Under Vesuvius

'Have you locked away all the practice swords and javelins? At this juncture I'm more concerned about suicide than escape.'

'We have, but I think you needn't worry. It did him a world of good when you assured him he didn't face the cross or the beasts. No real man fears a quick beheading. He seems content to wait out events.'

'Good, but keep a close watch on him anyway.' I dismissed the man and walked over to the sand pit. Gelon saw me and lowered his staff. 'Praetor. You've returned from the funeral?'

'Yes. It was a good service and she's on her way now with all the proper rites observed.'

He lowered his eyes. 'I am sorry that I could not attend. When I am out of this, I'll sacrifice at her tomb.'

'Commendable, but don't buy any black ewes just yet. First, we have to get you acquitted and I've yet to see any way to do that. Have any significant facts occurred to you? A man in your situation usually receives a flood of exculpatory memories.'

'Just that I did not kill Gorgo, that I was at home when it happened.'

'I haven't spoken with Jocasta yet. I will call on her tomorrow, after court. Are you sure there is no one else to vouch for your whereabouts?'

He shrugged. 'I am sorry. There is none.'

I left him, feeling unsettled. For a man facing death, he was not terribly desperate to demonstrate his innocence. Perhaps, I thought, I was too hasty in ruling out crucifixion.

I rejoined Julia in the triclinium where a late supper had been laid out, just our own party attending, no guests for once. I lay on the couch with a sigh of relief and picked up a hard-boiled egg. A slave filled my cup and I sampled the superb vintage. I was getting too used to this.

'What a strange visit this has turned out to be,' Circe said. 'Murder, erupting volcanoes-what next?'

'It isn't erupting,' said young Marcus. 'I spoke with a local naturalist today. He calls this a 'venting.' He said every few years Vesuvius lets off a bit of smoke and ash, maybe emits a little lava, then it will go back to just smoking for several years.'

'It makes me nervous,' Circe said.

'Thank you, Decius Caecilius,' said Antonia.

'For what?' I asked.

'For making Gelon our houseguest. Now that he is no longer connected with the priest's daughter, I'll have to work on him.'

'I hear there are good armorers over in Pompeii,' said Marcus. 'You might want to get yourself a throat protector.'

'You will leave that young man strictly alone,' Julia ordered. 'He is a suspect in a case the praetor is trying. He is a prisoner, not a guest.'

Antonia shrugged. 'Prisoners, hostages-what's the difference? Two years ago my brother had that Gallic prince Vercingetorix in the house. He was a prisoner, but do you think I let that stop me?'

'A barbarian prince, even an enemy prince,' Circe said, 'is a far cry from the son of a Numidian slaver.'

'I'm always amazed at the ability you ladies have to draw distinctions,' I said.

'This is your fault,' said Julia. 'You never should have brought him into this house. The local lockup would have been quite good enough for him, even if he is innocent. It might have taught him a little humility.'

'Lectures on humility from a Caesar!' Antonia cried, laughing. 'I like them arrogant, even the wicked ones.'

Julia gave up and applied herself to dinner. It seemed that patrician propriety was not to be a feature of our household for the duration.

When dinner was done, Julia and I stayed behind in the triclinium, and I called for Hermes to report. He seemed uncommonly somber when he came in, not at all his usual mischievous self.

'The altar was clean swept,' he reported, 'and I couldn't find where they dumped the ashes, so I went straight to the house.'

'You got in and out undetected, I trust?' I asked.

'Naturally.'

'Pride in burglar skills is not becoming in a free man, Hermes,' Julia chided him.

'Says the poem thief,' I commented. 'What have you found?'

'First, this.' He tossed me a little bundle of something hard that gave beneath my fingers when I caught it. It was a small bag of purple silk. Whatever was inside, the bag itself was a minor extravagance. I released the drawstrings and withdrew the contents. Julia gasped and snatched it from my fingers.

It was a necklace formed of some twenty lozenges of gold, each the size of Julia's thumb, each set with an emerald as big as the nail of that digit and carved with the image of a deity.

'This is fabulous!' Julia exclaimed. 'You've never given me anything this fine.'

'I've never been that rich,' I reminded her. 'Still, we've seen ladies around here wearing jewelry as expensive. But if Gelon gave her that, Papa must be giving him a more generous allowance than my father gave me.'

'There was more going on in that girl's life than keeping the temple tidy,' Julia commented, unable to stop fondling the necklace. Just what I needed. Now she would want one like it.

'All right,' I said to Hermes. 'This bauble didn't put that wan look on your face. What else did you find?'

'As I was leaving I thought I was alone in the place. But I heard someone crying. It didn't sound like grief for the dead woman. I traced the sound and found a lockup next to the pen for sacrificial animals.'

'I suppose you just had to look,' Julia said.

'There's a little window in the door. It was dim inside, so it took a while for me to make anything out, but I saw that it was the slave girl Charmian. She had good reason to cry. She'd been severely beaten. From her neck to her heels she's striped like a zebra. And it wasn't done with rods or a flagellum, either, it was laid on with a flagrum.' He referred to the fearsome whip with multiple thongs studded with bone or bronze.

'Well,' Julia said, 'from your description she's rather a bold creature, and such women easily fall afoul of their masters. Besides, the priest had good reason to be displeased with her. He may hold her responsible for letting Gorgo stray out that night.'

'But why just Charmian?' I asked. 'Why not the other two, Leto and Gaia? Go on, Hermes.'

'I called her name. After a while she looked up. Her face was so swollen and bruised she was barely recognizable. I asked her why she'd been punished so, but for a long time she couldn't talk at all. Finally she said, 'I'll talk to the praetor, no one else.' Then she lowered her head and I think she passed out. I couldn't linger.'

This was the reason for his grimness. Hermes had been a slave and could sympathize with the unfortunate girl, even though he had given his own masters far more grief than they ever gave him.

'I have to do something about this,' I said.

'What?' Julia demanded. 'You have no right to interfere with a citizen disciplining his own slave. He can kill her if he likes and you have no say in the matter. That's the law.'

'I know it is, but I don't like it.'

'Anyway, he may have good reason to beat her.' But she said it without conviction, for the sake of form. She knew perfectly well that the girl could hardly have earned so savage a beating.

But I had to wonder. Just what did that girl know that she would tell only me? Somehow, I had to find out.

The next day I held court in Baiae. The cases were all the same: some disgruntled businessman of the city bringing suit against a foreign competitor. The boredom induced by such cases is difficult to describe, but it works like the face of Medusa in turning a man to stone. I am afraid that I rendered judgments based on whether I found one plaintiff or defendant more congenial. Anyway, it served them right for wasting my time so.

About midday a slave came to my curule chair and handed me a message. Eager for anything to break the monotony of my day I unrolled it and read: Please come to my house as soon as you dismiss the court. It was signed Jocasta. I tucked it away with some satisfaction. I had intended to seek her out and she was relieving me of the trouble.

I rushed the court through the final cases and pronounced adjournment. There was some muttering at my