Under Vesuvius

'Praetor,' Silva protested, 'this is not Gaul or Sicily. We have a peaceful, well-ordered society. All shall be according to Roman law.'

'See to it,' I said. I knew it is always best to assert one's authority at once, especially since my only authority here was that a foreigner was suspect. Still, I had expected more protest from these men. Clearly, none of them wanted any part of this case. That would bear thinking about.

4

In the gray dawn I trudged back toward the villa. Halfway there I was met by the horse master. He was a tall man, a Spaniard by the look of him, who walked with a pronounced limp. I read the marks of the cavalry on him.

'The praetor sent for me?'

'Yes. You've ridden with the alae, haven't you?'

He looked pleased. 'Fifth cohors equitata, attached to the Fourth Legion in the Sertorian War, first under General Metellus, then under General Pompey. I am Regilius.'

'Well, Regilius, General Metellus was my uncle. General Pompey, I am happy to say, is no relation at all.'

He grinned. 'Wasn't much of a general, either, at least not in that war. At least your uncle fought Sertorius. Pompey bribed the traitor's friends to kill him.'

'Very true. Regilius, I have a task for you. It is almost light. I want you to go all around the sacred olive grove and look for hoofprints. If anyone rode there last night, I want to know how many there were and what they were riding.'

He grinned again. 'Haven't done any scouting or tracking in a good many years, but I haven't forgot how. If there's horse sign out there, you'll know about it within the hour.' He threw me a sloppy salute and whirled on his heel, shouting for his grooms. It was good to have someone around who knew his business.

Back at the villa I sat on a terrace and called for some breakfast. Trays of hot bread, sliced fruit, and pots of herbed oil and honey all appeared with magical swiftness, accompanied by heated, heavily watered, and slightly sour wine. This last was a wake-up drink much favored by Hortalus and others of his generation. Ordinarily I did not care for it, but just now it was what I needed. As I ate and pondered, I saw a line of litters coming down the road toward the villa: Julia and the other women, finally making it back from Norbanus's house.

The bearers brought the lead litter onto the terrace and set it down. Moments later Julia emerged. From within came a faint sound of snoring.

'Silly cows,' she said, seating herself at the little table while I poured her a cup. 'They slept the whole way back. Not even a murder can keep them awake.' She took a sip and made a face. 'This stuff is awful. Well, tell me.'

So I filled her in on the night's doings. She followed me with great concentration. Julia's mind was as fine as any lawyer's, despite her overindulgence in Greek philosophy.

'All this evidence and you still don't think it's Gelon?' she said when I finished.

'Why do you think it was?' I asked her.

She bit into a sliver of melon. 'A wellborn lady takes at least one slave girl with her when she goes to bathe. Gorgo dismissed her girls to their beds. Then she put on her best jewelry. A woman doesn't go out to bathe alone, in her best jewels, unless she is meeting a lover. We saw how infatuated she was with the boy, and he was clearly besotted with her.'

'Lovers don't kill each other,' I said.

'Yes, they do. More often than you'd think.'

'But why?'

She shrugged. 'You'll have to question him. But don't expect it to be a good reason, or one that would make sense to us. People in love are not sane.'

'Profoundly true.'

At this moment the horse master walked up to us and saluted again. 'One rider, Praetor, on a small mare, Roman shod. It was hitched to a tree for no more than an hour.'

'Would a Numidian ride a shod horse?' I asked him.

'We're talking about the slaver's boy, right? If I had beauties like his, I'd never ride anything else. No, Numidians don't ride shod animals and they don't ride mares, even unshod. Unless-'

'Unless what?' Julia demanded.

'Unless they don't want to be recognized as what they are. If I was a Numidian and I didn't want to be noticed around here, I'd put on some Roman clothes and ride a mare. A shod one.'

'Thank you, Regilius.'

'I'll keep my eyes open, Praetor,' he said. 'I'm pretty good at this. If I run across that mare's prints anywhere, I'll know them.'

'That would be very helpful.'

He grinned again. 'This is like being in the cohors equitata again, chasing after the Lusitani in the hills.'

'See that Norbanus's horses are returned to him.'

'Already done, Praetor.'

When he was gone I said to Julia, 'I don't think it makes any sense. She might have angered the boy by obeying her father, telling him not to see her again, but if you are right, she was far from wanting to break it off.'

'He may have come to confront her over another lover. It needn't have been anything serious. A jealous lover can see betrayal where there is none. Pass me the honey.'

I picked up the pot. 'It seems a little extreme-¦' She grabbed my wrist.

'What have you been up to? Have you been in my perfume box?'

It was as if she were speaking another language entirely. 'Whatever are you talking about?'

'I can smell it on you. Have you been fondling another woman? It's on your hands.'

'Just a dead one.' I sniffed my fingers. Sure enough, they smelled faintly of perfume. Then I remembered. 'Oh, it was Gorgo's bath kit. I took out a flask and unstoppered it. It was just scented oil.'

She looked at me in exasperation, a familiar thing. 'Did you think that it was just common oil steeped with rose petals? This is the scent called Zoroaster's Rapture. It is an incredibly costly perfume. It comes out of Persia in tiny amounts and nobody knows how it is made.'

'Well, this is educational. How would a priest's daughter have come by such a scent?'

'At a guess, it was a gift, probably from Gelon.'

'Is this one of the perfumes I was bribed with?'

'It was one of them. So we know the local source for it.'

'Yes, I'll have to have a talk with Silva and his partner, Diogenes. See if they sold any to Gelon.'

'And if they didn't?'

'Then we have a problem. Of course, they may lie about it. People often lie to investigators. It's almost reflexive.'

'People are usually guilty of something, even if it's not what you are asking about. It makes them shifty and evasive.'

'Too true. Well, I've gotten pretty good at ferreting out the truth. I'll take them one at a time and-'

'You'll do no such thing,' Julia said firmly. 'You are a praetor now, — not an investigator for one of your high-placed relatives. Send Hermes. You've trained him and he's very expert. Besides, he's younger.'

'I'm not exactly doddering,' I protested, but I knew she was right. Not that I was too old for it, but it would look bad for me to go personally to question suspects and witnesses. It would lower my dignity in the community, and I couldn't afford that.

'You haven't slept,' she said unnecessarily. 'What you need is a nap.

'Oh, a night or two without sleep shouldn't trouble a Roman magistrate. Why, in Gaul-'