Roman Games(20)

“Under guard?”



“They’re counted every night, but not locked in.”



“You said most of them sleep there.”



“A few privileged ones sleep elsewhere.”



“And they are?”



“The night staff, the door slaves, the clock slave. Oh, and Iarbas the dwarf. He’s Scortilla’s pet and plays the clown in her pantomime troupe. He sleeps with her.”

“Her own troupe?”

Lucius had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. “I know, frowned on in these virtuous days, but her tastes are old-fashioned. Harmless, really—bit of slapstick, rude songs, boy ballet dancers.”

“Quite,” Pliny interrupted. “And so she and your father never slept…”



“Together? No, not for years.”



“Did any other slaves have the freedom of the house at night?”



“Phyllis, one of the slave girls, generally slept with my father, she was his current favorite. And there’s Ganymede, the cinaedus in our troupe.”

“And where does he sleep?”

There was a half-smile on the young man’s lips. “Ganymede sleeps wherever he likes.”

“Hmm. Well, I will question them all in due course. None of them sounds like a likely suspect. But your father didn’t have Phyllis to bed that night, or anyone else?”

“No, he didn’t. It was his custom when he had important business to transact the next day not to squander his vital force in lovemaking.”

“And what business would that have been?”

“I’ve no idea. But he seemed agitated at dinner and drank more than usual. Something was in the wind.”

“Sir.” Valens had been circling the room, doubtless with the object of appreciating the muralist’s extraordinary technique. “Look at this here. We never noticed this before.” He was pointing at what appeared to be a charcoal sketch of some kind high up on the wall beside the bed: three semicircles one above the other, the largest one at the bottom bracketing the other two. A vertical slash drawn through their centers connected them and protruded a little way above and below them.

“By the gods,” whispered Lucius, squinting up at it. “Jews! My father prosecuted them, you know, and their friends, the ones who call themselves God-fearers.”

Pliny cast him a questioning look.

“What, you don’t know about the God-fearers? Romans, people of our own class, mind you, who attend the lectures of the rabbis where they listen to a lot of nonsense about how their books contain wisdom the equal of Plato or Pythagoras. They worship a god with no image, if you can imagine it, and not only that but he’s worse-tempered than Zeus with a hang-over, spouting rules about this, that and the other. But they eat it up. I had to sit through hours of it, pretending to be one of them, and it all went over my head, I assure you. The only thing that was clear to me is that they’re traitors. But that’s how we caught Clemens and Domitilla. It was my father’s idea.”

What a long speech suddenly from this reticent young man, Pliny thought. “But what does that have to do with this scrawl on the wall?”

“I know what this is a drawing of,” Lucius replied. “And so do you, vice prefect, think about it.”

“Mehercule, he’s right!” Valens exclaimed. “On the Arch of Titus, sir. That bloody huge seven-branched candlestick from the temple in Jerusalem.”

Of course! He’d seen it a hundred times. Every Roman knew those bas-reliefs that depicted the triumph of the emperor Titus, Domitian’s lamented elder brother, over the Jews. All the treasures of the temple had been paraded through the streets of Rome more than a quarter century ago and commemorated in carved and painted stone on the triumphal arch that Titus built near the Forum.

“Sir?” Valens scratched his jaw. “If I might make a suggestion, sir.”



“Yes, what?”



“Ask about the murder weapon.”



“Right, of course, centurion. I was just going to.” In fact, it hadn’t occurred to him. He was no policeman, damn it!



“I have it,” said Lucius. “We found it on the floor by the bed. I took it to my room, I’ll get it.”



Lucius returned moments later with the dagger and held the hilt toward Pliny, who took it in his hand. It was a heavy piece with a wicked-looking curved blade incised with symbols in a foreign script. Black flakes of Verpa’s blood clung in them.

“A Jewish sica,” said Valens. “An uncle of mine worked for tax farmers in Judea before the revolt. The Zealot terrorists used to slash Roman throats with these.”