The Venus Throw

Chapter Fifteen

I stepped from Clodia's litter onto the street in front of my house just as the last of the day's light was retreating from the rooftops into the ether. The red and white striped litter departed. The stamping feet of Clodia's bodyguards left a haze of dust in their wake, which made the empty, twilit street even murkier. I rapped on my door, but Belbo was slow in opening it.

Some apprehension-a tap on the shoulder from Fortune, as they say-caused me to glance over my shoulder. Across the street I saw the figure of a man. He wore a toga, and from his pose he appeared to be standing still and watching me. I turned and rapped on the door again. I tried the latch, just in case the door might have been left unbarred. It had not. I looked over my shoulder again.

The figure had moved closer, into the middle of the street. In the dimness and dust I could make out nothing but a silhouette.

Where was Belbo when I needed him? No need to take along the hulking brute, Trygonion had told me when I left the house. You'll be in the litter. It's well guarded. Now I found myself alone on my own doorstep, without a bodyguard, without a weapon. I rapped on the door again, then turned to face the man. If I was to be stabbed, I'd prefer to look him in the eye rather than have my back turned. Of course, the man was probably just some passing stranger, I told myself, even as I went through the catalogue in my mind of all those who might want to put a stop to any further investigation into the murder of Dio — King Ptolemy, Pompey, Marcus Caelius, Clodius's enemy Milo, whose gang had just threatened Clodia in the Forum-men notorious for using whatever means were necessary to snuff out their opposition.

The figure drew nearer, taking halting steps. It was the way he walked that frightened me. If he knew me, why didn't he simply walk up to me, or call my name? If he was merely passing by, crossing the street on his way to some destination, why did he approach in such a hesitant fashion?

I suddenly remembered the stalker who had followed us up the Ramp on the previous night, the figure who had abruptly turned and fled back into the darkness.

"Citizen," I said, finding my voice. "Do I know you?"

A puff of wind caused the dust that hung in the air to swirl and disperse. Somewhere far above the earth a bit of cloud caught a dying ray of light and cast a faint glow into the gloomy street, and I caught a glimpse of the stranger's face. Surely not an assassin, I thought. Not with a face like that…

Still, my heart began to pound in my chest.

The door rattled. From inside I heard the sound of the bar being lifted. The door swung open and I quickly stepped back, colliding with something and turning to see Belbo smiling down at me sheepishly. "Sorry to take so long, Master. The mistress insisted that I come help her-"

"Never mind, Belbo. Do you know that man?"

"What man, Master?"

The figure had vanished, as quickly and surely as the dust in the air swirled and vanished at the least puff of wind. I peered up and down the street.

"Who was it, Master?"

"I don't know, Belbo. Perhaps nobody."

"Nobody?"

"A stranger, I mean. A man who just happened to be passing by. No one at all."

Even so, later that night I found myself remembering the young man's face-a dark, gaunt face with a scraggly beard and piercing eyes. It was a face marked by some terrible catastrophe, with the kind of look one sees on men of a fallen city, numb with despair except for eyes suffused with a hopeless longing too poignant to bear. The memory of it made me shiver. It was not a face I would care to see again.

I was in time for dinner. Bethesda received my compliments on her ragout of lamb with lentils with a barely perceptible nod and commented that Diana had done most of the cooking.

A courier from Clodia arrived some time later, bearing the silver she had promised. She must have counted out the coins herself. They smelled faintly of her perfume.

As we prepared for bed, Bethesda asked me how my work was going. Suspecting that Diana had reported everything she had overheard me discussing with Eco, I gave as perfunctory an answer as I could without telling an untruth.

"And what did that woman want with you this afternoon?" she said, unbelting her stola.

"She wanted to hear what I had to report." I said nothing about the alleged new poison plot or Clodia's scheme to send me to the Senian baths.

"That woman has sent you down the wrong path, you know."

"The wrong path?"

"Going after Marcus Caelius."

"But Bethesda, 'everybody knows' that Caelius is involved."

Bethesda let the stola fall and stepped out of it, standing nude for a moment. "You tease me by pretending that I would believe a thing simply because it's gossip. Why? Because I'm a woman? You're the one paying heed to gossip." She reached for her sleeping gown and pulled it on. I tried to imagine her in a gown made of transparent silk from Cos. Bethesda saw the look on my face and softened a bit. "You have no reason to suspect Caelius, only that woman's word for it. It would be a terrible thing for a young man to be punished for a crime he did not commit."

"And if he did commit the crime?"

She shook her head and began to pull out the various pins and clasps that held her hair up. She sat down in front of her mirror at the little table that held her boxes of cosmetics and unguents, and began to brush her hair. She seemed a little surprised but made no protest when I took the brush and began to do it for her. Nor did she protest when I put down the brush and ran my hands over her shoulders, then bent down to press my lips to her throat.

We made love that night with a heat that staved off the chill in the room. I tried very hard not to think of Clodia. I might have succeeded had it not been for her perfume. It had permeated my clothing and my skin. It had gotten onto my hands from touching her silver and thus onto Bethesda. The smell was faint, elusive, insidious. As soon as I would forget about it, lost in the tangle of Bethesda's hair, there it would be again, filling my head and conjuring up images beyond my control.

The next morning Eco came by with news of the slave girl Zotica. The previous afternoon, while I had traversed the city in Clodia's litter, he had made his way to the Street of the Scythemakers and located the slave dealer.

"Zotica is no longer in Rome," he said. "The dealer claims he tried to place her in a rich man's household, figuring he could fetch the highest price by returning her to the type of place she came from. But apparently the marks on her body were a little more apparent than Coponius let on. Nobody wanted her for a serving girl or a handmaiden. The man ended up selling her to another dealer who specializes in pleasure slaves."

"So she ended up in a brothel?"

"Maybe, but not in Rome. The second dealer hemmed and hawed and held out his hand for some coins and finally remembered that he had her sent with a consignment of slaves down to an establishment in Puteoli."

"I'll repay you for the bribe, Eco. Meanwhile, what do you think it would cost to buy such a slave girl?" I produced the little bag of silver that Clodia had lent me.

"Considerably less than that," said Eco. "Where did it come from?"

I explained.

"Clodia is a sharp woman," he said. "More and more I long to meet her. If only my father didn't keep getting in the way."

"Clodia could eat us both for breakfast, suck out the marrow and turn our knucklebones into dice without batting an eye."

"That might be a memorable experience."

"I advise you to stick with Menenia, and also to stick to the subject."

"Then I'll say it again: Clodia is a sharp woman. It's a clever idea, trying to buy those slaves from under Lucceius's nose. Of course, a fellow could get killed trying to do something like that."

"You needn't worry about it."

"Papa, I was joking. Of course I'll go up to Picenum to see if I can find these slaves, and find out what they know. And if it's at all possible, I'll bring them back with me for the trial."

"No, you won't."

"Papa, you're not thinking of doing it yourself?" "No."

"Then it's up to me. I dread the saddle sores, but Menenia has a treatment for that which I'll look forward to."

"No, Eco, you won't be going up to Picenum. But you can get just as saddle-sore riding down to Puteoli and back."

"Puteoli? Papa, surely you don't want me to go chasing after Zotica instead of finding the kitchen slaves who may hold the key to everything? There's no way that I can do both. Picenum is north, Puteoli is south, and the trial starts in three days. I'll barely have time to get to either of those places and back. It's one or the other."

"Yes. Well, then, it's Zotica."

"Papa!"

"Eco, you must do as I ask."

"Papa, you're letting sentiment cloud your judgment." "Sentiment has nothing to do with it."

He shook his head. "Papa, I know how your mind works. You think for some reason that it's up to you to redeem this slave girl. Very well — but there'll be plenty of time for that after the trial is over. Right now it's those two slaves up in Picenum that we need. That's a dubious enough prospect, given all the complications that could arise, but at least it makes sense. At least it wouldn't be a waste of my time."

"So you think you'll be wasting your time if you go down to Puteoli to find Zotica and find out what she knows."

"Yes, a terrible waste of time, considering how little we have. What could this Zotica possibly know about Dio's death?"

"Find her for me, Eco." I placed the bag of silver in his hands. "Here, I'll prove to you that sentiment has nothing to do with it. If the girl knows nothing, if she has nothing to tell us about who killed Dio, then don't bother to buy her. Leave her where she is. But if she does have something to say, buy her and bring her back with you."

He bit his lips and tossed the bag from hand to hand. "Not fair, Papa. You know that I'll buy her no matter what, to please you."

"As you think best, Eco. Only I'd suggest that you get started. The days are still short, and you're missing the best hours for riding."

In the afternoon a litter came for me, just as Clodia had said.

It was a considerably less conspicuous affair than her grand litter with its red and white canopy. This litter had plain woolen curtains and was just big enough for two people to sit face to face. Belbo joined the handful of bodyguards while I climbed into the box and sat opposite Chrysis, who stared back at me with an enigmatic smile on her face, idly coiling her auburn hair around a forefinger. I found myself thinking that she could not possibly be as young and naive as she looked. The litter rose in the air and began to move.

"So," I said, "exactly what is it that Clodia wishes me to do at the baths today?"

Chrysis stopped playing with her hair and ran the forefinger over her lips as if erasing her smile, leaving an even more enigmatic expression on her face. The gesture reminded me of her mistress.

"It's very simple. Almost nothing, really. You're to wait in the changing room. One of Clodia's men will find you."

"How will I know him?"

"He'll know you.

Now, Caelius's agent, the man who's bringing the poison, is named Publius Licinius. Do you know him?" "I don't think so."

"No matter. Clodia's man will point out Licinius to you when he arrives."

"And then what?"

"Caelius's scheme calls for Licinius to pass the poison to one of Clodia's slaves. But as soon as Licinius hands over the box of poison, some of Clodia's friends are going to seize him and make a public scene. They'll open the box to show everyone what's inside. Then they'll twist Licinius's arm until he confesses what he was up to and who sent him."

"Why should he confess?"

"Some of Clodia's friends are very good at twisting arms. I mean that literally." Chrysis laughed at her own wit.

"What am I to do? I'm a finder, not an arm-twister." "You're there to witness what takes place." "Why?"

"Clodia says you have a reputation for being a good observer."

We took a winding path down the eastern face of the Palatine and were soon in the square in front of the Senian baths, jostling for space with all the other litters. "I'll wait here," said Chrysis. "Bring me news as soon as anything happens. And don't do anything naughty with the other boys."

"What do you mean?"

"Please! We know the sort of things you men like to do with each other in the baths." She raised an eyebrow, recalling another of Clodia's gestures.

"Are all the slaves in your mistress's household as insolent as you?" "Only her favorites." When Chrysis giggled she looked even more like a child.

I walked up the steps, signaling for Belbo to follow.

I paid the attendant in the foyer, who handed Belbo a towel. We walked down a hallway and into the long, narrow changing room with its elaborately coffered ceiling and rows of wooden benches. Patrons came and went in various stages of undress. A number of fully dressed slaves stood idly about, alone or in small groups, waiting while their masters took their plunges. Whenever the heavy wooden door to the bathing rooms opened, from beyond came echoes of conversation and laughter and the sound of lapping water. The distinctive odor of the baths washed over me-a mixture of sweat and steam accented by the tang of wood smoke from the furnaces, with a musty hint of mildew.

I loitered for a bit, waiting for someone to approach me, then began to feel conspicuous in my street clothes. I took off my tunic and handed it to Belbo, who found an empty niche for it among the cubbyholes that lined the walls. I lifted my arms and Belbo wrapped the towel around my waist. I slipped off my shoes and let out a little sigh as my bare feet touched the floor, which was heated to just the right temperature by the hot-water pipes underneath.

"I know that sigh!" said a voice beside me. "Like a poem: the sound a man makes the moment his bare toes settle onto a heated floor."

I turned my head and barely nodded, thinking the man was simply another patron. Then I saw his face.

The look of despair was gone, replaced by a sardonic smile. It was a handsome face despite its gauntness and the scraggly beard, but there was a keenness about his brown eyes that made them hard to look into.

"You were outside my house last night," I said.

"I suppose I was."

That explained it, then-he was Clodia's man, the one I was to meet. Still, why had he followed me up the Ramp and then run away? Why had he lingered outside my house the night before, and then vanished without introducing himself?

"The Senian baths are still the best in Rome," he said, toweling his damp hair. He was naked and still wet from the hot plunge, with wisps of steam rising from his flesh. His limbs were slender and his chest narrow. There was no fat on him at all. I could have counted his ribs and tapped a drumbeat on his hip bones. "They keep the cold water cold and the hot water piping hot. It's close by the Forum, so there's always someone interesting to talk to. But it's not too far from the Subura, so there's usually a bit of trash about to liven things up. Like that lecherous serpent Vibennius."

"Vibennius?"

He nodded toward the opposite side of the room. "See those three fellows over there? Vibennius is that rakish-looking fellow with the fleshy rope hanging down to his knees, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and nothing to hide. Busy Fingers, he's called, for more than one reason. Look at that smarmy expression on his face-you can tell he's up to something rotten. That's his son, the young fellow with the remarkably hairy buttocks, leaning over at the bench taking off his shoes.

Have you ever seen such a woolly bottom? Really, it makes me queasy to look at it, like a beard growing at the wrong end. Appropriate, I suppose, since he uses the hole down there like a mouth. From the way he's flexing and wriggling his buttocks, you'd think he was chewing on something tough. That's obviously what that third fellow has on his mind, the bald sap sitting there on the bench staring at Junior's hairy rear end with that slack-jawed expression. I don't see the point of the towel on his lap, do you? It's not hiding what's on his mind. Like a soldier at attention in a tent! Do you suppose the sap is waiting for a kiss from Junior's bearded lips?"

I looked at the stranger beside me, trying to make out his expression-disdain, amusement, envy? Whatever, his preoccupations seemed far removed from our immediate reason for being at the baths, and I was about to say so, when he gripped my arm and nodded intently. "See there, Junior's finished undressing. He bends over to pick up his shoes- well, really, he might as well make himself into a hairpin. Now he unbends, picks up his clothes, turns to the wall. Do you suppose he really has to stand on tiptoes like that to reach the cubbyhole, or is he just showing off his shapely thighs? The bald sap certainly appreciates the show-oh, Eros, he's actually groping himself! Look at that smirk on Papa Vibennius's face. Now Junior regally strides toward the door to the tubs, arching his shoulders, thrusting out his backside, walking just a bit on tiptoe-could an Egyptian catamite do it better? Sure enough, the sap takes the bait. He's on his feet, heading after those hairy buttocks like a hound trailing a rabbit. He's at the door; he's through the door. And now look at Busy Fingers!"

While we watched, Vibennius looked discreetly right and left, uncrossed his arms, turned around and began rooting about in one of the cubbyholes.

"Oh really, this is too much!" The man beside me threw down his towel and strode across the room. I followed, with Belbo trailing behind.

The man walked up behind Vibennius and tapped him on the shoulder. Vibennius gave a start and swung around with a guilty look on his face.

"Still up to your old tricks, Busy Fingers? Robbing randy bathgoers while your boy leads them on a chase?"

"What?" The man was dumbfounded for a moment, then flashed an uncertain smile. "Catullus! What in Hades are you doing here? I thought you were off playing imperial governor somewhere."

"Somewhere, yes, and sort of. A year in Bithynia under Gaius Memmius was quite enough. I thought he was going to make me rich, but Memmius just took me along to read my poems to him. Couldn't blame him for craving a touch of culture; Bithynia's a hellhole. Couldn't wait to get out of the place; came back early, as soon as the weather allowed. It's so good to be back in a truly civilized place like Rome, where a fellow's likely to get robbed while lusting after a pair of hairy buttocks."

"What are you talking about?" Vibennius giggled nervously and looked about, shifty-eyed.

"Vibennius, you disgust me. For Cybele's sake, leave the poor sap's things alone. What did you expect to find that would be worth taking? His smelly loincloth?"

"Catullus, you jest. I was just looking to make sure that my son put his shoes away. Oh, but that explains it — I must have gotten mixed up. I've been looking in the wrong niche. I wondered why everything looked so unfamiliar!"

Catullus laughed scornfully and shook his head. "Vibennius, I should report you to the management. But they'd probably cut off your busy little fingers and throw them in the furnace, and then we'd all have to suffer the stench. Why don't you go see what your boy is up to? Then the two of you can pull your other bathhouse trick."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, the one where Junior finds a dark corner and grabs his ankles to lure the unsuspecting sap, and as soon as he's got him in a death grip with that bearded mouth, you sneak up behind and start goosing the fellow with your busy fingers, loosening him up for what's to come."

"Catullus, you slander me!"

"On the contrary, Vibennius, your 'massages' are quite famous."

Vibennius crossed his arms and looked smug. "From your foul mood, I'd say you could use a good 'massage,' Catullus."

"Get any closer to me with that ugly thing, Vibennius, and I'll tie it in a knot."

"And what if the rope isn't slack enough for tying?" Vibennius smirked.

Catullus stepped toward him. I retreated toward Belbo, expecting blows. Instead Catullus grinned. "Oh, Vibennius, it is good to be back."

Vibennius opened his arms. "You wicked goat, how we've all missed your sharp tongue," he said, embracing Catullus and slapping his back.

I blinked, not sure what to make of this display, then gave a start when a hand touched my shoulder. "Gordianus?" said a voice be-hind me.

I turned and saw the vaguely familiar face of a burly young man with a neatly trimmed beard and soulful brown eyes. It was the way his eyebrows grew together into a single line that jarred my memory-he was the slave who had answered Clodia's door. He stood before me fully dressed and slightly out of breath. "Barnabas," I said. "Hebrew for 'consolation.' "

"That's right." He nodded and lowered his voice. "Chrysis said you were already here. Publius Licinius is on his way now, with the box." I frowned. "You're the one I'm supposed to meet?" "Yes."

"Then who — ?" I turned toward Catullus and caught just a glimpse of his enigmatic grin before Barnabas pulled me back and hissed in my ear. "Licinius just walked in! Come with me." He took me by the arm and led me across the room with Belbo lumbering behind. "In the green tunic," Barnabas whispered.

The young man did look familiar, though I had never met him- I had seen him in the Forum, and walking through the streets of the Palatine in the company of Marcus Caelius. He was nervously glancing from side to side and fiddling with something in his hand.

"We part now," whispered Barnabas. "Just stand aside and watch. Make sure you keep your eyes on the pyxis!" By this he meant the tiny box Licinius carried in his hand, one of those elaborately decorated containers with a hinged lid and a latch, so favored by ladies for keeping their powders and unguents-and by poisoners for keeping their poisons. The pyxis Licinius carried appeared to be made of bronze with raised knobs and inlays of ivory. He turned it over and over in his palm.

Licinius spotted Barnabas and sighed with relief. He stepped forward to meet the slave, but Barnabas signaled with a nod that they should withdraw to a corner of the room. As Barnabas turned, his eyes very briefly met mine, making sure I would follow. I glanced over my shoulder, wondering where Catullus and Vibennius had got to, but I couldn't find them in the throng of clothed and naked flesh. The dressing room suddenly seemed to have gotten considerably more crowded.

Barnabas arrived at the corner and turned. Licinius reached him and began to extend his hand, obviously eager to pass along the pyxis. Then the mad scramble and the shouting began.

Since I had arrived in the changing room I had been studying the crowd, trying to spot Clodia's arm-twisters. I had marked down several likely candidates, judging by their brawniness, and sure enough, these were among the men who suddenly rushed Licinius. But there were more of them than I would have expected, at least ten. Among them, to my surprise, was the busy-fingered Vibennius.

They moved to apprehend Licinius the moment the pyxis changed hands, but their timing was premature. Someone shouted an instant too early, or someone bolted toward the box before he should have, or perhaps Licinius was simply so nervous that he froze in midtransaction and panicked before the box reached Barnabas's hand. Whatever the exact sequence of events, the pyxis was never handed over. It remained in Licinius's possession as he wheeled about in alarm and began to dodge and dart around the room, slipping through the grasp of his would-be captors. I caught a glimpse of his face and thought I had never seen a man who looked so much like a rabbit, and a frightened rabbit at that. But the pyxis remained tightly grasped in his white-knuckled grip.

The brawny arm-twisters would have made persuasive captors, but what they had in muscle they lacked in agility. Arms closed on empty air as the rabbit scurried by. Heads banged together as Licinius slipped through their pincers. It was like a comic scene performed by mimes, but more elaborately choreographed than anything I'd ever seen on a stage.

The rabbit made for the main exit, but the way was blocked. "Hand over the pyxis!" someone shouted. "Yes, the pyxis!" "Hand it over!" "Poison! Poison!"

The bystanders witnessing this spectacle wore various expressions of confusion, outrage and mirth. Some seemed to think it was merely a game, while a few scrambled for safety under the wooden benches. In the throng I spotted the sharp-tongued Catullus, who watched with wide-eyed surprise.

Licinius, unable to get out through the blocked entrance, wheeled about and headed for the unguarded door into the bathing rooms. Just as he reached it, the door was opened by an old man draped in a towel. Licinius knocked him to the floor. With a great whoop, Clodia's arm-twisters followed, leaping over the old man like hounds over a log.

"Damnation!" muttered Barnabas as he rushed by me, grabbing my

arm.

We followed in the rabbit's wake, past a giant tub full of shouting and laughing bathers. One of the arm-twisters had fallen on the wet floor and kept slipping as he tried to get up. We angled past him and ran through another door into the innermost room, where the air was thick with steam from the hot pool. Confusion reigned as a tumult of splashing and a chorus of shouts echoed through the dimly lit room.

"Block the door! He'll try to slip back out!"

"Poison!"

"Don't let him throw the pyxis into the pool!" "Did someone say 'poison in the pool'?"

"Poison? Let me out!"

There was a great deal of running and slipping and colliding as the arm-twisters tried to find Licinius. Some of them stepped into the piping-hot pool with hisses of discomfort and poked about.

"He must be here!" said Barnabas. "The door's blocked and there's no other way out."

"Of course there is," I said, pointing to a dark corner. "The door to the furnace room."

Barnabas groaned and ran to pull the door open. Sweltering air poured out from the dark passage beyond. Barnabas took a few hesitant steps, tripped against something and let out a gasp. "Hades! A corpse!"

There was something in the darkness at his feet, but not a corpse, unless corpses have two heads and writhe about.

"Get lost!" moaned one of the heads.

"Go find your own!" wheezed the other.

Barnabas gave a start. "What-?"

"It's woolly-bottom and the bald sap!" I said.

This meant nothing to Barnabas, but he caught on quickly enough. "Did someone else pass this way?"

"Yes," gasped one of the voices. "The idiot stepped on my hand! He'll have passed through the furnace room and be out in the alley by now. So — if you don't-mind — "

Barnabas groaned.

The writhing figures on the floor thrashed, gasped and bleated in ecstasy.

I pulled Barnabas back into the bathing room and shut the door behind us. Now the farce had everything, including a climax.