The Bull Slayer

“Indeed it does,” said Pliny, reminding them that Nicomedia was not even permitted a volunteer fire brigade. “Somehow, we must find out who the other members are. For all we know, they’re people we pass in the street every day. What do they do out in this cave of theirs? What purpose binds them together?”

“They’re a small group surely,” said Marinus. “The boy said there were seven ranks. Lion and Raven are two. Persian and presumably Bridegroom, Glaucon’s rank, are two others. Of course, there may be more than one holder of a given rank, but I’d guess there aren’t many more to be discovered. How many people can fit into a cave, after all?”

They sat for a minute in thoughtful silence.

“Where do we go from here then, Governor?” Nymphidius said at last.

“I’ll interview Glaucon’s brother again,” Pliny replied. “Is it conceivable that he knew Silvanus, or Argyrus? Who were his particular friends? Although Theron is so embittered that I don’t expect much cooperation on that front. And we’ll search for the cave.”

“A big task. The hillsides out that way are riddled with caves, so I’m told,” Nymphidius said.

“Nevertheless, we must try. It’s somewhere not far from where Balbus was killed. That leather merchant who brought us to the village where the horses were found. Aquila, go find him again. We’re going to need his villagers plus every soldier you can spare. Get started at once.”

Aquila stood and clapped his fist to his chest; happy to be doing something at last.

“And,” Pliny arched his back and stretched. “I can’t think of anything else. Unless one of you-”

“Who owns it?”

“What? What was that?”

Zosimus had been working up the courage to ask his question for some time.

“Owns what, my boy?”

“The land out that way, sir.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

“What a question!” Nymphidius shouted. “It’s wasteland, scrub, nobody owns it.”

“No, wait,” said Pliny. “He’s got something here. Think about it. These cultists-they aren’t peasants, they’re city men, wealthy men, if Glaucon is typical. They don’t just go out in the woods and squat in some cave. They own things, improve them, pass them on. It’s the kind of people they are-the kind of people we are. I believe this cave is on land that someone owns and has used for a purpose.”

“It’s a long shot,” Nymphidius muttered.

“Yes, well what isn’t here?” Pliny retorted. “Zosimus, my boy, I’m proud of you. And, as it’s your idea, I’m putting you in charge of it. Go off to the city record office tomorrow and start looking at land deeds for parcels east of the city to a distance of, say, a hundred stades. If it was legally acquired, there’ll be a record. Take Caelianus to help you. Counting the coin in the treasury can wait.”

***

“Of course, I respect your modesty, Calpurnia, but you must understand that I am a physician. If I had a trained nurse, I would employ her. Unfortunately, I do not have such a person. Now please relax, there is absolutely no danger, the pain is slight, and the marks will disappear within a day or two. And you will feel much, much better for it, I assure you.”

Calpurnia watched him with staring eyes as he heated the brass cupping vessels over a candle flame. Her hands, white-knuckled, gripped the arms of her chair.

Ione hovered beside her. “I had it done once, matrona, it isn’t so bad.”

“If I refuse?”

Marinus looked at her sternly. “Lady, it is your husband’s wish. He’s worried about you. We all are. It’s plain your humors are unbalanced. Every physician from Hippocrates to our own time has advocated this procedure. Now please let us have no more difficulties.” He spread out his instruments on the side table, selected a lancet and tested its edge against his thumb. “Ione, kindly pull your mistress’ gown up to uncover her thighs.”

Calpurnia looked away. What could she do but submit to this man?

Her flesh quivered under his fingers, touching her where no man but her husband-and her lover-had ever touched her. Brisk, businesslike, Marinus made an incision on the inside of each thigh and, as the blood flowed, pressed a cup over the wounds. She gasped as the hot metal burned her. He took his hands away and cups clung to her.

“So,” he said, “we create a vacuum and draw out the bad blood. You’re not going to faint, are you? Ione, put a cold cloth on your mistress’ forehead. Just another minute now.”

She let out her breath slowly.

The cups cooled and loosened. Marinus wiped the blood away with a ball of wool soaked in wine and applied a styptic that stung horribly. “Brave girl. All done.” He smiled through the thicket of his beard. “As for the red rings, no one will see them who shouldn’t.” He chuckled. “You just rest now. With luck, we won’t have to do this again. I’ll see myself out.”

Ione wiped her forehead. “’Purnia, dear, how do you feel?”

“Raped,” she said between her teeth.

***

The archives of Nicomedia reposed in a colonnaded building adjacent to the council house on the south side of the agora. Zosimus and Caelianus presented the governor’s written order to the elderly clerk, who looked them up and down suspiciously and finally stood aside to admit them. It was a grey morning and daylight barely penetrated the cold interior.

“Suppose you’ll be wanting lamps,” the clerk mumbled. “Mind, you must pay for the oil.”

“How are your records organized?” Zosimus asked.

“Organized?” the clerk repeated the word tentatively as though it were a term in a language with which he was unfamiliar. Organized?”

“Yes, organized,” said Caelianus. “Kindly show us where the land deeds are kept.”

“Land deeds?”

Was the man deaf or half-witted?

“Land deeds!” Caelianus was losing patience.

“No cause to shout,” said the clerk. “This way.”

He turned and shuffled off, leading them into a long, low room whose corners were lost in shadow. Sagging shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling. On the shelves were wooden boxes. “Each shelf for a year,” said the clerk. “Going back maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred years. Who knows?”

“And different kinds of documents are sorted into boxes?” Zosimus asked hopefully.

“Sorted?”

Nothing, it turned out was sorted. The boxes were loaded with scrolls and papers of every description, both private and public, in no discernible order-treaties, decrees of the assembly, edicts of governors, deeds, loans, mortgages, wills, bills of sale, leases, gifts, dowries. Caelianus sighed.

“We are looking,” Zosimus told the clerk, “for a deed to some country property. Is there a cadastral map of the hinterland?”

“Map?”

There was no map. And property boundaries, it emerged, were described in the vaguest terms as so-and-so many stades from this or that hilltop, or river, or milestone.

“Mind,” said the clerk, “nothing’s to leave this room. I’ll send the boy for some lamps.”

He shuffled off.

They looked around with sinking hearts.

“Let’s suppose the property was acquired more than twenty years ago,” Caelianus said at last, “and work back from there.”

They counted shelves, each bearing the name of the Archon for that year. Zosimus