Under Vesuvius

3

The next few days, I traveled among the towns of the district, holding court, being feted and entertained, and generally enjoying life.

One day I went to the lovely little town of Pompeii. Actually, all the towns of this district are beautiful. Pompeii showed off its greatest adornment by entertaining me with an afternoon in the amphitheater. This splendid structure is made of stone, taking advantage of a natural depression in the ground. The depression was improved by digging, forming a perfect oval that was lined with stone seats. The outer, aboveground wall is a complete circle of graceful arches, decorated with fine carvings. One enters this imposing structure by ascending a double stair built against the outer wall, then taking one of the inner stairs that descend among the seats.

This clever building seats no fewer than twenty thousand people.

That is not a great number compared to Rome's Circus Maximus, which can accommodate one hundred thousand, but it is huge for a town the size of Pompeii, which lacks sufficient free population to fill half these seats. At festival time, people from all the surrounding countryside and nearby towns flock to Pompeii to attend the spectacles.

On that afternoon the gladiators from the local school came out to entertain us. Since the occasion was not a munera, the fights were not to the death but only to first blood or a declared decision. We lounged at our ease in the editor's box as they marched out in their finery, colored plumes nodding from helmets, the sun flashing on polished armor, blades and spearpoints glittering.

Campania is the homeland of this dangerous sport. The funeral combats are enormously popular in Rome, but in Campania they form a veritable cult. These men were as fine and skillful as any I had ever seen, fearless and tireless as they fought in pairs, matching a man from one style with another of contrasting weapons: large shield against small shield; sword and shield against net and trident; spear against sword; curved sword against straight; even a man who fought with a sword in each hand against a heavily armored man with a small shield and a spear. Two teams of horsemen pelted one another with javelins.

Hermes and I, and the other men of my following, enjoyed all this immensely. Julia had chosen not to attend and forbade the women of our party to go. She said that, since women were forbidden by law to attend the munera, there was no reason why they should go to the sham fights. Of course, women went to the fights anyway and nobody stopped them, but Julia was a great stickler for the proprieties during those years. (In more recent years, the First Citizen has reinstituted the adult-male-citizen-only rule for the munera. It has not improved his popularity. Half the fun was seeing how excited the women got.)

In the box with us that day was a man whose dress and beard were Greek, and everything about him reeked of wealth. He took a keen interest in the fights and seemed knowledgeable about the fighters, for he knew each man by name, his style, and the number of his victories. When the two-sword man and his opponent came out, he leaned toward me and said, "Praetor, which of these two do you fancy?"

I could not imagine how a man bearing two offensive weapons could defend himself properly. "I favor the spearman. He has good armor and a shield. He can attack and defend himself at the same time. The other man can only attack."

"That is the conventional interpretation, but there is nothing conventional about such a fight." He smiled in that superior Greek way. "I think that, should you bet on the two-sword man, you will leave this place richer than when you arrived."

"Who would take such a bet?"

The Greek looked around, then said, "Since no one else seems inclined, I will bet on the spearman myself. One thousand sesterces, five-to-one odds."

"Five-to-one in whose favor?" Hermes wanted to know.

"In the praetor's of course. If my man wins, he pays me a thousand. If his wins, I pay him five thousand."

"Why would you bet at five to one on a man you think will lose?" I asked him.

He smiled again. "I am a sportsman. I like long odds."

"Very well, then," I said, curious to see where this would lead. "Done."

We settled down to watch the match. The men saluted and then squared off under the sharp eye of a trainer. Other trainers armed with staves stood by, ready to separate the combatants should they get carried away and actually try to kill each other, a not uncommon occurrence among these spirited men.

The spearman wore a leather sleeve covered with metal plates on his weapon arm and high greaves strapped to both legs. His helmet had wide cheek plates with throat protectors. To defend his body he had a round, deeply convex shield. To supplement his spear he carried a straight, slender sword behind his shield. This was a type of fighter rarely seen in Rome but popular in the south.

By contrast, the other man was all but unprotected. He wore a light helmet and had studded leather guards on both forearms, and that was the extent of his protective gear. His swords were legionary type: twenty inches long, straight, broad and double-edged.

They looked to me for the signal, and at my nod the trainer shouted, "Begin!"

The two went at it immediately, with the two-sword man pressing in aggressively, forcing the other man back several steps and seeming, to me, to expose himself recklessly.

"A pair of double-edged gladii," said the Greek, "means about eighty inches of razor edge. That is a formidable thing to face."

I'd thought of that myself, but I was more interested to see how my man was going to defend himself from that spear, which had reach. This became quickly apparent. When the spearman thrust, my fighter used his left-hand sword to block while simultaneously aiming a thrust at the other's face. And so it went through several exchanges; each time the spearman attacked, the swordsman used one weapon to defend, immediately counterattacking with the other.

This was what I had not anticipated. A soldier uses his sword to block only as a desperate measure. Clanging sword against sword damages both weapons. Swords are expensive, and you want to keep yours in good condition for the rest of the battle. Thus, soldiers depend on their shields and armor for defense, reserving the sword for attack against an enemy's vulnerable areas. Swords are intended to cut flesh, not wood or metal.

But, I now saw, if you had two swords, and were paying for neither of them, you could afford to let them get notched, blocking and parrying your enemy's weapons. You'd get new swords for the next fight. Plus, you could keep your enemy guessing which sword was going to be used for what.

Both men fought with exceptional spirit and skill, and we were all jumping to our feet and shouting like boys attending their first munera. The spearman crouched behind his shield and tried to keep the other at a distance with short thrusts, first toward the face, then at the body and legs. The swordsman danced out of the way, sprang forward and back, and kept drawing the other's shield up and down by attacking from different directions. He hoped to tire his opponent's shield arm and create an opening that would let him attack the unprotected torso.

Finally, the spearman overextended on a thrust, and the left-hand sword came down, shearing away the iron point. Immediately, the man dropped the useless shaft and snatched the reserve sword from behind his shield. But in that instant the right-hand sword darted in over the shield and scored a cut on the man's shoulder.

Immediately the men with staves jumped in and separated the two fighters while we cheered and applauded. The loser's wound bled freely but it was only a superficial cut, the best sort of wound for a gladiator: a real crowd-pleaser that doesn't incapacitate the man.

"It seems that you won, Praetor," said the Greek. He reached into his robe and drew out a well-stuffed sack, which he handed to Hermes. "Sport doesn't get better than that. I am Diogenes, perfume importer and partner of Manius Silva. Please accept these gifts for your esteemed lady." He reached behind him and a slave placed a small wooden box in his hands. The Greek worked the latch and raised its lid. Within, nestled in fine wool felt, were perhaps twenty exquisite little glass vials filled with clear liquid, some colorless, others amber tinted. "These are a modest sampling of the perfumes I import. I hope she will find them pleasing."

I accepted the gift. "You are a generous man and a good loser, Diogenes."

He smiled again. "I am a Greek. We are good at losing."

He took his leave, and when he was gone Hermes said, "He arrived with his losses already counted out and bagged. Decius Caecilius, I believe you've just been bribed."

"No, I've just won five thousand sesterces. That Greek may think he's bribed me, but he's wrong."

"Bribed to do what?" Hermes wondered.

"Doubtless we'll know soon enough," I assured him.

That evening, Julia and the other women had a sniffing party. They made admiring sounds over the fine cedar box and the beautiful glass vials, and then they unstoppered them and began to dab scent on themselves, on each other, and on their slave girls. Each new perfume brought a babble of excitement. When all had been tried, the women gazed at the vials in wonder.

"Decius," Julia said, "these are some of the costliest scents in the world. This collection is worth far more than you won with your foolish bet."

"No bet is foolish if it wins," I told her. "Maybe it was you the Greek wanted to bribe."

"The vials are Babylonian glass, the very finest," Antonia reported. "Any time that Greek wants to bribe me, I'll be glad to accept."

"I'm not certain it's the Greek doing the bribing," I said.

"Manius Silva?" Julia said.

"He and Diogenes are partners," I said. "It would make sense if Silva wanted to bribe me, to send his foreign lackey and keep his own hands clean."

"I notice," Circe said, "that no one thinks the Greek is just a foolish gambler who is princely about gift giving."

When the laughter died down, Hermes enlightened her. "I've been asking around. He's not just Greek, he's from Crete. Everyone knows that the Cretans are born liars and connivers. They couldn't be truthful under torture."

"I've never liked them," Antonia said. She had good reason. Her father was known as Antonius Creticus. But the Creticus was not an honorific voted by the Senate. It was bestowed in derision by the populace when he was defeated by the Cretans. In my opinion, any Roman who could get himself whipped by Cretans deserved worse than a funny name.

"What else did you learn?" Julia asked Hermes.

"Just that he's recently back from a purchasing expedition. It seems each year he makes a circuit of the big markets: Alexandria, Antioch, Cyprus, Berytus, and so forth. He spends about half the year at this, then he returns and spends the balance of the year here in Baiae."

"And what did you learn about Silva?" I asked him. "Presumably you didn't just snoop around about the Greek." Hermes was my freedman and client. He also considered himself my protector. Like my family, he thought I was incompetent to protect myself, so he compulsively investigated anything he thought might be a threat to me, such as this Greek with his enigmatic bribe.

"Manius Silva is the son of a freedman. His wife comes from a highly placed local family, although rumor has it she became a prostitute after her father was ruined during Sulla's proscriptions."

"I knew that belly button was too big for a respectable woman," Circe said.

"What else?" I asked Hermes.

"Silva owns a big perfumery down by the shore on the edge of town. Besides the perfumes he buys, Diogenes also brings back a lot of ingredients and materials from his trips. The perfumery does a lot of mixing, blending, refining, and so forth."

"That must be the building we passed after we visited Neptune's temple two days ago," Julia said. "Remember the smell?"

Circe sighed. "Like all the flowers in the world, and musk and ambergris-"

"Musk and what?" I asked her.

"Ambergris," Julia told me. "It's a mysterious, waxy substance found floating in the sea. A naturalist at the museum in Alexandria told me that it is thought to be secreted in the stomachs of whales and vomited up when they are sick."

I was not sure I had heard her correctly. "You are telling me that perfumes are made with whale puke?"

"You'd be surprised at what goes into perfume," Antonia said. "The placentas of some animals, the anal glands of certain-"

"Tell me no more," I pleaded, shutting my eyes. "There are some things we men should never know!"

The evening came for our dinner with Norbanus and his gilded wife. Their home was not a town house in Baiae but rather a villa just off the road connecting Cumae and Baiae, and only about five miles from where we were staying. The connecting road was made brilliant with torches and lanterns and melodious with singers and musicians. Lest anyone get bored along the quarter mile to the house, men dressed as satyrs chased women dressed (or, rather, undressed) as nymphs through the copses by the road.

"Oh!" Antonia said, pointing to one especially impressive satyr, "I hope he catches a nymph! I'd like to see that in action."

Julia squinted toward the hairy, horned Dionysian. "Surely it's not real."

We had no chance to find out, as we arrived at the villa a few minutes later, the satyr having had no success in his pursuit of the fleet-footed nymphs.

Norbanus and Rutilia greeted us, the lady dressed this time in another Coan-cloth gown, this one not merely transparent but practically invisible. Their welcomes were effusive and rich with false humility. Slaves brought us garlands and the huge flower wreaths that were the custom of the district. Perfumed water was sprinkled on our hands and hair, and we were given large bowls of watered wine. To my astonishment, there were lumps of ice floating in the wine.

"Where do you get ice at this time of year?" I asked.

"It's brought down in winter from the mountains," Norbanus explained. "There are lakes up there that freeze, and the ice is sawn into blocks. These are packed in straw and carried down in wagons. We store the blocks in caves dug into the hillsides, packed with more straw. Stored this way, it melts very slowly and will last until the end of summer. Most of the larger villas here have ice caves."

"There is always some new decadence to be found in Campania," I said. "I may never recover from this stay."

Rutilia smiled. "Let us hope not. Rome could stand a little sophistication. Especially when this year is over." She meant that this was a censorship year, the one year in five when a pair of beady-eyed old senators whipped the public morals into shape. This year, one of them, Appius Claudius, made it his special mission to purge the Senate of unworthy members, taking special aim at men who had squandered their patrimonies and gone deeply into debt. He considered the chronic indebtedness of the governing class to be the greatest evil of the age. He cracked down on violators of the sumptuary laws; those who wore silk in public or more rings per finger than the law allowed, or who spent too much on weddings or funerals, and other threats to the Republic.

There has always been a faction among us who attribute the virtue and success of our ancestors to the great simplicity in which they lived. They think that we've been corrupted by things like soft beds and hot baths and Greek plays and decent food. If we'd just go back to living in huts, they say, sleeping on the ground, eating coarse barley and hard cheese, we could regain our ancestral virtue. These men are deeply insane. Our ancestors lived simply because they were poor. I, personally, do not want to be poor.

"Come meet our other guests," Rutilia said. "I believe you already know some of them."

And indeed we did. There were Publilius the jewel merchant and Mopsus the silk importer and a dyestuff tycoon and several others we'd met, plus an Alexandrian banker and a Greek shipbuilder who were new to us. Then I spotted Gaeto across the triclinium, conversing with Manius Silva. Rutilia followed my gaze.

"My apologies for having him here. He has-business dealings with a number of the more important people here. It doesn't do to snub him, much as one might wish to. I hope you don't mind."

"Not a bit," I assured her. "I've found him to be good company. But then, I've gotten on well with Gauls and pirates and senators, so I've no reason to fear the company of a slaver."

She smiled. "A broad-minded Roman. We meet so few of those."

"Just one of my husband's singular traits," Julia told her.

As guests of honor, we were placed at the main couch in the triclinium, one wall of which was open to a large, fountain-centered courtyard. Everyone had brought friends, so couches and tables had been set for them in this courtyard so that we were all, in effect, at the same banquet.

Above the courtyard wall to the southeast the graceful cone of Vesuvius rose in green-clad majesty. As we took our couches a great cloud of dark-gray smoke shot from its crest. From the cloud a rain of something fell, trailing smoke in long streamers. I presumed these to be red-hot rocks.

"It it erupting?" Antonia asked, her face pale.

"Not at all," Norbanus assured her. "It does this every few months, done it for years. Hasn't erupted in living memory."

"That's what my husband said when we arrived," Julia said. "Is it what you people keep telling yourselves?"

"Perhaps it is better to live near a well-behaved volcano," Gaeto said, "than in the lethal political atmosphere of Rome." It was a valid point, but the guests laughed harder than the witticism deserved.

"Point well taken," I admitted. "But in Rome, all the lava and ash fall on the senatorial class. Under a volcano, everyone suffers. I've seen Aetna in eruption. The destruction was truly comprehensive."

"When was that, Praetor?" Rutilia asked.

"During the first consulship of Pompey and Crassus. I was sent to help the grain quaestor, a cousin of mine. We heard about the eruption and went to see."

"That was brave," Circe said.

"Not at all. We watched from the sea, in a fast trireme. Even then, some big rocks landed near us. They were glowing red and smoking, and when they hit the water they exploded in a huge cloud of steam. The noise was quite indescribable."

This led to a discussion of whether volcanoes were really the fires from Vulcan's forge or some sort of natural phenomenon, like storms and floods. I was of the latter opinion, because Vulcan is reputed to be the greatest of smiths and I doubt he would let his fires get out of control.

The food was, as might be expected, superb, but I will not waste words on a description of every extravagant dish, even if I could remember them all. Because the most memorable thing about that dinner was what happened just as it was ending.

It was several hours past sunset. The slaves were bringing out silver trays of fruits and nuts, the usual final course of every dinner, whether a modest meal at home or a splendid public banquet. In keeping with the place and company, these were not simple items, fresh from the tree and vine, but elaborately preserved, honeyed, salted, or otherwise enhanced. Even though more food was the last thing I needed, I gave them a try.

We were complimenting our hosts on their splendid layout when we were distracted by the sound of pounding hoofs.

"That beast is being ridden hard," Silva commented.

"Someone with an urgent message," I said with a sense of dread, knowing that this sojourn in southern Campania had been entirely too pleasant. Knowing that this message had to be for me and that it wouldn't be good, I hoped that it wasn't word from Rome that civil war had broken out.

But when the man came into the courtyard I recognized him as one of the messengers belonging to Hortalus's villa.

"Oh, I hope there hasn't been a fire," Julia said.

"Praetor," the messenger said, "you must come at once to the Villa Hortensia. There has been a murder."

This set up a babble all over the courtyard. Murder was a common thing in Rome, but in these easy environs it was a great rarity.

"Murder? Who?" I demanded.

"Gorgo, daughter of Diocles the priest."

At this there was uproar and shouts of outrage. The murder of a slave would have caused comment. That of any freed or freeborn person would have been cause for excitement. The murder of the beautiful young daughter of a prominent man was sure to cause a sensation. I sensed that things could get quickly out of hand, so I took immediate action.

"I must return to the villa at once," I said. "This thing has occurred at my residence. Norbanus, Silva, as duumviri, you should come with me."

"Certainly," said Norbanus. "Litters will be too slow. Everyone take horses from my stable." He began to bark orders to his stable master.

"Excellent," I said. "All here who are magistrates come with us."

Silva turned to the messenger. "How did this happen?"

I held up a hand. "Let's have no secondhand information. It just leads to rumor and confusion. We will go view the body and question any witnesses there may be. Until we have done so and prepared a report for the municipal authorities, I abjure all here to refrain from idle speculation and from spreading tales that at this moment must be baseless."

"Very wise, Praetor," Norbanus said. "I, for one, fully support your actions."

"That poor gii'l!" Julia said. "What could have happened?"

"I don't know yet," I told her. "But I intend to find out."

As was my usual practice in such situations, I was watching those present. Everywhere I saw shock, outrage, at least a thrilled titillation. No help there. Gaeto's swarthy face had gone ashen. The slaver came to me and spoke in a low, urgent voice.

"Praetor, I wish to come with you."

"Gaeto, you are not a magistrate. You are not even a citizen."

"Nonetheless, I would esteem it a great favor if you would allow me to accompany you. I would be in your debt. In this district, that is not a small thing."

I was pretty sure what he was thinking, and I could not help but sympathize. "Very well, but do keep to the side and do not interrupt while we transact official business."

He bowed. "I am most grateful."

There were some odd looks when he rode out with us, but nobody said anything. The night was fine, but the cloud still rose from Vesuvius, and now its underside was stained a lurid orange. If this was not a true eruption, I hoped never to see one.

It was nearing dawn by the time we returned to the villa. Julia and the other women were following by litter. I had sent Hermes and some of the younger men of my party ahead on the fastest horses, to secure the murder scene and separate witnesses. These were precautionary measures I had devised in my career of investigating crimes. Much can be learned at a crime site, as long as it remains in the condition it enjoyed while the crime was being committed. I had little hope of this being the case when I arrived on the scene, but it was worth a try.

How futile had been my wish became clear as we entered the villa grounds. We rode straight to the precincts of Apollo's temple, and there I found a great crowd gathered. Most were slaves and freedmen of the villa, many of them bearing torches. The cluster was densest a little to one side of the temple, by the olive grove.

We dismounted outside the grove and I called for the steward. The man appeared, looking harried and drawn. "Praetor Metellus! This is a terrible thing! Nothing like this has ever-"

"Annius," I said, "I want you to clear this rabble out of here and back to their quarters. They are not helping and they could be doing a great deal of harm. Is there anything resembling a witness around here?"

"Sir, I have found nobody who-"

"Then get these people away from here."

"At once, Praetor!" He clapped his hands, waved his staff, and began to herd everyone back up to the main house. Everyone, that is, except the temple staff. I saw the girls who had been assisting Gorgo the day we arrived, along with some men who had the look of sweepers and haulers, groundsmen and such. I approached the girls, who were weeping copiously.

"What has happened here?" I demanded.

"Sir," began one, "the god must be angry with us! We were awakened by-"

"What is your name, child?"

She snuffled loudly. "Leto, sir." She was a honey-haired beauty, locally born from the sound of her voice, a bit older than the other two.

"Then calm yourself, Leto. I am not angry with you and I doubt Apollo is, either. Are you slave or free?"

Either my voice or my assurances seemed to calm her. "I am a slave, sir. We all are. Slaves of the temple." She indicated the other two girls. "These are Charmian and Gaia." The girls bowed. Charmian had a look more bold than demure. She had dark hair and classically Greek features. Gaia, despite her name, was clearly a German, strong and big boned.

"Praetor," said Charmian, "you and Apollo may not be displeased with us, but the master is sure to be. We are-were-his daughter's attendants, and she was murdered while we slept. He may flog us or sell us or put us to death."

"Then I will speak to the priest. He will do nothing to you, so long as you tell me exactly what happened. Withold nothing and add nothing to your account, do you understand?"

They nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Then tell me what you know." By this time the duumviri and other dignitaries had gathered around. Gaeto, true to his word, stood to one side.

"We were awakened-" Leto began.

"No, start with when you last saw your mistress alive."

She took a deep breath. "We had just finished the sundown service. We put away the sacred implements and extinguished the fire. Our mistress told us to go to bed, that she was going to the spring to bathe and would join us later."

"Did she usually bathe in the evenings?" I asked her.

She frowned, thinking. "Not often but sometimes. Especially when the weather has been hot."

"Where was Diocles, the priest?"

"Yesterday he went to Cumae for a yearly ceremony at the sibyl's enclosure. We did not expect him until tomorrow or the day after. He has been sent for."

"So you went to bed. What then?"

"A scream awakened us. It was horrible! At first, I didn't even think it was a human sound. It woke the whole household. It was then we realized that the mistress wasn't there. We searched the house and temple, and the groundsmen searched the fields and orchards. Astyanax found her."

"Which of you is Astyanax?" I demanded.

A young man in a dark tunic came forward. "I am, sir. I tend the olive grove. That is where I searched." He was visibly shaken, almost trembling, his voice weak. Slaves are always uneasy when there has been a murder in the house, and with good reason. If the victim is discovered to have been killed by one of them, every slave in the household is crucified.

"Let's go view the body," I said. With the slave named Astyanax in the lead, we entered Apollo's sacred grove. There we found Hermes. Marcus and a couple of my other young men stood by with torches. Hermes was crouched by a still, white form and he straightened at our approach.

"We got here too late," he reported. "The whole household of the temple and most of the villa's were down here gawking. We ran them out of the grove, but it loqks as if people have been racing chariots here."

Indeed, the ground was heavily trampled and fouled with sooty oil dripped from torches. Whatever evidence I might have found there was assuredly lost.

"Well," I said, "let's have a look at her."

The body was covered with a white cloak and Hermes drew it back. Gorgo was still beautiful, but she had the pathetic look the dead always seem to have. She wore only jewelry: a fine Egyptian necklace, golden bracelets on her wrists, fine serpent armlets around her upper arms. She was stretched out with her legs together, her hands folded just below her breasts.

"Surely she wasn't found this way?" I said.

"The girls straightened her out and covered her," Hermes said. "They were about to carry her inside the temple when I stopped them."

I beckoned and the girls came forward. "Was she found on this spot?"

"Yes," Leto said. "We couldn't bear to leave her like-"

"It speaks well of your devotion that you were willing to touch her before the rites of purification were performed. But I need to know what she looked like when she was found."

"She was sort of twisted up on the ground," Leto said.

"I will show you," said Charmian. She dropped to the ground and twisted her body, limbs scattered in a haphazard posture as if death came in mid-struggle. "Like this." She stood and brushed herself off.

"Marcus," I said, "lower your torch beside her head. Be careful not to singe her hair." I bent close and examined her neck. There was a ligature mark, not as deep and livid as many I'd seen, but clear indication that she'd been throttled. Her eyes were not swollen and red as so often in strangulations, but her lips were bluish.

"Did you arrange her face as well as her body?" I asked the girls.

"We closed her eyes and shut her mouth," Leto said in a tiny voice. "It was just too ghastly."

From somewhere I heard the sound of running water. I straightened and followed the sound. About twenty paces away a spring bubbled from an abrupt outcropping of rock. Here an artificial pool had been excavated and lined with marble, watched over by a pair of protective herms. Light steam rose from the water, along with the faintest whiff of sulfur. I stooped and dipped my fingers into the water, which was warm. It was an offshoot of the hot springs that had made Baiae such a popular resort. Next to the pool was a small, white heap: a woman's dress, neatly folded.

"Is this where she came to bathe?" I asked.

"Yes," Leto answered.

"Did you touch these clothes?"

"No, Praetor. Well, her cloak lay beside the dress. We used it to cover her."

"Was it folded?" -

"Yes, sir."

I could see the local dignitaries and even some of my own party were mystified by my questions. They probably would have hauled all the slaves down to the local lockup and questioned them under torture. Well, I had my own methods.

Then I saw a small cedar box on the marble flags at the edge of the pool. It was open, its contents a bronze scraper, a sponge, and a small flask. I picked up the flask and unstoppered it. It was scented bathing oil. I had just replaced the flask when a tormented wail came from the edge of the grove.

"Uh-oh," Hermes said. "Sounds like Papa's back."

"Gorgo!" the old man screeched. "Where is my daughter?" Then he broke into deep sobs.

"Well," I said, straightening beside the pool, "we might as well go talk to him." We found the old priest weeping beside his daughter's body. "Diocles, please accept my condolences. We are conducting an investigation and I am certain that we shall soon-"

Diocles wasn't having any of it. He looked up, his expression of grief replaced by one of fury. "Investigation? Why in the name of all the gods is an investigation necessary?"

"Diocles, I-"

He shut me off again, pointing a trembling finger at Gaeto. "We all know what happened here! That slaver's boy has been trying to force himself on my daughter for months! He tried again this night, and she fought him off and he killed her! I want him on the cross for this!"

"Diocles," said Manius Silva, "let's not jump to conclusions. Let us and the praetor do our duty. Gorgo may have surprised a runaway slave hiding in the grove and he slew her to prevent her raising a cry. There are still bandits in the hills; there are robbers."

"Would robbers and bandits have left her jewels?" Diocles demanded scornfully. "It was Gelon! This is what happens when we allow slavers-"

"Enough, Diocles!" Norbanus said. "We share your grief, but this is an official matter now."

"We'll know soon enough," I said. "Hermes?"

"Praetor?"

"Go rouse my lictors. Get them mounted, with their full regalia. Then you and Marcus take fresh horses and ride with the lictors and arrest Gelon, under my authority. Bring him back here."

"Praetor!" Gaeto cried. "This is not just. You have no cause to do-"

I took him aside and said quietly, "I have plenty of cause, and justice has nothing to do with it. I'm arresting the boy for his own protection. Those people back at Norbanus's house have spread word of this already. Everyone in the district will think Gelon is the murderer because he's a slaver's son and a foreigner, and he lives and acts like a visiting prince. There may be a mob assembling at your house right now. If my men can get there in time, I'll keep him safe here, at the villa. You must not resist me in this."

He nodded. "Of course, you are right. I will find the best lawyer in Campania."

"With luck he may not need one, but if I were you, I'd look for one now."

Something occurred to me. "Annius!" I shouted.

The steward scurried over. "Praetor?"

"Send me the villa's horse master. Not the stable master but the riding master."

"At once, Praetor." He did not bother to express astonishment at this request. Things were happening too fast for poor Annius.

"As for you, Gaeto," I went on, "I think you should lie low. At the very least, people are going to be hissing and throwing things at you. Keep your boy's Numidian escort reined in. If one of them so much as points a javelin at a citizen, I'll have the lot of them on the cross. Do you understand?"

He bowed. "It shall be as you say, Praetor. And, sir, whatever you can do-"

"Yes, yes, I'll do what I can for the boy. For what it's worth, I doubt that he did this, but my opinion isn't what counts."

I went back to the gathering by the grove. "Listen to me, everyone! General opinion seems to be that Gelon, son of Gaeto the Numidian, is the culprit here. That being the case, I am taking control of this matter as praetor peregrinus. I will hold the suspect under arrest while a trial is scheduled and his defense is prepared."

"No need for that," Norbanus said. "We have a perfectly good municipal lockup for felons."

"I don't want to throw him into some flea-ridden pit with runaway slaves and bandits. He'll stay here. As for the rest of you-" I gazed around at the assembled notables "-I want you to return to your homes and duties. I am holding you responsible for the behavior of your fellow citizens. I want no mobs, no rioting, no rabble-rousers talking up wars two generations past. If there is disorder, I will not hesitate to call in soldiers to reestablish order. Am I understood?"

"Praetor," Silva protested, "this is not Gaul or Sicily. We have a peaceful, well-ordered society. All shall be according to Roman law."

"See to it," I said. I knew it is always best to assert one's authority at once, especially since my only authority here was that a foreigner was suspect. Still, I had expected more protest from these men. Clearly, none of them wanted any part of this case. That would bear thinking about.