With an inward groan, Pliny launched himself down the middle of the deserted street. Valens and his men, themselves rather the worse for drink, fell in on either side.
“Halt!” Pliny commanded, after they had gone a block or two. A street urinal stood before them. He had never deigned to use one before: common, smelly, unbecoming the dignity of a Roman senator.
“Something wrong, sir?” inquired Valens.
“Not at all, centurion, kindly wait a moment.” Pliny hitched up his tunic, unlimbered, and pissed—grandly, expansively, like a mountain torrent in the Piedmont—yes, even poetically—until he could not squeeze out another drop. He gave a contented sigh.
Valens couldn’t contain a furtive smile. “Feel better, sir?”
“Immensely, centurion. Let us proceed.”
At his front door, Valens handed him over to his slaves, hastily roused from bed. “No salutatio this morning, be off with you,” the centurion growled at a knot of sleepy clients, already gathered outside the door. “Have a good sleep, sir, and don’t worry about that filthy little cinaedus. We’ll find him.”
Still foggy with drink, Pliny allowed himself to be undressed and put to bed. If he had been less drunk, he might have noticed Calpurnia’s tear-streaked face peering from behind her bedroom door.
If he had been less drunk, he might also have noticed a man with a bandaged arm who watched from across the street as he entered his house.
Chapter Seventeen
The third day before the Ides of Germanicus. Day seven of the Games.
The third hour of the day.
Gaius Plinius moaned. He had a throbbing, behind his eyes, a vile taste in his mouth, and a troubled soul. He had sent the door slave off to fetch a basin of water and, moments later, his darling Calpurnia, her under lip quivering, had appeared with it in her own hands and meekly set it down on the wash-stand. She shot him a reproachful look and fled without saying a word.
He scoured his teeth fiercely with pumice and honey, which might expunge the sour taste of cheap wine, but the taste of guilt, never. What had come over him? Drunk as an owl! Rutting with some whore in the bushes! Could a brief association with vulgarians have brought him to this! If Martial should ever, ever mention this night again, he swore to himself, he would terminate their friendship at once.
It was all Verpa’s fault, of course. Damn the man for getting himself murdered! Today was almost the half-way point of the Games, time was running out, and he had accomplished nothing toward saving those sorry slaves from their fate.
He had begun to sense the tension among his own slaves too. They who had known nothing but kindness from him and who were always permitted to be lively and at ease, were now ominously silent. As always, by some mysterious telepathy, they knew what was going on and what would happen if Ganymede were to be caught alive and made to confess. That kind of crime, inspired by a slave’s sexual jealousy, allowed no appeal to extenuating circumstances. Ganymede and the whole familia would be hideously tortured and executed. Even Pliny’s beloved Zosimus avoided his eyes now and stumbled so much in his lunchtime recitation of Greek poetry that Pliny became quite vexed and sent him away.
What did they really think of him—these men and women who made his comfortable life possible? Could one of them be planning to kill him for some slight, some grudge, without betraying the slightest sign? He was shocked to find himself entertaining the idea even for a moment. But, once thought, it could not be unthought.
To distract himself, Pliny retired to his tablinum and worked all morning on his accounts and correspondence, which had piled up shockingly. The tenants on his Tuscan property were in arrears again, the architect whom he had commissioned to build a temple of Ceres on one of his estates had submitted his bill. Then there were papers to be drawn up manumitting his old nurse and giving her a small piece of land where she could spend her last days.
About midday, a slave came to announce that Centurion Valens awaited him in the atrium.
“Make your report, centurion,” said Pliny, as brisk and businesslike as he could manage. He would tolerate no familiarity from the man because of last night. But Valens’ manner was quite correct. Standing at attention and looking straight ahead he reported no success. “That little fellator has gone to earth somewhere, sir.”
A moment later, Martial arrived, exuding bonhomie. “Up, are we?” he called jovially. Pliny froze him with a look, which the poet understood at once. In a more subdued manner, he inquired if there was any news of Ganymede. “No? I’m not surprised. Combing the city, in my opinion, is useless even with the prefect’s entire force. He’s probably far from Rome by now.”