'Belbo, you sharp-eyed lookout! Come, he'll never spot us in this crowd. We'll go to him.'
'You're not leaving, are you?' said Catullus.
'I'll be back.'
'But the best is yet to come.' 'Memorize the jokes for me,' I said.
We came upon Eco just as he was beginning to push his way into the throng. His tunic was dirty and his brow pasted with sweat, as might be expected of a man who had just finished a hard ride up from Puteoli. His face was haggard but when he saw us his eyes lit up and he managed a weary smile.
'Papa! No, don't hug me, please. I'm filthy. And sore! I rode all night, knowing the trial must have already started. It's not over,
is it?'
'Not yet. Another full day of speeches-' 'Good. Perhaps there's still time, then.' 'Time for what?' 'To save Marcus Caelius.'
'If he needs saving,' I said, thinking Caelius was doing a pretty good job of defending himself. 'If he deserves to be saved.'
'I only know that he doesn't deserve to be punished for Dio's murder.'
'What are you saying?'
'Caelius didn't kill Dio.'
'You're certain?'
'Yes. I found the slave girl, Zotica, the one who was with Dio the night he died… '
'If it wasn't Caelius and Asicius, then who?'
'I brought the girl back with me…'
Eco suddenly looked very
tired.
'The girl killed Dio?' I frowned. We had considered and rejected that possibility already. 'No.'
'But she knows who did?'
'Not exactly.' Why would Eco not look me in the eye? 'All I can say is that your intuition was right, Papa. The girl was the key.'
'Well? What did you find out?'
'I think you'd better talk to her yourself, Papa.'
The crowd behind us laughed at something, then laughed again, louder. I looked over my shoulder. 'Caelius is just getting to the heart of his speech. Then Crassus will speak, then Cicero — '
'Still, I think you'd better come, Papa. Quickly, before the trial gets any further along.'
'Can't you just tell me what the girl told you?'
His face darkened. 'I don't think that would be wise, Papa. It wouldn't be fair.'
'To whom, the slave girl?'
'Please, Papa! Come with me.' The look on his face convinced me. What terrible secret had so unnerved my son, who had seen all the corruption and duplicity that Rome had to offer?
He had left the girl at his house in the Subura. We walked there as quickly as we could, threading our way through streets crowded with food vendors, acrobats and merry-makers.
'Where did you find her?' I asked, stepping out of the way of a drunken band of gladiators coming up the street. They snarled at Belbo as they passed.
'In one of the hill towns of the far side of Vesuvius, miles from Puteoli. It took some looking. First I had to find the brothel-keeper who'd bought the allotment of slaves that included Zotica. Do you have any idea how many establishments like that there are down on the bay? One after another told me he'd never seen Zotica, and they all wanted a bribe just to tell me that much, and even then they all seemed to be lying just to spite me. Finally I found the man who'd purchased her. But she'd been useless to him, he said. 'Worse than useless-nobody wants a girl with scars on her,' he told me, 'not even the mean ones.' Besides that, she'd turned wild.' 'Wild?'
'That's what he calls it. I suppose a man like that tends to see slaves in conditions that most of us don't, or not very often. Her mind isn't quite right. Maybe she was always a little addled; I don't know. I think she must have been treated well enough in Coponius's house at the beginning, though the other slaves tended to pick on her. Then Dio came along. The girl was innocent, naive, maybe even a virgin. She had no idea of the kinds of things that Dio had in mind for her. She couldn't understand why he wanted to punish her when she'd done nothing wrong. She kept quiet about it at first, too afraid ofDio to resist him, too ashamed to tell anyone. When she finally did complain to the other slaves, some of them tried to intercede for her, but Coponius couldn't be bothered. Then, after Dio was killed, Coponius couldn't get rid of the girl fast enough. Since then she's been traded from hand to hand, abused, ill treated, unwanted. It must have seemed like a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. It's done something to her mind. She can be perfectly lucid sometimes, but then… you'll see. It's made her unfit to be any kind of slave. When I finally found her she was living in the fields outside a farmer's house. He'd bought her for a kitchen slave and found her useless even for that. 'The girl's a scratcher and a biter,' he told me. 'Scratches and bites for no reason, like an Egyptian cat. Even beating won't do any good.' No one around would buy her, so the farmer turned her loose, like people do to old or crippled slaves, making them fend for themselves. I didn't even have to pay for her. I just had to find her, and then make her come with me. I thought I'd gained her trust, but even so she tried to run away twice, first outside of Puteoli and then again as we got close to Rome this morning. You see why it's taken me so long to get home. And I thought you were sending me on an easy job, Papa!'
'If the girl told you what we needed to know, maybe you should have let her go.'
Darkness shadowed his face again. 'No, Papa. I couldn't just repeat her story to you. I had to bring her back to Rome, so you could hear her for yourself.'
Menenia was waiting for us at the door, with folded arms and an uncharacteristically sour look on her face. I thought the look must be for Eco, for having brusquely rushed off to find me after dropping off the slave girl-young wives expect a bit more attention from husbands arriving home after a trip. But then I realized that the look was aimed at me. What had I done, except quarrel with my wife and not come home last night? Menenia couldn't possibly know about that already-or could she? Sometimes I think that the ground beneath the city must be honeycombed with tunnels where messengers constantly run back and forth carrying secret communications between the women of Rome.
Eco had locked the girl in a small storage room off the kitchen. At the sight of us, she jumped up from the wooden chest where she'd been sitting and cowered against the wall.
'I imagine she's frightened of Belbo,' said Eco.
I nodded and sent him out of the room. The girl relaxed, but only a little.
'There's nothing to be afraid of. I already explained that to you, didn't I?' said Eco, in a voice more exasperated than comforting.
Under better circumstances, the slave girl Zotica might have been at least passably pretty. She was far too young for my taste, as flat and bony as a boy, but one could see the delicate beginnings of a woman's face in her high cheekbones and dark eyebrows. But now, with her unwashed hair all sweaty and tangled and dark circles beneath her eyes, it was hard to imagine her as the object of anyone's desire. She certainly had no place in a brothel. She looked more like one of those furtive, abandoned children who haunt the city's streets looking for scraps of food and run in packs like wild beasts.
Eco sighed. 'Did you eat anything, Zotica? I told my wife to see that you were fed.'
The girl shook her head. 'I'm too tired to eat. I want to sleep.'
'So do I. You can sleep soon. But now I want you to talk to someone.'
The girl looked at me warily.
'This is my father,' Eco went on, though I wondered what the word could mean to the child, who had probably never known a father. 'I want you to tell him what you told me. About the man who came to stay at your master's house here in Rome.'
The very mention of Dio caused her to shiver. 'About how he died, you mean?'
'Not only that. I want you to tell him everything.' The girl stared forlornly into space. 'I'm so tired. My stomach hurts.'
'Zotica, I brought you here so that you could tell my father about
Dio.'
'I never called him that. I never even knew his name until you told me.'
