reached up and pulled down a box, disturbing the dust of decades. He sneezed loudly.
A day-and-a-half later, the two men, weary and dusty and red-eyed, presented Pliny with the fruits of their search.
“Luckily, Patrone,” said Zosimus, “land doesn’t change hands very often around here. Once we separated the deeds from everything else, there weren’t so many to look at.”
“And this one seems the likeliest,” Caelianus said. “We sneaked it out while the clerk was asleep.” He placed a dusty scroll on Pliny’s desk and unrolled it. “A very small parcel, less than a mile square-that caught our eye first of all. What would anyone want with such a small piece of land? And it lies, as near as we can tell, about seventy
“And the most interesting thing,” Zosimus added, “is that it was bought from a larger estate belonging to someone named Hypatius thirty-two years ago for three thousand drachmas by a certain Barzanes. And it says here after his name ‘Resident Alien’.”
“A Persian!” Pliny thumped the desk.
He poured glasses of wine all around and toasted them.
The two men, who had become friends, went off merrily to enjoy a bath.
***
Suetonius put his arm around Sophronia’s naked shoulder and drew her head onto his chest. They lay on her bed in a tangle of silk sheets.
“That was lovely,” she said.
“I have a confession to make, though. I’m combining business with pleasure.”
“And you think I’m not? We understand each other, Gaius Suetonius. We’re not children.”
“Two questions then. First of all, your half-brother, Argyrus. Has he been bothering you?”
“He hasn’t shown his face here since you and the governor questioned him. You must have thrown quite a scare into him. Do you think he killed Balbus?”
“Only if he really feared that you would marry him. He says he didn’t believe it.”
“Oh, he believed it all right. He threatened to strangle me. I laughed at him.”
“And when was this marriage supposed to take place?”
“Balbus told me that he had written a new will naming me as his principal heir and providing for Aulus, his son, but leaving Fabia with nothing. He hadn’t told her yet. He said he was waiting for the Spring so he could divorce her and put her on a ship the same day. He didn’t want her hanging about. He loathed the woman.”
Suetonius stroked her hair. “Did you love him?”
“A little.”
“What will you do now?”
“What I’ve always done. Look out for myself. Argyrus doesn’t frighten me. You said there were two questions.”
“Does the name Barzanes mean anything to you?
“I don’t think so, why?”
“Another angle we’re pursuing. I’m not to talk about it until we know more. But I think we’re going to need the help of your Persians.”
“Count on me, my dear.”
She kissed him.
***
“We were told you wanted to see us.” Arsames avoided mentioning Sophronia’s name.
Pliny explained while Arsames translated for his companions. A minute passed in whispering and gesticulation.
Arsames threw his hands wide. “Barzanes is a common name among us. You say he purchased a piece of land out in the woods somewhere? We are merchants, shopkeepers, not peasants. Why would he do such a thing?”
“What do you know about Mithras?” Suetonius asked.
The black eyebrows shot up. “What do I
“Do you worship him in caves?”
“Caves! Certainly not.”
“Think again,” Pliny urged, “about this Barzanes. He would be a very old man by now.”
Arsames shrugged, turned again to his companions. The whispering grew animated, finally punctuated with a loud “Ah!”
“My father-” he indicated a frail, stooped old man “-once knew a man from the land of Commagene by that name who lived here and mixed with us Persians for a time. A foolish fellow who used to boast that he came of royal stock although his clothes were shabby. People laughed at him, my father says, and, after a time, he turned his back on us. No one has seen him in years. He’s probably dead.”
Commagene, Pliny knew, was a region in the province of Syria, formerly an independent kingdom, whose ruling caste was culturally Persian. “Does your father know where he lived?” The old man touched his son’s shoulder and spoke in his ear.
“My father remembers,” said Arsames, “that this man’s clothes sometimes had a whiff of urine about them as if he’d spent too much time in a public toilet or a fullery. That’s why people laughed. A prince who smelled of piss!”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Pliny and Suetonius trod carefully on the slick cobblestones of the crooked alley. A rivulet of liquid filth ran down the middle of it; rats squeaked and scuttled in its dark corners. The tottering buildings on either side nearly met above their heads. Their way was lit only by the flaring torch of the Night Watch slave who guided them. Behind them, Galeo and three other
Two days had passed since the meeting with the Persians. Pliny had summoned the city’s Night Watch-a score of public slaves, most of them elderly-who knew intimately the city’s every corner and cul-de-sac, every wine shop and cook shop and run-down bath house. He had promised a reward to whoever could track down a certain old foreigner, poorly dressed but haughty, living in the vicinity of a fuller’s establishment. He hadn’t hoped for much.
But then one of the slaves had come back that morning to report that the proprietor of a cook shop knew of a man answering the description. He would come in now and then for a plate of sausage or a bowl of broth, the man said. He was an old geezer who walked with the aid of a stick. He didn’t say much but his accent was foreign. He never gave his name. The cook shop man took him for a Jew, but he might be anything. He never mixed with the other customers but ordered the serving girl around as if she were his slave and even slapped her once when she was clumsy. Altogether, a nasty old piece of goods. The cook shop man thought he lived in an
And so here they were, creeping up on the four-story apartment building, its plaster walls patchy and grimy with age, in what was almost certainly a pointless exercise. Pliny could believe that this was the Barzanes that Arsames’ father had known. But could such a person be the mover behind a secret cult to which the likes of Balbus
