“Madam, I…”
At the sight of him she shrank back against her pillow, nearly dislodging her wig, the back of one thin hand pressed to her mouth. Iarbas ran around them and clambered up on the bed beside her. She clutched his wooly head to her breast. The woman looked terrified. Why?
This was not the moment to confront her head-on. Pliny forced a smile. “Come now, I’ve only a few questions for you, nothing to be alarmed at.” Had she heard a disturbance that night? When had she gone to bed? Had Iarbas spent the night with her? Had Verpa seemed worried at all? Had he hinted at anything in the preceding days?
But to all these questions she only shook her head and clutched the dwarf tighter. In desperation, Pliny addressed the dwarf directly, but got in reply only a string of uncouth syllables. Finally, he gave it up. “I will return another time, Lady, and hope to see you in a better frame of mind.”
They closed the door softly on her and returned to the atrium. Pliny was unbearably weary of the whole thing: the odious Verpa and his unpleasant family in their ostentatious house, the pathos of the slaves, the centurion’s smirking superiority. This was no job for him. “Now I really must be going,” he said firmly.
“Sir.”
“What?” He nearly shouted at Valens.
“Perhaps just a word with the door-slaves of the front and back door? They may have seen something.”
“Yes, yes.” Pliny was in a state now. “Bring them here.”
The two men, who a little earlier had been among those who had proudly sacrificed to the gods in the garden, fell on their knees before Pliny as though he were a god himself.
“Just think hard now and tell the truth,” he assured them, “and all will go well with you. Now, did either of you see anyone lurking about the house on the night your master was killed? Anyone strange to the neighborhood?”
The slave of the back door shook his head. But yes, said the slave of the front door. There had been someone. Someone who had stood across the street for an hour or more from sundown until it grew too dark to see. Describe him? Well, about average size, neither young nor old, dark-haired, nothing special. One thing though. He carried his left arm in a sling.
Chapter Nine
By the time he left Verpa’s house, it was nearing the ninth hour of the day, and the sun was creeping down the sky. The heat was still oppressive, as it had been for days. Pliny longed for the baths. Cool water, a bit of modest exercise, a rub-down, uncomplicated camaraderie with a few casual acquaintances, the blessed anonymity of nakedness, or so he thought. He directed his bearers to take him to the Baths of Titus. But the City Prefecture was on his way and conscientiousness got the better of him. He would stop and make his report first.
The Prefecture was a sprawling labyrinth of offices, archives and courtrooms connected by dim corridors where clerks and secretaries, minor officials and armed troopers bustled to and fro on hurried errands. Pliny hated the place. He passed rooms where lines of weary petitioners waited patiently to speak with clerks who ignored them. In other rooms, secretaries shuffled through stacks of files and dossiers. Was his own name, he wondered, on one of them? There were still other rooms, rooms in the cellars with iron doors and brick walls. He preferred not to think about what went on there. He pressed on.
In the antechamber of the city prefect’s office, he asked for Aurelius Fulvus and was told that the chief had gone for the day. He was turning to leave when he heard loud laughter coming from the inner chamber. Suddenly angry, he brushed past the secretary and marched in.
The prefect was sprawled in a chair with a cup in his hand. Some other men, whom Pliny didn’t know, sat around him. All of them were flushed with wine. Fulvus looked up as Pliny entered. He seemed to have some trouble focusing his eyes.
“Yes? I gave orders not to be—oh, it’s you, ah, Gaius Plinius. Yes, well, what brings you here? Ah, sit down, won’t you?” He gestured vaguely with the wine cup, spilling half the contents, but there were no empty chairs in the room. “Orfitus, get up and let my vice prefect sit.”
Pliny replied stiffly that he preferred to stand.
“As you like. And so, this is about…?
“The Verpa case.”
“The…ah, yes, of course.” Fulvus made a visible effort to compose his long-jawed face. “And so what have you concluded? The wretched slaves, of course. It always is.”
“In this case not, sir. Or, not the majority of them. Everything points to a Jewish assassin who crept in through a window aided by a slave in the household.”
“Jews you say? By Thundering Jove!” Fulvus slapped the chair arm with a ruby-ringed hand. “Our Lord and God will be pleased! And how many are there?”