I shrugged. 'I may have been a wanderer, but I always had the humble house of my father to come back to here in Rome on the EsquilineHill.'
'But surely that couldn't be as fine as this. You have prospered remarkably. You see, I judged you rightly when I met you long ago in Alexandria. I have known many wise men, philosophers who crave knowledge as other men crave fine wines or sumptuous clothing or a beautiful slave-as a glittering possession that will bring them comfort and earn other men's esteem. But you sought after truth as if you wished to marry her. You yearned for truth, Gordianus, as if you could not live without breathing her perfume every morning and night. You loved all her mysteries in equal measure-the great mysteries of philosophy as well as the practical mystery of discovering the killer of an Alexandrian cat. To search for truth is virtue. For your virtue the gods have rewarded you.'
I could think of no response but a shrug. In the thirty years since I had last seen Dio I easily could have died a hundred times, for my labors had often brought me into danger, or I could have fallen into ruin like so many other men. Instead I owned a fine house on the Palatine and counted senators and wealthy merchants among my neighbors. Dio's explanation of my good luck was as reasonable as any other, though it seems to me that even philosophers cannot say what causes Fortune to smile on one man and show spite to another. Watching him resume his fitful pacing, I couldn't help thinking that Dio, for all his years of devotion to finding the truth, had the haggard look of a man whom Fortune had abandoned.
*'Catilina's Riddle (St. Martin's Press, 1993).
It had been some time since I had conversed at length with a philosopher. I had forgotten how much they loved to talk, even more than politicians, and not always to the point. We had rambled far from the purpose of Dio's visit. It was beginning to grow chilly in the garden.
'Come, let's go back into the house. If the brazier is too hot, I'll have the serving girl bring you some cool wine.'
'Heated wine for me,' Trygonion said, shivering.
'Yes, more of your very fine wine,' Dio murmured. 'I'm quite thirsty.'
'Hungry, as well?' I said. My own stomach rumbled. 'No!' he insisted. But as he stepped through the doorway he tripped and stumbled, and when I reached out to steady him I felt him trembling. 'When did you last eat?' He shook his head. 'I'm not sure.' 'You can't remember?'
'Yesterday I dared to take a walk outside, disguised as you see me now, and bought some bread in the market.' He shook his head. 'I should have bought more to eat this morning-but of course someone could have poisoned it while I slept… '
'Then you've eaten nothing at all today?'
'The slaves tried to poison me at the last place I stayed! Even at the house of Titus Coponius I can't feel safe. If one man's slaves can be bribed to kill a houseguest then so can another's. I eat nothing unless I see it prepared with my own eyes, or unless I buy it myself in the markets where it could not possibly have been tampered with.'
'Some men have slaves to taste their food for them,' I said, knowing the practice was especially common in Dio's Alexandria, where the inbred, rival monarchs and their agents were forever attempting secretly to do away with one another.
'Of course I had a taster!' said Dio. 'How do you think I escaped the attempt to poison me? But the problem with tasters is that they must be replaced, and my stay in Rome has exhausted my resources. I don't even have money to make my way back to Alexandria once the weather warms and the sailing season begins.' He stumbled again and almost fell against the brazier.
'But you're faint with hunger!' I protested, gripping his arm and steering him toward a chair. 'I insist that you eat. The food in my house is perfectly safe, and my wife-' I was about to add some extravagant estimation of Bethesda's culinary skills, but having just been praised as a seeker of truth I said instead, 'My wife is not at all a bad cook, especially when she prepares dishes in the Alexandrian style.'
'Your wife cooks?' said Trygonion. 'In such a grand house as this?'
'The property's more impressive than my purse. Besides, she likes to cook, and she has a slave to help her. Here she is now,' I added, for in the doorway stood Bethesda.
I was about to say more by way of introduction, but the look on her face stopped me. She looked from Dio to Trygonion, then back at Dio, who in his faint seemed hardly to notice her, then at me, all with a scowl that after thirty years of living with her I could not account for. What had I done now?
'Diana told me that you had visitors,' she finally said. Her old Egyptian accent asserted itself and her tone was even haughtier than usual. She scrutinized my visitors so harshly that Trygonion nervously dropped his eyes, and Dio, finally taking notice of her, blinked and drew back as if he had looked into the sun.
'Is something wrong?' I said, secretly grimacing at her with the side of my face. I thought this might make her smile. I was mistaken.
'I suppose you want to eat something,' she said in a flat voice. The way she twisted her mouth would have spoiled the looks of a less beautiful woman.
Ah, that was it, I thought-she'd been in the doorway longer than I'd realized and had overheard my qualified endorsement of her culinary skills. Even so, a mere lifting of her eyebrow would have sufficed to express her displeasure. Perhaps it was the fact that I had packing to do for a trip the next day and was leaving the work to her while I entertained visitors in my study-and dubious visitors at that. I took another look at Dio, with his rumpled stola and clumsy makeup, and at Trygonion, who played with his bleached hair and nervously fluttered the folds of his toga under Bethesda's harsh gaze, and saw how they must appear to her. Bethesda acquiesced long ago to the parade of disreputable characters through our house, but she has never hidden her disdain from those she dislikes. It was clear that she thought very little of the Egyptian ambassador and his companion.
'Something to eat-yes, I think so,' I said, raising my voice to capture my visitors' attention, for they both seemed spellbound by Bethesda's stare. 'For you, Trygonion?'
The little gallus blinked and managed to nod.
'And for you, too, Teacher-I insist! I won't allow you to leave my house without taking some food to steady you.'
Dio bowed his head, looking tired and perplexed, trembling with agitation and, no doubt, hunger. He muttered something to himself, then finally looked up at me and nodded. 'Yes — an Alexandrian dish, you said?'
'What could we offer our visitors? Bethesda, did you hear me?'
She seemed to wake from a daydream, then cleared her throat. 'I could make some Egyptian flatbread… and perhaps something with lentils and sausage… '
'Oh yes, that would be very good,' said Dio, staring at her with an odd expression. Philosopher he might be, but hunger and homesickness can addle the mind of any man.
Suddenly Diana appeared at Bethesda's side. Dio looked more con-fused than ever as he gazed from mother to daughter. Their resemblance is striking.
Bethesda departed as abruptly as she had appeared. Diana lingered for a moment and seemed to mimic her mother's scowl. The longer I live with a woman the more mysterious the experience becomes, and now that there are two of them in the household, the mystery is doubled.
Diana turned on her heel and followed her mother with the same quick, haughty stride. I looked at my guests. In comparison to comprehending a woman, I thought, comprehending another man-even a philosopher in a stola or a gallus who had given up his sex-was really not so difficult.
The serving girl brought us wine and some crusts of bread to stave off our hunger until the meal was ready. A chill had crept in from the garden, so I called on Belbo to stoke the brazier while I closed the shutters. I glanced outside and saw that twilight had descended on the atrium, casting the face of Minerva into inscrutable shadow.
With more wine in his stomach, as well as a bit of bread, Dio at last found the fortitude to recount the events which had reduced him to such a state of uncertainty and fear.
Chapter Four
Best to begin at the beginning,' sighed Dio, 'insofar as that's possible with such a twisted tale. You know
