recognized from the previous night, had apparently never left.
I had been told to seek out a man who called himself Salax ('The tavern is named after him,' my source had joked). He was easy enough to spot, since in place of a real nose he wore a leather one. ('Whatever you do, don't ask him how he lost his nose!' I had been warned.) He admitted readily enough to knowing Marcus Caelius-a frequent visitor to the tavern-but about poisons he declared himself completely ignorant, and became no more knowledgeable even when I rattled my coin purse. Instead he pointed toward the idle whores and suggested another way to lighten my purse.
I had looked under all the rocks I knew. The snakes had all bared their fangs and hissed, but for better or worse not one of them had produced any poison.
It was possible, even likely, that Caelius had obtained poison not on his own but from the same source which had hired or compelled him to harass the Alexandrian envoys-directly from King Ptolemy, or per-haps from the king's friend Pompey. In that case I could expect no luck at all in tracking the poison. The network of spies and lackeys who worked for Pompey and the king would reveal nothing to an outsider.
If Caelius killed Dio at the bidding of Dio's enemies, why had he done so? Because he was in debt to Pompey? That seemed distinctly possible. If so, I might be able to find someone who at least knew of the debt. I returned to the Forum and sought out a different set of sources, more conversant with politics than poison. It was easy enough to find men willing to talk, but impossible to find hard facts. It was as Clodius had said: plenty of people professed to 'know' the 'truth' (Caelius tried to poison Dio and failed, then Caelius and Asicius together stabbed Dio), but no one seemed to have any real evidence.
I found men who had attended the trial of Asicius and talked with them at length. The common knowledge was that Asicius was guilty and everyone knew it, but among the judges the weak-minded had been dazzled by Cicero's defense and the weak-willed bribed by King Ptolemy's gold-together, a safe majority. Yet, when I questioned these men about the trial itself, about the speeches and the witnesses who had given evidence, it seemed to me that the prosecution had been able to come up with little more than I had-hearsay and innuendo. Perhaps the judges had simply acquitted Asicius for lack of proof. It was a frustrating day.
The sun was beginning to set as Belbo and I trudged up the Ramp. I suddenly realized that I had seen nothing of Catullus all day. Perhaps I had finally convinced him that I was not his rival in love. The absurdity of the notion made me smile.
But my smile stiffened when we reached the top of the Ramp and I saw what was in front of my house.
'Belbo, I must be seeing things. I hope so.'
'What do you mean, Master?'
'Do you see a group of idle bodyguards lounging outside my front door?'
'Yes, Master.'
'And do their faces look familiar?' 'They do, Master. An ugly lot.'
'And is that not a litter in their midst, set against the wall while the bearers relax in the street?' 'It is, Master.'
'And does the litter not have red and white striped curtains, drawn back so that we can see that the box is empty?' 'That is so, Master.'
'Do you know what this means, Belbo?' He quailed at the realization. 'I think so, Master… ' 'Cybele, spare my manhood! Clodia is in my house-and so is Bethesda.'
One of Clodia's bodyguards had the temerity to challenge me outside my own front door. Fortunately the man's captain recognized me. He berated his underling and then actually had the manners to apologize to me. Not all of Clodius's gangsters were completely uncivilized, but every one of them looked capable of killing a man without blinking. Seeing them gathered outside my house set my teeth on edge.
Once inside, I drew aside a slave girl who was passing through the foyer. 'Is your mistress here?'
'Yes, Master. In the garden.'
'Shhh. Keep your voice down. Do I have a visitor?' 'There is a visitor, Master, yes.'
'Tell me that your mistress is napping in the garden, and that my visitor is quietly secluded in my study.'
The slave looked at me, perplexed. 'No, Master. The mistress is entertaining the visitor in the little garden at the back of the house.' 'Oh, dear. Has the visitor been here long?'
'Quite some time, Master. Long enough to have finished the first ewer of wine and sent for another.'
'Have you heard… shouting?' 'No, Master.' 'Harsh words?'
She frowned. 'Please, Master, I never eavesdrop.'
'But you'd notice if your mistress had, say, strangled the other woman, or vice versa?'
The girl looked at me strangely, then managed an uneasy laugh. 'Oh, you're making a joke, aren't you, Master?'
'Am I?'
'Shall I go tell the mistress that you're home?'
'No! Just go on about your business, as if I'd never come in.'
I quietly made my way to the back of the house. It was possible, from a little passageway off my bedroom, to look through a screen of ivy into the small private garden where Bethesda and Clodia were sitting. They were not alone. Chrysis sat on a pillow at her mistress's feet. Diana was seated next to her mother, holding her hand. Their voices were low, hardly more than a murmur. Their tone was somber. They seemed to be deep in serious discussion. That was the last thing I had expected. What on earth could these women have in common?
I reached out with my forefinger and pushed aside an ivy leaf to get a better look at Clodia. Even in an unassuming stola of soft gray wool she was stunningly beautiful. At least she'd had the sense to put on decent clothing before she came calling at my house. I looked at Bethesda, expecting to see jealousy on her face. Instead her expression was pensive and melancholy, mirroring that of the other women.
Clodia's voice was so low that I had to strain to hear.
'With me, it was an uncle, not blood-kin, but one of my step-mother's brothers. Like you, I kept it a secret. I was fifteen, a bit older than your Diana. My father had just betrothed me to my cousin Quintus, but with Father away from Rome the wedding had to wait. That was quite all right by me. I wasn't eager for marriage, like some girls. But of course, if I had been married, then perhaps… ' She took a breath and went on. 'Uncle Marcus had always looked at me in a certain way. You know what I mean.' The other women nodded sympathetically. 'Perhaps it was the betrothal that set him off, thinking that once Quintus took me he would never have the chance again. One day, at the family horti, he caught me alone.' She took a deep breath. 'Afterward, one wonders how the gods could allow such a thing to happen.'
'You never told your stepmother?' said Bethesda.
'I hated her then. I hated her even more after what Uncle Marcus did. He was her brother, after all. I didn't trust her. I thought she might take his side.'
'What about your own brothers?' said Diana.
'I should have told them. I did tell Publius, but not until many years later, after Uncle Marcus was dead.'
'But your sisters-surely you told them,' said Bethesda.
'My half sisters were closer to their mother than to me. I couldn't trust them not to tell her. No, the only person I told was an old slave woman who had been with my father since long before I was born, and I told her only when I began to realize that Uncle Marcus had planted a baby in me. She showed me what to do, but she warned me that if I aborted the child I might never be able to have sons.'
'A Roman superstition!' Bethesda clucked her tongue.
'Still, it proved to be true. That was another reason I never told my husband about what Uncle Marcus did to me, and what followed; Quintus would have blamed me for giving him a daughter instead of a son. He would probably have blamed me for tempting Uncle Marcus. It's the way men think. Quintus knew he wasn't the first, but he never knew about Uncle Marcus. He died, never knowing.'
I listened, disturbed, and then astonished by what Clodia did next: she leaned forward and took Bethesda's hand, the one Diana was not already holding, and pressed it between her palms. 'But you said that it was the same with you, Bethesda-that you kept it a secret.'
Bethesda lowered her eyes. 'Who could I have told? A free Roman girl might have recourse to law or family- but an Egyptian slave girl in Alexandria? The man had done the thing often to my mother while she lived; she told me that the master's abuse would kill her in the end, and it finally did. After she died, he turned to me. I was much younger than you were, Clodia, not even old enough to bear a child. He did the thing to me only once, or tried to. I
