the four bodily humors. If the cold phlegm flows into the veins, the sufferer becomes speechless and chokes, he gnashes his teeth and rolls his eyes-your symptoms exactly. This is all because the phlegm clogging the veins cuts off the air supply to the brain and lungs. The patient kicks when the air is shut off in the limbs, and cannot pass through to the outside because of the phlegm. Rushing upwards and downwards through the blood, it causes convulsions and pain, hence the kicking. The patient suffers all these things when the phlegm flows cold into the blood, which is warm. In time the blood warms the phlegm and the patient recovers his senses. There is no curse. Do you understand me?”
The boy sat up suddenly, wrenching away from his mother’s embrace. “Then there is a cure?”
“Ah, well,” Marinus stroked his beard. “That is more difficult. Diet sometimes helps. But honestly, at your age, a cure is unlikely.”
“Then it’s still a curse. How can I live like this?”
“Julius Caesar managed it rather well,” Suetonius struck in. “Had it all his life. Most people never suspected. I invite you to read my biography of him when it’s published. I’ll send you a copy.”
“But I’ve killed my father! That is the worst curse of all. What will they do to me?”
“Tell me,” said Pliny, “precisely what happened. Everything you can remember.”
“The sun was just coming up. We’d already ridden for two, maybe three hours up into the hills. I was cold, shivering. I begged my father to turn back but he wouldn’t listen. Then he said we should dismount and tie the horses to a tree and go the rest of the way on foot. He said the cave wasn’t far. “
“Do you know where it is?”
“No. The ground was steep and rocky. There was hardly a path that you could see. I was so frightened I could hardly stand up. I felt a fit coming on. Father grabbed my hand and dragged me along. I was crying and he was saying all these things about Mithras and how I would be a man he could be proud of. I broke away and started to run back. He came after me and threw me to the ground. We struggled and I picked up a rock and I hit him with it as hard as I could, here.” Aulus pointed the side of his head. “And then I fainted and that’s all I remember. When I woke up, the sun was low in the sky. And my father wasn’t there. I thought he had just left me. So I went home. I couldn’t find the horses. I had to go the whole way on foot and it was late at night before I got back. I expected him to be there and I was terrified of what he would do to me. But he wasn’t there. I must have wounded him mortally and he dragged himself off into the bushes to die. That’s where you found him, isn’t it?”
“And that’s what you told your mother?”
The boy nodded.
Pliny turned to Fabia. “And you kept his secret to save his life.”
“Should I have lost both of them?” she cried.
Pliny shook his head in amazement. “It’s the stuff of Greek tragedy, like something from the pen of Sophocles! Madam, I admire you-and I never expected to hear myself say that. Now listen to me both of you. We found Balbus buried, with his neck broken. There was no fracture of the skull. I don’t know who killed him or why, but Aulus is not guilty of his father’s blood.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“I once knew a woman,” Pliny said to Marinus, “who suffered from falling fits. Hysteria she said it was. When it came on her she looked just like Aulus.”
“Ah yes, similar symptoms but quite a different cause. Your woman friend had a wandering womb, or, at least, that’s the common theory. Aulus’ case is much more difficult. I feel for the lad.”
“I think telling him about the Divine Julius cheered him up a bit,” said Suetonius.
The three had just returned from Fabia’s. They sat in Pliny’s office, waiting for the others to join them.
“Where
Suetonius was about to protest when in trooped the swaggering Aquila; Nymphidius, limping on his arthritic knee; Caelianus with precise, small steps; and Zosimus, following some steps behind and looking, as always, as if he were entering a club to which he didn’t belong.
Pliny briefed them on the morning’s revelations.
“Extraordinary,” Nymphidius said. “Sacred Disease? Secret cult? In all my years I’ve never heard-”
“It does sound like fiction, doesn’t it?” Suetonius interrupted. “Which reminds me of a thought I had the other day. To capture this whole mystery-when we solve it, that is-in a work of literature, something quite original. A story where the reader doesn’t know the solution until the very end. I don’t believe it’s ever been done before. You, of course, would be the hero of the tale, Gaius Plinius. I would play a small part. I think it would sell-”
Pliny stared at him without blinking. “You will do no such thing.”
“Yes, well, just a passing thought.” Suetonius fell into a coughing fit.
Marinus shot him a look of triumphant malice.
“Let us sum up what we know,” said Pliny carefully, “and what we don’t.” He spent a moment minutely arranging the objects on his desk- the ink stand and styluses, the small bust of Epicurus, the cameo portrait of Calpurnia. ’Purnia! It had once warmed his heart, this painting of her touching a stylus to her lips, gazing at him with her big, serious eyes; now he felt like he was looking at a stranger’s face. With an effort he dragged his mind back to the present.
“Glaucon feared he would be punished-by whom we don’t know-for killing a lion. He was worried enough to consult Pancrates’ oracle about it. We now know from what young Aulus has told us that ‘Lion’ was the title of a rank that Balbus held in an obscure cult. Glaucon and Balbus both owned the same astrology manual-obviously something required of the cult members. Balbus’ neck was broken. Glaucon had been a wrestler, notorious for his brutality. Ergo, Glaucon killed Balbus, and at a place and time that only another cult member would know of. The poor lad’s confession, while not true, is helpful. It allows us to visualize Balbus’ last moments. A rocky path bordered by dense bushes to conceal the assassin. Barely daybreak, the light still faint. Glaucon comes up behind Balbus as he struggles on the ground with his son, gets him in a wrestler’s hold around his neck-and at that very moment Aulus loses consciousness. If he saw anything at all, he doesn’t remember it now.
“The only problem is that we have no idea why Glaucon wanted Balbus dead. And then someone, who styles himself a ‘Persian’, killed Glaucon, evidently out of fear that the man was so troubled by what he had done that he might do something rash, like confess.”
Pliny paused and took a sip of wine.
“Glaucon’s death has opened an unexpected path; one that leads us away from our other suspects. First Silvanus. That man has more than enough motive-personal animosity, fear of exposure as a thief, and perhaps had the opportunity too. But unless we can connect him with Glaucon-which, on the face of it seems unlikely-then we have to remove him from the list of suspects. The same thing holds for Fabia and Argyrus. Did either of them know Glaucon, much less have such influence over him as to get him to commit a murder for them? With Glaucon dead, it’s difficult to prove that he did or didn’t know someone, but on the face of it all these people moved in quite different circles.”
“Unless Argyrus belonged to this cult too” Caelianus offered.
“That is a possibility,” Pliny replied, “and one worth exploring. Because that cult is the key to this.”
“Mithras,” said Suetonius, who had recovered his aplomb and could never resist displaying his knowledge. “An old Persian deity. The Cilician pirates, who terrorized
“And the Cilician pirates were allies of Mithridates!” said Aquila with a slap of his fist in his hand.
“Let’s not start that again,” Pliny said firmly. “I don’t believe this has anything to do with real Persians plotting to murder us in our beds.”
Aquila looked unconvinced.
“And if the cult is anti-Roman,” Pliny went on, “how could Balbus have belonged to it? The man may have been many things, but turncoat is surely not one of them.
“And yet,” said Nymphidius, “he was knowingly breaking the law by belonging to it. Wouldn’t this cult fall under Trajan’s ban on voluntary associations?”
