Another shooting star passed overhead. The crickets chirred. I stretched my limbs. "And I suppose the two of them married."
"So the story goes. It makes sense that a woman as clever as Naia would settle only for a man as clever as the thief. With the silver she had obtained, and the combined quickness of their wits, I have no doubt that they lived very happily."
"And King Rhampsinitus?"
"His memory is still revered as the last of the good kings before Cheops began a long dynasty of disasters. They say that after the mystery of the missing silver was solved, he went down to the place the Greeks and Romans call Hades and played dice with Demeter. One game he won, and one game he lost. When he came back she gave him a golden napkin. And that is why the priests blindfold themselves with yellow cloths when they follow the jackals to the Temple of Demeter on the night of the spring festival…"
I must have dozed, for I missed the rest of whatever new story Bethesda had begun. When I awoke, she was silent, but I could tell by her breathing that she was still awake. "Bethesda," I whispered. "What was your greatest crime? And your greatest trick?"
After a moment she said, "I think they are both yet to come. And you?"
"Come here and I'll whisper them to you."
The night had grown cooler. A steady breeze wafted gently up from the valley of the Tiber. Bethesda rose from her couch and came to mine. I put my lips to her ear, but I did not whisper secrets. Instead we did something else.
And the next day, down on the street of the silversmiths, I bought her a simple silver bracelet-a memento of the night she told me the tale of King Rhampsinitus and his treasure house.
A WILL IS A WAY
Lucius Claudius was a sausage-fingered, plum-cheeked, cherry-nosed nobleman with a fuzzy wreath of thinning red hair on his florid pate and a tiny, pouting mouth.
The name Claudius marked him not only as a nobleman but a patrician, hailing from that small group of old families who first made Rome great (or who at least fooled the rest of the Romans into thinking so). Not all patricians are rich; even the best families can go to seed over the centuries. But from the gold seal ring that Lucius wore, and from the other rings that kept it company-one of silver set with lapis, another of white gold with a bauble of flawless green glass-I suspected he was quite rich indeed. The rings were complemented by a gold necklace from which glittering glass baubles dangled amid the frizzled red hair that sprouted from his fleshy chest. His toga was of the finest wool, and his shoes were of exquisitely tooled leather.
He was the very image of a wealthy patrician, not handsome and not very bright-looking either, but impeccably groomed and dressed. His green eyes twinkled and his pouting lips pursed easily into a smile, betraying a man with a naturally pleasant personality. Wealthy, well born and with a cheerful disposition he struck me as a man who shouldn't have a worry in the world- except that he obviously did, or else he would never have come to see me.
We sat in the little garden of my house on the Esquiline Once upon a time, a man of Lucius's social status would never have been seen entering the house of Gordianus the Finder, but in recent years I seem to have acquired a certain respectability. I think the change began after my first case for the young advocate Cicero. Apparently Cicero has been saying nice things about me behind my back to his colleagues in the law courts, telling them that he actually put me up in his house once and it turned out that Gordianus, professional ferret and consorter with assassins notwithstanding, knew how to use a bowl and spoon and an indoor privy after all, and could even tell the difference between them.
Lucius Claudius filled the chair I had pulled up for him almost to overflowing. He shifted a bit nervously and toyed with his rings, then smiled sheepishly and held up his cup. "A bit more?" he said, making an ingratiatingly silly face.
"Of course." I clapped my hands. "Bethesda! More wine for my guest. The best, from the green clay bottle."
Bethesda rather sullenly obeyed, taking her time to rise from where she had been sitting cross-legged beside a pillar. She disappeared into the house. Her movements were as graceful as the unfolding of a flower. Lucius watched her with a lump in his throat. He swallowed hard.
"A very beautiful slave," he whispered.
"Thank you, Lucius Claudius." I hoped he wouldn't offer to buy her, as so many of my wealthier clients do. I hoped in vain.
"I don't suppose you'd consider-" he began.
"Alas, no, Lucius Claudius."
"But I was going to say-"
"I would sooner sell my extra rib."
"Ah." He nodded sagely, then wrinkled his fleshy brow. "What did you say?"
"Oh, a nonsense expression I picked up from Bethesda. According to her ancestors on her father's side, the first woman was fashioned from a rib bone taken from the first man, by a god called Jehovah. That is why some men seem to have an extra rib, with no match on the other side."
"Do they?" Lucius poked at his rib cage, but I think he was much too well padded to actually feel a rib.
I took a sip of wine and smiled. Bethesda had told me the Hebrew tale of the first man and woman many times; each time she tells it I clutch my side and pretend to bleat from pain, until she starts to pout and we both end up laughing. It seems to me a most peculiar tale, but no stranger than the stories her Egyptian mother told her about jackal-headed gods and crocodiles who walk upright. If it is true, this Hebrew god is worthy of respect. Not even Jupiter could claim to have created anything half as exquisite as Bethesda.
I had spent enough time putting my guest at ease. "Tell me, Lucius Claudius, what is it that troubles you?"
"You will think me very foolish…" he began. "No, I will not," I assured him, thinking I probably would. "Well, it was only the day before yesterday-or was it the day before that? It was the day after the Ides of Maius, of that I'm sure, whichever day that was-"
"I believe that was the day before yesterday," I said. Bethesda reappeared and stood in the shadows of the portico, awaiting a nod from me. I shook my head, telling her to wait. Another cup of wine might serve to loosen Lucius's tongue, but he was befuddled enough already. "And what transpired on the day before yesterday.?"
"I happened to be in this very neighborhood-well, not up here on the Esquiline Hill, but down in the valley, in the Subura-"
"The Subura is a fascinating neighborhood," I said, trying to imagine what attraction its tawdry streets might hold for a man who probably lived in a mansion on the Palatine Hill.Gaming houses, brothels, taverns and criminals for hire-these came to mind.
"You see," he sighed, "my days are very idle. I've never had a head for politics or finance, like others in my family; I feel useless in the Forum. I've tried living in the country, but I'm not much of a farmer; cows bore me. I don't like entertaining, either-strangers coming to dinner, all of them twice as clever as I am, and me, obliged to think up some way to amuse them- such a bother. I get bored rather easily, you see. So very, very bored."
"Yes?" I prompted, suppressing a yawn.
"So I go wandering about the city. Over to Tarentum to see the old people easing their joints in the hot springs. Out to the Field of Mars to watch the chariot racers train their horses. All up and down the Tiber, to the fish markets and the cattle markets and the markets with foreign goods. I like seeing other people at work; I relish the way they go about their business with such determination. I like watching women haggle with vendors, or listening to a builder argue with his masons, or noticing how the women who hang from brothel windows slam their shutters when a troupe of rowdy gladiators come brawling down the street. All these people seem so alive, so full of purpose, so-so very opposite of bored. Do you understand, Gordianus?"