Under Vesuvius(75)

“I should have seen it sooner,” Julia said. “I told you there was something odd about that writing and that verse. If it had been in Latin, I’d have noticed it sooner. Those verses were written by a woman. When I first saw them, I said they read like something out of Sappho.”

“Just a minute,” Antonia said with horrified delight. “Are you saying that it was Jocasta who was having an affair with that girl? Jocasta who killed her?”

“She wasn’t the only one sharing a bed or a grassy hummock with poor Gorgo,” I said, “but she killed her.”

“No!” Gelon cried, distraught. “She could not have!”

“Just as Gorgo and your father were not the only ones enjoying the intimate delights of Jocasta’s body,” I said. “Hermes said that you were half asleep when he called on you that morning, and more stunned than might have been expected when you got the terrible news. Did Jocasta drug you?”

The boy sat huddled in a heap of misery, covering his face with his hands. “She—she must have! It was not something we did often, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself, and she always acted as if she did it only to please me. That night, Father was away, the house was empty of all save the two of us. I thought we’d just had too much wine with dinner—”

“But you woke up in her bed with the lictors pounding on the door, eh?” I said. “Must have been a shock.”

Hermes stared at him, aghast. “You mean you were putting it to your father’s wife?” This was pretty strong stuff, even for Rome.

“Oh, don’t be so hard on him,” Antonia said. “It’s not like she was his mother! She was just a second wife, more like a concubine. He was going to inherit the old man’s concubines anyway.”

“It is a terrible crime in Numidia,” Gelon said. “If word of it reaches there, I can never go back!”

“Don’t complain so much,” Antonia advised. “The praetor has already spared you the cross and the beasts of the arena. Now it looks like you won’t even be beheaded. You’re ahead of the game any way you look at it.”

“Spoken like a true Antonian,” I said.

“But why kill Charmian?” Julia said, “And Quadrilla?”

“Charmian!” Hermes said, anxious to cover up his earlier gaffe. “It was to Jocasta’s house that she fled. Jocasta was her ‘protector’!”

Circe snorted. “Some protector.”

“We’ll find out about the rest,” I said. “We know enough for now. Time to talk to the woman herself.”

“I’ll take the lictors and go arrest her,” Hermes said.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t want her to have time to concoct a story. I want to go and brace her before she knows she’s been exposed.”

“I’m not missing this for anything,” Julia said. “Praetorly dignity be damned. I’m going with you.”

“Me, too!” cried Circe and Antonia in unison. I know when I am outnumbered.

In a small mob we made our way to Jocasta’s town house. On the way we encountered Sublicius Pansa, patrolling the streets as I had ordered.

“Am I not supposed to disperse gatherings of more than three?” he said, grinning.

“I didn’t mean me,” I growled. “And I don’t require an escort.” I didn’t want the woman to hear approaching hoofbeats.

Baiae being the small town it was, we were at her door in minutes. It was not locked, and the lictors rushed in with us close behind.

We found her seated at the rim of the pool of her impluvium, toying with a lotus flower that floated therein. She wore another of her silk gowns. This one was black, perhaps in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion. She looked up at me and saw instantly that it was all over for her. A lictor placed a hand ceremonially on her shoulder.

“Jocasta,” I said, “I arrest you for the murders of Gorgo the daughter of Diocles; of your husband, Gaeto; of Charmian the slave of Gorgo; and of Quadrilla, wife of the duumvir Manius Silva.” I almost added the rest of the formula, “Come with me to the praetor,” but realized in time that I was the praetor.

She sighed. “You are such a stubborn man. If you had just executed that fool”—she jabbed a finger toward Gelon—“you would have been too embarrassed to come after me, even if you figured out the truth later.”

“I have a high tolerance for embarrassment,” I told her. “I wouldn’t have let you get away with it.”

“If you say so. But you are very sensitive, for a Roman. Not many would have gone to such lengths for a slaver’s son. And you are wrong about one thing. I didn’t kill Charmian.”