving Ione in the entrance hall, Calpurnia followed the old woman into the
“Callirhoe!” Agathon turned in surprise and opened his arms wide. “I never hoped to see you again! You nearly missed me, I was just-”
“Going out?” She recognized his best cloak and tunic, smelled the scent in his oiled hair. “To spend the night drinking with your friends? I’m sorry, this was a mistake, I’ll go.” She heard the shrill accusation in her voice-like some shrewish wife. Of course, he had his own life. What did she think?
He stood back and smiled his crooked smile. “You’ve saved me from an evening of dissipation with dull companions, for which I thank you. Don’t be angry. It’s you who have avoided me, you know. What has changed your mind?”
What could she say? That she was a desperate, foolish woman? That her own maid had persuaded her to do what she knew she mustn’t? That she loved him to distraction and was past caring what happened? All she could do was look at him with pleading eyes.
Agathon saw her confusion. He took her hand and drew her down onto a chair and sat beside her. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here. Baucis,” he turned to his housekeeper, “bring us wine and something to eat. Give the excellent Ione something too. I see her lurking there in the doorway.”
Calpurnia drank off her cup in one draught and poured another. She needed it for courage. She had made up her mind.
“Steady now,” Agathon laughed. “I don’t want to have to carry you home tonight.”
“I needn’t go home tonight.” It was the merest whisper.
He raised an eyebrow. “Your husband’s away again?”
She nodded.
“For how long this time?”
“I don’t know.”
“And so you…?” He drew closer to her. “Are you sure, my love? Are you quite sure?”
She filled her hands with his hair and kissed him with a passion that was close to anger.
And now he had picked her up, and now he was carrying her up the stairs to his bed chamber, and now his breath was on her cheek, his weight pressing on her, his hands under her gown…
“May as well finish off this wine, then.” Baucis eased her old bones down onto Agathon’s chair and motioned Ione to the other one. “Not a wise woman, your mistress. She’s laying up a store of misery with that one. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”
“We women are never wise,” Ione smiled over her wine cup.
“And you’re playing a risky game too, my girl. This could all come crashing down on your head.”
“I’m only a servant, I do what I’m told.”
The old woman leaned close and gave her a searching look. “I’ve been a house slave all my life and I’ve seen more than one pretty young thing like you come to grief. They meddle in their masters’ affairs for many reasons- idleness, wantonness, ambition, jealousy, vengeance. I wonder which is yours.”
Ione met her gaze with a face like a mask, revealing nothing. “You think too much, old woman.”
***
They descended on the village at nightfall like an attacking army. Pliny was no soldier, he left such things to Aquila, who only knew one way to deal with barbarians. The village was a haphazard sprawl of thatched huts, huddled around a muddy clearing and surrounded by a flimsy palisade of wattles. The troopers burst through, yelling and brandishing torches, kicking in doors and dragging people out. Amid the screams of women and children, the bleating of goats, and the honking of geese, they shouted commands in Latin to frightened, uncomprehending faces.
Eventually, they identified the village headman, a skeletal old man who looked ready to fall down with fright. The leather merchant, who was looking unhappier by the minute, pointed out the two men, a father and son, who had brought him the saddle. They were hanging back in the crowd, trying not to be noticed: it was obvious why the Romans were there. Pliny and his officers crowded into the headman’s hut to be out of the rain while the troopers stationed themselves around the palisade. The headman understood a few words of Greek and the leather merchant spoke a little of the country people’s dialect. In this way Pliny interrogated the two.
While out hunting, they said, they had found two tethered horses in a wooded clearing. They saw no sign of the riders, they hadn’t killed them, they swore it by all their gods. When they saw the horses, they couldn’t believe their good fortune-these were fine animals, especially the grey with the beautiful saddle. Yes, the horses were here, with the one saddle which wasn’t so fancy. They were sorry. They begged for their lives.
Chapter Thirteen
Pliny rubbed his chin, which now bore a two-day stubble, and tried to think philosophical thoughts of patience and self-control. But the waiting was hard. He and Postumius Marinus, sat on camp stools in an army tent pitched outside the village, listening to Zosimus recite something to pass the time. Pliny only half paid attention; his mind was out in the deep woods with his troopers and the young men from the village as they searched in widening circles from the spot where the horses had been found. The men could move faster through this rough country without an old man like him slowing them down. He had sent back to Nicomedia yesterday to requisition Balbus’ hounds, who knew their master’s scent, and to ask his physician, Marinus, to ride up and join him. The search had gone on until nightfall yesterday and resumed at dawn. If they had no success today he was resolved to return to the city.
“Sir!” A breathless trooper ducked under the tent flap. “We’ve found something.”
“Stir your old bones, Marinus, mount up!” Pliny shouted, feeling suddenly no longer old.
Their way led upwards, farther into the hills. The rain had stopped overnight and now sunlight sifted through the branches. Overhead, squadrons of migrating storks filled the sky. Looking up, Pliny noticed for the first time that distant ridge that was said to resemble a woman’s profile. It had been shrouded in mist when they first arrived. As they rode, the forest gave way to towering outcroppings of rock cut by deep crevasses and they were forced to dismount and proceed on foot, just as Balbus and his nameless companion must have done.
If it was Balbus.
They had traveled a good half hour when they heard the baying of the dogs and smelled the sweet, pungent, gagging stench of putrefaction.
“Over here, sir. Cover your nose, it’s pretty bad.”
Suetonius held out a hand to steady him as Pliny half slid down the steep side of a bramble-choked gully. There, two soldiers leaned on their shovels, their neck cloths tied around their faces like highwaymen. The dogs jumped and strained at their leashes, scratching the ground and nearly pulling their handlers into the pit. Marinus followed him down. The body lay in a shallow grave, bloated and blackened and crawling with maggots, an obscene intrusion in that pleasant autumnal setting-but, unmistakably, Balbus.
“How long do you think he’s been here?” Pliny asked.
The physician shrugged. “He’s been missing, what, twelve days or so? Still plenty of flesh left. But it’s cooler up here in the hills and the body was covered, that makes a difference. The question is,
“Hard to be sure, of course, the state he’s in, but I don’t see a wound anywhere, and I’ve looked at plenty of wounds in my time.” Marinus had begun his career as physician in the
No one moved.
“Come, come,” he snapped. “It’s a body. You call yourselves soldiers?”
They turned the corpse, using their spades and Marinus bent to his work again. “Ah!” he murmured after a moment. “Come and look, Governor.” This vertebra is crushed.” He touched it with a finger where the flesh had
