The River God's Vengeance(80)
I watched him hard. He swallowed, fumbled with his cup, but said nothing. I nodded with satisfaction. “You are silent. Yet another good sign. Very well, we will say no more about this for a while, but I want you to bear this firmly in mind.”
“I am not likely to forget it,” he said.
“You asked about Folius and his wife. That we may never know for certain, but I have been thinking about it. You remember how I have taught you to anticipate your enemy by trying to think like him?” Hermes nodded. “It works as well in this sort of investigation. I found myself pondering this: Suppose I were a criminal conspirator and I had found a useful tool, say, a man from Bovillae, perhaps a neighbor who had great ambition and no scruples, whose career I could push to my own great profit? And suppose further that I brought this unscrupulous man to Rome and set him up in one of my profitable enterprises? Then suppose I found that, after a mutually profitable partnership, this man showed himself to be a madman, a murderer capable not only of embarrassing me, but of destroying our whole, beautiful business?”
“You’d want to get rid of him,” Hermes said. “You mean the habit the Folii had of torturing and killing slaves? That might be a little rich for aristocrats, but it’s legal.”
“To our shame, yes. But I think it was getting beyond that. Andromeda gave us a hint. Folius and his wife were getting entirely out of control in their love of blood and pain.”
I sat back and scratched my unshaven chin. The old scar was itching abominably, the way it usually did when I hadn’t shaved for a while. “There is something wrong with such people. Most of us have a natural desire to witness combat and strife, and our customs provide the circus and the arena where these things may be displayed in an orderly, lawful fashion, where the blood that is shed is that of malefactors and the volunteers who wish to fight for their own satisfaction or profit or glory.”
I shook my head. “But that is not enough for certain people. These must torment innocent, powerless people. And such persons are never satisfied but must progress from atrocity to atrocity. I think that the Folii had degenerated to the point that they were about to do something irrevocably unforgivable. They had outlived their usefulness. Either Scaurus or Messala decided they had to go.”
“But take down a whole insula and more than two hundred people?” Hermes said. “Why? It’s not as if killing two people is that hard to accomplish!”
“That is something I intend to learn before the day is out,” I told him. Then for a while we went over plans for the evening meeting. I was ready to set off for a tour of the fiooded areas when a messenger came running down the slope of the Aventine behind the temple.
“Aedile Metellus?” the man asked, halting before the table.
“You’ve found me.” I took the message he handed me and read quickly. After a formal greeting the message was brief:
We must discuss the condition of my theater, which I am now inspecting for damage from this fiood. Please come at once. This need not detain you long, but I must speak with you. Below was appended the name: M. Aemilius Scaurus.
“What happened to his trip to Bovillae? Wasn’t he concerned about his fig trees?”
“It was grape vines,” I said, handing a tip to the messenger, who saluted and trotted off. “Either he went there and returned at a gallop, or he never went at all.”
“Whichever it is, he’s a fool to think you’d step into so transparent a trap.” He chuckled, but I said nothing. Hermes looked at me with growing alarm. “He is a fool to think that, isn’t he?”
“Under ordinary circumstances he would be, but I am feeling rather foolish just now.”
“Wait a moment! Just a short time ago you were lecturing me like a Greek schoolmaster about virtues such as prudence, discretion, and so forth. You do remember that, don’t you?”
“Those,” I told him, “are the desirable qualities of a man of humble station who would rise in the world and earn the esteem of his fellow citizens. I, on the other hand, was born an aristocrat. I don’t have to behave that way. Look at young Marcus Antonius. He’s a very capable soldier from a noble family, so he is destined to be a great man despite the fact that he’s an irresponsible fool and a bit of a maniac. That wouldn’t work for you.”
“But have you no regard for your own life?”
“A reasonable regard. But we live in times that reward boldness that borders upon the foolhardy. I think I’ll go see what’s on Scaurus’s mind.”
Hermes knew better than to argue. “Let’s get some reinforcements first.” He looked out over the river. “The bridge is still passable. I can run over to the Trans-Tiber and go to the ludus. Statilius will be happy to rent you five or six of his boys for the day. I can be back with them in an hour or less.”