Under Vesuvius

14

The atmosphere in our town house could best be described as tense. Nobody knew what was happening, nobody knew what I was up to. I posted my lictors at the street door and ushered everyone inside. Antonia and Circe chattered away, excited as always by discord. Julia was grim faced; all the men of my party except Hermes looked at me as if I had committed political suicide. That would have suited Hermes fine. He'd have been overjoyed if I had run down to the harbor, seized a ship, and turned pirate.

"There'll be big trouble over this in Rome," Marcus predicted.

"With the uproar that prevails in Rome," I said, "who is going to notice? Now be silent. I have to think some things through." I sat in the courtyard and a servant brought wine and lunch.

"I was hoping you'd thought things through already," Julia said.

"Oh, we should be able to sort things out well before sundown," I told her. I took out the will. "Now, about this document. You are sure that it's the same hand?"

She went to our bedroom and returned with the little scroll. We spread both of them out on a table. There was no doubt of it.

"Gelon," I said, "did you know that your father was having an affair with Gorgo?"

"Impossible!" he cried, now recovered enough to feel indignation over something besides his impending execution.

"Why impossible?" I demanded. "It wouldn't be the first time a father swept a sweetheart out from under his son, so to speak. Look at these papers. He was writing some very intense, erotic poems to the girl. She had them hidden in her handmaid's chamber."

Gelon strode to the table and stared, dumbfounded at the documents. "My father never wrote these!''

"How can you be sure?" Julia asked him.

"Because he couldn't write Greek! Or Latin, either, for that matter. He could read and write in Punic, which is a language good for keeping accounts and little else."

I looked at Julia and she looked back at me, the possibilities revolving in our heads. As so often, we were treading the same path together.

"Hermes," I said, "fetch that little dagger that killed Gaeto."

Mystified, he did my bidding, returning in moments with the minuscule weapon. I handed it to Julia. "Tell me, my dear," I said, "how would you use this to kill me?"

While the others stood or sat with mouths agape, she studied the dagger in her palm. Then she smiled. "Here is how I would do it."

That day her hair was dressed in the most demure fashion, parted in the middle, drawn back and knotted at her nape, the remainder trailing in a long tail down her back. She reached behind her neck and threaded the little dagger into her hair, trying several different ways until she was satisfied. When her hands fell away, the weapon was not visible. She turned to our rapt little audience, smiling.

"You may now assume that I am naked, about to embrace my loving husband." Even Antonia and Circe kept silent as Julia approached me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew my head down for a kiss. In Rome, for a wife to kiss her husband before witnesses was something of a scandal, but we were all Baiaean libertines by now. I felt her fingertips resting at the back of my skull, then I felt a tiny pricking sensation in that spot. One of our watchers-Circe, I think-gasped slightly.

"You will notice," Julia said, "that I withdrew the dagger just as our faces came together. Even with his eyes open, my unsuspecting spouse couldn't see what was going on behind me. I placed the tip of the thing between the fingers of my left hand and guided it to that very vulnerable spot where the neck joins the skull. No unerring eye was needed. I could have done the whole operation with my eyes shut. Next-"

I jerked as she smacked me very sharply on the back of the neck. Antonia and Circe jerked as well. The men were made of sterner material, but they looked a little sick, doubtless thinking of all the women with whom they had let their guards down.

"Had I not snatched the dagger away in time," Julia said, "I'd have driven it in to the hilt. No powerful arm required, either." She stepped back, pleased with her performance.

I glared at Hermes. "I blame you for putting that idea into our heads," I told him. "You were the one who first said it had to be a strong man with the eye of a swordsman." He just shrugged and rolled his eyes.

"I should have seen it sooner," Julia said. "I told you there was something odd about that writing and that verse. If it had been in Latin, I'd have noticed it sooner. Those verses were written by a woman. When I first saw them, I said they read like something out of Sappho."

"Just a minute," Antonia said with horrified delight. "Are you saying that it was Jocasta who was having an affair with that girl? Jocasta who killed her?"

"She wasn't the only one sharing a bed or a grassy hummock with poor Gorgo," I said, "but she killed her."

"No!" Gelon cried, distraught. "She could not have!"

"Just as Gorgo and your father were not the only ones enjoying the intimate delights of Jocasta's body," I said. "Hermes said that you were half asleep when he called on you that morning, and more stunned than might have been expected when you got the terrible news. Did Jocasta drug you?"

The boy sat huddled in a heap of misery, covering his face with his hands. "She-she must have! It was not something we did often, but sometimes I couldn't help myself, and she always acted as if she did it only to please me. That night, Father was away, the house was empty of all save the two of us. I thought we'd just had too much wine with dinner-"

"But you woke up in her bed with the lictors pounding on the door, eh?" I said. "Must have been a shock."

Hermes stared at him, aghast. "You mean you were putting it to your father's wife?" This was pretty strong stuff, even for Rome.

"Oh, don't be so hard on him," Antonia said. "It's not like she was his mother! She was just a second wife, more like a concubine. He was going to inherit the old man's concubines anyway."

"It is a terrible crime in Numidia," Gelon said. "If word of it reaches there, I can never go back!"

"Don't complain so much," Antonia advised. "The praetor has already spared you the cross and the beasts of the arena. Now it looks like you won't even be beheaded. You're ahead of the game any way you look at it."

"Spoken like a true Antonian," I said.

"But why kill Charmian?" Julia said, "And Quadrilla?"

"Charmian!" Hermes said, anxious to cover up his earlier gaffe. "It was to Jocasta's house that she fled. Jocasta was her 'protector'!"

Circe snorted. "Some protector."

"We'll find out about the rest," I said. "We know enough for now. Time to talk to the woman herself."

"I'll take the lictors and go arrest her," Hermes said.

"No," I told him. "I don't want her to have time to concoct a story. I want to go and brace her before she knows she's been exposed."

"I'm not missing this for anything," Julia said. "Praetorly dignity be damned. I'm going with you."

"Me, too!" cried Circe and Antonia in unison. I know when I am outnumbered.

In a small mob we made our way to Jocasta's town house. On the way we encountered Sublicius Pansa, patrolling the streets as I had ordered.

"Am I not supposed to disperse gatherings of more than three?" he said, grinning.

"I didn't mean me," I growled. "And I don't require an escort." I didn't want the woman to hear approaching hoofbeats.

Baiae being the small town it was, we were at her door in minutes. It was not locked, and the lictors rushed in with us close behind.

We found her seated at the rim of the pool of her impluvium, toying with a lotus flower that floated therein. She wore another of her silk gowns. This one was black, perhaps in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion. She looked up at me and saw instantly that it was all over for her. A lictor placed a hand ceremonially on her shoulder.

"Jocasta," I said, "I arrest you for the murders of Gorgo the daughter of Diocles; of your husband, Gaeto; of Charmian the slave of Gorgo; and of Quadrilla, wife of the duumvir Manius Silva." I almost added the rest of the formula, "Come with me to the praetor," but realized in time that I was the praetor.

She sighed. "You are such a stubborn man. If you had just executed that fool"-she jabbed a finger toward Gelon-"you would have been too embarrassed to come after me, even if you figured out the truth later."

"I have a high tolerance for embarrassment," I told her. "I wouldn't have let you get away with it."

"If you say so. But you are very sensitive, for a Roman. Not many would have gone to such lengths for a slaver's son. And you are wrong about one thing. I didn't kill Charmian."

"Then how did she die?" I asked her.

"Perhaps," Julia said, "you should tell us all that happened."

Jocasta stared at her with eyes grown haggard, a face abruptly aged. "Aren't you forward for a Roman wife?"

"She isn't a Roman wife," I told her. "She's a Caesar." I found a nearby chair and sat as a praetor should when hearing a case. The rest of my party remained standing, even Julia.

"Why should I tell you anything?" Jocasta demanded. "I'm to die whatever I say."

"I'll make you the same promise I made Gelon: No cross, no beasts in the arena. A quick beheading and it's over. But only if you explain it all. I owe this to Manius Silva and to Diocles and to the shades of the dead. They can cross over the river and know peace when this matter is settled and they are avenged."

"You owe Diocles nothing!" she hissed with shocking malice.

"All right," I said. "Let's start there. What was Diocles' part in all

this?"

"He was Gaeto's partner! I lied about the man in Verona. When Gaeto first set up in Baiae he needed a citizen partner, and he needed one of impeccable lineage. Slaving can be a chancy business, you know. He might have bought kidnapped Roman citizens by mistake, and then he would have been in terrible trouble. The penalties are fearsome, as you know well. He had to have a highly placed partner to speak up for him in court."

"Why would the priest of Apollo go into partnership with a slaver?" Julia wanted to know.

"For money, of course! Far higher than the usual percentage. And he wasn't a priest back then. His father was still the priest, and he had an older brother. But the brother died first, and then Diocles inherited the priesthood and he was too respectable, too noble for the likes of us. But he took the money. Year after year he demanded his cut, and year after year he snubbed us and treated us like offal beneath his feet!" The woman had great reserves of bitterness, that much was clear.

"And your talk about Greek malcontents meeting at the temple to talk against Rome, that was just magician's smoke to confuse my investigation?"

"Oh, such meetings were held, but nothing would ever have come of them. It was the drunken ramblings of resentful men. They all had too much at stake to risk revolutionary action. They were just disgruntled at having Rome lording it over them. But Diocles did help them out when they had financial troubles. He could afford to, with the money he raked in from the slave trade."

"You said you had a spy in the temple," I said. "Was it Gorgo or Charmian who told you about these meetings?"

"Charmian," she said sadly. "Poor Charmian. She was so lively and strong, so intelligent. No, Gorgo had little going on in her head and a great deal going on between her legs."

Circe astonished me by saying; "Did you love her?"

Jocasta jerked around, surprised. "No. She was a sweet, stupid girl and she was pleasant to be with, but I could not love such a creature."

"But those passionate poems-" Julia began, then she stopped, her eyes going wide. "You wrote them to Charmian!"

"We speculated such a thing at first," I said. "We found the poems in the girls' quarters. But we were fixated on Gorgo."

"She loved you, though," Julia said, her voice hardening. "She put on her best jewelry, anointed herself with your favorite perfume, Zoroaster's Rapture-surely you gave her the jewelry and the perfume?"

"Oh, yes, they were my gifts. But I wrote poems only for Charmian."

"So was Charmian your go-between with Gorgo," Antonia asked, "or was it the other way around?"

Jocasta regarded her with eyes worldly enough to give even an An-tonian pause. "Why do you think it had to be one or the other?"

"You mean," Antonia said, "all three of you?" Her face filled with wonder. "You were getting up to some serious debauchery out in Apollo's grove!"

"Very Greek in all respects," I said. "But she didn't wear her very best jewelry to that last meeting. She didn't wear this." I took the huge necklace from within my tunic and let it drop to its full length, the jewel-studded golden lozenges rattling faintly. Jocasta jerked slightly at the sight, glaring. "Gaeto gave her this, didn't he?"

"Yes!" She packed a world of hatred into one short word.

"Is it why you killed her?"

"No, it's just a bauble. But it portended worse things. Charmian told me about it, that Gaeto was meeting Gorgo and bringing her fabulous gifts."

"Poor little Leto said Gorgo returned to bed smelling differently after various assignations. Sometimes it was Jocasta's perfume, sometimes it was healthy male musk, Numidian variety."

"You are being vulgar, dear," Julia chided.

"And the girl was fickle," Jocasta went on. "She was beginning to fancy Gelon, who was closer to her own age."

I stole a glance at Gelon. He seemed to have turned to stone. Maybe he wasn't going to be executed, but he was getting a double ration of suffering.

"You mean," Hermes said, "you were bedding the father, the son, the woman they both loved, and her slave girl?"

"Let's not forget Quadrilla," I said, "but we'll get to her later. You said the necklace portended worse things. What did you mean?"

"I think I can answer that," said my wife, who had turned out to be unsettlingly handy with a dagger. "He was looking for a younger wife, wasn't he? One better placed than a Greek hetaera."

Jocasta smiled bleakly. "Pray you don't learn what it feels like. Yes, he wanted Gorgo for a wife. Unlike Gelon, he could have forced Diocles to his will. Killed him if necessary. Under all the polish I gave him, he was a brute. And Diocles wasn't much of a partner any more. The great men of the town were borrowing from Gaeto as well as from the priest. Any of them would have agreed to be a partner, as long as discretion was observed."

"So you got rid of her," I said. "Did Charmian help you?"

"No, both girls were asleep when I strangled her. With a scarf, it can be done so gently that the victim passes into death without ever wakening. Wives sometimes hire hetaerae to do away with their husbands in such a fashion. They seem to have passed away from overindulgence."

"But the scream-¦" Julia began. Then, "Oh, that was Charmian, wasn't it?"

"Yes, when I awakened her and told her her mistress was dead. She was distraught for a while, tried frantically to revive her. But she recovered quickly."

"So that accounts for the disordered state of the body, despite your humane method of assassination," I noted. "Now tell me how you killed your husband."

She thought for a while, and we did not prod her. One doesn't hear so elaborate a confession often.

"I prepared for this long ago," she said. "Gaeto depended on me for many of his business dealings. I write well in Latin and Greek, languages in which he was illiterate, though he spoke them well enough. He dictated his will, in which he left most of his property to Gelon, with provisions he thought would satisfy me. I wrote it the way I knew it should read. When I knew he would soon be making a new will, it was time to act. At such times you have to act swiftly and decisively. You can't hesitate.

"With Gorgo dead, I knew that he would deduce what had happened within a few days. He was not a stupid man. I hadn't realized that Diocles would suspect Charmian so swiftly. He'd suspected her of spying for a long time, it turns out. When she escaped, she came straight to me, of course. She'd been hideously beaten, but she insisted on coming with me when I went to kill my husband. I didn't want her to-she was too badly hurt-but she was like iron. Besides, there was a problem with my plan."

"You needed to stand on your horse to get atop the wall," I said. "But somebody had to hold it while you were inside, so that you could make your escape." This accounted for the smell of horse I'd detected on the girl's body.

"I told myself that it was all right. It wasn't a long ride, after all. I washed and dressed her and we rode out after dark. There was no problem getting into the compound. I was very familiar with the place and its routines. Gaeto was surprised to see me, but he thought I'd just come in through the front gate. I disrobed and let him know that I was overcome with passion. He was a man. He was flattered. I put the dagger in him and dressed and left."

So much for her inconvenient husband.

"But as we neared the city before dawn, Charmian doubled over in terrible pain. It was the beating. I never should have let her ride with me. That vicious priest killed her!" For the first time she wept. This was the only death that touched her. She dried her tears and went on. "I took her as far as the laundry park and she could ride no farther. I laid her down on the grass and she died before sunrise. I did the best I could by her, and it was such a beautiful place." She was weary, now, all but drained.

"But you had to strip her and leave her naked," I said, "because you'd dressed her in your household livery."

"Aren't you the clever one," she said tonelessly.

"Actually," I told her, "Hermes figured that one out. He has his moments. That leaves only Quadrilla. Why did you kill her?"

"The dagger."

"What?" I said.

"She'd taught me that trick with the little dagger, hiding it in your hair. Greek hetaerae don't use it, you see. They don't stoop to common, brutal clients. They're too expensive. But Italian whores know the trick, and Quadrilla had been forced into prostitution when she was a young girl, after her father was ruined. Like so many of the wives around here, she came to me to learn refinements. In return, she taught me some of the baser realities of a whore's life. Just in case I should ever be cast aside, you see."

"But she smuggled you into her house," Julia said. "You were sleeping with her, too."

"With quite a few of the local ladies, actually. As I said, they came to me for lessons. What better way to teach? But Quadrilla began to tease, to let me know she knew I'd done away with Gaeto. Maybe she would have kept silent. But I couldn't risk it."

"And the bandits?" I said. "How did you contact them?"

She livened a bit. "By pure luck. They found me arranging Charmian's body. They'd been driven from Vesuvius by the smoke and ash and were foraging in the countryside. They wanted the horses. I told them go ahead and take them. Then I told them that I could pay them handsomely of they'd get rid of a Roman praetor and his prisoner for me. You're such a troublesome snoop. I told them when Gaeto's funeral would be and which road you would be on."

"How did you know I'd let Gelon go and that I would attend?"

"Because I'd already seen what a dutiful man you were, what an examplar of Roman pietas, when you were so generous about Gorgo's funeral. You were so punctilious about matters of religion and ritual. I never thought you'd be so handy with a sword. I was very impressed."

"But why," Julia asked, "did you take Quadrilla's sapphire?"

She looked at my wife, and for the first time her eyes revealed the madness within. "As a keepsake. I truly liked Quadrilla."

"Why didn't you kill Diocles?" Antonia asked.

"He was next," Jocasta told us. "But Diocles presented difficulties. He would never let me get close. The others allowed me to get close."

There was silence for a while, then I rose from my chair. "It is almost sundown and I told the town that I would render judgment by then. Let's go to the forum and set this matter at rest."

"Actually," Jocasta said, "I don't wish to provide a spectacle for all these Campanian snobs. But I don't mind letting a Caesar and a Metellus see this." Her right hand went to her hair.

"Stop her!" Julia shouted.

But Jocasta was too swift for our stunned senses and she hadn't run out of daggers. This was not one of her needlelike weapons. It was no larger, but its blade was flat and double-edged, with a keen point. It flashed across and went in beneath her left ear. She jerked it across, all the way to the other ear. The she stood there, with her blood flowing like a waterfall. Throughout, she glared at us with defiance, standing erect, letting us know who was the true aristocrat here. Then the light went out of her eyes.

I sat again, ignoring the wails and sobs of the women, the strangled noises made by the men.

"I should have had her stripped and her hair searched," I said. "I must be getting old." But I was truly not unhappy that I would not be condemning her to death. In spite of all she had done, I did not want her blood on my hands.

"I lost the case but my client was exonerated," Tiro mused. "I am not sure how I feel about that."

"Feel happy," Cicero advised. "The law is a chancy business. I was exiled for the finest legal judgment I ever delivered." He shook his head. "This district is so pleasant it's hard to believe it's such a sink of corruption."

"I like it anyway," I assured them. "They know how to have a good time, and you can't get fish stew like this just anyplace."

We were lounging in a dining room of the Villa Hortensia while my household packed up for the trip to Bruttium. We were dipping crusts of bread into the last of the stew, having put away a prodigious amount of it.

"Did you hear?" Hermes inquired. "Diocles opened his veins last night."

"With all his guilt," I said, "what he couldn't stand was for people to know he'd been the slaver's partner. This is one funeral I'll pass up."

"So ends the line of priests of Campanian Apollo," Julia said sadly.

"They'll find another one," I assured her. "Bloodlines aren't everything."

"But such an ancient lineage!" she said. "It seems a shame."

"This was just a little change in a little town," Cicero said. "I fear that far greater things are about to change very soon." And so they did.

These things happened in Southern Campania in the year 704 of the City of Rome, the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Caius Claudius Marcellus.