Roman Games(53)

“I disagree,” Pliny said. “If he’s the murderer, I’m convinced that someone—Lucius—put him up to it. Now he’ll be waiting for Lucius to help him.”

The poet sprawled in a chair with his chin in his hand. “So you think he’s hanging about nearby?”

“I do. Where would you…?”

“I beg you, Gaius Plinius, do not ask me again to imagine myself as an ignorant adolescent male prostitute.” The two men glared at each other in silence.

“Hold on!” Pliny burst out suddenly. “A male prostitute! Martial, Valens, do you recall Lucius’ words to him just before he escaped?”

“‘Fear nothing’—some such platitude,” answered the poet.

“No, after that. Wasn’t it, ‘Eros protects his own?’ Ganymede told me he had been purchased by Verpa from a brothel called the Temple of Eros. It fits.”

“It was a signal?” said Martial, sitting up straight. “Lucius was telling the boy where to hide—in his old bordello? Pliny, permit me to say that you are a genius.”

Pliny allowed himself a pained smile. “Perhaps dissipation is good for the brain, after all.”



“I’ve always found it so,” the poet agreed modestly.



“Now,” said Pliny, “if we only knew where this Temple of Eros was.”



“Unfortunately,” replied the poet, “there are probably a dozen or more in the city, they’re all named either that or the Garden of Priapus, though I reckon I know where one or two of them are.”

“Martial, once again we are indebted to your peculiar expertise,” said Pliny dryly.

Valens interrupted these mutual congratulations. “It’ll take days to search them all with the men I’ve got.”

“Then I’ll ask the prefect to assign you more men.” Pliny reached for parchment and pen and scribbled a note to Aurelius Fulvus. “Anything else now?”

Valens looked at his feet. “Well, sir, there was a personal matter, but I’ll ask you another time.”

“No, no go on.”

“Well, sir, I want to make a will. Haven’t much to leave but my family situation’s a bit complex. Common-law wife, bastards, that sort of thing. I want ’em to be cared for if anything should happen to me. Wondered if you could recommend me a lawyer that won’t charge too much.”

“Wise man. No one should live a single day without a will. But why at this particular time?”

“I don’t know, sir. Just a feeling I’ve got. Lot of tension in the Castra Praetoria, sir, between us and them. I mean there always is, but there’s something in the air lately. The way they swagger about, like something’s going to happen soon. All the lads are a bit nervous.”

“You don’t say.” Pliny and Martial exchanged worried glances.

“Well, my dear Valens, you just find Ganymede for me and I’ll write you a will free of charge such as any client of mine would be proud to have. How will that suit you?”

“Why, sir, thank you, sir.”

For the first time, Valens allowed himself a smile of genuine feeling. Pliny wasn’t sure how it had happened but the two men had become, if not friends, at least allies.

“Get busy then. Every bordello in Rome is registered at the Prefecture. You’ll find them all there.”



“Well, I’ll lend our brave centurion a hand,” said Martial, “just to make sure he doesn’t mix business with pleasure.”



“Not my idea of pleasure,” growled Valens as he lumbered out of the room, followed by the poet.



But Valens paused on the threshold and came back. “I nearly forgot, I’ve another matter to report on, this time with a bit of success. It’s about that missing doctor of the lady’s. We put his description about and a sausage seller in the Forum claims to have seen him. Says he passed that way several times around midday with his doctor’s kit slung over his shoulder. Says he bought hot sausages from him. But the last time he saw the fellow, three bearded men, foreigners he thinks, ran up to him and started jabbering about an accident nearby, something like that. Iatrides tried to get past them, but quick as a wink they mobbed him and hustled him into a shop. A minute later, out come our three foreigners with a rolled carpet on their shoulders, tossed it into a waiting cart and off they drove.”

“The same three men, he’s sure of this? And it never occurred to this damned sausage seller to report what he’d seen?”



“None of his business, says he.”



“When did this happen, does he remember that?”