deal of money for this thing; to possess it was a capital offense.
As she tamped the earth over it and pulled the ivy tendrils back into place, the clouds parted and a full moon cast its rays upon her. Isis, who is also Diana and Hecate, blesses me, she thought, and her heart beat harder. In a whisper she recited the words of the curse: “I entrust this spell to you,
Pluto and Proserpina,
Ereschigal and Adonis,
And Hermes-Thoth Phokensepsou Erektathou Misonktaik,
And Anubis the powerful, who holds the keys of Hades,
And to you divine demons of the earth.
Do not disregard me, but rouse yourselves for me.
Destroy Sextus Ingentius Verpa-
Bind him, blind him, kill him.
Pierce his heart, O gods.
Pierce his liver, O gods.
Pierce his lungs, O gods.
I conjure you by Barbartham Cheloumbra
And by Abrasax
And by Iao Pakeptoth.
Let him not live another day!”
The lady Turpia Scortilla struggled to her feet and walked unsteadily into the house. ???
Ten days after he had left, the handsome youth returned. Flavia Domitilla flew down to the beach to meet him.
“Did you find him-Verpa?”
But the youth would rather tell of his adventures: he had gone to the Circus, but there were no races that day, but then he had gone to the Colosseum and watched men die amid the jeers of the crowd, and afterwards he had eyed the whores who plied their trade under the arches there.
“Answer me!”
His expression turned serious. “I found him. He’s a big man with a fringe of white hair, thick lips, a jaw that juts out like a boulder on a hillside. Muscle underneath the fat.” “That’s him!” “Not a nice man. I would have to be desperate, Lady, before I asked that man for a favor.” She half-smiled; no words were needed.
“He pinched me and tried to make me go into his bedroom, the youth continued, “but when I wouldn’t he hit me and threw me down the stairs. His slaves stood by and did nothing except for one old fellow with a broken nose and crumpled ears, who picked me up and helped me out the door.” “I’m sorry.” The youth shrugged. “It’s nothing.” “But did he give you a message for me?”
The boy looked down. Flavia Domitilla asked him again, feeling a sudden coldness in her belly. It was plain that he did not want to answer, but she dragged it out of him.
“He said he hoped the climate on Pandateria agrees with you.”
“Ahh!” She sank down on the stones. “That filth! He has abandoned me! O God of Abraham!” And she wept with her hair hanging over her face.
The sound of her wailing brought two of her jailers bounding down the path toward them, drawing their swords as they ran.
The youth leapt into his boat, rowed quickly away, and never went back again.
Chapter Two
The third day before the Nones of Germanicus.
The first hour of the day.
Rome. The great city woke up as early as any country village. The sun was not yet above the house tops and already the streets rang with the chatter of half a dozen languages, the rumble of carts, the cries of hawkers, the shouts of schoolteachers in their curb-side classrooms bawling at sleepy pupils. Why then was Master still in his bed? His dutiful clients already crowded his atrium to wish him a good morning and receive their hand-outs: the obligatory morning salutatio. Elsewhere in the house, slaves sponged glittering mosaic floors with a clatter of buckets, polished red-veined marble walls till they shone like mirrors, and dusted the countless statues that populated the wide corridors of this princely mansion.
But the four bedroom slaves-each ready to perform his assigned part in the morning ritual of getting Master up, shaved, fed, and dressed-stood hesitating before his door. Old Pollux, the night-guardian of the bed chamber, touched the bronze handle, drew back his hand, knocked again, and listened. A doubtful look came over his battered face. “Fetch Master’s son,” he ordered the young slave who carried the razor and mirror. The boy dashed off down the hall and around the corner to young master Lucius’ bedroom.
Presently, Lucius appeared, his eyes swollen with sleep and in no good humor. Shouldering the others aside, he gave the door one smart rap, then pushed it open and stepped inside with Pollux and the others at his heels.
The single narrow window was a rectangle of pearl gray in the dark wall, and one guttering lamp hanging from its stand threw an uncertain circle of light over the bed. There a motionless shape, dark with blood, lay face down in a tangle of sheets.
Lucius sucked in his breath, leaned close over his father’s body, touched it with a finger. Then, in a swift instant, he bolted from the room and down the staircase to the ground floor and through a colonnade to the atrium. “Someone has murdered my father! You,” he shouted at one of the astonished clients, “run to the city prefect’s office. The rest of you, man the doors and windows. Quickly! The killer may still be in the house.”
With expressions of horror, the obsequious clients raised their hands to heaven and demanded angrily of each other who could have committed such an atrocity on this great and good man, their patron?
To the slaves gathered round the corpse upstairs, the sight of their dead master stirred a mixture of emotions. Joy that their tormentor was dead; but then dawning terror. They raced down the stairs after Lucius, shrieking their innocence.
By this time other slaves and freedmen were running from distant parts of the house to see what was the matter. A woman, overcome by shock, backed out of Verpa’s bedroom door screaming, and all of them together set up a wail. The slaves understood what danger they were in. They were as good as dead. ???
In another mansion, across the city, the same obligatory morning ritual was in progress.
Gaius Plinius Secundus, Roman senator, lion of the court of probate, currently acting vice-prefect of the city, arose well-rested from his bed and took his breakfast: the bread dipped, not drowned, in wine, the pear neatly sectioned, a few figs, and all arranged on the tray with his napkin folded just so, the way he liked it.
This small repast over, a slave buckled on his red leather senatorial shoes while another, an elderly man of dignified bearing, commenced to wrap him in a dazzling, purple-striped toga, not releasing him until he was satisfied that every fold was perfect. This was the man’s single job and he performed it with great state. Even on a sweltering September morning like this one, the ridiculous garment was mandatory for Romans at the salutatio. So the mos maiorum, the way of the ancestors, commanded: those ancient, grim shepherd-warriors who could think of no more fitting badge of citizenship than to wrap themselves in a woolen blanket from neck to ankle and damn the weather. Already, his clients gathered, in the atrium, were itching and sweating in their own togas, and all, patron and clients alike, would have to endure this for an hour.
What an inexpressibly tedious chore, thought Pliny to himself, not for the first time, as one by one the family freedmen together with a clamorous multitude of flatterers, place-seekers, seedy literary gentlemen, and the merely hungry, bustled forward with hearty looks to kiss his hand and receive their food basket and a few coins.
As though from a great distance, Pliny heard himself murmuring inanities: “What a fine young fellow! Do you go to school?” He smiled benignly on a squirming boy thrust at him by an eager father.
A chore, but dignitas demanded it. A man of his position must have clients thronging his atrium, and clients must have patrons to defend them in the courts, whisper in a magistrate’s ear, commission a poem, dower a
