The Venus Throw (23 page)

Trygonion snapped his fingers. With well-practiced efficiency, the bearers lowered the box. A slave put down a block of wood so that we could step inside.

I gestured for Trygonion to enter but he shook his head. “I have business elsewhere. Go ahead, climb in!”

I stepped onto the block and parted the curtains. A mélange of exotic scents issued from within. Jasmine was among them, along with frankincense and sandalwood and more elusive scents—Clodia’s smell. The inner draperies were of some heavy, opaque fabric, making the interior of the box seem very dark after the bright sunlight of the street. I was already inside, settling back against the cushions and being lifted aloft, before I realized that I was not alone.

“Thank you for coming.” A hand touched my arm. I sensed her presence, smelled her scent, felt the warmth, of her body.

“Clodia!”

She stirred beside me. Her leg brushed against mine. She laughed softly and I smelled her breath, warm and moist against my face and vaguely smelling of cloves.

“You sound surprised to see me, Gordianus.”

“I thought the fitter was empty.” As my eyes adjusted to the dimness I saw that there was yet another occupant. Across from us, settled against the cushions at the front of the box, was the auburn-haired handmaiden, Chrysis. She smiled and nodded.

“A woman learns early never to step into a fitter without knowing who’s inside,” said Clodia. “I should think men could profit from the same rule, though the danger may be different.”

The ride was impeccably smooth. I parted the nearest curtain and saw that our pace was very quick. From behind us I could hear the sound of the bodyguards trotting to keep up.

“We don’t seem to be headed toward your house, Clodia.”

“No. What I have to tell you is best discussed away from curious ears.” She saw me glance at her handmaiden. “Don’t worry about Chrysis. No one is more loyal than she.” Clodia extended her leg and touched her bare foot against the slave’s. She leaned forward, as did Chrysis. When their faces met Clodia gave the girl a kiss upon the forehead and gently stroked her cheek.

Clodia leaned back. I felt her warmth next to me again. “It’s too dark,” she murmured. “Chrysis, beloved, open the inner curtains.”

The slave girl moved nimbly about the compartment, pulling back the heavy inner curtains and tying them to hooks at each corner. The box remained private, concealed by the translucent red and white striped curtains, which wavered in the breeze. The sounds of the street rose and fell as we swiftly passed by. From time to time the chief of the litter bearers whistled to signal a turn or a stop or a
change in pace, but the box never pitched or swayed. A lethargic sense of luxury crept over me, the feeling of being borne effortlessly aloft in a private world from which the squalor of the street was excluded.

The sudden, unexpected nearness of Clodia’s body was intoxicating. She was so close that I could see her only in sidelong glances, never all at once; like an object held too close before the eyes, she dominated my senses even while she eluded them. In the filtered glow of sunlight through silk curtains, the flesh of her arms and face appeared as smooth as wax, but radiant with an inner warmth. Her stola was as transparent as the one she had worn before, but was of a different shade, a creamy white the exact color of her flesh. As we passed through dappled patches of sunlight and shadow, the illusion that she was naked was sometimes uncanny, until she moved, whereupon the dress moved with a life of its own, as if the shimmering fabric, provoked by her touch, sought to caress all the hidden places of her body.

The box was suspended so as to stay level when the poles were tilted, but I could tell when we began the sharp descent down the western slope of the Palatine toward the Forum Boarium. The noises from outside grew louder as we passed through the great cattle market. The congested streets forced the bearers to come to numerous stops, and the smells of roasted flesh and live beasts for sale intruded on Clodia’s perfume. The spell within the box slackened. I felt as if I were waking from a dream.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“To a place where we can talk privately.”

“To your horti on the Tiber?”

“You’ll see. Tell me what you discovered today.”

As we passed through the cattle market, and then through a gate in the old city wall and into the Forum Holitorium, the great vegetable market, I told her what I had learned at the houses of Lucceius and Coponius. My account was more businesslike and circumspect than the one I had given Eco;
she was not paying me, after all, to look into Dio’s sexual habits.

“You see why it would be difficult to pursue the charge against Caelius for killing Dio,” she said. “The crime couldn’t be proved against Asicius, and probably can’t be proved against Caelius, though everyone knows the two of them were accomplices. The attempted poisoning is the key. But you’re right, Lucceius will never allow his slaves to testify. He’d have them put to death first, rather than lose face at a public trial. What a hypocrite! A true host would want to see a crime against his guest avenged, rather than pretend it never happened.” She stirred beside me, and it seemed to me that her body had grown warmer. “I wonder if we could somehow trick Lucceius into selling the two slaves to me?”

“Possibly,” I said. “Not likely.”

“Then I could compel them to testify. The court would insist that their testimony be extracted by torture, of course, which would take it out of my control . . .”

“Am I here to discuss strategy? Trygonion acted if there was some terrible crisis at hand. Something about poison . . .” I parted the nearest curtain a bit to catch a glimpse of the marketplace. Vendors were selling plucked chickens and bundles of early asparagus.

Clodia put a finger to her lips. “Almost there.”

A few moments later the lifter stopped. I thought we had merely come to another congested spot until I felt the box being lowered and Chrysis sprang up to open the outer curtains. She produced a hooded cape which she deftly draped over her mistress as Clodia stepped out of the box. I stayed where I was, uncertain whether I should follow. We appeared to be at the southwestern foot of the Capitoline Hill, on the fringes of the vegetable markets, sti1l very much in the heart of the city. What soft of privacy could such a spot offer?

Chrysis sat back against the cushions. She smiled and
raised an eyebrow. “Well, go on! Don’t be shy. You won’t be the first man to pass through those gates with her.”

I stepped from the litter. Covered by her cape, Clodia was waiting, and at my appearance she turned and walked quickly to a high brick wall which appeared to enclose a corner of land against the craggy base of the Capitoline. There was a wooden door in the wall, for which she produced a key. The hinges creaked as she pushed the door open. I followed her inside and she closed the door behind us.

All around us were sepulchers of weathered marble, adorned with plaques and inscriptions, carved tablets and statues. Cypress and yew trees reared up from the jumble of marble. The brick wall shut off the teeming city behind us. The sheer base of the Capitoline loomed before us, with blue sky above.

“There’s no more secluded spot anywhere in the city,” said Clodia.

“What is this place?”

“The ancient burial ground of the Claudii. It was granted to us back in the days of Romulus when our ancestors moved to Rome from the Sabine lands. We were enrolled among the patricians and given this parcel, just outside the old city boundaries, to be our family burial ground. Over the centuries it’s become filled with shrines and sepulchers. Publius and I used to play here as children, imagining it was a little city all to itself. We hid from each other in the sepulchers and walked down the pathways in make-believe processions. The sepulchers were great palaces and temples and fortresses, and the pathways were broad avenues and secret passages. I could always scare him, pretending to raise the lemures of our ancestors.” Clodia laughed. “Five years is such a difference between children.” She pushed the cape from her shoulders and carelessly laid it atop a stone bench.

The westering sunlight, reflected off the stony face of the Capitoline, cast a faintly orange glow over everything,
including Clodia and her shimmering stola. Trying not to stare, I found myself pondering the wall of a nearby tomb, on which a carved tablet depicted the stained and weathered faces of a husband and wife long dead.

“Then, when I was older, I would come here to be alone,” Clodia said. She walked among the monuments, running her hands over the pitted stone. “Those were the bad years, when my father was always away, either exiled by his enemies or off fighting for Sulla. My stepmother and I didn’t get along. Looking back now I know that she was sick with worry, but then, I couldn’t stand to be in the house with her, so I would come here. Do you have children, Gordianus?”

“Two sons and a daughter.”

“I have a daughter. Quintus always wanted sons.” There was an edge of bitterness in her voice. “How old is your girl?”

“Thirteen. She’ll be fourteen this summer.”

“My Metella is just the same! Just beginning that difficult
age
, when most parents are glad to shuttle a girl off into marriage so that she can become someone else’s problem.”

“We’ve made no plans yet for Diana.”

“She’s lucky to be home, and lucky to have a father there. Girls need that, you know. Everyone always talks about boys and their fathers. It’s only the male children anyone cares about. But a girl needs a father as well, to dote on her, to teach her. To protect her.”

She was lost in thought for a long moment, then seemed to wake to her surroundings. She smiled. “And of course, when I got a little older still, I brought boys here. My stepmother allowed my brothers to do whatever they wished, but she was strict with her daughters and with me, or tried to be, though it brought her nothing but grief. Oh, there was many a secret tryst in this place, beneath these trees, on that very bench. Of course, all that ended when my father betrothed me to cousin Quintus,” she said glumly.

“And now that you’re a widow, do you stilt bring suitors here?”

Clodia laughed. “What an absurd idea. Why do you ask?”

“Something Chrysis said as I was leaving the fitter.”

“Naughty Chrysis. She was teasing you, I’m sure. Oh, I suppose the gossips say such things about me—‘Clodia meets her lovers at midnight in the Claudian graveyard! She drags the young men into the sepulchers and deflowers them while her ancestors gasp in shame!’ But these days I really much prefer a couch and pillows. Don’t you?” She stood sideways and turned her face to look at me straight on. The reflected sunlight seemed to turn her stola to a thin mist that clung to her naked flesh and could have been dispelled with a puff of breath.

I looked away, and found myself nose to nose with a stately bas-relief of a horse’s head, the ancient symbol of death. Death as departure; death as something more powerful than man. “You were going to explain this talk of poison.”

She sat on the bench, using her cape for a cushion. “Marcus Caelius is plotting to murder me before the trial.”

She allowed this statement to reverberate for a moment, then went on. “He knows that I have evidence. He knows that I’m planning to testify against him. He wants me dead, and if he had his way, I’d be joining the shades of my ancestors before sundown tomorrow. Fortunately, the claves whom Caelius thought he could seduce have remained loyal to me, and have informed me of his plot.”

“What plot?”

“This very morning Caelius obtained the poison he plans to use. He bought a slave to test it on. The wretched man died in horrible agony while Caelius watched. It took only moments. Caelius wanted a quick-acting poison, you see, and had to make sure it would do the job.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I have spies in Caelius’s house, of course. Just as he thinks he has spies in mine.” She stood up and began
to pace. “This was his plot: to have a friend of his meet some of my slaves tomorrow afternoon at the Senian baths and hand over the poison to them, whereupon they would bring the poison home and Chrysis would put it into my food. His agent approached the slaves yesterday, including Chrysis. The slaves pretended to agree, but instead they came to me and told me everything.”

“What made Caelius think he could suborn your slaves?”

“Marcus Caelius used to be a welcome guest in my home. He got to know some of the slaves, including Chrysis, rather well—well enough, I suppose, that he thought he could sway them with promises of silver and freedom if they would help him murder their mistress. He underestimated their loyalty to me.”

I stared at her, trying to decide whether I should believe her, and found myself studying the shape of her body instead. I shook my head. “So the plot has been uncovered. You’ve nipped it in the bud. Why all this secrecy? Why tell me about it at all?”

“Because Marcus Caelius doesn’t know that his plot has been spoiled. He thinks my slaves have agreed to follow his orders. He still plans to go through with it. Tomorrow afternoon, his agent will arrive at the Senian baths, carrying the little box of poison. My slaves will be there to receive it from him—along with witnesses. We shall seize the poison, expose the agent, produce the evidence in court, and add another count of attempted murder to the charges against Marcus Caelius.”

“And you want me to be there?” I said.

She drew close to me. “Yes, to help seize the poison. To witness everything that happens.”

“Are you so sure you can trust your slaves, Clodia?”

“Of course.”

“Perhaps they’re not telling you everything.”

“We all have to trust our slaves in the end, don’t we?”

“Then why have you brought me here, away from your
house, away from your bodyguards and litter bearers, where even Chrysis can’t hear?”

She lowered her eyes. “You see through me. Yes, I can’t be certain. No one can ever be certain of anything in this world. Yes, I’m a little frightened—even of my slaves. But for some reason I trust you, Gordianus. I imagine you’ve been told that before.”