Under Vesuvius

things-we just don't know what it might be.'

'All too likely,' I said.

Circe breezed in by dinnertime, with her cluster of personal servants and attendant luggage.

'This is the most entertaining trip I've ever taken,' Circe cried as she rushed into the colonnade. 'Murders in strange places, pitched battles on the road! We'll be the envy of all our friends.'

'You'll have an endless fund of stories to tell when everyone is back in Rome for the elections,' I agreed. 'I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to provide you with this bonanza of gossip.'

A litter came right into the impluvium and was set down next to our table. In it Antonia was mopping the heroic brow of young Marcus with a damp cloth. He looked blissfully content.

'Marcus Caecilius Metellus!' I barked. 'Get out of that litter and stand on your own feet! That little cut is on your arm and it hardly even bled, you malingering wretch. What am I going to do with you if we're called off to war? In the legions, you're expected to march forty miles a day if your legs are cut off at the knees!'

He crawled from the litter, grumbling, 'Aren't you the grumpy one today.'

'Can't you let a wounded hero enjoy a little pampering?' Antonia scolded. 'You used to be known as the laziest rake in Rome.'

'I earned my reputation the hard way,' I told her. 'Marcus is too young for such things. Decadence takes age and experience. He has neither.'

Hermes came in from the town forum, where I'd sent him to collect gossip. 'You'll be pleased to learn,' he reported, 'that there are calls to petition Rome for your recall, to send a band of local lawyers there to sue you for all manner of tyrannical and extraconstitutional practices, possibly to demand your execution.'

'I see they're not a bit embarrassed that bandits attacked a Roman praetor on their city's doorstep,' I noted. 'And how were these incendiary harangues received?'

'Interestingly, the duumviri were the voices for moderation. They said that you are a meddlesome and high-handed senator, but that Roman justice must be allowed to take its course. Diocles says he's the man most offended, but he concurred with his friends the duumviri. And all of them are clamoring for Gelon's trial and speedy execution.'

'Are they, now?' I fumed. 'I never expected to have such trouble out of a pack of veritable provincials-'

'They aren't provincials, dear,' Julia corrected me, 'even if they are aliens. They have full rights of citizenship.'

At last the discrepancy that had been lurking at the back of my mind broke out into my conscious mind. 'Citizenship!'

'I agree it's something we hand out too freely these days,' Julia said, 'but why is it so significant now?'

'What I should have thought of immediately! Gaeto was a resident alien. Who was his citizen partner?'

'Whoever it was has been hiding,' Hermes said. 'Legally, this partner would have been Gaeto's patron. That means he was bound to help with the funeral preparations and attend the rites.'

'And yet no local citizen appeared at the funeral,' I said.

'It could be someone we've never heard of,' Marcus commented. 'Just some Italian who rents out his patronage for the convenience of foreign businessmen. If he was away from town when Gaeto died, he couldn't very well have attended the funeral.'

'Nonetheless,' I said, 'I want to know who this patron is. Marcus, tomorrow I want you to go to the municipal archive and see who is registered as Gaeto's citizen patron.'

'Why not just ask Gelon?' Julia suggested.

'Good idea,' I concurred. 'Where is Gelon, by the way?' Somehow I had lost track of the boy.

'He's at the villa,' Circe reported, 'seeing to the funeral rites for his two guardsmen who were killed this morning. They were his tribesmen and he is obligated to perform the traditional ceremonies.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Does he wish us to attend the funeral?'

'No. They were desert men, simple warriors. Since they died in the morning, they must be cremated by nightfall and their ashes returned to their families in Numidia.'

'I wish I had the firewood concession in this district,' Marcus said. 'With all the funerals lately, I'd be rich as Crassus.'

11

When Gelon arrived the next morning our interview was unproductive.

'Patron?' he said.

'Yes. Patron, partner, hospes, what have you. In order to practice business in Italy, he must have had one. You mean you were never introduced?' I was seated in the impluvium that morning. Since the town house was three stories high, this formed a veritable well, with the dining room, master bedroom, entrance hall, and so forth opening off the central collonaae, the upper floors for storage and the household staff. It was bright and airy, with a beautiful fountain and many potted plants. But I was too frustrated to appreciate its charms.

'Not to my knowledge. If he had one, I am sure it was purely as a matter of convenience. No one was ever introduced to me as such.'

'You mean he never mentioned that he had a patron, one who no

doubt demanded a percentage of his profits? This is a grave oversight in an otherwise exemplary man of business.'

Gelon jerked his head sideways, the Numidian equivalent of a shrug. 'Nonetheless, he never spoke of such a person to me.'

Marcus awaited nearby. I caught his eye and nodded. Silently he left the house, bound for the municipal archive.

Hermes' report was likewise unproductive. 'This town's gates haven't been guarded since the rebellion of Spartacus more than twenty years ago,' he said. 'You should see the hinges. They're solid with rust. They couldn't get the gates shut if the Parthians invaded. Nobody keeps track of who enters or leaves the town at any hour. They don't want to do anything that might slow down business.'

'Somehow this doesn't surprise me,' I said. 'Cato sounds like a wiser man by the minute.'

An hour later Marcus returned, smiling so sunnily that I knew he had bad news to report. 'The archivist was of no use at all.'

'Gaeto's registration has to be on record there,' I said. 'Have you forgotten how to bribe a public slave? It's a simple transaction involving money.'

'Oh, he was happy to be of assistance,' Marcus protested. 'You know how boring his job must be. It seems that the relevant documents are no longer there.'

'Misplaced?' I suggested. In Rome, the archive slaves kept the filing system deliberately chaotic, so that only they could find anything. You had to bribe them generously if you wanted them to find anything for you.

'No, the archive is in impeccable order. They use the Alexandrian system, with the ends of the scrolls painted in various colors by category, and each category arranged by alpha-beta-gamma, so that any document can be found in seconds. He walked right to where it was supposed to be, but it wasn't among the registrations of alien merchants. And we quickly saw that it wasn't misfiled among other documents. It's just gone.'

I kneaded the bridge of my long, Metellan nose. 'My day is a shambles and it's not even mid-morning yet. I suppose the slave has no idea who might have appropriated this document?'

'He says he's only been there a year. It might have been taken any time before that.'

'Or,' Hermes said, 'somebody might have gone there yesterday and bribed him to turn it over. He would hardly court a severe flogging by admitting it.'

'Everyone here has something to hide,' I said, 'and the favorite thing to conceal seems to be any connection to Gaeto the Numidian.'

This left me with one possible source of information: the grieving widow. Just after mid-morning I was at her front door, accompanied by my lictors. The janitor admitted us and Jocasta received me in the atrium.

'Official business today?' she asked.