“Decius?” Julia was saying.
“Eh?” I answered brightly.
“You might as well be in Cappadocia,” she said disgustedly. “I was just talking about Pompey.”
“You were? I must have nodded off. Long day, you know.”
“You were just ignoring me. I was just saying that having Pompey in these parts is changing the social scene. You are not the ranking Roman official now. Pompey’s been consul twice and now he’s proconsul with extraordinary powers in Italy—what are you chuckling about?”
“Sabinilla. I’ll bet she’s cursing herself for throwing that fantastic party for my benefit and wishing she’d saved it for Pompey. What’s she going to do now to entertain him? She’d need months to put together another evening like that one.”
Even Julia had to smile at that. “The poor woman. She must be pulling out her hair and throwing things and screaming fit to raise the dead.”
“Assuming she has any hair to pull. I’ve seen nothing but her wigs.”
We were taking our ease on a small terrace jutting from the base of the Temple of Apollo. Julia had fretted over my near drowning for perhaps three breaths and then had begun to berate me for my many lapses of judgment. I had expected far worse. The night was cool and pleasant, the noise from the encamped crowd no more than a distant murmur punctuated by an occasional tune played on a flute. We had just enjoyed a rare private dinner and now a pair of slave girls kept the air moving and the flies off us with huge ostrich-feather fans Julia had conjured from somewhere. There are worse ways to while away an evening.
“Do you know what surprises me?” I said.
“What is that?”
“That, so far, nobody has tried to kill me outright. With serious crimes under investigation, crimes that merit the death penalty, you’d think somebody would have had a go at me by now. They usually do.”
She shut her eyes. “Don’t talk like that. It tempts the gods. Just saying it makes it more likely to happen.”
“Now you’re being superstitious,” I chided.
“Isn’t everyone?” she said.
The next morning I was looking forward to my favorite activity, which is to have nothing to do at all. It was a day on which official business was forbidden, so no court. I was at a loss where to look next in my investigation, so no investigating. Hermes and a few of the other men had gone off to try the experiment with the rope, and there is nothing I like better than to delegate the work to someone else. I was back out on that terrace, enjoying the morning sun and about to open a letter from Rome when I heard pelting hoofbeats. I looked up and saw what had to be a messenger hurrying up the road from the south. I was certain that my perfect day was at an end before it had a chance to begin.
Yet, I reflected, it might have been worse. A messenger hurrying like that from the north would have had me in a cold sweat. That would have meant bad news from Rome. A few moments later, the messenger was pounding up the stairs. “Praetor Metellus?” I admitted that I was he, and the man handed me a leather scroll tube. “From the duumvir Belasus of Pompeii.”
I opened the tube and shook out the scroll it held. While I was reading it, Hermes returned with his wet, knotted rope. “Just under three cubits,” he reported. “Even closer than I’d thought. Of course, three cubits of solid stone is a lot of rock, but it’s no wonder the Hecate cult figured the Apollo people were up to something. They must have heard a lot of scrapes and clinking over the years. Stone carries sound.”
“Another little piece,” I said.
“What do you have there?”
“A message from the duumvir of Pompeii. There has been a murder. The victim is a foreigner.”
“Why is he writing you about it? You judge court cases involving foreigners. You don’t get involved in every murder where a foreigner is involved until it comes to court.”
“He thought I would want to know about it because the dead man, a Syrian, had a case on the docket, to be tried when I should go down to Pompeii to hold court. It was to be the last town I was to visit before leaving Campania.”
“And you were delaying it to stay in Campania as long as you could, eh?” Hermes said, grinning.
“Of course.”
“Are you going to go look into it?”
“I might as well. It will put some distance between me and Pompey, anyway. Get some of the men together and get them mounted. I won’t be holding court so the lictors can stay here. This will be a flying visit, I don’t need any of my official regalia.” I went inside to tell Julia, who was predictably put out.