Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (158 page)

‘Even so – once I snuck in, just because I wanted to have a closer look at the horse—’

‘Horse? Ah, the centaur statue.’

‘Yes, and the master himself walked in on me. He was angry in an instant, and the master wasn’t normally an angry man. But his face turned all red and he shouted at me till I thought I would die from the pounding in my chest.’ Meto’s eyes opened wide at the memory. He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head, like a man trying to recover from a terrible dream. ‘He called in Alexandros and ordered him to give me a beating, right here. Normally it would have been Clito, who also works in the stables and likes to give beatings, but I was lucky because Clito was working in Puteoli that day. I had to bend over and touch the floor while Alex gave me ten blows with a cane. He only did it because the master made him. He could have hit me a lot harder, I’m sure, but it still made me cry.’

‘I see. You like this Alexandros?’

The boy’s eyes sparkled. ‘Of course. Everyone likes Alex.’

‘And what about Zeno, did you like him, too?’

He shrugged. ‘Nobody liked Zeno. But not because he’s cruel or a bully, like Clito. He’s haughty and speaks languages and thinks he’s so much better than any of the other slaves. And he farts a lot.’

‘He sounds thoroughly disagreeable. Tell me, on the night your master was killed, was anyone up and about? You, perhaps, or some other slave?’

He shook his head.

‘You’re sure? No one heard anything, saw anything?’

‘Everyone’s been talking about it, of course. But no one knows what happened. The mistress told us the next day that if anyone knew anything, he must go directly to Master Crassus, or to Mummius or Fabius. If anyone had seen or heard what happened, they would tell, I’m sure.’

‘And among the slaves themselves, there are no rumours, no whispers?’

‘Nothing. And if anyone had said anything at all, even in secret, I’m the one who’s most likely to have overheard. Not that I eavesdrop—’

‘I understand. Your duties take you all over the house, from room to room, dawn to dusk, while the cooks and stablemen and cleaners stay in one place all day and gossip to each other. Hearing things and seeing things is nothing to be ashamed of, Meto. I do it for a living. When I first saw you, I could tell right away that you are the very eyes and ears of this house.’

He looked at me in wonderment, and then cautiously smiled, as if no one had ever perceived his true worth before.

‘Tell me, Meto, on that night, might Zeno have been in this room with your master?’

‘It’s possible. They often came here and worked together after dark, sometimes very late, especially if a ship had just arrived or was about to leave from Puteoli, or if Master Crassus was on his way.’

‘And might Alexandros have been here as well?’

‘Possibly.’

‘But on that night you saw no one going in or out of this room? Heard nothing from the stables or the atrium?’

‘I sleep in a little room with some of the others,’ he said slowly, ‘over in the east wing of the house, behind the stables. Usually I’m the last one in bed. Alex laughs and says he’s never seen a boy who needed less sleep. On any other night I might have been up and about. I might have seen whatever it is you want to know. But that night I was so tired from running so many errands and carrying so many messages all day . . .’ His voice began to quaver. ‘I’m sorry.’

I put my hands on his thin shoulders. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, Meto. But answer one more question. Last night, were you up late wandering about the house?’

He looked thoughtful. ‘Yesterday was so busy, with you and Mummius arriving on the
Fury,
and the extra work for the dinner last night . . .’

‘So you went to sleep early?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you saw nothing unusual, heard no one wandering in the hallways or going down the hillside to the boathouse?’

He shrugged helplessly and bit his lip, sad to disappoint me. I looked at him gravely and nodded. ‘It’s all right, I only thought you might know something I don’t. But here, before you go, I want you to see something.’

I guided him with a hand on his shoulder until we stood beside the centaur statue. ‘Look at it all you want. Touch it, if you’d like.’ He looked at me for reassurance, then reached out with trembling fingers and a glow in his eyes, then abruptly pulled back and bit his lip.

‘No, no, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘I won’t let anyone punish you.’

And I will not let Marcus Crassus destroy you,
I thought, though I dared not speak aloud so rash a pledge. Fortune herself might hear, and smite me for making promises even a god could not be sure of keeping.

X

‘When I was a girl, I would never have stooped to painting a fresco. One painted in encaustic on panels of canvas or wood, using an easel, and never, never in fresco on a wall; so my mentor taught me. “Wall painters are mere workmen,” he would say, “while an easel painter, ah, an easel painter is treated like the very hand of Apollo! Easel painters receive all the glory, and the gold. Make your reputation on the easel and they will flock to you like pigeons to the Forum.” My, that’s a nasty bump on your forehead.’

Iaia’s appearance was very different from that of the night before at dinner. Gone were the jewellery and the elegant gown; instead she was dressed in a shapeless long-sleeved garment that reached to the floor. It was made of coarse linen and spattered all over with dabs of colour. Her young assistant was similarly dressed, and even more remarkably beautiful by the light of day. Together they looked like priestesses of some strange cult of women who wore their paints upon their clothing rather than their faces.

The skylight above filled the little circular anteroom with a cone of yellow light, around which swirled a vortex of underwater blues and greens populated by silvery wisps of fish and weird monsters of the deep. The figures were remarkably fluid and superbly shaded, and the rendering of the water itself produced illusions of impossible depth; Eco and I together with arms outstretched could have reached from wall to wall, but in places the murky depths appeared to recede forever. Had it not been for the jumble of scaffolding and drop cloths, the scene might have been almost frighteningly real, like a dream of death by drowning.

‘Of course, these days, I’m long past scrambling for commissions,’ Iaia continued. ‘I made my fortune back in the good old days. Did you know that in my prime I was better paid than even Sopolis? It’s true. Every rich matron in Rome wanted her portrait painted by the strange young lady from Cyzicus. Now I paint what I want and when I want. This project is just a favour for Gelina. One day we were leaving the baths, feeling all fresh and relaxed, and she complained about how plain this room was. Suddenly I had a vision of fish, fish, fish everywhere! Fish flying above our heads and octopi coiling at our feet. And dolphins, darting through the seaweed. What do you think?’

‘Astounding,’ I said. Eco gazed about the room and shook out his hands as if he were sopping wet.

Iaia laughed. ‘It’s almost finished now. There’s no real painting left to be done. We’re at the stage of sealing the watercolours with an encaustic varnish, which is why these slaves are helping. There’s no real skill to the job, just smoothing on the varnish with a brush, but I have to watch them to be sure nothing’s damaged. Olympias, nudge that one over there, on the top scaffold. He’s putting it on too thick – the colours will never show through.’

Olympias looked down from above our heads and smiled. I secretly pinched Eco, whose slack-jawed stare was not in response to the artwork around us.

‘Ah, yes, in the good old days I could never have taken on a project like this one,’ Iaia went on. ‘My mentor wouldn’t have allowed it. I can just imagine his reaction. “Too vulgar,” he’d have said, “too
merely
decorative. Painting histories or fables with a moral point is one thing, but painting fish? Portraits are your strong point, Iaia, and portraits of women, at that; no man can paint a woman half so well as you can. But one look at these staring fish heads and no Roman matron will ever allow you to paint her! She’d be looking for traces of satire in every brush-stroke!” Well, that’s what my old mentor would have said. But now, if I wish to paint fish, by Neptune, I’ll paint fish. I think they’re lovely.’

She seemed quite enraptured by her own skill, an immodesty perhaps forgivable in an artist in the final stages of an almost-done creation. ‘I can see why you became renowned for your portraits,’ I said. ‘I saw your picture of Gelina in the library.’

Her smile wavered. ‘Yes, I did that only a year ago. Gelina wanted it for a birthday present, for Lucius. We spent weeks working on it, out on her private terrace at the north end of the house, in her room where Lucius never went, so it would be a surprise.’

‘Didn’t he like it?’

‘Frankly, no. It was done especially to fit the wall above his table in the library. Well, he made it quite plain that he didn’t want it there. If you’ve seen the room, you’ve seen his taste – those awful statues of Hercules and Chiron. The painting above his table was even worse, a horrible thing that purported to show the Argonauts attacked by harpies, such a hideous embarrassment I can’t imagine how he dared to allow visitors in the room. A really terrible painting done by some unknown hack in Neapolis, a mishmash of naked breasts and flailing claws and stiffly painted warriors brandishing swords. Words cannot exaggerate how awful it was. Am I not right, Olympias?’

The girl looked down from her work and laughed. ‘It was a very bad painting, Iaia.’

‘In the end Lucius acquiesced and had the thing removed so that we could mount Gelina’s portrait into the wall, but he was most ungracious. Gelina had ordered a rug to match, and he complained endlessly about the expense. She was in tears more than once, thanks to that episode. Of course, misery about money was an old story in this house. What a failure Lucius was! What an impostor! What’s the point of living in a villa like this if you have to count every sesterce before you spend it?’

There was a sudden tension in the room. Olympias no longer smiled. One of the slaves knocked over a pot of varnish and cursed. Even the fish seemed to quiver with unease. Iaia lowered her voice. ‘Let’s step into the baths. The rooms are all empty, and the light at this time of day is quite delightful. Let the boy stay here and watch Olympias work.’

The plan of the women’s baths mirrored that of the men’s, except for the scale, which was considerably smaller. Across the open terrace the view was much the same; beneath the rising sun the bay shone with thousands of tiny points of silver light. We walked around the circular pool, which billowed with steam in the crisp morning air. Beneath the high dome our hushed voices echoed strangely.

‘I thought that Lucius and Gelina were a happy couple,’ I said.

‘Does she seem happy to you?’

‘Her husband died a horrible death only days ago. I hardly expect to find her smiling.’

‘Her mood now is little changed from before. She was miserable then, thanks to him, and she is miserable now, thanks again to him and his messy death.’

‘She doesn’t look miserable in the painting. Does the image lie?’

‘The image captures her just as she was. And why does she seem so happy and at peace in the portrait? Consider that it was posed for and painted in the one room in the house where Lucius never set foot.’

‘I was told they married for love.’

‘So they did, and you see what comes of that sort of match. I knew Gelina when she was a girl, before she married. Her mother and I were about the same age and great friends. When Gelina married Lucius it was hardly my place to criticize, but I knew that only sorrow would come of it.’

‘How could you be so sure? Was he such a wicked character?’

She was silent for a long moment. ‘I don’t claim to be a great judge of character, Gordianus, at least not when it comes to men. Do you know what they called me in the good old days? Iaia Cyzicena, Always Virgin, they called me, and not without reason. When it comes to men, I have little experience and I claim no special insight. I’m sure my judgment of a man’s character is less reliable than most women’s. But judgment based on experience goes only so far. There are other, surer ways of foreseeing the future.’ She gazed into the swirling mists above the water.