Roman Games(22)
The single window was barely a foot wide by two feet high. This part of the house was raised on a tier of columns, topped by a course of overhanging eaves that surrounded the garden at the rear. Pliny crossed to the window and peered out. Ivy grew thick around the window frame.
“We’ll go down to the garden, centurion.”
They all trooped downstairs and looked up at Verpa’s bedroom. Strands of ivy spiraled up the columns producing a striking and pleasing effect, but they could see plainly at the base of the column nearest Verpa’s window that the tendrils were torn and loose, used as handholds.
Valens scratched his jaw. “Seems an impossible climb, sir, getting around that overhang and up to the window. And what man of normal size could have squeezed through it? It was clearly designed to give the slaves who were kept there a little air, but no means of escaping.”
“Maybe a trained assassin…,” Lucius said, looking thoughtful. “Not impossible. I’ve heard from my father what those Judean Zealots were like. And if Pollux was his accomplice? I mean, telling him which window, signaling when the time was right, and then guarding the door in case anyone came by?
Pliny was silent for a moment. It sounded fantastic, yet who could say that Jewish assassins hadn’t made their way to Rome, where the filth of all the world eventually collected.
A thought occurred to him. “Are there other Jews in the familia?”
“Don’t know, really. We’ve got slaves from everywhere.”
“There’s one way to find out, sir,” said Valens, eager to regain his authority. “None of them will sacrifice to our gods. Why don’t we put them to the test? I mean, if you agree, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t think…” Lucius began, but Pliny cut him off. “No, my centurion’s right—again.” Pliny was beginning to feel distinctly annoyed at this competent officer. “We may as well know the worst. What images of the gods have you?”
“Dozens, look anywhere in the house. We’ve an altar too, quite nicely carved.”
“Show my men. Bring one of every deity out into the garden, we’ll do it there. And have you an image of Our Lord and God?”
Lucius replied that they kept a small bust of the emperor in the lararium together with their household gods so that they could venerate it everyday.
“Put it with the others and fetch wine and incense. In the meantime, centurion, show me to the slave quarters.”
A rank stench of bodily waste, sweat and terror assaulted Pliny when the door was unbolted. And this, after only two days of confinement. What would it be like after fifteen—if any of the slaves were still alive by then? With a wail of shrieking protestations they cried out that they knew nothing of any plot to murder Master. On their lives, they would have told if they did. And why would anyone do such a thing to Master? Good, kind Master.
Here was the blood and bones of the household, Pliny reflected. They were Levantines, Nubians, Dacians, and Germans. They were litter bearers, torch bearers, bodyguards, and private bully-boys; doorkeepers, footmen, and messengers; valets, butlers and barbers; lady’s maids, dressers, bath women, hair curlers, and masseuses; scullions, chefs, pastry cooks, waiters, cup bearers, and tasters; keepers of the silver, the unguents, the pearls; short-hand writers, hour callers, name rememberers, bed partners of both sexes, musicians, mimes, dancers, and reciters of poetry. Among them also were children, for Verpa permitted his slaves to cohabit on payment of a fee. Pliny saw backs and shoulders seamed with the marks of old floggings and more than one face branded like a felon’s to serve as a warning to the rest. And now, by order of the city prefect, all wore iron collars on which were inscribed the words, “I’m running away—seize me.” The collars were linked together with chains.
Valens banged his staff against the door jamb and bawled at them to shut their yaps.
When there was some semblance of quiet, Pliny spoke to them, while breathing as little of the fetid air as he could. “I am going to ask you to do something very easy, to sacrifice to the gods and our emperor, only that. No one will be tortured, I promise you. We have reason to think that there may be one, or a small number, of depraved madmen among you, devotees of a vicious cult. If that turns out to be true, then maybe, I can promise nothing yet, maybe the rest of you can be saved.”
Pliny heard with genuine surprise these words come from his lips. Like anyone with a smattering of Greek philosophy, he knew that slavery was against nature. There was no difference between a freeman and a slave except a cruel twist of fate. But as far as Roman law was concerned, the slave was not a man at all but a “speaking tool,” possessing no rights. Pliny wasn’t sure quite when it had occurred to him that his purpose here was to save these men and women from an unjust death. It certainly had not been in his mind two mornings ago when news of the crime had alarmed the city. Valens looked at his superior, incredulous that anyone would talk to slaves this way, while the slaves resumed shrieking their innocence.