Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) (166 page)

‘Really, Dionysius, I think that everyone here has heard the story too many times already.’ Crassus tried to sound bored and disapproving, but the smile at the corners of his lips betrayed him. It seemed to me that he was as aware as I that Dionysius had contrived to bring up the subject to make his own as yet unspoken point, but the memory of the story clearly pleased Crassus too much for him to resist having it told again.

Dionysius pressed on. ‘Surely not everyone has heard the tale – Gordianus for one, and his son Eco. The tale of the cave,’ he explained, looking at me.

‘It sounds vaguely familiar,’ I admitted. ‘Some bit of gossip overheard in the Forum, perhaps.’

‘And Iaia and her young protégée – surely the story of Crassus in the sea cave would be new to them.’ Dionysius turned toward the women with a look that was strangely like a leer. Their reaction was equally strange. Olympias blushed a deeper red while Iaia blanched and drew herself up stiffly. ‘I know the story quite well,’ she protested.

‘Well, then, for Gordianus’s sake it should be told. When the young Crassus arrived in Spain, a fugitive from the depredations of Marius and Cinna, he might have expected to be warmly greeted. His family had old connections; his father had served as praetor in Spain, and Marcus had spent time there as a youth. Instead he found the Roman colonists and their subjects overawed by their fear of Marius; no one would speak to him, much less help him, and indeed there was considerable danger that someone would betray him and deliver his head to the partisans of Marius. So he fled the town, but not alone – you had arrived with some companions, had you not?’

‘Three friends and ten slaves,’ said Crassus.

‘Yes, so he fled the town with his three friends and ten slaves and journeyed down the coast, until he came to the property of an old acquaintance of his father’s. The name eludes me . . .’

‘Vibius Paciacus,’ said Crassus, with a wistful smile.

‘Ah, yes, Vibius. Now there happened to be a large cave on the property, right on the seashore, which Crassus remembered from his boyhood. He decided to hide there with his company for a while, without telling Vibius, seeing no reason to endanger his old friend. But eventually their provisions ran out, so Crassus sent a slave to Vibius to sound him out. The old man was delighted to learn that Crassus had escaped and was safe. He inquired after the size of the company and, though he did not go himself, he ordered his bailiff to have food prepared each day and to deliver it to a secluded spot on the cliffs. Vibius threatened the bailiff with death if he poked his nose any further into the business or started spreading rumours, and promised him freedom if he carried out his orders faithfully. In time the man also brought books, leather balls for playing trigon, and other diversions, never seeing the fugitives or where they were hidden. The cave itself—’

‘Oh, that cave!’ interrupted Crassus. ‘I had played there as a boy, when it seemed as mysterious and haunting as the cave of the Sibyl. It’s very near the sea, but safely high above the beach, surrounded by steep cliffs. The path that leads down to its mouth is steep and narrow, hard to find; inside, it opens to an amazing height, with chambers off to each side. A clear spring emerges from the base of the cliffs, so there’s plenty of water. Fissures pierce the rock, so there’s plenty of daylight but also protection from wind and rain. Not at all a damp or dank place, thanks to the thickness of the stone walls; the air was quite dry and pure. I felt like a child again, free from all the cares of the world, safely hidden. The months before had been a terrifying ordeal, with the death of my father and my brother, and the panic in Rome. There were melancholy days in the cave, but there was also a feeling that time had stopped, that for the moment nothing was wanted of me, neither grief nor revenge nor struggling for a place in the world. I think my friends grew quite bored and restive, and there was hardly enough for the slaves to do, but for me it was a time of rest and seclusion, sorely needed.’

‘And eventually, so the tale goes, every need was met,’ said Dionysius.

‘Alethea and Diona,’ said Crassus, smiling at the memory, ‘One morning the slave who had been sent to fetch our daily provisions came running back, flustered and tongue-tied, saying that two goddesses, one blonde and one brunette, had emerged from the sea and were strolling towards us down the beach. I crept down the path and had a look at them from behind some rocks. If they had emerged from the sea, they were curiously dry from head to toe, and if they were goddesses, it was a strange thing that they should be dressed in common gowns much less beautiful than they were themselves.

‘I let them see me and they came forward without hesitation. The blonde stepped forward and announced that she was Alethea, a slave, and asked if I was her master. I realized then that Vibius had sent them, knowing that I had not been with a woman since leaving Rome and wanting to be the best host he could to a young man of twenty-five. Alethea and Diona made the rest of those eight months far more pleasurable.’

‘How did your sojourn end?’ I asked.

‘Word came that Cinna had been killed and Marius was vulnerable at last. I gathered up all the supporters I could find and went to join Sulla.’

‘And the slave girls?’ asked Fabius.

Crassus smiled. ‘Some years later I bought them from Vibius. Their beauty had not yet faded, nor had my youth. We had a most amusing reunion. I found a place for them at my house in Rome, and they have served me there ever since. I have made sure they are well provided for.’

‘A charming episode in such a turbulent and fascinating life!’ said Dionysius, clapping his hands together. ‘How that story has always fascinated me, especially in recent days. There is something so lovely and elusive about its incongruous elements – the idea of a cave on the sea used for a hiding place, the image of a beautiful girl bringing sustenance to the fugitive, the beguiling improbability of it all. It’s almost too much like a fable to have actually happened. Do you imagine that such a thing could ever take place again? That such a strange circumstance could be twisted a bit askew and occur in another place, another time?’

Dionysius was quite full of himself, purring like a cat in the delight of his own rhetoric, but I found myself looking instead at Olympias, who was visibly trembling, and at Iaia, who reached for her protégée’s hand and squeezed it, not too gently to judge by the way the girl’s flesh turned white in her grip.

‘Are you posing some sort of conundrum?’ asked Crassus, growing bored again.

‘Perhaps,’ said Dionysius. ‘Or perhaps not. There are many peculiar things afoot in the world today, the alarming sorts of things that happen when the will of the gods is distorted and the line between slave and free becomes blurred. Amid such chaos, unnatural alliances are forged and wicked betrayals flourish. Thus we come to have a man like Gordianus in our midst. Is he not here to uncover truth and melt away our distrust? Tell me, Gordianus, would you object if I decided to pose as your rival in this quest for knowledge? The philosopher versus the Finder? What would you say to that, Crassus?’

Crassus looked at him darkly, trying, as I was, to fathom his purpose. ‘If you mean that you can solve the mystery surrounding the murder of my cousin Lucius—’

‘That is exactly what I mean. Along with Gordianus, parallel with him, you might say, I have been conducting my own investigation, though along somewhat different lines of inquiry. I have nothing to reveal at this moment, but I think that very soon I shall be able to answer all the questions that have arisen from this tragic event. I consider it my duty as a philosopher, and as your friend, Marcus Crassus.’ He set his jaw in a rigid, mirthless smile and looked from face to face around the room. ‘Ah, but the meal must now be over, for my concoction has arrived.’

Dionysius took the cup from the slave who stood silently waiting beside his couch. He sipped at the green froth. Beside him Olympias and Iaia squirmed as if their couches had been stuffed with tiny nettles. They were trying very hard, I thought, to conceal the quiet panic that had slowly crept over them, and they were failing miserably.

XV

‘Not another bite until tomorrow evening. Imagine that!’ Sergius Orata stood alone on the terrace outside the dining room. He looked over his shoulder at my arrival, then gazed wistfully toward the lights of Puteoli, as if he could smell the aroma of a late dinner being served across the bay. ‘Fasting is bad enough, but to do it after such a dreary meal. My stomach will be growling all through the funeral orations. Lucius Licinius wouldn’t have wanted it that way. With Lucius here, every night was a feast.’

Around us the treetops soughed in the breeze. Within the house the slaves were quietly gathering up the remains of the evening’s repast with a muffled clatter of knives and spoons. Fitting the solemnity of the occasion, there had been no entertainment following the meal. As soon as Marcus Crassus had risen and excused himself, the other guests had dispersed like anxious children dismissed by their tutor. Eco, hardly able to keep his eyes open, had gone straight to bed. Only Orata and I remained. I imagined that he lingered close by the ghost of the dinner as a frustrated lover might linger about his beloved’s empty bed, brooding over the smell and the memory of what he craved but could not have.

‘Was Lucius Licinius so extravagant?’ I asked.

‘Extravagant? Lucius?’ Orata shrugged his round shoulders. ‘Not by Baian standards. By Roman standards I suppose he might be the sort against whom the Senate is always threatening to pass some punitive sumptuary law. Let us say he spent his money with relish.’

‘Or spent Crassus’s money?’

Orata wrinkled his brow. ‘Strictly speaking. And yet . . .’

I stood beside him and leaned against the stone railing. After the first chill of evening the air seemed to have calmed and grown slightly warmer, as sometimes happens on the Cup. I studied the line of lights, as tiny as stars, that ringed the coastline. Areas of darkness alternated with clusters of muted fire, where the towns sparkled like jewels in the crystalline air.

‘You were here the night Lucius was murdered, weren’t you?’ I said quietly. ‘It must have been a considerable shock to awaken the next morning and find—’

‘A shock, indeed. And when I learned of the name scrawled at his feet, and the fact that his slaves were responsible – imagine, they might have murdered us all in our sleep! Such a thing actually happened only a few weeks ago down in Lucania, when Spartacus was fighting his way to Thurii. A wealthy family was massacred in the night, along with all their house guests. The women were raped; the children were made to watch their fathers beheaded. It makes the blood run cold.’

I nodded. ‘Your visit here – it was strictly for pleasure?’

Orata smiled faintly. ‘I seldom do anything strictly for pleasure. Even eating serves a vital purpose, does it not? I do a great deal of visiting around the Cup at all seasons of the year; I enjoy it immensely. But there’s always time for business. To be utterly idle and to pursue pleasure for its own end is decadent. I must always be striving towards some object; I was born in Puteoli, but I think I follow the Roman virtues.’

‘Then you had business with Lucius Licinius?’

‘There were plans afoot.’

‘You had already rebuilt his baths – a stunning piece of work.’ He smiled at the compliment. ‘What more was there to do? Build a fish pond?’

‘To start with.’

‘I was joking.’

‘Do not joke about fish ponds here in Baiae. Here, great men weep tears of grief when their mullets die, and tears of joy when they spawn.’

‘In Rome they say that the Baians have developed a positive mania for pisciculture.’

‘They’ve turned it into a vice,’ Orata confided with a laugh, ‘the way the Parthians are said to turn simple horse racing into a vice. But it brings a tidy profit for the man who knows the secrets of the trade.’

‘It’s an expensive hobby?’

‘It can be.’

‘And Lucius was prepared to indulge in it? I don’t understand. Was he wealthy or not? If he had so much money, why did he not own his own home?’

‘Actually . . .’ Orata paused and his face lengthened. ‘You must understand, Gordianus, that after my ancestors and the gods there is nothing I respect so much as the confidentiality of another man’s private finances. I’m not the sort to gossip about the source or extent of someone else’s wealth. But since Lucius is dead . . .’