The Venus Throw

Chapter Twenty Four

After a fitful hour or two of sleep I opened my eyes. Morning light was creeping in around the shuttered windows, but 1 think it was Catullus's snoring that woke me. I crept to the anteroom, kicked Belbo awake, and told him to run home as fast as he could and fetch my best toga. He was back before I had finished washing my face.

"I suppose someone was minding the door," I said, while he helped me dress. "Yes, Master."

"Was there any word of Eco?" "No, Master."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing, Master." "Was your mistress up?"

"Yes, Master."

"What did she have to say? Any message for me?"

"No, Master. She didn't say a word. But she looked — " "Yes, Belbo?"

"She looked more displeased than usual, Master."

"Did she? Come, Belbo, we'll need to hurry to catch the start of the trial. I'm sure we can find something to eat on the way. There'll be plenty of vendors out for the festival." As we were leaving, Catullus appeared from the bedroom, looking haggard and bleary-eyed. He assured me he would be down at the Forum before the trial started, but he looked to me as if he would have to be raised from the dead first.

Belbo and I arrived just as the defense was beginning its arguments With no slaves sent ahead to hold a chair for me, I found myself near the back of the crowd, which was even larger than the day before. I had to stand on tiptoes to see, but I had no trouble hearing. The well-trained orator's voice of Marcus Caelius rang through the square.

As Atratinus, the youngest of the prosecutors, had begun their case the day before, so young Caelius began his own defense; as Atratinus had dwelled on the defendant's character, so did Caelius. Was this the morally depraved, sensation-seeking, too-handsome young murderer that the prosecution had portrayed? One would never have known it from Caelius's appearance and manner. He was dressed in a toga so old and faded that even a poor man might have thrown it out. It must have come from a musty chest in his father's storage room.

His manner was as humble as his clothes were shabby. The fiery young orator famous for his rapid delivery and biting invectives spoke on this day in a calm, measured, thoughtful cadence, oozing with respect for the judges. He declared himself innocent of all charges; these horrible, spurious accusations had been lodged against him by people who had once been his friends but were now his enemies, and their only goal was to destroy him for their personal satisfaction. A man could hardly be blamed for the treachery of false friends; still, Caelius regretted his poor judgment in ever having associated with such people, for he could see the pain and suffering it had caused his father and mother, who were with him again today, dressed in mourning and barely controlling their tears. He regretted, too, the burden that the trial had placed on his loyal friends, beloved mentors and trusted advocates, Marcus Crassus and Marcus Cicero, two truly great Romans whose example he had admittedly failed to live up to, but to whom he would turn again for renewed inspiration when this ordeal had passed, provided the judges in their wisdom saw fit to give him that chance.

Caelius was deferential but not servile; modest but not cringing; adamant about his innocence, but not self-righteous; saddened by the wickedness of his enemies but not vindictive. He was the model of an upstanding citizen falsely accused and confidently looking to the revered institutions of the law to give him justice.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see the bloodshot eyes of Catullus. "I don't suppose I've missed much blood and gore yet," he said.

"Milk and honey is more like it," quipped a man nearby. "This fellow Caelius wouldn't harm a fly!" There was a ripple of laughter, then a round of shushing from those who wanted to hear every word of the speech.

"Milk can curdle," Catullus whispered in my ear, "and sometimes you find a bee drowned in the honey, with its stinger intact." "What do you mean?"

"Caelius fights better with a sword than with a shield. Wait and listen."

Sure enough, the tone of Caelius's speech began to change, as if, having gotten the necessary business of humbling himself out of the way, it was time for him to go on the offensive. The shift was so gradual, the insinuations of sarcasm so subtle, that it was impossible to say exactly when the speech was transformed from a meek protestation of innocence into a biting invective against his accusers. He attacked the speeches that had been made against him, pointing out their reliance on hearsay and circumstantial evidence, their lapses of logic, their obvious intent to besmirch his character. The prosecutors were made to look not just vindictive, but petty as well, and slightly absurd, not least because Caelius himself managed to maintain an aura of impeccable dignity while he insulted their logic and motives and assaulted them with vicious puns.

"Stingers in the honey," whispered Catullus.

"How did you know?"

He shrugged. "You forgot how well I know Caelius. I could lay out the entire course of his speech for you. For example, he'll be turning to her next." He looked toward the bench where Clodia sat, and the sardonic smile on his lips faded until he looked as grim as she did.

Sure enough, Caelius proceeded to make a veiled attack on Clodia, though not by name. Behind the prosecution and its sham arguments, he said, there was a certain person intent on doing him harm — not the other way around, as she had charged. The judges would know whom he meant-"Clytemnestra-for-a-quadrans." The crude joke, implying that Clodia was both a husband-killer and a cheap whore, elicited a wave of raucous laughter. Where had I heard it before?

"I make no claim to being ignorant of the lady," said Caelius. "Yes, I know her-or knew her-quite well. To my discredit, alas, and to my dismay. But little to my profit; sometimes Cos in the dining room turns out to be Nola in the bedroom." This elicited more laughter and even some appreciative applause. The pun was multiple and all the more stinging for its wicked intricacy. Cos suggested the island from which Clodia's transparent silks had come, and therefore the open, vulgar allure of sex; Nola was famous for its impregnable fortress, which had resisted not just Hannibal but a siege by Clodia's own father. Cos also punned with coitus, sex, and Nola with nolo, or no sex. In other words, what the lady lewdly promised at dinner was later frigidly withheld in the bedroom. With a single turn of phrase, and without saying anything explicit, Caelius had managed to suggest that Clodia was not just a temptress but a tease (likely to give poor value even for a quadrans!), to suggest that he had never actually slept with her, and to remind the court of one of her father's military defeats, the siege of Nola. After a moment's pause there was another smattering of applause, as more listeners realized just what a gem of compression Caelius had delivered.

Catullus didn't laugh or applaud, I noticed. "Wickedly clever," I said, wondering if he had missed the pun.

"Thank you," he muttered, apparently not listening. His eyes were on Clodia, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. Catullus smiled sadly.

Caelius expanded on the metaphor. Just as a man could be in the vicinity of Nola without breaching her walls (more laughter from those finally getting the joke), so one could be in the vicinity of Neapolis or Puteoli without being guilty of staging an attack on foreign visitors; or take an innocent stroll across the Palatine at night without dropping in to murder an ambassador. "Has it come to this?" said Caelius. "Not guilt by association, but guilt by geographical proximity? Shall a man's enemies follow his footsteps, note any crimes which happen to take place in the immediate area, and then accuse him so that he has no alibi? It seems hardly credible that even the most inept of advocates could expect a panel of Roman judges to take this kind of 'evidence' seriously. Assumptions should be based on what is seen, not unseen; known, not merely 'suspected.' "

He pulled a small object from the folds of his toga. A few spectators in the front rows laughed out loud when they saw what it was. "For instance," he went on, holding up the object so that it glinted in the sunlight, "when one sees a simple little pyxis such as this, what does one assume that it contains? A medicinal unguent of some sort, or a cosmetic powder, or a perfume infused into wax, perhaps-the sort of thing that anybody might take along to the baths. Or so a reasonable person might assume. A person of a more morbid state of mind might guess that something else was in the box-poison, perhaps. Especially if that person was herself well acquainted with using poison." From my distant vantage, there was no way I could be sure of what the pyxis looked like. It must have been only my imagination that perceived it to be made of bronze, with little raised knobs and inlays of ivory that caught the sunlight-identical to the pyxis that Caelius's confederate Licinius had brought to the Senian baths, and that had been left, filled with something unspeakable, on Clodia's doorstep as she lay poisoned in her house.

More laughter spread through the crowd. I looked at Clodia. Her eyes were aflame and her jaw like granite.

"An imagination of a particularly lewd bent might imagine something even more outrageous in such an innocent little pyxis-a token of spent desire, perhaps, deposited by a frustrated lover weary of trying to shimmy up Nola's walls." At this there were outright hoots of laughter. Somehow the story of the pyxis and its obscene contents must already have spread through the city. Who had repeated such a scandalous story- a slave in Clodia's household? Or the man who had sent her the box? It was clear from the look on Clodia's face that Caelius's brazen allusion to the indecent gift had taken her completely by surprise, and the callous amusement of the spectators appalled her even more. Caelius, never once looking at her, put the pyxis away and smiled blandly.

"Master!" Belbo tugged at my toga.

"Belbo, I'm trying to listen."

"But Master, he's here!"

I turned about, prepared to snap at him, then felt a surge of joy. Not far away, at the edge of the crowd, Eco stood on his toes peering into the sea of heads.

"Belbo, you sharp-eyed lookout! Come, he'll never spot us in this crowd. We'll go to him."

"You're not leaving, are you?" said Catullus.

"I'll be back."

"But the best is yet to come." "Memorize the jokes for me," I said.

We came upon Eco just as he was beginning to push his way into the throng. His tunic was dirty and his brow pasted with sweat, as might be expected of a man who had just finished a hard ride up from Puteoli. His face was haggard but when he saw us his eyes lit up and he managed a weary smile.

"Papa! No, don't hug me, please. I'm filthy. And sore! I rode all night, knowing the trial must have already started. It's not over,

is it?"

"Not yet. Another full day of speeches-" "Good. Perhaps there's still time, then." "Time for what?" "To save Marcus Caelius."

"If he needs saving," I said, thinking Caelius was doing a pretty good job of defending himself. "If he deserves to be saved."

"I only know that he doesn't deserve to be punished for Dio's murder."

"What are you saying?"

"Caelius didn't kill Dio."

"You're certain?"

"Yes. I found the slave girl, Zotica, the one who was with Dio the night he died… "

"If it wasn't Caelius and Asicius, then who?"

"I brought the girl back with me…"

Eco suddenly looked very

tired.

"The girl killed Dio?" I frowned. We had considered and rejected that possibility already. "No."

"But she knows who did?"

"Not exactly." Why would Eco not look me in the eye? "All I can say is that your intuition was right, Papa. The girl was the key."

"Well? What did you find out?"

"I think you'd better talk to her yourself, Papa."

The crowd behind us laughed at something, then laughed again, louder. I looked over my shoulder. "Caelius is just getting to the heart of his speech. Then Crassus will speak, then Cicero — "

"Still, I think you'd better come, Papa. Quickly, before the trial gets any further along."

"Can't you just tell me what the girl told you?"

His face darkened. "I don't think that would be wise, Papa. It wouldn't be fair."

"To whom, the slave girl?"

"Please, Papa! Come with me." The look on his face convinced me. What terrible secret had so unnerved my son, who had seen all the corruption and duplicity that Rome had to offer?

He had left the girl at his house in the Subura. We walked there as quickly as we could, threading our way through streets crowded with food vendors, acrobats and merry-makers.

"Where did you find her?" I asked, stepping out of the way of a drunken band of gladiators coming up the street. They snarled at Belbo as they passed.

"In one of the hill towns of the far side of Vesuvius, miles from Puteoli. It took some looking. First I had to find the brothel-keeper who'd bought the allotment of slaves that included Zotica. Do you have any idea how many establishments like that there are down on the bay? One after another told me he'd never seen Zotica, and they all wanted a bribe just to tell me that much, and even then they all seemed to be lying just to spite me. Finally I found the man who'd purchased her. But she'd been useless to him, he said. 'Worse than useless-nobody wants a girl with scars on her,' he told me, 'not even the mean ones.' Besides that, she'd turned wild." "Wild?"

"That's what he calls it. I suppose a man like that tends to see slaves in conditions that most of us don't, or not very often. Her mind isn't quite right. Maybe she was always a little addled; I don't know. I think she must have been treated well enough in Coponius's house at the beginning, though the other slaves tended to pick on her. Then Dio came along. The girl was innocent, naive, maybe even a virgin. She had no idea of the kinds of things that Dio had in mind for her. She couldn't understand why he wanted to punish her when she'd done nothing wrong. She kept quiet about it at first, too afraid ofDio to resist him, too ashamed to tell anyone. When she finally did complain to the other slaves, some of them tried to intercede for her, but Coponius couldn't be bothered. Then, after Dio was killed, Coponius couldn't get rid of the girl fast enough. Since then she's been traded from hand to hand, abused, ill treated, unwanted. It must have seemed like a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. It's done something to her mind. She can be perfectly lucid sometimes, but then… you'll see. It's made her unfit to be any kind of slave. When I finally found her she was living in the fields outside a farmer's house. He'd bought her for a kitchen slave and found her useless even for that. 'The girl's a scratcher and a biter,' he told me. 'Scratches and bites for no reason, like an Egyptian cat. Even beating won't do any good.' No one around would buy her, so the farmer turned her loose, like people do to old or crippled slaves, making them fend for themselves. I didn't even have to pay for her. I just had to find her, and then make her come with me. I thought I'd gained her trust, but even so she tried to run away twice, first outside of Puteoli and then again as we got close to Rome this morning. You see why it's taken me so long to get home. And I thought you were sending me on an easy job, Papa!"

"If the girl told you what we needed to know, maybe you should have let her go."

Darkness shadowed his face again. "No, Papa. I couldn't just repeat her story to you. I had to bring her back to Rome, so you could hear her for yourself."

Menenia was waiting for us at the door, with folded arms and an uncharacteristically sour look on her face. I thought the look must be for Eco, for having brusquely rushed off to find me after dropping off the slave girl-young wives expect a bit more attention from husbands arriving home after a trip. But then I realized that the look was aimed at me. What had I done, except quarrel with my wife and not come home last night? Menenia couldn't possibly know about that already-or could she? Sometimes I think that the ground beneath the city must be honeycombed with tunnels where messengers constantly run back and forth carrying secret communications between the women of Rome.

Eco had locked the girl in a small storage room off the kitchen. At the sight of us, she jumped up from the wooden chest where she'd been sitting and cowered against the wall.

"I imagine she's frightened of Belbo," said Eco.

I nodded and sent him out of the room. The girl relaxed, but only a little.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I already explained that to you, didn't I?" said Eco, in a voice more exasperated than comforting.

Under better circumstances, the slave girl Zotica might have been at least passably pretty. She was far too young for my taste, as flat and bony as a boy, but one could see the delicate beginnings of a woman's face in her high cheekbones and dark eyebrows. But now, with her unwashed hair all sweaty and tangled and dark circles beneath her eyes, it was hard to imagine her as the object of anyone's desire. She certainly had no place in a brothel. She looked more like one of those furtive, abandoned children who haunt the city's streets looking for scraps of food and run in packs like wild beasts.

Eco sighed. "Did you eat anything, Zotica? I told my wife to see that you were fed."

The girl shook her head. "I'm too tired to eat. I want to sleep."

"So do I. You can sleep soon. But now I want you to talk to someone."

The girl looked at me warily.

"This is my father," Eco went on, though I wondered what the word could mean to the child, who had probably never known a father. "I want you to tell him what you told me. About the man who came to stay at your master's house here in Rome."

The very mention of Dio caused her to shiver. "About how he died, you mean?"

"Not only that. I want you to tell him everything." The girl stared forlornly into space. "I'm so tired. My stomach hurts."

"Zotica, I brought you here so that you could tell my father about

Dio."

"I never called him that. I never even knew his name until you told me."

"He came to your master's house and stayed there for a time." "Until he died," she said dully.

"He abused you."

"Why did the master let him? I didn't think the master knew, but he did. He just didn't care. Then I was spoiled and he had to get rid of me. Now no one has any use for me."

"Look at her wrists, Papa. The rope cut them so badly that you can still see the scars."

"It's because I pulled at them," the girl murmured, rubbing at her wrists.

"He tied them so tight, then put me over the hook."

"The hook?" I said.

"There were metal hooks in the walls in his room. He'd tie my wrists and lift up my arms and trap me on the hook, so my toes barely touched the floor. My wrists would bleed. The rope would twist up even tighter when he'd turn me around. He would use me from the front, then the back. Beat and pinch and prod. Stuff things in my mouth to keep me quiet."

"You should see the scars, Papa, but I'd be ashamed to make her lift up her dress to show you. You realize she's talking about Dio." Eco looked at me accusingly, as if I were responsible for the secret vices of a man I'd admired for so many years. My face turned hot.

"A hook," I whispered.

"What?"

"A hook."

"Yes, Papa, imagine it!"

"No, Eco, it's something else…"

"Yes, there's more. Go on, Zotica. Tell him about that final night."

"No."

"You have to. After that, we'll leave you alone, I promise. You can sleep for as long as you want."

The girl shuddered. "He came in dressed…" She made a miserable face and shrugged. "Like a woman, I suppose. He looked awful. He made me come to his room. He made me take off my gown. 'Use it for a rag,' he said. "Wipe off this silly makeup.' He sat in a chair while I cleaned his face. He kept stopping me, fondling me, sliding his hand between my legs, making me bend over-acting just like always." The girl shook her head and hugged herself.

"But then he pushed me away. He made a face and grabbed his stomach. He crawled onto his bed and made me lie next to him. Because he was cold, he said. But he felt hot to me. He pressed himself against me naked and I felt like I was being burned wherever he touched me. Then he started shivering, so much that his teeth chattered, and he made me fetch him more blankets. He told me to lower the lamp because the light hurt his eyes. He tried to get up from the bed but he was too dizzy. I asked him if I should go for help, but he told me not to. He was afraid. More afraid than I'd ever seen anybody, even a slave about to be whipped. So afraid I almost stopped hating him. He covered himself with the blankets and rocked back and forth on the bed, clutching himself biting his hands. I stood across the room as far away as I could, hugging myself because I was naked and it was cold. Then he turned on his side and vomited on the floor. It was awful. He closed his eyes and wheezed and gasped for air. Then he was quiet. After a while I shook him, but he wouldn't wake up. I just sat there on the bed, looking at him for a long time, afraid to move. Then it was over." "What do you mean, over?"

She looked me in the eye for the first time.

"He died. I saw him die."

"How could you be sure?"

"His whole body suddenly shook with a terrible fit. He opened his eyes and his mouth gaped open, like he was going to scream, but nothing came out except a horrible rattle. I jumped up from the bed and stood against the wall. He seemed to have turned to stone just like that, with his eyes and mouth wide open. After a while I walked over to him and put my ear to his chest. There was no heartbeat. If you'd seen his eyes- anyone would know they were the eyes of a dead man."

"But the stab wounds," I said. "The window broken open, and the room a shambles-"

"Let her finish, Papa." Eco nodded to the girl.

"I didn't know what to do." Her jaw quivered and she wiped her eyes. "All I could think was that the master would blame me, and punish me. He would think that I killed the old man somehow. So I cleaned up the vomit-I used my gown, the one he'd already made me use for a rag to clean his face. Then I crept out of the room."

"Where the door slave Philo saw you in the hallway," I said. "Naked and weeping, clutching your gown. He thought Dio had finished with you early. But Dio was already dead. Did you tell your master?"

She shivered and shook her head.

"But why not?"

"All that night I lay awake in the slave quarters, thinking about what had happened. The master would think I had poisoned the old man. I didn't! But the master would think I did, and what would he do to me? I cried and cried, while the other slaves hissed at me to be quiet and go to sleep. But how could I sleep? Then there was an awful commotion from the old man's room. The whole house came awake. They'd broken into the room and found him. Now they'll come to me, I thought. They'll kill me, right here and now! My heart pounded in my chest so hard I thought I'd die."

She let out a sob, then twisted her lips into a crooked smile. "But something amazing had happened. They didn't blame me at all. They thought the old man had been stabbed to death. Killers had broken into his room after I left him, they said, and cut him up with knives. I didn't know what to think. But the master never blamed me, so I never told anybody what had happened. With the old man dead, I thought every-thing would be like it was before." The smile vanished. "But instead everything changed. The master sold me. Everything just got more and more awful… "

"You're safe now," said Eco gently.

The girl sagged against the wall and closed her eyes. "Please don't make me talk anymore. If only I could sleep… "

"No more talk," Eco agreed. "Stay here for now. One of the slaves will come to show you where you can sleep."

We left her weeping softly and muttering to herself, her face pressed against the wall as if she could somehow melt into it.

I followed Eco into the garden. "What does it mean?"

"It means that Dio was poisoned, Papa."

"But the stabbing — "

"He was stabbed after he was already dead. You remarked yourself how little blood there seems to have been for so many wounds, how the wounds were all close together in his chest and there was no sign that he put up a struggle. Because he was already dead."

"But someone broke into the room that night and scattered everything about. Someone stabbed him. Why?"

"Perhaps it was Titus Coponius himself, because he didn't want it to get out that Dio was poisoned under his roof, and he wanted to make the death look like the work of assassins. But that's not really the point, is it?"

"What do you mean, Eco?"

"The important thing is that Dio was poisoned."

"But how? Where? By whom? We know that he would touch no food in Coponius's house. And only a short time before, he left my house with a full stomach! As cautious as he was, he wouldn't have eaten anything else that night."

"Exactly, Papa."

"Eco, say what you mean!"

"You needn't shout, Papa. You must be thinking the same thing."

I stopped pacing. We stared at each other.

"Perhaps."

"The symptoms the girl described: if it was poison, what do you

think-"

"Gorgon's hair," I said.

"Yes, I thought the same thing. Some time ago I gave you some gorgon's hair for safekeeping. I didn't want the stuff in my house with the twins. Do you remember?"

"Oh yes," I said. My mouth was dry.

"Do you still have it? Is it still where you put it?"

My silence gave him the answer. Eco nodded slowly. "The last meal Dio ate was at your house, Papa."

"Yes."

"That's where he must have been poisoned." "No!"

"Did someone use the gorgon's hair I gave you? Do you still have it or not?"

"Clodia!" I whispered. "She wasn't pretending to be poisoned, then. The gorgon's hair she showed me could have come from Caelius, after all. Certainly not from Bethesda-not if the gorgon's hair in my house had already been used… "

"What are you whispering, Papa?"

"But Caelius couldn't have killed Dio, not if he was poisoned first. You're right, he's innocent, of that crime at least… "

"I can't hear you, Papa." Eco shook his head, tired and exasperated. "The only thing I can't figure out is why anyone in your household would have wanted to poison Dio in the first place. Who knew the man, much less had any reason to want him dead?"

I thought of my old Egyptian mentor, who secretly liked to tie up young slave girls and abuse them, and particularly liked to bind their wrists and hang them on hooks. I remembered the women in my garden, exchanging secrets about men who had raped them when they were young. I thought of Bethesda when she had been a slave in Alexandria, and the powerful, respected master who had used her mother so cruelly that he killed her, and would have done the same to Bethesda if she hadn't fought back and found herself carted off to the slave market instead, where a poor young Roman smitten by her beauty emptied his purse to pay for her, never dreaming he would take her back to Rome and make her his wife, obliging her to serve dinner to his guests and to give the first heaping portion to an esteemed visitor such as Dio of Alexandria…

I had said to her,

You have deliberately deceived me!

Do you deny it?

And she had answered,

No, husband, I do not deny it. 'And I thought I understood!" "Papa, speak up-"

"Cybele help us!" I shook my head.

"I think I know the answer,