“You don’t suspect him of killing his own daughter, do you?” Cicero said, shocked.
“Men have done it before,” I pointed out. “Even Agamemnon killed a daughter when it seemed necessary. Diocles was conveniently ‘away’ that night. He had the opportunity and he may have felt she had dishonored him with her multiple liaisons.”
Cicero laughed drily. “Decius, I do not envy you. It’s hard enough to get a conviction when you prosecute one man you know to be guilty. But to sort out one or more guilty parties from such a crowd, that is a labor worthy of Hercules!”
A little later Julia and the rest of my party arrived. She greeted Cicero courteously but coolly. Cicero was known for his opposition in the Senate to Caesar’s ambitions. Cicero took his leave and I brought Julia up to date on the day’s happenings.
“I’ve brought Leto and Gaia. They can be the mourners at Charmian’s funeral.”
“Are they up to it?” I asked.
“Gaia is much recovered. Germans are tough. And Leto is greatly heartened.”
“Heartened? Why?”
“They were concerned that Diocles might seize them. They were not entirely sure that a praetor peregrinus would be competent to protect them. I told them that they were in my personal charge, that I am a Caesar, and that anyone who dared to interfere with them must answer personally to Julius Caesar.”
“Ah, that should do the trick,” I said. A mere Metellus holding the second-highest office of the Republic was no bargain as a guardian, but Julius Caesar himself, that was another matter entirely.
“And it was an excellent gesture, to give Charmian a funeral.”
“Cicero thought so, although he considered it eccentric.”
“Cicero is just a jumped-up snob. I, on the other hand, am a patrician. I appreciate the obligations of nobilitas.”
“I know a bit about nobilitas as well,” I assured her. “My family, though plebeian, have been consulars for a good many centuries.”
“My point exactly,” she said with impeccable obscurity.
“On to more pertinent things,” I said. “What do you make of the circumstances I’ve been investigating? In particular, the odd combination of smells on that girl.”
Julia shuddered. “Just doing such a thing seems obscene, but I understand why you did it. In a way, I almost wish I had been there. My sense of smell is much more sensitive than yours.”
“Well, she’s still right over there at the Temple of—”
“Don’t even suggest it!” she cried with an apotropaic hand sign to ward off evil. “The very thought fills me with revulsion. Now, if you are through making absurd suggestions—?”
“Quite finished,” I assured her.
“Well, then. Assuming you are correct about Zoroaster’s Rapture, and I am confident that you are, it occurs to me that the person with whom she sought refuge would have bathed her immediately. The scent may have been in the bath oil or in an unguent applied to her wounds. Like many of the costliest scents, that one is believed to have curative properties.”
“Have you ever heard of a perfume that expensive being used on a slave?”
“This is Baiae. The oil or unguent may have been all that was convenient when she arrived.”
“That makes sense. What of the horse smell?”
“Maybe she didn’t take refuge in a stable. Maybe she had been riding a horse.”
“Is that possible? In her condition?”
“We already know that she was incredibly resilient. Just surviving the beating in the first place, then escaping and making her way on foot to Baiae. What was one more ordeal to such a creature?”
I began to ponder, seeking to place the facts we had into some sort of coherent sequence of events, some possible process that might account for all, or most of them. I call this making a model. Julia preferred to call it a paradigm, because she was a snooty patrician and preferred to use Greek.
“All right,” I said, “let’s try this. The girl, with the collusion of Gaia, flees the temple. Somehow, hurt and bleeding, she makes her way to Baiae.”
“She had to pass through a gate,” Julia said. “Probably the Cumae
gate.”
“Good point. I’ll look into it. Somebody may have seen her, although from what I’ve seen of the city guard, the Gauls could have marched in without waking them. So she got through the gate and went to the house of her friend protector, whatever you wish to call him. She is taken in, bathed, her wounds treated, given new clothes.”
“Eventually,” Julia said, following my line of thought, “she becomes a liability. Just why, we don’t know. Perhaps she knew too much; perhaps he couldn’t afford to have her discovered in his house. He tells her he’s taking her somewhere else, somewhere safer.”