never said anything about it to me. Never! Not a single word! But she must have recognized Dio the moment she saw him." "Did he recognize her?"
"He looked at her strangely, I remember. But she was hardly more than a child when he last saw her, and he had a great many things on his mind. No, I don't think he knew who she was. But she surely recognized him. I think back now and realize how oddly she behaved that night. I thought it was because I was going away! What I find so appalling is how quickly she must have made the decision to kill him – no deliberation, no hesitation. She got the poison, fixed the dinner, made a special portion for the guest and then watched him eat it, right in front of me!"
"You have to talk to her, Papa."
"I'm not ready. I don't know what to say."
"Tell her you know what she did. Go on from there."
"Go on, as if it makes no difference that my wife is a murderer? That she compromised the honor of my house by killing a guest? She should have come to me."
"Before or after she poisoned Dio?"
"If not before, then certainly after! There, you see how angry it makes me to talk about it? No, I'm not ready to go home to her yet. I wonder if I ever will be."
"Don't talk that way, Papa. You must understand why she did it. Look, I wasn't taken entirely by surprise by what you've just told me. I had a lot of time to think on the ride up from Puteoli, wondering how Dio could have been poisoned in your house and by whom. Bethesda does the cooking, Alexandria was a common thread-I figured she might somehow be responsible. So I've had more time to think about this than you have, and to make up my mind that it makes no difference. I was with Zotica all that time, seeing what the brute did to her. I can't be sorry that someone killed him. If it was Bethesda, and if she had as much reason to hate the man as Zotica did, then what is there to forgive?"
"But it was murder, Eco! Cold-blooded, calculated, committed in secret. Does my name and my household stand for nothing? We are not murderers!" I stood and began to pace around the garden. "Talking does no good. I need to be alone again. I need to think."
"Not another walk?"
"Why not?"
"You'll wear out the streets, Papa. Where will you go?"
A completely unrelated thought entered my head. "I'll take care of my last bit of business with Clodia. The money I gave you for your trip south-you must have a lot left over."
"Quite a bit."
"It's Clodia's money. It was meant to bribe me so that I'd testify for her, or else it was meant to pay for the slaves of Lucceius. Who knows what she really had in mind? Either way, she didn't get what she paid for, did she? Never say I'm like Caelius, that I took money from Clodia and didn't return it. Go fetch it, will you? I'll take it back to her right now. At least I can wash my hands of that affair and put it behind me for good."
Eco went into the house and returned with a purse full of coins. "By the way, how is Zotica doing?" I said. "Now that she's rested, is she any calmer?"
Eco lowered his eyes. "Is something wrong?"
"After we talked to her yesterday, Menenia showed her to a place where she could sleep, and left her alone. It was a mistake to let her out of the locked pantry. When I came home from the Forum… "
"Oh, no!"
"She ran away, Papa. I can't say I'm surprised. I told you, she's turned wild, like an animal. I doubt that we'll ever see her again."
Heading to Clodia's house by the shortest way would have taken me by my own front door, so I took a roundabout route. The day was hot and the way was steep. I arrived sweaty and winded.
I rapped on the door. After a long pause I rapped again. Finally the peephole opened. A dispassionate eye observed me. "My name's Gordianus," I said. "I have business with your mistress."
The peephole was shut. After a long wait it opened again. The eye that now perused me was penciled with makeup. From the other side of the door I heard a familiar but unexpected voice. "It's all right, I know him. We can let him in."
The door swung open to reveal the gallus Trygonion. After I stepped inside he motioned to the slave to shut the door behind us. "What business could you possibly have with Clodia?" he said tersely. He walked at a hurried clip toward the garden and I followed. "Did she forget to pay you?"
"As a matter of fact, she overpaid me; gave me money for expenses I didn't incur." I jiggled the bag of coins. "I'm here to return it."
Trygonion looked at me as if I were mad, then nodded and sighed. "I understand. You wanted an excuse to see her again." "Don't be ridiculous!"
"No, really, I do understand. But I'm afraid you can't see her."
"Why not?"
"She's gone." "Where?"
He hesitated. "Down to her villa at Solonium. She left early this morning, before dawn. She wanted to slip out of the city without being seen." We arrived at the steps leading down to the garden and stopped beneath the giant Venus. I found my eyes wandering to the pedestal, where Catullus had said she kept her trophies in a secret compartment. Trygonion noticed.
"She emptied it before she left. She burned everything that could be burned. You can see the ashes in that brazier over there. The things that wouldn't burn-jewels and necklaces and such-she took with her. To throw into the sea, she said."
"But why?"
He shrugged. "How can a eunuch understand these things?" He walked to the fountain. Suddenly the sound of chanting echoed through the garden, coming from the House of the Galli.
"Why aren't you with them?" I said.
"I'll join them soon enough. She sent a messenger for me in the middle of the night, saying she needed my help. 'I have to leave,' she said. 'I can't stand it here.' She always goes south for a month right after the Great Mother festival, like a lot of rich people do. Down to Baiae, usually. But she wasn't waiting for the festival to be over, and she wasn't going to Baiae. 'Solonium,' she said. 'It's closer, and nobody ever goes there. I never want to see anybody again.' " He smiled ruefully. "I thought she intended for me to go with her."
The chanting grew louder and faster. Trygonion closed his eyes and moved his lips with the words, then blinked and gazed at the sunlight reflected in the fountain. "But she didn't want me to go with her. 'I need someone to close up the house for me,' she said. 'I'd ask Clodius, but he mustn't come near this place, not for a while. You'll do it for me, won't you, Trygonion? Make sure the windows are all shuttered and locked, put the good wine away so the slaves can't get to it, dispatch some last-minute letters for me, that sort of thing.' I said, 'Yes, of course. Have a good trip.' "
Together we studied the broken sunlight on the water. "Right before she left, as she was going out the door, she turned back. She called my name. I ran to her. She said, 'Oh, and don't tell anyone where I've gone.' I said, 'Of course I won't.' But I suppose it's all right to tell you, Gordianus. You can keep a secret. You are the most honest man in Rome, aren't you?" His lips curled into a sardonic smile.
"Did a visitor come, late last night?"
Trygonion gave me a blank look, then smiled wanly. "Oh, you mean the poet, the one who recited that awful thing about Attis at the party. Yes, one of the slaves told me he came beating on the door in the middle of the night, drunk and demanding. Bad timing; Clodia was in no mood to be harassed. She sent Barnabas and some of the burlier freedmen to run him off. I think he got away with nothing worse than a broken nose."
I thought of poor Catullus, lying alone in his dreary little room with his books, hung over with a bloody nose. "And a broken heart. She's a cold woman."
Trygonion looked at me sharply. "You're like all the rest. You think she feels nothing. Of course she feels everything. How could she not, being who she is? She feels everything. It amazes me that she can bear it."
The chanting became dreamlike, magical. The bits of sunlight on the water were dazzling. "And you, Trygonion? Are you the same? Everyone thinks you feel nothing, but in reality -"