The Gods Help Those Page 17

  No matter how many times I asked, though, Clymene’s answer was the same. “My lord, please, I told you. I came from Spain with my father and some others, the ones who died in your warehouse.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I think every word you’ve said to me since we found you has been a lie. I’m not even sure your name is Clymene, but I don’t guess that will matter when they throw you to the animals in the arena. The lions won’t insist on formal introductions.”

  The woman began to tremble. “Oh, my lord, please, no. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Then tell me who did. Who killed Lucullus? And who killed Berenicianus?”

  “I can’t, my lord. I can’t.”

  I turned to Archidamos. “All right, then. String her up. We’ll have to beat the truth out of her.” This would be the hardest part of this little play for me to make convincing. My uncle had occasionally beaten a slave—for theft or some other serious offense, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Usually the threat of being sent to do hard labor on another of my estates or being sold—and I have done both—is enough to improve their behavior.

  Tacitus stepped between me and Clymene and put a hand on her shoulder, as though interceding for a client. “Gaius Pliny, is this really necessary?”

  “She has exhausted my patience,” I said and waved Archidamos into action.

  Archidamos tied the struggling woman’s hands in front of her and dragged her into the garden. We have a couple of posts there with hooks in them where the servants hang garments to dry or have the dust beaten out of them. Archidamos placed Clymene’s tied hands over one of the hooks and ripped the top half of her gown so that it hung down around her waist, exposing her bony, unmarked back and her breasts. He uncoiled a whip and took up a position a few paces behind her.

  I didn’t care what Gaius said; I had to see what he was going to do. I ran up the stairs out of the atrium and found Miriam’s room on the second floor. It overlooked the garden and had a window. The shutters were closed, but I opened one just enough to let me see and hear what was happening without being observed.

  A Gaius I had never seen before—and hope never to see again—stepped up to Clymene, who was tied to a post. He grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. A wet spot spread over the lower part of her gown. She began to sob.

  “This is your last chance,” Gaius growled. He nodded and Archidamos cracked the whip right beside Clymene’s head. She yelped as it caught her on the ear. I touched the spot on my earlobe that had been nicked when somebody tried to kill me. I couldn’t believe that Gaius was going to use the whip on someone. I’ve known him for more than fifteen years and never seen him resort to it.

  “The next one will land on your back,” Gaius said, “and as many more after that as it takes. Tell me who killed Lucullus and Berenicianus.”

  Clymene shook her head.

  The whip cracked again, landing between Clymene’s shoulders, and she wailed. As soon as she could control her crying, she said, “I did, my lord. I killed both of them!”

  “Not the confession you expected to wring out of her, was it?” Tacitus said. “Quite an impressive performance on your part, though, I must say.”

  “Thank you. That was an inspired bit of improvisation that you threw in. We could use that more in our interrogations—one of us heavy-handed, the other acting more like the friend of the person we’re confronting.”

  We were on our way to the house of Lucullus—or of his widow, to be more precise. Sempronia had sent word of our arrival and an introduction. Porcia, we’d been told, was not a descendant of the illustrious Marcus Porcius Cato, but came from a less important branch of that family. Other than that I knew nothing about her. Clymene, in a new servant’s gown and still weeping, was surrounded by Archidamos and several other servants walking far enough behind us that I didn’t think she could overhear what we were talking about, especially with the buzz of conversation going on among passersby and the hawking of shopkeepers. We kept our voices down none the less.

  “I still think she’s lying,” I said.

  “But why would she confess to such horrendous crimes if she didn’t do them?” Tacitus objected.

  “She’s covering up for someone, probably out of fear.”

  “Or out of love,” said Aurora, who was walking between us.

  “For whatever reason,” I said, “she’s lying. I’m sure of it. And I think Berenice is lying about not knowing who attacked her. And Sempronia is lying about Regulus’ lack of interest in Joshua. If Joshua could talk, he’d probably lie to us. By the gods! I’m so desperate I might even have to…consult an oracle to clear all this up.”

  “And she would just give you an ambiguous answer,” Aurora said, “that could mean anything and everything.”

  “What we need,” Tacitus said, “is some infallible sign of when a person is lying. When a man is aroused by a woman—or anyone else—you get an unmistakable sign, the mentula sticking out in front of him for all the world to see. What if, when a person lied, his ears were to turn bright red? Or, even better, what if his nose started to grow longer?” He pulled on his nose. “Yes, that’s it! On the analogy of the mentula, the more he lies, the longer his nose gets, and everybody can see it.”

  In spite of my desperation, I couldn’t help but laugh. “That would be useful because it would apply to men and women alike. It sounds like the premise of a comedy by Aristophanes.”

  “The masks would be hilarious. Characters would have to change masks as their noses grew longer.” Tacitus turned his head back and forth. “Whenever two characters conversed, they would look like gladiators hacking at one another.”

  Lucullus’ house was a quarter of the way up the Viminal Hill, in a neighborhood of modest buildings. His steward answered our knock and escorted us into the atrium. When Porcia came out of one of the rooms on the side of the atrium, I was reminded that she was no older than I am. Lucullus had been about fifty, so I assumed this was a second marriage. She was accompanied by her two small children. She looked tired, as though bearing two children so close together had left her weak. On top of that, she had to deal with the murder of her husband. She handed the children over to an elderly nurse who took them away.

  Before she said anything to us, Porcia glared at Clymene and said, “You wicked girl! Where have you been?”

  Clymene drew herself up and snarled, “That’s none of your business, Mother.” The last word was coated in more venom than had been applied to the knife that wounded me.

  “As you have probably guessed,” Porcia said as we sat in some shade in the small garden of her house, “this woman you call Clymene is Licinia, the daughter of Lucius Licinius Lucullus by his first wife, Aemilia. I married Lucullus six years ago, after Aemilia’s death in Antioch. Licinia has hated me from the first day. I’m only two years older than she is, and I’ve not been able to have any influence or control over her. You saw how rudely she refused to sit and talk with us. She has even hinted that I had something to do with Aemilia’s death, but I was in Rome at the time.”

  “How did Aemilia die?” I asked.

  “All I know is what I’ve been told, long after the fact. She was going to the games with some of her servants one day in Antioch and was stabbed to death, right in the midst of the crowd.”

  I tried not to show my surprise, but I felt my eyebrows go up. “Was the killer ever caught?”

  Porcia shook her head. “I’m told he simply vanished into the crowd. No one could identify him or even be certain what they had seen.”

  “Was she robbed?” Tacitus asked. “Any jewelry snatched off her?”

  “No. There didn’t seem to be any motive other than to kill her.”

  This was becoming an all-too-familiar refrain. Tacitus glanced at me, and I could see that he was thinking the same thing. “How was she stabbed?” I asked.

  Porcia looked confused. “Well, with a knife, I suppose. I wasn’t there.”

  “No, I mean, was she stabbed from the fron
t or from the back?”

  “Oh. From behind, I was told, in the middle part of her back. The blade was thrust upward so that it pierced her heart, Lucullus said. She bled profusely and died on the spot. As I mentioned, I wasn’t there.”

  “And Lucullus was also stabbed, wasn’t he?” I asked.

  Porcia nodded.

  “Where?”

  “In the latrina.” She pointed to the entrance, at the point where the garden joined the front of the house. “His body was stuffed into the drain. That’s why he wasn’t found for several hours.”

  I shook my head impatiently. “Again, I mean was he stabbed in the back or in some other part of his body?”

  “Sorry. In the back, with a thrust that went between his ribs and pierced his heart, the doctor said. He died instantly.”

  My mind reeled. If what I was hearing was accurate, the person who killed Lucullus was the same as the person who killed his wife six years ago and Berenicianus a few days ago. “I’ve heard that one of your servants was suspected of killing your husband but was never caught. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is. The man’s name is Simon. He disappeared along with several other servants and Licinia on the day when Lucullus was murdered.”

  “Had those people been in the household for long?”

  “Since the war with the Jews. Lucullus bought a group of captives after that war.”

  “So, fifteen years or so.”

  “And he bragged about setting fire to the temple?” Tacitus asked.

  “Yes, especially when he’d had too much to drink.”

  “Did any of your Jewish servants resent him for that?”

  “I think they did. I could see it in their eyes, but Lucullus was oblivious. He also bragged that he knew a secret about the temple that no one else knew.”

  “Did he ever indicate what he meant by that?”

  “I heard him say once that he knew where some special holy box was hidden. He never would say any more than that. When we came to Rome one of the first things we did was to go see the arch that Domitian put up in honor of Titus. Lucullus picked out one of the figures marching in front of Titus and said that was him. That was where he had marched in Titus’ triumph.”

  “Those figures aren’t meant to represent anyone in particular,” Tacitus said. “They’re just symbols.”

  “I realize that,” Porcia said, “but I couldn’t convince Lucullus.”

  “Had you had any trouble with Simon or any of the others in the time they’ve been here?” I asked. “Any reason to suspect that they might pose a danger to your household?”

  “No. Simon was not a pleasant man, but he never threatened anyone in our house, that I know of. The others followed his lead. If he didn’t make trouble, they didn’t.”

  “When you say he’s not a nice man, can you tell us more?”

  Porcia folded her hands in her lap. “Lucullus wasn’t a particularly nice man himself. He didn’t hesitate to apply pressure on people in his business dealings—force might even be a better word. But Simon was the man he sent after people, like a hunter’s dog after a deer that he’s tracking. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Simon killed some people along the way, on behalf of Lucullus, but I have no proof.”

  “Having someone like this Simon to turn loose on people would let Lucullus keep his hands clean,” I said.

  Porcia nodded. “In the long run, though, what it did was to give Simon power over Lucullus. He could expose him at any time, and he didn’t hesitate to remind Lucullus of that power.”

  “What did Licinia have to do with Simon?” Tacitus asked.

  “She’s always been headstrong, a challenge to her father. She rejects our family’s way of life. She dresses like a servant and won’t eat meat. She developed a fascination for Simon. She claimed she was in love with him. I think she just wanted to spite her father. There was nothing Lucullus could do to keep them apart. He was that afraid of Simon.”

  “What do you know about Simon’s life before he was enslaved?”

  “Not much. Lucullus wasn’t even sure his true name was Simon. But none of the other slaves Lucullus bought with him would tell us otherwise. He speaks excellent Greek. I think he was from one of the outlying areas, not from Jerusalem itself. But that’s all I know.”

  “What did you think of him?” I asked.

  Porcia shuddered and drew her arms around herself. “I was afraid of him from the first moment I met him. He’s not a particularly large man—about as tall as you, Gaius Pliny—but broader in the shoulders. Something about him intimidates you, though, as soon as he comes into a room.”

  If he’s not very tall, I thought, he could easily blend into a crowd. And he must be strong enough to inflict such a serious wound with one upward thrust of a knife. I turned to Aurora. “Does that sound like the man who attacked me?”

  “Yes, my lord. And the man we saw at the synagogue.”

  “But you said he had a beard.”

  “Beards can be shaved, my lord.”

  “Simon often wore a beard,” Porcia said, “but he would shave it at times. At other times he would let it grow.”

  “My lord,” Aurora said, “Phineas says that Jewish men sometimes make a vow to their god not to shave their beards or cut their hair until they’ve carried out some important task.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” Porcia said, “but Simon could look very different at different times—the length of his hair, whether he had a beard or not. It was all quite unpredictable. Lucullus said not to ask him about it.”

  “So we can’t even get a good description of the man we’re looking for,” I said.

  Tacitus had fallen quiet. Now he said, “My lady, did your husband ever mention a man named Berenicianus?”

  “No, I’ve never heard that name. What does he have to do with Lucullus?”

  “We found him in a warehouse of Gaius Pliny’s a few days ago. He had been killed by a knife wound in his back. And Licinia was also found there with several other people who had been killed when the warehouse collapsed.”

  “Who were those other people?”

  “We don’t know names,” I said, “but they were three men and another woman.”

  “They must be the slaves who escaped with Simon when Lucullus was killed. There was a small group of them who were purchased when Lucullus bought Simon. They clung together, like a family. Their names were Reuben, who was the oldest, Gideon, Saul, and Deborah. We wanted to give them Greek or Latin names, but Simon refused and my husband didn’t insist.”

  “So they were all Jews?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they have a particular craft or skill?”

  “They were fullers. They had had a shop in Jerusalem and Lucullus let them open one for him in Antioch.”

  That explained the discoloration on their hands.

  “How did they get along with others in the household?” Tacitus asked.

  “Not well. They kept to themselves,” Porcia said. “Licinia acted as though she was a friend of theirs, just to annoy her father, I’m sure. She treated them as practically her equals, like some Cynic philosopher. It was most disgraceful and kept the household in turmoil.”

  “Why did Lucullus let that go on?” I asked.

  “He couldn’t stop Simon from doing anything because of the dirty work Simon did for him. And no one can control Licinia. Simon would spend the night in her room, and they made no effort to hide what they were doing.”

  I wish I could be so bold, I thought.

  “She sounds like one of those women who debase themselves with gladiators and chariot drivers,” Tacitus said.

  “Exactly. I don’t know what I’m going to do with her now. How can I keep her in the house? Can I lock her up somewhere?”

  “No, you can’t, Mother,” a woman’s voice said. Licinia emerged from the house and stood in front of us with her arms crossed over her chest. She had changed into one of her own gowns, which still looked like something a servan
t would wear. She had combed her hair and pinned it up but wore no makeup, emphasizing the boniness of her cheeks and neck. “I’m sure Simon will come to get me because he loves me, and there’s not one single thing you can do about it.”

  “We could turn you over to the Praetorians and let them lock you up,” I said. “You confessed to killing two men of equestrian rank.”

  Licinia snarled. “You forced that confession out of me. I would have said anything to avoid a beating. I should have let you lay the whip on me a few more times. You know it’s a violation of the law to beat someone of the citizen class without a trial.”

  I stood up and turned to face her. “I had no way of knowing who you were. You passed yourself off as a plebeian or lower. You never indicated who your family was. And you confessed after only one light blow from the whip.”

  “Yes, I’m ashamed of myself for that.” She straightened her bony shoulders. “I thought I could hold out and let you hit me a few times, for the sake of all the other unfortunates who’ve suffered like that. Then I could bring a charge against you. But the pain was too great.”

  “You’re nothing but a posturing hypocrite,” Porcia said.

  Licinia hung her head and looked away. “For the first time in your life, Mother, you’re right. I can’t deny that.”

  “Why did you want to cause trouble for me?” I asked. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know that damn stripe. You, my father—every one of you who wears that thing—you lord it over people. You think you can own them, like cattle. You think you own that girl, sitting there so meekly behind you.” She threw her hand out in Aurora’s direction.

  I was surprised to suddenly find myself the focus of everyone’s attention. “Yes, Gaius does own me,” I wanted to say, “in the eyes of the law. But it’s not that simple. I can’t imagine not being his slave. Or maybe I just don’t want to imagine it.”

  Licinia would probably say that was because I was too stupid to think in any other terms. There have been philosophers who have taught against slavery, she would say.