philosophy, he knew that slavery was against nature. There was no difference between a freeman and a slave except a cruel twist of fate. But as far as Roman law was concerned, the slave was not a man at all but a “speaking tool,” possessing no rights. Pliny wasn’t sure quite when it had occurred to him that his purpose here was to save these men and women from an unjust death. It certainly had not been in his mind two mornings ago when news of the crime had alarmed the city. Valens looked at his superior, incredulous that anyone would talk to slaves this way, while the slaves resumed shrieking their innocence.
The garden was quite lovely: boxwood hedges, tall elms, and fruit trees; stone benches round a pool where fountains splashed. Here a miscellany of divine images had been assembled. There was, besides the head of Domitian Lord and God, a bronze figurine of Hercules, a lovely marble Diana, a bust of Jupiter, a statuette of Isis, and the inevitable statue of Priapus, godling of vegetation and sex, who leered mischievously here as in every Roman garden.
The slaves were brought out in batches of ten, shoved along by the troopers, with swords drawn, who cursed at them and struck them with the flat of their blades. Eager to prove their piety, they stumbled forward one by one, dropped incense and wine on the altar fire and mouthed a prayer at Pliny’s dictation.
Finally it was the turn of Pollux, whom Pliny had saved for last, and four others who clung to the man: an older woman, his mate, said Lucius, and two young women and a boy. All of them tried to shelter behind the boxer’s broad back. There was fear in their eyes. Pollux’s lips moved soundlessly. If it was a prayer, it was not directed at those lifeless statues arrayed before them. Like a statue himself, his ugly face unmoving as a mask, Pollux stood before the altar and did nothing with the incense and wine cup handed to him. For a long moment there was dead silence save for the chirping of song birds in the trees.
Then, before Pliny could stop him, Lucius dashed forward and struck the slave in the face with all his strength. Pollux, who had been hit by tougher men than Lucius in his time, did not flinch but continued to look straight ahead of him. His fellow slaves stood by, stunned to silence. Then, one after another, they began to murmur: “Atheist, traitor, you’ll get us all killed!”
One of the young women broke and ran forward to the altar, crying “Please, Masters, I’ll burn the incense!” But Pollux caught her by the arm and pulled her back. “Sister, be brave, in the name of the True God.” In an agony of doubt, the girl looked from the altar to Pollux’s face and back again. The older woman came and put her arms around her and drew her back into their circle. The murmurs of the other slaves rose to angry, menacing shouts. The City Troopers cast nervous looks at their centurion. “Murderer of my father!” screamed Lucius. “Heat irons. I’ll have the truth out of him!” Pliny felt the situation slipping out of control. “I give the orders here,” he warned Lucius. “Stand back.” The young man looked mutinous.
Stepping close to Pollux, Pliny said in a low voice, “You have put yourself and these others in grave danger. I give you one day to think it over.” The boxer only stared back impassively.
“Centurion, take them back to their quarters,” Pliny ordered, “and double the guard.” And to Lucius he confided, “I am encouraged that the poison seems to have spread to only a few. I wish I could release the rest of your slaves now but I haven’t the authority. They will have to remain under guard until the Games are over and a trial before the prefect can be conducted. No doubt, you have other slaves in your country estates. By all means bring them in. And now,” he said, “I am leaving.” The urge to be gone from this place was suddenly overwhelming.
Lucius expressed sullen thanks.
“But sir,” Valens interrupted. “The lady of the house, Turpia Scortilla. Shouldn’t you have a word with her?”
“ Mehercule,” cried Pliny in exasperation, “haven’t I done enough here today?”
“It’s procedure, sir. She might just know something.” He used the tone of voice one would in speaking to a dull child.
Pliny let out a sigh. “Conduct me to the lady, then.”
Standing guard outside her chamber door, the dwarf Iarbas tried to block their way, hopping from one flat foot to the other and mouthing insults at them. He was the most extraordinary creature that Pliny had ever seen: a black dwarf, fat-headed, with tiny mole’s eyes, a big belly, and short, muscular legs. Golden torques and armlets gleamed against his dusky skin. On his shoulder perched a monkey, equally bejeweled, and making savage grimaces at them with yellow, pointed teeth. Valens pushed man and beast roughly aside. “We tried locking this one up with the others,” he explained, “but the lady was so distressed we let him loose. Seems harmless enough, the ugly little imp.”
“Harmless?” As soon as he laid eyes on him, an image sprang to Pliny’s mind of the dwarf scrambling monkey-like up the column and through the narrow window of Verpa’s bedroom. And who but Scortilla would have sent him on that mission?
The lady lay propped on her bed, bone thin and bone white, the tendons in her neck standing out like ropes, her towering red wig askew. But it was her eyes that held him. He thought back to this morning’s sacrifice on the Capitolium-the look in the ox’s eye when the victimarius stunned it with a blow of his hammer. Turpia Scortilla had that same stunned, glassy-eyed look. And the dead whiteness of her face wasn’t just the effect of cosmetics.
“Madam, I…”
At the sight of him she shrank back against her pillow, nearly dislodging her wig, the back of one thin hand pressed to her mouth. Iarbas ran around them and clambered up on the bed beside her. She clutched his wooly head to her breast. The woman looked terrified. Why?
This was not the moment to confront her head-on. Pliny forced a smile. “Come now, I’ve only a few questions for you, nothing to be alarmed at.” Had she heard a disturbance that night? When had she gone to bed? Had Iarbas spent the night with her? Had Verpa seemed worried at all? Had he hinted at anything in the preceding days?
But to all these questions she only shook her head and clutched the dwarf tighter. In desperation, Pliny addressed the dwarf directly, but got in reply only a string of uncouth syllables. Finally, he gave it up. “I will return another time, Lady, and hope to see you in a better frame of mind.”
They closed the door softly on her and returned to the atrium. Pliny was unbearably weary of the whole thing: the odious Verpa and his unpleasant family in their ostentatious house, the pathos of the slaves, the centurion’s smirking superiority. This was no job for him. “Now I really must be going,” he said firmly.
“Sir.”
“ What?” He nearly shouted at Valens.
“Perhaps just a word with the door-slaves of the front and back door? They may have seen something.”
“Yes, yes.” Pliny was in a state now. “Bring them here.”
The two men, who a little earlier had been among those who had proudly sacrificed to the gods in the garden, fell on their knees before Pliny as though he were a god himself.
“Just think hard now and tell the truth,” he assured them, “and all will go well with you. Now, did either of you see anyone lurking about the house on the night your master was killed? Anyone strange to the neighborhood?”
The slave of the back door shook his head. But yes, said the slave of the front door. There had been someone. Someone who had stood across the street for an hour or more from sundown until it grew too dark to see. Describe him? Well, about average size, neither young nor old, dark-haired, nothing special. One thing though. He carried his left arm in a sling.
Chapter Nine
By the time he left Verpa’s house, it was nearing the ninth hour of the day, and the sun was creeping down the sky. The heat was still oppressive, as it had been for days. Pliny longed for the baths. Cool water, a bit of modest exercise, a rub-down, uncomplicated camaraderie with a few casual acquaintances, the blessed anonymity of nakedness, or so he thought. He directed his bearers to take him to the Baths of Titus. But the City Prefecture was on his way and conscientiousness got the better of him. He would stop and make his report first.
The Prefecture was a sprawling labyrinth of offices, archives and courtrooms connected by dim corridors where clerks and secretaries, minor officials and armed troopers bustled to and fro on hurried errands. Pliny hated the place. He passed rooms where lines of weary petitioners waited patiently to speak with clerks who ignored
