Under Vesuvius(18)

“Then I will speak to the priest. He will do nothing to you, so long as you tell me exactly what happened. Withold nothing and add nothing to your account, do you understand?”

They nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Then tell me what you know.” By this time the duumviri and other dignitaries had gathered around. Gaeto, true to his word, stood to one side.

“We were awakened—” Leto began.

“No, start with when you last saw your mistress alive.”

She took a deep breath. “We had just finished the sundown service. We put away the sacred implements and extinguished the fire. Our mistress told us to go to bed, that she was going to the spring to bathe and would join us later.”

“Did she usually bathe in the evenings?” I asked her.

She frowned, thinking. “Not often but sometimes. Especially when the weather has been hot.”

“Where was Diocles, the priest?”

“Yesterday he went to Cumae for a yearly ceremony at the sibyl’s enclosure. We did not expect him until tomorrow or the day after. He has been sent for.”

“So you went to bed. What then?”

“A scream awakened us. It was horrible! At first, I didn’t even think it was a human sound. It woke the whole household. It was then we realized that the mistress wasn’t there. We searched the house and temple, and the groundsmen searched the fields and orchards. Astyanax found her.”

“Which of you is Astyanax?” I demanded.

A young man in a dark tunic came forward. “I am, sir. I tend the olive grove. That is where I searched.” He was visibly shaken, almost trembling, his voice weak. Slaves are always uneasy when there has been a murder in the house, and with good reason. If the victim is discovered to have been killed by one of them, every slave in the household is crucified.

“Let’s go view the body,” I said. With the slave named Astyanax in the lead, we entered Apollo’s sacred grove. There we found Hermes. Marcus and a couple of my other young men stood by with torches. Hermes was crouched by a still, white form and he straightened at our approach.

“We got here too late,” he reported. “The whole household of the temple and most of the villa’s were down here gawking. We ran them out of the grove, but it loqks as if people have been racing chariots here.”

Indeed, the ground was heavily trampled and fouled with sooty oil dripped from torches. Whatever evidence I might have found there was assuredly lost.

“Well,” I said, “let’s have a look at her.”

The body was covered with a white cloak and Hermes drew it back. Gorgo was still beautiful, but she had the pathetic look the dead always seem to have. She wore only jewelry: a fine Egyptian necklace, golden bracelets on her wrists, fine serpent armlets around her upper arms. She was stretched out with her legs together, her hands folded just below her breasts.

“Surely she wasn’t found this way?” I said.

“The girls straightened her out and covered her,” Hermes said. “They were about to carry her inside the temple when I stopped them.”

I beckoned and the girls came forward. “Was she found on this spot?”

“Yes,” Leto said. “We couldn’t bear to leave her like—”

“It speaks well of your devotion that you were willing to touch her before the rites of purification were performed. But I need to know what she looked like when she was found.”

“She was sort of twisted up on the ground,” Leto said.

“I will show you,” said Charmian. She dropped to the ground and twisted her body, limbs scattered in a haphazard posture as if death came in mid-struggle. “Like this.” She stood and brushed herself off.

“Marcus,” I said, “lower your torch beside her head. Be careful not to singe her hair.” I bent close and examined her neck. There was a ligature mark, not as deep and livid as many I’d seen, but clear indication that she’d been throttled. Her eyes were not swollen and red as so often in strangulations, but her lips were bluish.

“Did you arrange her face as well as her body?” I asked the girls.

“We closed her eyes and shut her mouth,” Leto said in a tiny voice. “It was just too ghastly.”

From somewhere I heard the sound of running water. I straightened and followed the sound. About twenty paces away a spring bubbled from an abrupt outcropping of rock. Here an artificial pool had been excavated and lined with marble, watched over by a pair of protective herms. Light steam rose from the water, along with the faintest whiff of sulfur. I stooped and dipped my fingers into the water, which was warm. It was an offshoot of the hot springs that had made Baiae such a popular resort. Next to the pool was a small, white heap: a woman’s dress, neatly folded.