Moments passed until at last he felt the grip on his shoulder relax. He dared to open his eyes. A madman’s face confronted him. The eyes feverish and red-rimmed with black circles under them. The mouth twisted into something that resembled the mask of tragedy. The cheeks quivering. The fist that held the stylus shook.
Pliny slumped against the wall and struggled to breathe. “Caesar,” he whispered, “there’s been a mistake. Who has spoken against me?”
“The Priest of Anubis! You defiler of corpses! You jackal!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “I sent you to find a murderer, not to violate the rites of the Queen of Heaven. I’ll crucify you for this.” The tendons bulged in his bull’s neck.
For an instant Pliny wanted to cry, to blubber, to grasp the emperor’s knees, beg for his life. Instead—and he would never understand where his courage came from—he said, “Listen to me, Caesar.” And without stopping to draw a breath, he laid out everything he had discovered at the funeral. The emperor’s eyes narrowed.
“Two killers?”
“Yes, Caesar, and the other is still…”
“Not atheists?”
“It seems they had nothing…”
“Documents?”
“A letter, according to Lucius, possibly containing names of people Verpa was blackmailing—people close to you. And something else that might be a horoscope; whose I don’t know. We haven’t found them, but the prefect seized Verpa’s papers before…”
“He did so at my order. One assumes the man kept papers that are best removed from prying eyes—including yours.” Domitian turned to the lictors who stood at attention by the door. “You there, fetch Aurelius Fulvus here at once!” Then he staggered back to his desk and sank onto his chair with his legs splayed out. “Earinus, pour wine for me and the vice prefect.”
The transformation was startling. Pliny now saw not an angry man but a man ravaged with fatigue, distracted beyond endurance. Dough-faced, dull-eyed. What was wrong with him?
“Gaius Plinius, do you believe in the stars? Don’t stand there, man, sit down by me.”
“Well, I suppose, I mean most people do. Of course, Cicero was a skeptic, on the other hand Nigidius Figulus…” Pliny realized he was babbling.
Domitian cut him off. “An astrologer has predicted ‘blood on the moon as she enters Aquarius.’” He scratched a pimple on his forehead and drew a little blood. “I pray this is all the blood required.” He gave a short, sharp laugh.
“Caesar, no two diviners ever agree about these things.”
“Do they not? A soothsayer has prophesied the day, even the very hour, of my death. The fourteenth day before the next Kalends at the fifth hour. And lately another has said the same thing! That is only seven days from today! If they’re right, I won’t live to see the end of the Roman Games. And the day before yesterday, during the thunderstorm, they say a lightning bolt struck the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. Did you see it?”
“Why, no, Caesar, I don’t believe any such thing happened.”
“What, you think I’m mad?”
“No, no, Lord, of course not.”
“And the wind wrenched the inscription plate from the base of a statue of mine and hurled it into a nearby tomb! One of the Praetorian Guards fetched it and showed it to me. And the cypress tree in the courtyard that flourished during the reign of my father and brother—you know the one? It was uprooted! Parthenius took me to the spot, I saw it with my own eyes!”
“Caesar, calm yourself, rest now. You’re tired.”
“Tired!” The Lord of the World buried his face in his hands. “I never sleep any more, Pliny, not without a strong dose of laudanum.” He peered between his fingers. “I’m afraid of my dreams. Last night I dreamed that Minerva threw down her weapons, mounted a chariot drawn by black horses and plunged into an abyss. She has abandoned me.”
“Sometimes opium can produce fantasies that—”
“Do you believe in the gods, Pliny? What exactly do you think they are, and where?”
This was treacherous ground. Pliny could only stammer, “You yourself, sir, being a god, must know that better than I.”
“You think I’m a god, do you? You’re a fool or a liar! I’m no god. If I am a god why do I fear death? If I am a god, why does my wife deceive me with actors? If I am a god, why am I despised, conspired against, lied to by my own slaves? Do people do that to gods?” His voice rose and cracked.
Domitian had always been the despised younger son; ignored, raised in squalor, unloved by the Roman populace and even by his own family. He could never compete with the memory of his brother. Titus had been handsome, generous, a great commander, and had died after only two years on the throne, too young to have developed any vicious habits. Domitian, after fifteen years of power, still seethed with resentment and quivered with insecurity.