Under Vesuvius(74)

There were shouts of outrage at this abuse of authority.

“If any of you defy me,” I shouted, pointing at Vesuvius smoking in the distance, “you’ll wish that mountain had blown up instead!”



* * *





14


THE ATMOSPHERE IN OUR TOWN HOUSE could best be described as tense. Nobody knew what was happening, nobody knew what I was up to. I posted my lictors at the street door and ushered everyone inside. Antonia and Circe chattered away, excited as always by discord. Julia was grim faced; all the men of my party except Hermes looked at me as if I had committed political suicide. That would have suited Hermes fine. He’d have been overjoyed if I had run down to the harbor, seized a ship, and turned pirate.

“There’ll be big trouble over this in Rome,” Marcus predicted.

“With the uproar that prevails in Rome,” I said, “who is going to notice? Now be silent. I have to think some things through.” I sat in the courtyard and a servant brought wine and lunch.

“I was hoping you’d thought things through already,” Julia said.

“Oh, we should be able to sort things out well before sundown,” I told her. I took out the will. “Now, about this document. You are sure that it’s the same hand?”

She went to our bedroom and returned with the little scroll. We spread both of them out on a table. There was no doubt of it.

“Gelon,” I said, “did you know that your father was having an affair with Gorgo?”

“Impossible!” he cried, now recovered enough to feel indignation over something besides his impending execution.

“Why impossible?” I demanded. “It wouldn’t be the first time a father swept a sweetheart out from under his son, so to speak. Look at these papers. He was writing some very intense, erotic poems to the girl. She had them hidden in her handmaid’s chamber.”

Gelon strode to the table and stared, dumbfounded at the documents. “My father never wrote these!”

“How can you be sure?” Julia asked him.

“Because he couldn’t write Greek! Or Latin, either, for that matter. He could read and write in Punic, which is a language good for keeping accounts and little else.”

I looked at Julia and she looked back at me, the possibilities revolving in our heads. As so often, we were treading the same path together.

“Hermes,” I said, “fetch that little dagger that killed Gaeto.”

Mystified, he did my bidding, returning in moments with the minuscule weapon. I handed it to Julia. “Tell me, my dear,” I said, “how would you use this to kill me?”

While the others stood or sat with mouths agape, she studied the dagger in her palm. Then she smiled. “Here is how I would do it.”

That day her hair was dressed in the most demure fashion, parted in the middle, drawn back and knotted at her nape, the remainder trailing in a long tail down her back. She reached behind her neck and threaded the little dagger into her hair, trying several different ways until she was satisfied. When her hands fell away, the weapon was not visible. She turned to our rapt little audience, smiling.

“You may now assume that I am naked, about to embrace my loving husband.” Even Antonia and Circe kept silent as Julia approached me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew my head down for a kiss. In Rome, for a wife to kiss her husband before witnesses was something of a scandal, but we were all Baiaean libertines by now. I felt her fingertips resting at the back of my skull, then I felt a tiny pricking sensation in that spot. One of our watchers—Circe, I think—gasped slightly.

“You will notice,” Julia said, “that I withdrew the dagger just as our faces came together. Even with his eyes open, my unsuspecting spouse couldn’t see what was going on behind me. I placed the tip of the thing between the fingers of my left hand and guided it to that very vulnerable spot where the neck joins the skull. No unerring eye was needed. I could have done the whole operation with my eyes shut. Next—”

I jerked as she smacked me very sharply on the back of the neck. Antonia and Circe jerked as well. The men were made of sterner material, but they looked a little sick, doubtless thinking of all the women with whom they had let their guards down.

“Had I not snatched the dagger away in time,” Julia said, “I’d have driven it in to the hilt. No powerful arm required, either.” She stepped back, pleased with her performance.

I glared at Hermes. “I blame you for putting that idea into our heads,” I told him. “You were the one who first said it had to be a strong man with the eye of a swordsman.” He just shrugged and rolled his eyes.