Roman Games(76)

“Somehow he had to be stopped. We decided that, while we continued to negotiate with him, we needed a spy in his house. Someone who might be able to find and destroy the horoscope and the letter. Again the Vestalis Maxima came to our rescue. As you know she proposed herself for this mission. We men were reluctant to allow this absolutely unprecedented act by one so holy, but she had her reasons, and our empress seconded her. She is the only one among us whom Verpa and Scortilla would not know by sight or by name. The Vestals are never seen in public without their veils and no one dares to stare at them or enquire too closely about them. We might have sent some low-born person, but the spy, to be effective, had to be someone with breeding and manners, someone who would have the freedom of a guest, sit with them at dinner, befriend them, listen and observe. Her idea was to pose as a devotee of Isis with some story of coming to Rome on a pilgrimage and being robbed. We thought an appeal to Scortilla’s piety and vanity would be most effective, and we were right.

“She took with her one of Corellius’ freedmen, a philosopher, one of the few to escape the recent purge. The man wanted vengeance for many a dead friend. He said he had a smattering of knowledge in the sciences, enough to pass himself off as her physician under the name of Iatrides. And he would be her courier. If she learned anything, he would carry a message to the Cloister and drop it just outside the gate, where one of the Vestals would retrieve it and pass it on to me or the empress.”

Here one of the senators interrupted. “How was a Vestal able to be away from the Cloister for so long? As Pontifex Maximus, the emperor is their religious superior. They can’t just come and go as they please.”

“Quite so. I told him about her hysteria, that it had suddenly become more serious and that she needed medical attention that she could not get in the Cloister. This does happen from time to time. The fact is, she has no living family, I’m told they all perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, so I invented a sister for her in Capua, a woman of impeccable reputation. Oh, believe me, Domitian actually pretends to care about such niceties. He might have looked more closely into the matter except that he has been so distracted with fear. He told me to handle the arrangements. So the tyrant never knew where she was—or is.”

“And where exactly is the woman?” This was Nerva, whose nerves made him petulant.

“She had not been at Verpa’s more than three days,” Parthenius replied, “when the man was killed, under what circumstances we don’t yet know. The information that Pliny has seen fit to release is extremely confusing, and she is now at his house—has been for the past twelve days, apparently without Iatrides, who disappeared around the time of Verpa’s murder.”

“Then how do you know she’s there?” asked a senator.

“The resourceful Stephanus, against my advice, I may say, talked his way inside and got a look at her. He couldn’t speak freely to her, the silly little wife was around, but he tried to convey to her in guarded language that, one way or another, this will all be over soon. That was three days ago. Since then we’ve had no communication with her. The truth of the matter is, I am very concerned.

“I also have an informant, a certain ambitious, foul-mouthed poet, who has attached himself to Pliny like a barnacle and tells me the man is convinced that Verpa’s murder was a family affair, as it very well may be, knowing that family. But Verpa’s son said something about papers—surely our letter and horoscope—and my fear is that Pliny may yet find them or that the Purissima will make some slip. We know she suffers from a weakness of the nerves that could overcome her at any moment, with the anxiety she must be feeling. The fact that nothing has happened to us so far eases my mind only a little. Gaius Plinius is, by all appearances, a loyal soldier of the regime.”

“Chamberlain, I protest!” Corellius quavered, raising himself painfully on one elbow. “I’ve known Pliny all his life. I can vouch for his good character. He will do the right thing.”

Parthenius frowned patiently. “Forgive me, sir, I know he is your protégé, but while others spoke out against tyranny and paid with their lives, his career has flourished under the emperor’s patronage. Now he has been given this extraordinary police job under the city prefect, who we all know is the tyrant’s creature. Why?”

Corellius looked about him helplessly. “I yield to no one in my hatred of Domitian, but Pliny must have a career, mustn’t he? He still has years of service ahead of him. It isn’t his fault if he has had to serve a bad master; he’s guilty of no evil himself. I defy you to prove otherwise.”