“I won’t tell anybody,” she said. “Besides, it rates far below the standards of Baiae bribery.”
“Senators and magistrates come cheaper in Rome,” I told her, reclining on the couch. Instantly, a slave removed my sandals and another pair commenced washing my feet. Others filled my cup, arranged my cushions, and fanned me, all unnecessarily, but then that is what luxury is all about.
Jocasta took a couch opposite me, artfully allowing her peplos to gape slightly. Well, more than slightly. Clearly, the garment had been designed to gape and she had a good deal to display thus. Women have frequently practiced these wiles upon me, almost always with success.
“Try some of the honeyed pheasant breast,” she suggested, serving me a plate of it with her own hands. I took it and tried a slice. It was superb, but I had by this time come to expect no less. I took a good swallow of the wine, which I recognized to my surprise as Gaulish. I had always thought that benighted province would never produce drinkable wine, but a few years before some vineyards there had begun producing a rather decent vintage, and this was far more than decent. I refer of course to our old, southern province of Gaul, where the people were respectably clad in togas, not to the trousers-wearing part.
“Gelon tells me,” I began, “that he spent the night of the murder at his father’s house and that you were there.”
“Yes, I was there.” She popped a ripe strawberry into her mouth.
“Why weren’t you at the dinner given by Norbanus? Your husband was there.”
“I don’t like being snubbed by all those grand ladies. My husband enjoys flaunting his wealth and influence at such events, but I can do without them. The civic banquet where you were honored was quite another sort of thing.”
“I see. Will you be able to testify that Gelon was in that house for the entire night?”
“Yes—that is, I believe he was.”
“Your memory seems to be less than certain on this point,” I noted.
“Gelon was in the house in the early evening, after his father had departed for the house of Norbanus. We had dinner together. Afterward, I retired to my bedroom. I never heard anyone leave during the night, and he was there the next morning, when your men came to arrest him.”
I washed down a fig with the excellent wine. “Forgive me, Jocasta, but that is thin.”
“Does it matter? I am just the slaver’s wife and everyone will think I am covering up for the slaver’s son.”
“You would have to come up with a much better lie than that to rouse such suspicion.”
“I fear it is the best I can do. My husband may forbid me to testify, anyway.”
“I will speak to him on the matter. You requested my presence here,” I reminded her. “Surely it wasn’t just to tell me that you have no compelling reason to believe that Gelon killed the girl.”
“No, I had a different but connected reason to ask you here.”
“This sounds devious. Please continue.”
“I believe you should be looking into the activities of the priest Diocles.”
My cup hand paused halfway between table and mouth. “Why?” The cup resumed its progress.
She grew oblique. “Tell me, have Norbanus and Silva approached you, urging you to execute Gelon and be done with it?”
I was no slouch at obliquity myself. “And if they have?”
“Ask yourself why.”
I had been asking myself exactly that, but I would have been foolish to reveal this to her. “Come to the point, Jocasta. What are the priest and the duumviri up to?”
“By now you’ve seen that Baiae and much of southern Campania are fat on the luxury trade. Landowners control things up in Rome, but down here the likes of Silva and Norbanus and all the rest are cocks of the dunghill. Silk, perfume, incense, dyestuffs, gems, gold, extraordinary slaves—if it is precious, expensive, rare, those men control it and they make millions from it. Where there is so much wealth, there is corruption. I doubt I am telling you anything terribly surprising.”
“I am aware of the connection between money and political influence. I fail to see what this has to do with the case at hand.”
“Where there are luxuries, there are sumptuary laws, import duties, trade restrictions, and many other inconveniences to the pursuit of further wealth. Even in a common year there is a great deal of bribery, coercion, and influence buying to be done. In a censorship year like this one, the problem increases tenfold.”
“I can see that this might be of concern to men like the duumviri and their colleagues including, I am sorry to say, your husband. How might the priest be involved? He seems an austere man. His house is modest, as are his clothes, his household, and his late daughter.”