At last Pio stepped onto the Sacra Via. Below him, the greatest city in the world sprawled like the octopus he used to spear as a child. Freedom, he had learned, could not be priceless, for its value was less than freedom and home combined. In this hard, unforgiving place, the salt spray tang never filled his nostrils, the smell of grilled mackerel and onions never made his mouth water, and the sight of fishing boats anchored in waters so clear that the red and yellow hulls seemed to float in mid-air, this was only a vivid but distant memory. The village of his youth had receded to a few faded images. He looked up and smiled; at least the same blue vault arced here and in his mind’s eye. It was enough. Gently, he set Nestor on the paving stones and sank slowly to his knees. He was very tired.
“Pio!” Nestor keened, “don’t leave me here!” He reached up with bloodied fingers. “Don’t let them do this to me! Take me with you, I beg you!”
Pio looked down and said, “Yes, amor, you come with me.” He lay down beside Nestor and put his once powerful hands about Nestor’s throat. “ Momento,” he said. Their foreheads touched. “Can you see them?” Instead of tightening, Pio’s grip relaxed.
In a little while, Malchus and Betto eased Nestor up off the stones and brought him back into the house. They came back with a cart for Pio and left him the guardhouse; Boaz’s men were there within an hour to dispose of the body.
Of the nine of us present for that midday meal, four had not eaten figs: Pio, Livia and two of cook’s helpers, Mercurius and that woman who cried “how could you” on the day I first met Pio. Her name, I regret, escapes me.
“I’m certain,” Sabina told Crassus that night. “It was tincture of henbane.” Tertulla stood uncomfortably by her husband, but was determined to participate in the running of their home. She had even insisted on helping with the cleanup, discarding her palla for an old tunic and scrubbing the tiles of the atrium on her hands and knees with the others.
“Diluted, henbane opens and calms the breathing passages,” Sabina said. “The bottle I keep in my stores is gone. My records show that it was three-eighths full, so unless someone ate every fig in the bowl, the dose would not be fatal.”
“And a non-fatal dose?” asked Crassus.
“Depending on how much was ingested, delirium, paralysis. Brief unconsciousness.”
“You must put a lock on the cabinet,” Tertulla commanded.
“There was, domina. It was broken.”
“Find a stronger one.”
“Yes, domina. As soon as the shops open tomorrow.”
Crassus asked about the staff that had been poisoned.
“All are resting comfortably, dominus. I sacrificed a goat, roasted its bones and gave everyone a dose of bone black. Because Alexander ate half the bowl all by himself, I forced him to drink the bone black, plus a reduction of mulberry leaves boiled in vinegar. Everyone should be fine by morning.”
“This makes no sense,” he said. “Why sicken, but not kill? Why hurt others, if it was Alexander Pio was after?”
“I think,” Sabina answered, “he thought he could get away with the murder. Alexander’s love of figs is no secret. Pio wanted to make it appear like bad fruit had killed him. That’s why he couldn’t break his neck or stab him. He could leave no mark. If others ate the figs and became ill, so much the better: it would help mask the truth. Except that I chanced upon him in the act.”
“And for that we thank you,” Crassus said without emotion. “Do you always carry your scalpels with you?”
“Always. I never know where I’ll be when I…”
“Have to slit someone’s throat?”
“ Dominus, it was a miracle you did not return to find two corpses instead of one.”
“A miracle, yes. How do you come by such fighting skills?”
“No skill, only luck.” Crassus looked skeptical. “Why did you not flee?”
“I could not leave knowing Pio would finish what he had set out to do. I would never have been able to get help in time.”
“So you killed him.”
“I am deeply sorry, dominus. I meant to cripple, to incapacitate, not kill. I know how much Pio…”
“And why,” Crassus said, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose, “why have you been bringing flowers to Alexander’s room? Do you wish a contubernium with him?”
“What? No! It was… for Livia.”
“Ah. I see.” Crassus did not press her. “It is late, and we all need rest. Go to your beds.”
Crassus looked in on me before he retired. I was groggy and my limbs still tingled, but the ceiling had lost its animation. He rested his lamp on the nightstand and sat on my pallet just where Pio had of late been visiting. Putting his hand on my shoulder he asked if I recognized him.
“Of course, dominus. I am sorry.”
“For what? It is I who must apologize to you. I am glad you are still with us.”
“I am tougher than I look.”
“I doubt that. Until I think of a more permanent solution, I want you to become my new atriensis. I’ll go over what is required, but I need to know if you think you can handle the responsibility.”
I was struck, not dumb, but witless. In times of stress and shock, when mouth outpaced mind and completely overran good manners, I fell back on my old standby, pedagogery. “Is not the original meaning of atriensis,” I stammered, “one responsible for the care of the atrium? Later, as well-to-do Latin homes grew, it came to mean chief steward, but the modern meaning is hardly more significant than hall monitor?”
“Calm yourself, Alexander. We are not in your classroom. If you must know, and I see that you must, I prefer the role as defined by my father and his father before him: as my atriensis you shall be master of my household, responsible for everything and everyone that in any way touches my home or my family. Or would you prefer being elevated to hall monitor?”
If only he were serious. “What of the school?” I asked.
“You will hire a new grammaticus.”
“I am certain I would make a better teacher.”
“As I say, it is a temporary post.”
I expelled a deep breath. “Then I am honored to accept.”
“Of course, there is the matter of Nestor’s chastisement. Nothing today has changed my will on that score.” He saw the appalled look on my face. “You’re right. Not a fit assignment for your first day on the job. Never mind. I’ll do it myself.”
And he did.
Chapter XIV
80 — 76 BCE — Rome Year of the consulship of Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius Curio
I was very quick to make myself indispensable. My accounts balanced to the as, the larders were always full and my promotion was begrudged little, mostly because there was none but myself remotely suited to the post. Like the mark upon Nestor’s brow, the shock of our tragedy receded to a dull throbbing, but never healed: it felt as if his collar were worn by each of us, and the sight of him skulking about his chores was a constant reminder of the shame brought down upon our house. Nestor was reduced to performing the lowest of household tasks, not by me but by Crassus himself: cleaning the toilets and collecting urine for the fullers. I could not bear the sight of him. True, I was the intended victim of his crime, but to see his sentence carried out firsthand, every day, grated against my nature, a pumice stone applied too long to the same callous.