Clarus sat in resolute silence.
'Another interpretation even more controversial. It is our Caesar is in love with the lad,' the Governor continued, 'and Antinous was conscious of this reality and the necessary impending conclusion. This too offers an explanation, though I wouldn't promote it too loudly if I was you. And you might leave that comment out of your transcript, scribe.'
The Governor smiled thinly at his guests.
'My assessment of Antinous was that he too had become aware of this conundrum and was drawn to seeking a resolution on behalf of his erastes, Hadrian,' he continued. 'Despite his widely-perceived role as merely a pretty face in a well-hung body, Antinous struck me as having greater depth. 'It's what you do in life which matters, not merely how you look', I heard him say onetime. That's not bad.
His search for a resolution to his erastes' dilemma was his ambitious, youthful, hero's quest. Perhaps he saw himself following in the footsteps of a Ulysses or Jason or Achilles, or even Alexander? But I doubt he found his resolutions before events overtook him, whatever they were.'
'Is it possible, my lord Governor, you would have informer's reports of the young Bithynian's exploits outside his relationship with Caesar? Surely your contacts at Court have followed the lad's activities and made his alliances known to you?' Suetonius enquired.
'Believe it or not, gentlemen, I have multiple reports and colorful tidbits about everyone attending Caesar, including yourselves may I say, but nil regarding Antinous. The young man's faithfulness to Caesar seems exemplary. I cannot recall a single informer's report or piece of choice gossip pertaining to the man which suggests otherwise,' Titianus replied. 'Only my ward, the Lady Anna Perenna, seemed to find the fellow of some concern.'
'Why so, Governor?'
'My companion possesses many unusual gifts, gentlemen,' he responded. 'She sees and knows things others cannot discern. Or so she tells me. As the high priestess of her cult at Alexandria she engages in all manner of arcane activities and provides esoteric advice to members of the Court.'
'How so? In what way?'
'Well, I don't subscribe to some of her claims myself,' the Governor explained, 'my relationship with my lady is based on other needs, I assure you. Yet she provides charms and talismans to assist in the love lives of our courtiers; she prepares love-potions, philters, tinctures in oil, and occult tisanes. She creates figurines for daemonic invocation to dispel undesirable influences; she can calculate the power of words through the science of geometria; and she's expert in addressing women's matters of a private nature. At least so I'm told by her herself.
In her calling as the Grandmother of Time it's said she's skilled in interpreting the will of the gods through the divination of entrails in the Etruscan manner. She interprets dreams, and most arcane of all, she is said to engage through trance as a medium of clairvoyance. At least so I am told. My companion is a woman of unusual capacities, gentlemen. Naturally, she is also a lively bed companion.'
'Prefect Governor, perhaps your good lady friend will share her clairvoyance skills in telling us what may have happened to the dead youth?' the biographer enquired sweetly.
The governor cast a steely look over the biographer.
'Don't be fast with me, Special Inspector. I don't necessarily support each of my companion's claims to mystagogy. But if you wish to explore her faculties for yourself, then you should approach her personally.
Anna Perenna is an independent woman who possesses her own wealth and is not subject to my will.'
Titianus fell moodily, angrily silent. Clarus took the opportunity to enquire about the night of the boy's death.
'Lord Prefect Governor, you said you slept the night in question at Caesar's marquee after the banquet. Did you share company in this?' he asked in his usual unsubtle manner.
'My good Senator Septicius Clarus, don't you trust the Governor of Egypt? Several of those at the celebration were sufficiently persuaded after the banquet to remain at our couches, excess wine or not,' Titianus regaled. 'Mine was the wine plus an Iberian serving-lass named Sotira. Others made other choices.'
'Who else remained accompanied in this manner, or departed accompanied?' Suetonius pressed the questioning further.
'Why, I wasn't especially observant of what others were up to, Tranquillus. But that up-and-coming Tribune Macedo seemed to have his hooks into a pert young girl, a local of Egyptian descent I think, while the former Master of the Hunt Salvius Julianus, who is now an important legal advisor to Caesar, was accompanied by his usual equerry friend.'
'What of Caesar himself and the guest-of-honor Commodus?' Clarus explored.
'Caesar retired alone, as has been his usual habit since this tour began. Commodus and he do not share a bed these days, to the knowledge of my agents,' the spymaster knower-of-all confided. 'Commodus retired late about the same time as Caesar's friend Arrian. Put whatever spin you wish upon that, my friends. But I had my Sotira to amuse me, so I was comfortable where I was.'
'And where was Antinous, do you suppose?' Suetonius asked.
'Perhaps he was down in his cups drowning his misfortunes, if you forgive the bad pun,' the stocky Roman contributed. 'The last I saw of him was some days earlier when he was consulting with my companion, Anna Perenna, on matters of advice for the lovelorn. At least that's what I assume they were discussing.
Perhaps my lady was invoking some potion or magician's effigy with special powers for him to attract Caesar's attentions again? You'll have to ask her yourself, my friends. She knew the lad far better than I. She can be found on this very vessel at the stern cabin.
Go knock at her door, gentlemen. I must now bid you farewell.'
CHAPTER 22
After a long pause a husky female voice responded from behind the locked portal.
'Tell them to be gone, girl! I'm engaged in sacred rites,' the voice firmly instructed her servant from within the cabin.
Clarus would have none of this.
'Lady Anna Perenna of Alexandria, your visitors attend you on command of Great Caesar!' he bellowed. 'We are on Imperial business and demand your immediate presence! We possess Imperial authority and the right to enforce it!'
Again a few moments elapsed before the group of four and the serving girl heard the bolts and braces of the cabin door being shunted open. The gilded carvings of the portal widened marginally to reveal a shadowy interior whose darkness at midday was illumed with a few lamps or tapers.
A billow of air steeped in expensive Arabian frankincense wafted through the portal from within the gloom. Fine streams of daylight pierced the vessel's timbers as suspended dust particles shimmered sinuously through the pall.
'Enter!' the woman's voice commanded gruffly. The serving girl pushed the door wider to permit entry to the visitors.
When the four came to rest a few steps within the cabin's gloom their eyes settled on the solitary figure standing aloof before them. Amid the velvety glow of oil-lamps and an amber radiance emitted by thin alabaster portholes diffusing the afternoon's external blaze, the Special Inspector's group found itself in the presence of a tall, slender, dark skinned, dark haired female of a strikingly grave countenance.
Her ebony black pupils pierced the gloom from behind a face lacquered in an opaque mask of white pastes in the fashionable Palatine style. Her lips were painted with cosmetic oil the color of drab clotted blood. Carefully applied outlines in kohl eyeliner highlighted her eyes in the manner worn by the upper-classes at Egypt, with scarlet dots and edgings to augment the impact elaborately.
Suetonius perceived on closer scrutiny how the generous coat of face paint was also a camouflage aiming to conceal significant skin lacerations or the eruptions of a defunct pox beneath the ashen patina.
Poxes are egalitarian in their impact on both the plebs and the elites of the Empire, at least among those who had survived their vicissitudes in youth, Suetonius recalled. Poxes and leprosies were a cautionary sight,
