Chapter Sixteen
The fourth day before the Ides of Germanicus. Day six of the Games.
The third hour of the night.
Pliny looked at him severely. “I asked you once before, boy, and I ask you again now. Did you, at the order of someone in this house, murder Sextus Verpa, your master?”
They stood in Verpa’s bedroom—Pliny and Martial; Valens and three of his men; Lucius, affecting an air of unconcern which was belied by the lines of tension around his mouth; Iarbas, his monkey on his shoulder, lurking near the doorway. He was Scortilla’s eyes and ears, the lady herself claiming to be indisposed. All around them on the walls, the satyrs and maenads—eerily lifelike in the glimmering light of the lamps—writhed and coupled, indifferent to the drama which was being enacted in the middle of the room.
Ganymede, his features twisted in anguish, violently shook his head no.
“Shall we put it to the test?” snapped Pliny. “We can’t make you climb up to the window, but we can make you climb down…or break your neck.” This had been Martial’s bright idea.
“Centurion, you’ve stationed a man below? Good. Draw your sword and persuade this boy to show us why he is called “the eel.”
Valens gripped Ganymede by his long hair, dragged him to the window, pushed his head out, and prodded him in the rump with the point of his weapon. The youth spread his arms and legs and tossed his head frantically from side to side while the centurion’s blade dug deeper into his flesh.
“Save me!” he shrieked.
“Don’t fear, Eros protects his own.” It was Lucius who spoke, rapidly and softly. The words had an instantaneous effect. Ganymede’s shoulders twisted and folded together until he seemed to have no shoulders at all. He went through the narrow window as far as his waist. Then, making a half twist with his hips, he kicked with both legs together, imitating a fish’s tail, and in an instant was outside. He dropped to the overhang below, landing on all fours. Then he was hanging from the rain gutter, and then his head and fingertips disappeared.
“Here he comes,” shouted the trooper down below, who held up a torch. “Scampers like a squirrel, he does. Got his legs around the column now—ooof!”
Ganymede dropped directly on the man, knocking him to the ground. The back of the garden ended in a high brick wall, thick with leafy vines. The boy went up it like a cat, leapt from the top to the street below, and bounded away into the shadows.
“Merda!” cried Pliny, using a word he never used. “Centurion, the rest of you, follow me! Bring torches!”
Moments later, they stood milling about on the street.
“It’s hopeless, sir,” growled Valens, “this time of night.”
“Martial,” Pliny confided, “when it comes to the dregs of humanity, you’re my oracle. Where would you go if you were Ganymede?”
“Thank you so much. I’m afraid I agree with your centurion.”
“The Circus Flaminius!” cried Pliny. “It’s not far from here. Hundreds of hiding places under those arches. Come on!”
They pelted down the street toward the colonnaded supports of the grandstands. Pliny, who hated exercise of any sort, was breathless by the time they reached it. For an hour they prowled the darkened arches, but turned up no one except prostitutes and homeless beggars, who all denied having seen a running youth.
“And where to now, sir?” asked Valens, a hint of insubordination in his voice.
Pliny leaned against a wall and mopped his perspiring face.
Tight-lipped, Lucius bent over his writing desk.
To Marcus Ganeus, greetings. He scratched the words with his stylus on a pair of waxed tablets. Ganymede will come to you tonight, seeking shelter. You will oblige me by killing him and disposing of the body. You’ll be well paid. L.
He bound the leaves together and handed the packet to a slave. “Hide this under your tunic as you go out, the soldier mustn’t see it. Here’s where you’re to take it, listen carefully.”
Suspended over the doorway of an establishment near the Laurentine Gate, half way across the city, a carved, red-painted prick and balls swung to and fro in the wind. Beneath it, a sign proclaimed this the Temple of Eros. Cleaner than most of the male brothels in Rome, it catered to a genteel clientele. A slim figure stumbled through the door.
“Who are you, then?” The shrewd-eyed man behind the desk looked up sharply.
Ganymede stopped in confusion. “Where’s Marcus Ganeus?”
“Doesn’t own the place any more, I do. What’s your business with him?”