Calpurnia’s door had hardly closed when Amatia’s opened. She held on to the doorposts, her face drained of blood, her hair down across her face, and gazed at him with eyes of stone. “What-have-you-done to-me?”
There was no turning back now.
Pliny swallowed hard. “I know who you are, Purissima. I know what you did. With a heavy heart, I charge you with the murder of Sextus Ingentius Verpa. If it were up to me, I would award you the Civic Crown for patriotism, but the Law thinks otherwise. It’s all been a pack of lies, hasn’t it? The family in Lugdunum, the pilgrimage to Isis…I am an officer of the State. I must go to the Prefecture and tell the prefect what I know. He will report to the emperor.” She took a step forward, swaying on her feet, and clutched his arm. “Wait, please!” He pulled away from her. “I warn you, you’re playing a dangerous game. I’m not a fool.” “No indeed. You’re much cleverer than I thought. Too clever for me.
“Before Iatrides died, he spoke the name of Clemens. This touches on the emperor’s family-on the emperor himself. What is it all about? Why have you been hiding in my house? You have lied to me and my wife, who adores you. I have never been more angry than at this moment.”
“ You are angry?” she shot back. “Your anger is a small thing compared to mine! I have nothing to say to you-and very soon it won’t matter anyway.”
“Then I will go to the Prefecture at once.” He turned from her.
“No, stay a minute! Whatever you do, you mustn’t hate me. I-I want to tell you something about myself. Perhaps it will answer one of your questions.” She was playing for time. Surely, by now the final steps were in motion. She would say anything to keep him here. She sat down and motioned him to sit beside her.
Pliny hesitated.
“I was six years old when I was taken. Without spot or blemish, as sacral law demands. It was in the first year of Nero’s reign. He must have been no more than seventeen. I can still remember that pudgy face and those insolent eyes. He thought the whole thing was a huge joke. When he called me ‘Beloved’ according to the ritual formula, he licked his lips and smirked at me. I was too young to understand.
“The Vestalis Maxima in those days was a horrid, shriveled old woman who smelled of decay. But there was another Vestal there, only a few years older than me and she became like an older sister to me. Her name was Cornelia. I loved her from the first and, in time, we became everything to each other. Everything. The years passed happily for us. I never missed the “world.” I had everything I wanted within the small round world of the temple. And then six years ago catastrophe struck us. The tyrant Domitian conceived a hatred for our Order. Three Vestals were falsely charged with unchastity and forced to commit suicide. I never dreamed it could happen to Cornelia, who by then was the Vestalis Maxima-a woman of nearly fifty, who had not known a man in her whole life, who had never loved anyone but me…” She turned away, her shoulders working with grief.
Pliny said nothing. He knew all about the Chief Vestal, Cornelia-or, at least, what the Senate had been told: how she had been caught in flagrante with her lover. Pliny had stayed away from the execution, but everyone in Rome knew what had happened. Cornelia was bound and gagged and carried in a closed litter through the Forum to the Colline Gate. The crowd drew back from the cortege in shocked silence. Since a Vestal’s blood could not be shed, she would die by suffocation in an airless underground chamber with a bed, a loaf of bread, and a jug of water. Rome hadn’t seen this ancient penalty exacted in generations.
“We were made to watch,” Amatia continued. “While the other pontiffs turned away, the tyrant dragged her to the lip of the chamber. She cried out and prayed to Vesta although her head was muffled with a cloth. The public executioner set her foot on the ladder and forced her down. Her dress caught and she tried to free it. The executioner reached out his hand to help her but she shrank back. She would not let her chaste body be touched by the foulness of death. Then they pulled up the ladder and shoveled earth over the opening until it was level with the ground. I felt my throat constrict as hers must have, felt black death cover my eyes. They say I fainted and began to thrash. My hysteria dates from that moment.
“The night she died I tried to hang myself. My faithful Virgins prevented me-and they were right, my life was not mine to throw away. As the next oldest I, Amatia, was forced to take her place as Vestalis Maxima. And I have tried to be everything to my girls, my daughters, as much as if they sprang from my own womb. Just as she was to me.
“But from that day on I swore vengeance on Domitian, and I have waited for the moment of my revenge. Waited six years while I stood beside him at all our holy rites, while I smiled and bowed my head to him, deferred to him and praised him-that murderer of all I loved! The effort of dissembling has worn me down to nearly nothing. We Vestals could do nothing by ourselves, but when we learned that others were leading the way and invited us to help them, we-I-eagerly accepted. The younger Vestals know nothing about this, and I have no living family; they all died in the ruins of Pompeii, where I was born. And that, Gaius Plinius, is all I will tell you.”
“ Mehercule, Purissima, I-” But Pliny didn’t finish his thought because at that moment he heard a noise behind him. He spun around and saw Martial making for the door.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The second hour of the day.
A breathless Stephanus was ushered quickly into Corellius Rufus’ tablinum where the others still sat in tense conversation. He addressed himself to Parthenius. “I’ve just seen your poet outside Pliny’s house. Pliny knows who she is, claims that she murdered Verpa. What else he guesses isn’t certain, but if he takes her in to the Prefecture and they torture her we’re all done for. Even now she may be telling him everything.”
There was tight-lipped silence around the table. Suddenly Nerva leapt up. “This has gone far enough. I must have been out of my mind to listen to you, Parthenius. It’s time to abandon this whole mad scheme.”
“Senator, you surprise me. You were brave enough at our little charade two weeks ago. What has happened to you?” The chamberlain’s voice was silky, although his stomach was shot through with arrows of pain. “I’m afraid things have progressed beyond the point of turning back.”
“Not for me! Domitilla was banished before you approached me. She can’t give them my name.”
“No, but I could,” Parthenius said softly, “and, though I admire the Stoical virtues, I fear they will desert me in the face of torture. No, Nerva, there is no going back now. You are our choice for emperor, suited to the job in every way: respected, uncorrupted, known as a friend of ancient Roman liberty.” Nerva had not been their first choice, but he was definitely their last; it had to be him. What was there to recommend him? Old age and ill health. He would die soon and then the real search for a successor could begin.
“Guttersnipe,” Nerva snarled, “you talk to me of Roman liberty! You care for nothing but your own well-barbered neck.”
“All our necks at this point.” Parthenius voice got lower as Nerva’s grew shriller. “Please sit down, senator. You’re not going anywhere until the Praetorian Guard proclaims you and then you will go to the palace and be hailed as Caesar. And I will be there applauding with the rest.”
The grand chamberlain turned back to the others. “This man Pliny needs to be dealt with now. He is too dangerous. Even if we called off the assassination, he would still live to denounce us. We need to get the Purissima out of that house at once and Pliny cannot be allowed to live. Are we agreed? I want each of you to cast his vote in the presence of us all.” Parthenius looked at each one in turn. “Cocceius Nerva Caesar, if I may call you so. As our future sovereign, I defer to you. How do you vote?” Nerva composed his face with an effort, made an angry gesture with his hand. “Death by all means!” “Thank you. And you, Empress?” “This man, Pliny. Who is he?” “A lawyer, a quite junior senator.” “How long has the family been senatorial?” “He is the first to reach that rank.” “He has powerful protectors?” At this, Corellius looked away in shame. He had been powerful once. No more. “No, Empress,” Parthenius answered. “No. His uncle had some influence with Vespasian.” “Vespasian has been dead a long time.” “May I compliment your majesty on your understanding of affairs.” She ignored the compliment. Her dark, deep set eyes were as hard as a gladiator’s at the moment of the kill. “Death, then.” “And the rest of you?” The chamberlain’s gaze swept the room. “Petronius?” “I will drive the sword in with this hand!” The Praetorian commandant made an upward stabbing motion with his fist. “Thank you. Entellus?” “Death.” And so on as he proceeded around the room until he came finally to Corellius Rufus. “Senator?”