The Venus Throw

Chapter Ten

“The young men you see in the river wearing loincloths are mine. My slaves, that is-my litter bearers and bodyguards. I let them wear loincloths here at the horti. After all, I can see them naked anytime I wish. Also, it makes it easier for me to pick out the others. Any young Roman worth being seen naked knows that he's allowed to come swimming along my stretch of the Tiber anytime he wishes-so long as he does it in the nude. They come down from the road along a little pathway hidden beyond those trees and leave their tunics hanging on branches. At the height of summer on a hot afternoon there are sometimes more than a hundred of them out there, diving, splashing each other, sunning themselves on the rocks — naked by my decree. Look at the shoulders on that one… "

I found myself staring at a woman of no few years-knowing that she was about five years older than her brother Publius Clodius, I calculated that she was probably forty, give or take a year. It was hard to say whether she looked her age or not. However old she looked, it suited her. Clodia's skin was certainly finer than that of most women of forty, the color of white roses, very creamy and smooth; perhaps, I thought, the filtered light of the tent flattered her. Her hair was black and lustrous, arranged by some hidden magic of pins and combs into an intricate maze of curls atop her head. The way that her hair was pulled back from her forehead gave emphasis to the striking angles of her cheekbones and the proud line of her nose, which was almost, but not quite, too large. Her lips were a sumptuous red which surely could not have been natural.

Her eyes seemed to glitter with flashes of blue and yellow but mostly of green, the color of emeralds, sparkling as the sunlight sparkled on the green Tiber. I had heard of her eyes; Clodia's eyes were famous.

"Look at the gooseflesh on them!" She laughed. "It's a wonder they can stand to go in the water at all. The river must still be frigid so early in the year, no matter how warm the sunshine. Look how it shrivels their manhoods; a pity, for that can be half the fun of watching. But notice, not one of them is shivering. They don't want me to see them shiver, the dear, brave, foolish boys." She laughed again, a low, throaty chuckle.

Clodia reclined on her divan with her back against a pile ofcushions and her legs folded to one side beneath her. A long stola of shimmering yellow silk, belted below her breasts and again at her waist, covered her from her neck down. Only her arms were naked. Even so, no one could have called the costume modest. The fabric was so sheer as to be trans-parent, so that it was hard to tell, in the glittering light from the sun-spangled river, how much of the sheen of her contours came from the shiny silk and how much from the sleek flesh beneath. I had never seen a dress like it. This must have shown on my face, for Clodia laughed again, and not at the young men in the river.

"Do you like it?" She looked steadily into my eyes as she smoothed her palm over her hip and down her thigh to the bend of her knee. The silk seemed to ripple like water before the advancing edge of her hand. "It comes all the way from Cos. Something new from a famous silkmaker there. I don't think any other woman in Rome has a dress like it. Or perhaps they're like me, not quite brave enough to wear such a garment in public." She smiled demurely and reached up to the silver necklace at her throat. She spread her fingers, and I could clearly see, thanks to the transparency of the silk, that while she rolled one of the lapis baubles between her forefinger and thumb, with her little finger she delicately stroked one of her large, pale nipples until it began to grow excited.

I cleared my throat and glanced over my shoulder. The young men in the water were now throwing a leather ball back and forth among themselves, making a game of it, but every now and then they shot glances toward the tent. No wonder they had come to the river on the first warm day of the year, I thought. They came to look at her no less than she came to look at them. I cleared my throat again.

"Is your throat dry? Did you walk all the way from the Palatine?" She sounded genuinely curious, as if walking for any distance outdoors was a feat she had watched her litter bearers perform but which she had never attempted on her own.

"Yes, I walked."

"Poor dear, then you must be thirsty. Here, look, before she left,

Chrysis put out cups for us. The clay pitcher holds fresh water. The wine in the silver decanter is Falernian. I never drink anything else."

The vessels were set on a little table beside her. There was no chair, however. It appeared that visitors were meant to stand.

My mouth was in fact quite dry, and not entirely from the heat of the day. Clodia's cup was already full of wine, so I reached for the pitcher of water and poured myself a cup, drinking it slowly before I poured myself another.

"No wine?" She sounded disappointed.

"I think not. It's bad for a man my age to drink wine after exerting himself in the heat of the day." If not bad for my bowels, I thought, then bad for my judgment in such company. What would the transparent silk dress begin to look like after a cup or two of strong Falernian?

"As you wish." She shrugged. The silk pooled above her shoulders, then rippled like a sheet of water over her breasts.

I finished the second cup of water and put it down. "There was a reason you sent the gallus for me?"

"Yes, there was." She turned her gaze from me and fixed it on the young men in the river. I watched her eyes flit back and forth, following the leather ball. Her face remained impassive.

"Trygonion said it had something to do with Dio."

She nodded.

"Perhaps I should close the tent flaps," I said.

"Then what would the young men in the river think?" The idea of scandal seemed to amuse her, as did my growing consternation.

"If we need a chaperon, call back your handmaiden."

"Do we need a chaperon?" The look in her eyes was unnerving. "You obviously don't know Chrysis; she would hardly qualify for the role."

"Trygonion, then."

At that she laughed aloud and opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. "Forgive me," she said. "When I have business to conduct with a good-looking man, I like to indulge in a little teasing first. It's a fault of mine. My friends have learned to overlook it. I hope that you'll overlook the fault as well, Gordianus, now that I've confessed it."

I nodded.

"Very well. Yes, I wanted to consult you regarding the untimely death of our mutual friend, Dio of Alexandria." "Ourmutual friend?"

"Yes, mine as well as yours. Don't look so surprised, Gordianus. There are probably a great many things about Dio that you didn't know.

For that matter, there are probably a great many things about me that don't know, despite all you may have heard. I'll try to be brief and to the point. It was I who suggested to Dio that he should go to your house to seek your help on the night he was murdered."

"You?"

"Yes."

"But you don't know me."

"Even so, I know of you, just as you undoubtedly know of me. Your reputation goes back a long way, Finder. I was a girl of seventeen, still living at home, when Cicero made such a splash defending that man accused of parricide. I remember my father talking about the case for long afterward. I didn't know of the role you played until many years later, of course, when I learned the details from Cicero himself-how Cicero loved to rehash that old case, again and again, until his triumph over Catilina finally gave him something even bigger to crow about! Cicero used to speak of you often to my late husband; on a few occasions he even recommended that Quintus seek out your services, but Quintus was always stubborn about using his own men for snooping and such. I shall be honest with you: Cicero didn't always speak highly of you. That is to say, from time to time when your name was brought up, he sometimes used words that should not be repeated aloud by a respectable Roman matron such as myself. But we've all had our fallings-out with Cicero, have we not? The important thing is that even when he was infuriated with you, Cicero always made a point of praising your honesty and integrity. Indeed, when Quintus was governor up in Cisalpine Gaul, Cicero and his wife Terentia came for a visit, and one night after dinner we all played a game of questions and answers; when Quintus asked Cicero what man he would trust to tell the truth, no matter what, do you know whom he named? Yes, Gordianus, it was you. So you see, when Dio asked us to whom he might turn for help, the name of Gordianus the Finder came to my mind at once. I didn't know at the time that you and Dio already knew each other; Trygonion told me about that after their visit to you."

"I suppose I'm flattered," I said. "You know, then, that I met Dio in Alexandria, years ago?"

"Trygonion explained it to me." "But how is it that you knew Dio?"

"Because of his dealings with my brother Publius, of course." "What dealings?"

"They met shortly after Dio arrived in Rome. The two of them had much to talk about."

"I should think that Dio and Publius Clodius would have had a hard time finding common ground, considering that it was your brother who engineered the Roman takeover of Egyptian Cyprus."

"Water under the bridge, as the Etruscans say. Far more important to Dio was my brother's opposition to Pompey. Publius offered Dio a much-needed ally in the Senate. Dio offered Publius a means to cheat Pompey of his ambitions in Egypt."

"And your place in all this?"

"There's something about sharp-witted older men that I find simply irresistible." She gave me another of her unnerving looks. "And what did Dio see in you?" I asked bluntly.

"Perhaps it was my well-known love of poetry." Clodia shrugged elegantly, causing the sheer silk to catch and drag across her nipples.

"If you and your brother were such great friends and supporters of Dio, why didn't he stay at your house where he'd be safe, instead of moving from one dubious host to another, staying barely ahead of his killer?"

"Dio couldn't stay at my house for the same reason that you may not lower the flaps of this tent, Gordianus. A man and a woman together, you understand. Dio's position with the Senate was precarious enough without having it further eroded by sexual innuendos. Nor could he have stayed with Publius; imagine the rumors that would have set off, about the Egyptian troublemaker hatching plots with the famous rabble-rouser. Notoriety exacts a price. Sometimes our friends must stay at arm's length, for their own good."

"Very well, Dio was your friend, or ally, or whatever, and you sent him to me for help. I had to refuse him. A few hours later he was dead. You and your brother didn't do a very good job of protecting him, did you?"

Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. "Nor did you," she said icily, "who had known him far longer than I had, and whose obligations must have run far deeper."

I winced. "Just so. But even if I had agreed to Dio's request, I would've been too late to save him. By the time I woke up the next morning-no, even before I fell asleep that night-he was already dead."

"But what if you had said yes to Dio? What if you had agreed to begin looking after his safety the next morning, helping him decide whom to trust and whom to fear? Wouldn't you have felt some obligation after his death, to try to bring his murderer to justice?"

"Perhaps… "

"And do you feel no such obligation now, simply out of respect for an old friendship? Why do you hesitate to answer?"

"Doesn't everyone know who was behind Dio's murder?"

"Who?"

"King Ptolemy, of course."

"Was it King Ptolemy who slipped poison into Dio's soup in the house of Lucceius? Was it Ptolemy himself who stole into Dio's room and stabbed him to death?"

"No, of course not. It was someone acting on the king's behalf-"

"Exactly. And do you feel no obligation to see that this person is punished, if only to give solace to Dio's shade?"

"Asicius has already been tried for the crime-"

"And acquitted, the swine!" Her eyes flashed. "Nemesis will have to deal with him in her own fashion. But there's another man, even more culpable than Asicius, who has yet to be brought to justice. You could help, Gordianus."

Though there was no chance that the men in the river could over-hear, still I lowered my voice. "If you mean Pompey-"

"Pompey! Do you think I would send you against Pompey? That would be like sending a one-armed gladiator into the arena to take on an elephant." Her laughter was like sand in my face. "No, Gordianus, what I want from you is very simple, and well within your capabilities. How many times have you investigated the circumstances of a murder? How many times have you helped an advocate find evidence that would prove a man guilty or innocent of such a crime? That's all I want from you. I'm not asking you to topple a king from his throne or pull down a colossus. Only help me bring down the wrath of the law on the man who killed Dio by his own hand. Help me punish the cold-blooded killer who plunged a dagger into Dio's breast!"

I expelled a heavy breath and turned to stare at the sunlight on the

river.

"Why do you hesitate, Gordianus? I'll pay you for your labors, of course, and generously. But I expected you to leap at this opportunity, out of your respect for Dio. Is his shade not whispering in your ear even now, pleading for vengeance? He asked for your help once before, while he was still alive-"

"These days, in a case such as this-in a matter of murder-I usually defer to my son Eco. He's younger, stronger, quicker. Those things often matter when the stakes are so high. Sharp ears and eyes can mean the difference between life and death. An old fellow like myself-"

"But your son never knew Dio, did he?"

"Even so, I think it's Eco you want."

"Well, never having seen him, it's hard for me to say whether I would want him or not. Does he look like a younger version of you?" She looked me up and down, as if I were a slave on the auction block.

I bit my lip for having mentioned Eco, imagining him in my place, alone with such a creature. What was I thinking, recommending him to her? "Both of my sons are adopted," I said.

"They look nothing like

me."

"They must be ugly, then," she said, affecting a frown of disappointment. "Well, then, you're the man I want, Gordianus, and there's no way around it. Will you help me or not?"

I hesitated.

"For Dio's sake?"

I sighed, seeing no way out. "You want me to find out who murdered

Dio?"

"No, no!" She shook her head. "Didn't I make myself clear? We already know that. What I need from you is your help in collecting evidence to convict the man."

"You know who murdered Dio?"

"Of course. You know him, too, I'm sure. Until a few days ago, he lived just up the street from you. His name is Marcus Caelius."

I stared at her blankly. "How do you know that?"

She leaned forward, absently running her hands over her thighs. The movement pressed her breasts together and caused the sheer cloth which outlined her nipples to shimmer. "Until recently, Marcus Caelius and I were on rather intimate terms. He and my brother were also close. You might say that Caelius was almost like a brother to both of us."

The way she said it, the implication was vaguely obscene. "Go on."

"Not long before the poison attempt was made on Dio in the house of Lucius Lucceius, Caelius came to me asking to borrow a considerable sum of money."

"So?"

"He told me he needed the money to pay for some games being held in his home town, Interamnia. Apparently Caelius has an honorary post on the local council there. In return, there's an obligation to help pay for local festivals; that's the way Caelius explained it to me, anyway. It wasn't the first time he asked to borrow money from me."

"Did you always oblige him?"

"Usually. You might say I had developed a habit of indulging Marcus Caelius. He always repaid me, but seldom with money." "Then how?" "With favors." "Political favors?"

Clodia laughed. "Hardly. Let's just say that I had an itch and Caelius knew how to scratch it. But I'm digressing. As I said, the sum of money

he asked to borrow was rather large-considerably larger than he'd ever requested before."

"Enough to pay for an awful lot of scratching," I said.

Her eyes flashed. "Why, yes, perhaps that's what I was thinking when I foolishly agreed to give Caelius the loan. Afterward, I became apprehensive, and made some inquiries. Imagine my displeasure when I discovered that the games at Interamnia are held in the autumn, not the spring. Caelius's pretense for the loan was a complete fiction."

"He would hardly be the first young man to lie to a beautiful woman to get her money."

Clodia smiled at this, and I realized that I had called her beautiful without even thinking; I had meant to say 'an older woman,' surely. The flattery was all the more sincere for being spontaneous, and I think she sensed this.

Her smile faded. "I believe Marcus Caelius used the money to obtain poison and then to bribe one or more of Lucceius's slaves to try to kill Dio with it."

"You said it was a large sum of money."

"Poison isn't cheap; the stuff has to be reliable, and so does the person selling it. Nor is it cheap to bribe the slaves of a rich master to commit such a crime." Clodia spoke with authority, as if she had personal knowledge of such matters. "The connection occurred to me only later, after Dio was dead. Little things-the tone of Caelius's voice and the look on his face whenever the subject of Dio arose, cryptic comments he would make, my own intuition."

"These are hardly evidence."

"Evidence is what I want from you, Gordianus."

"Whatever the truth of the matter, it wasn't the poison attempt that killed Dio. What about the stabbing?"

"Early on the evening of the murder, Caelius was at my house, which isn't far from that of Titus Coponius, where Dio was killed. Caelius was carrying a knife, concealed inside his tunic."

"If it was concealed, how-"

"I assure you, nothing on Marcus Caelius's person was hidden from me that night," she said with a brittle smile. "He was carrying a dagger. He was also nervous and fretful, in a state such as I had never seen him in before, and drinking more than was good for him. I asked what was wrong; he said there was an unpleasant task ahead of him, and that he would be relieved when it was done. I pressed him to tell me what it was, but he refused. You men, with your little secrets. I said, 'This unpleasant task which you dread so much-I hope it's not the task I asked you here to perform.' 'Of course not!' he said, and proceeded to demonstrate as much. But our lovemaking that night was a disappointment, to say the least. Caelius was about as effectual as one of our shriveled friends in the river today. Later, when his friend Asicius came by to collect him, Caelius was eager to leave. Well then, I thought, let the boys go off and play with each other. A little later that night-only moments after the two of them left my doorstep, I imagine-Dio was stabbed to death."

I paused for a long moment before speaking, puzzled not by the details of Clodia's story but by her whole manner of speaking. I had never heard a woman talk of her sexual relations in such frank terms, and with such acid in her voice. "You realize that everything you've told me connecting Caelius with Dio's murder is merely circumstantial."

"Then here is another circumstance: the next night, when Caelius came calling on me, he brought me a little gift-a silver necklace with lapis and carnelian baubles-and boasted that he could now repay every sesterce of the money he had borrowed from me."

"And did he repay you?"

She laughed. "Of course not. But from the way he talked, I had no doubt that he had come into some money. He had performed his task, you see, and been handsomely paid off."

"Is this merely your assumption?"

Clodia wasn't listening. She stared at the roof of the tent, remem-bering. "Our lovemaking that night was quite the reverse of the previous evening. Caelius was a veritable Minotaur-horns rampant, eyes aflame, his flanks glossy with sweat… "

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could interrupt her it was done for me by the approaching sound of a man's laughter, deep and throaty, accompanied by splashing footsteps. Clodia snapped out of her reverie and sat forward on her couch. On her face was a look of pure joy.

I turned to see a man taking high steps through the shallows along the riverbank, striding toward the tent. Like the other men in the river he was naked. The light of the lowering sun glittered on the water behind him, casting him in shimmering silhouette; beads of water on his shoulders and limbs sparkled like points of white flame outlining the dark mass of his body. As he emerged from the river he raised his hands and pressed the water from his hair, showing the sleek muscularity of his shoulders and arms. On dry land his stride became a swagger, and though his features were still shadowed in silhouette, I could see the flash of a broad smile on his face.

"Darling!" The word emerged from Clodia's lips like a breath made audible, as uncalculated as a moan or a sigh. There was no pretense or teasing in her voice, no slyness or innuendo. She sprang from the couch to meet the man as he stepped into the tent. It was hard to say which of them looked more naked, the sinewy, long-limbed man wearing nothing but beads of water, or Clodia in her gown of transparent yellow silk. They embraced and kissed each other on the mouth.

After a moment Clodia drew back and took his hands in hers. Where her gown had become wet from being pressed against his body, the silk was even more transparent and was molded to her like a second skin. She turned her head, saw me gaping and laughed. The man did likewise, as if he were her mirror image.

"But darling," she said, squeezing his hands and giggling like a girl, "why didn't you simply come in through the tent flap? What on earth were you doing out in the water with the others? And when did you join them? How could I not have noticed?"

"I only just arrived," he said, with a laugh deeper than Clodia's but uncannily similar. "I thought it would be fun to slip in among your admirers and see if I could attract your notice. Which I didn't, apparently!"

"But I was distracted, darling, by something very important!" She nodded toward me and affected a sober expression. The teasing tone had returned to her voice. She was performing again, but for whom? "It's about Dio, darling, and the trial. This is Gordianus, the man I told you about. He's going to help us punish Marcus Caelius."

The man turned his beaming smile on me. I recognized him now, of course. I had seen him at a distance in the Forum on many occasions, haranguing his mob of followers or keeping company with the great powers of the Senate, but never naked and wet with his hair slicked back. How very much like his sister Publius Clodius looked, especially when one saw the two of them together, side by side.