Chapter Twenty Two
After Catullus's performance, the party never regained quite the same air of levity, despite the relentless parade of entertainments that followed. This included several other poets, better known than Catullus, who had been placed at the beginning of the evening as a sort of warm-up for those who followed. But no other poet who recited that evening left any lasting impression, at least not on my ears.
There were also dancers and jugglers and a concluding set of excruciatingly crude but very funny skits by the mime. During a break in all this entertainment our hostess found her way to our comer. She greeted Bethesda with outstretched arms and a kiss. "Did you receive the gift?"
"Yes, thank you. It arrived at the house while we were down at the Forum." Bethesda gave me a sidelong glance.
Clodia nodded. "Good. Now you're one of us. Yes, I saw you both at the trial. What do you think, Gordianus? How did it go for us today?"
"I suppose Bethesda said it best: 'Oratory is all very well when there are no facts to go on.' "
Clodia gave me a quizzical smile. "Was it Bethesda who said that? I thought it my ancestor Appius Claudius, the one who… well, never mind. May I talk to you privately? Senator, amuse this lady for a moment while I take her husband away on business."
She led me out of the garden, into a private chamber. The walls were painted a rich red, decorated with rustic scenes of satyrs and nymphs.
"You're looking much better today," I said.
"Am I? I thought I looked rather horrible when I saw myself in the mirror this morning. I considered calling off the party, but it would have been the first time I ever missed giving a party on the eve of the Great Mother festival. Even when Quintus and I were up in Cisalpine Gaul – "
"Did you have Chrysis tortured today?"
She looked at me blankly for a moment. Even by the lamplight reflected off the red walls her face looked pale. "Actually, I took you aside to talk about more important matters. But since you ask, Gordianus-yes, Chrysis was tortured today. Not by me, of course. By officials of the court. Surely you know that a slave can't give a statement in a trial without being tortured? Otherwise she might simply say whatever her mistress told her to say."
"So the logic goes."
"The bitch was about to poison me. I caught her in the act."
"Did she confess?"
"Yes."
"Did she implicate Caelius?"
"Of course. You can hear her statement read tomorrow, just before my own testimony."
"The statement which she gave under torture."
"You seem to have an unwholesome fixation on torture tonight, Gordianus. I should think you'd had enough of torture listening to that awful poem of Catullus's! Really, when he told me that he had an ideal poem for the Great Mother festival… " She gave a little shudder, then brightened. "But I won't have to use torture to get you to testify tomorrow, I hope."
"Me?"
"Of course. Who else could Herennius have meant when he said the man Cicero called 'the most honest man in Rome' would be testifying against Caelius? You need only tell what you witnessed with your own eyes at the Senian baths, and here in my house yesterday, when you saw what was done to me."
"What if I decline to testify?"
She seemed surprised. "No one can compel you. But I thought you wanted to see Caelius punished."
"I wanted to discover Dio's killer."
"It's the same thing, Gordianus. Everyone else in Rome has figured that out, so why haven't you? Oh, yes, I know, you're a man who demands proof. Well then, you should have come up with those slaves ofLucceius's, the ones involved in the poison plot. You were going to track them down and buy them for me, you said. Did anything ever come of that?"
"No."
"Too bad. They would have made superb witnesses. I gave you silver to buy them, didn't I?"
"I'll return the silver."
"The trial's not over yet. There's no hurry." "I'll have to wait until my son Eco gets back to Rome-" "Forget about the silver, Gordianus. There's no need to return it. Do you understand?" "I'm not sure."
"Consider it part of your fee. Now, of course you'll testify tomorrow. You must."
"Must I?"
"If you care about justice at all. If you want to put Dio's shade to
rest."
"If only it was clear to me exactly how Dio died."
She sighed, exasperated. "Asicius and Caelius broke into Coponius's house and stabbed the poor wretch."
I ignored her, counting days in my head. "There's still a chance that Eco might arrive tonight, or tomorrow-"
"Good. If he does, and if he brings word of those slaves, then perhaps we can add their testimony. But I told you, forget about the silver."
We were speaking at such cross-purposes that I hardly heard her. "There was something else," I said. "Something I'd forgotten. When I left your house yesterday, I intended to take with me that bit of gorgon's hair, to compare it to some of the same poison in my strongbox at home. I forgot it, somehow… " I shuddered, remembering the ugliness of Chrysis's degradation and my flight from Clodia's bedchamber.
"Could I take the gorgon's hair home with me tonight?"
Clodia hesitated. "I'm afraid not. Herennius has it. He said he might want to produce it as evidence tomorrow, when I give my testimony. Though I don't suppose showing the judges a lump of poison is likely to be as shocking as showing them a bloody dagger or whatever. Is it important?"
"No, I suppose not. I only wanted to make sure that I knew what the stuff was, for my own satisfaction."
"If it would help convince you to testify, then I wish I still had it. I suppose I could somehow arrange to get the stuff back from Herennius, though it's rather late. In the morning there'll hardly be time-"
I shook my head. "Don't bother."
"No? Good!" She laughed weakly. "I don't think I could stand to deal with one more troublesome detail tonight. I really am awfully tired.
Clodius's physician says that I shouldn't expect to feel completely Well for quite some time. To tell you the truth, I feel quite awful. I couldn't eat a bite of anything that was put in front of me tonight. I'll simply have to trust that the cook was up to his usual standard. Now, Gordianus assure me that you will testify tomorrow. Don't make me go to bed fretting about it. As I said, you need only tell the court what you've seen with your own eyes."
I looked at her for a long moment, at her huge green eyes made all the more lustrous by illness, at the smooth white flesh of her throat curving down to her breasts and the sleek lines of her body wrapped in the transparent silk. I breathed in her perfume. What if Caelius had succeeded in poisoning her? She would be dead now, already beginning to rot. The idea was appalling, intolerable: the glittering eyes shut forever, the perfect body eaten by worms, the perfume overpowered by the stench of putrefaction.
"Yes, I'll testify. I don't see why not."
She smiled and kissed me, full on the mouth, and pressed her body against me as if she had read my thoughts and wanted to show me that she was still very much alive and warm to the touch. From the garden I heard the sound of a poet declaiming, punctuated by laughter and applause.
Clodia broke the kiss and stepped back. "I'd better take you back to Bethesda before she comes looking for you. Egyptian women are uncommonly jealous, I'm told."
The party had no formal ending, or at least none that I stayed for. After the mime's encore, another meal commenced with the guests seated in new combinations. Eventually, those who had eaten and conversed and laughed and drunk enough began to wend their ways to the front door. Bethesda and I were among the first to leave. Catullus and Trygonion seemed to have disappeared.
"You look very thoughtful," said Bethesda on the way home.
"And you look rather smug. Did you enjoy yourself that much?"
"Enjoyment was not really the point," she said, suddenly haughty.
"What did Clodia mean by what she said to you?"
"When?"
"She asked if you had gotten the little statue of Attis. You said yes, and then she said, 'Good, now you're one of us.' "