A Point of Law(44)
“Exactly. What must the investigator do?”
“Sort through the lies to find the truth?”
“That’s only part of it. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to assume that everyone is lying for the same reason. Sometimes they’re covering themselves; sometimes they’re covering for other people. But sometimes they’re hiding something you aren’t even looking for. The fact is just about everyone is guilty of something, and when someone like me comes snooping around they reflexively assume that they’re the target and try to hide their guilt.”
“It gets confusing.”
“Nothing that can’t be solved by a first-class mind and a little inspiration,” I assured him. I took another sip of inspiration and pondered for a while. This called for another sip. It really was inferior wine, not nearly as fine as the unknown vintage Octavia had served—
Abruptly, a god (or my special muse) visited me. In moments like this I have a special radiant, or perhaps stunned look. After awhile I noticed that fingers were waving in front of my face.
“Decius,” Hermes was asking, “are you still there?”
“Let’s order some food,” I said. “I’m going to need a little fortification.”
Mystified, he fetched flat bread, sausage, and preserved onions from the food counter and brought it to the table. I wasn’t really hungry, but I put it away like a starving legionary.
“What’s this all about?” Hermes wanted to know.
“We’re going to visit the Brotherhood of Bacchus.”
He blinked. “The wine merchants?”
“Exactly.”
“You intend to get drunk and stay that way until this is all over?”
“A splendid idea, now that you suggest it, but not my intention.” I was absurdly pleased with myself.
Hermes shrugged, knowing what I was like in this mood. “Whatever you say.”
We left the tavern, rounded the northern end of the Circus, and turned left along the river. This district was devoted to the river trade, a great sprawl of wharves and warehouses with few temples or public buildings. Among the latter was the huge porticus of the Aemilian family, where a great deal of the river trade was conducted informally.
The warehouse of the Brotherhood of Bacchus stood between the porticus and the river. In the little square between the buildings stood one of my favorite statues in all of Rome. It depicted, about twice life-size, the god Bacchus. He stood in the conventional pose of a Greek god, but this was the Italian Bacchus, not the Greek Dionysus. He was portrayed as a handsome young man, but his features were slightly puffy and pouch eyed, his fine, athlete’s body a little potbellied, his smile a bit silly. He looked like Apollo gone to seed. In one hand he held aloft a huge cluster of grapes. In the other, a wine cup. The cup was tilted and the sculptor, with marvelous skill, had depicted a tiny bit of wine slopping over the rim. His pose was a trifle off-balance, his garland of vine leaves just the tiniest bit askew.
“There stands a real Roman god,” I said to Hermes. “None of that stuffy, Olympian solemnity about him.”
We passed the god and went inside. The interior was cavernous, with massive, wooden racks stretching off in all directions, holding thousands of clay amphorae from every district of the world where grapes grow. The racks were labeled by district and year. Everywhere, slaves in pairs, stripped to loincloths, carried amphorae here and there, bringing them from the boats tied up to the wharf outside or from the racks to wagons waiting in the street out front. Each pair carried a pole on their brawny shoulders, the amphora suspended from the pole by ropes passed through the thick handles molded to each side of its neck. The slaves accomplished this seemingly awkward task with wonderful celerity and skill.
A fat man wearing a toga spotted my senator’s stripe and hustled over. “Welcome, Senator. What may the Brotherhood of Bacchus do for you? I am Manius Maelius, steward of the Brotherhood, at your service.”
“I’m of a mind to buy some wine for my household. Of course, my steward will be along later to make the purchase, but I want to try the vintage first.”
“Of course, of course. What is your pleasure? Here we have wine from Iberia, from Greece and all the islands: Cyprus, Rhodes, Cos, Lesbos—some fine Lesbian just arrived today, Senator—Delian, Cretan, the list goes on. We have Asian, Syrian, Judean, wine from Egypt, from Numidia and Libya and Mauretania, from Cisalpina—”
“My taste runs a bit closer to home,” I said, interrupting his circumnavigation of the Middle Sea.
“We have wine from every district of Italy,” he assured me. “From Verona, Ravenna, from Luca and Pisae—”