The Bull Slayer - By Bruce Macbain Page 0,3

the air. Calpurnia sighed for her Italian villa, swallowed hard, and determined to turn the place into a home worthy of her husband. Worthy of Rome. The last governor, who had no wife, was so parsimonious that tradesmen had stopped coming to the palace, so she must seek them out herself. In a single day she had examined fabrics, contracted with cabinetmakers and painters and silversmiths. Thank the gods she had Ione with her. Her freedwoman spoke fluent Greek, while Calpurnia’s halting kitchen Greek was not up to haggling in the marketplace. That was another thing she was determined to rectify.

It was the end of a long and productive morning. Hunger and the hot sun overhead urged that they return to the palace for a bath—at least the plumbing worked—and a meal with their overworked husbands, Pliny and Zosimus. And then suddenly they had found themselves swamped in this sea of frenzied celebrants.

“Long life to Pancrates! Oracle of Asclepius!”

The crowd surged forward as the object of their adulation was helped down from his litter—he and the astonishing snake. At that point she lost sight of him as he passed within the bronze doors of the temple. But a herald stood on the topmost step and cried out, “The god has returned to his house. Present your questions and they will be answered to your heart’s desire for the fee of one drachma.”

The crowd was mostly male but there were women too, Greek women modestly veiled as their custom was. But then, to her surprise, Calpurnia saw Roman faces too, unveiled and elaborately coifed like herself. One towering hairdo atop a whitened face and fat neck forced its way toward her through the press of bodies.

“You remember me, Lady Calpurnia? Last night—the reception—such an honor…”

“Yes, of course,” Calpurnia murmured. What was the woman’s name? “So many new faces—Atilia, isn’t it?”

“Philomela, you stupid little bitch, where are you?” The woman looked around angrily as a little slave girl, who couldn’t have been more than ten, struggled after her, fighting with both hands to hold up a large parasol.

The woman turned back to Calpurnia. “Impossible to find decent slaves in this country. But isn’t it wonderful, he’s returned at last!”

Calpurnia looked at her blankly.

“Pancrates, of course. Our oracle.”

Chapter Three

That night. The villa of Marcus Vibius Balbus

Balbus snapped his fingers. Thick fingers covered with coarse hairs. Fingers that in their day had gripped a centurion’s vitis, bringing it down hard across the shoulders of any legionary who didn’t jump to attention quick enough. Fingers that lately wielded nothing heavier than a stylus—but even a stylus was a weapon in those fingers. Marcus Balbus snapped his fingers and a young slave boy ran up to refill his goblet.

“More wine, Governor?”

Pliny, reclining beside him in the place of honor, hastily covered his cup with his hand. He’d drunk too much already. Balbus preferred his wine unwatered and forced his guests to do the same.

“Another bite of turbot?” He held out the morsel dripping with sauce on the point of his knife. Eat.” It was very nearly a command. Balbus’ face, square, brown, and hatched as a chopping block, leaned close, smiling unpleasantly. He was a man made entirely of bone and gristle, a man who kept himself fit, with big-knuckled hands and a shock of stiff red hair speckled grey. Gaulish blood there somewhere, Pliny imagined, or even German.

Pliny waved the food away. The dishes were all too sauced and spiced for his frugal tastes. And he would not allow this man to bully him. After a long moment, Balbus withdrew his hand and shrugged.

Conversation, which had died momentarily, resumed with pretended gaiety. There were nine of them at table, the usual number for a triclinium. In addition to Pliny and Calpurnia, the guests included Suetonius, who was always reliably entertaining at affairs like this; two wealthy Roman merchants, one accompanied by his wife, and a man named Silvanus, who was Balbus’ chief accountant. The merchant’s wife seemed to know Calpurnia and conversed with her throughout the evening with great animation. “Thrilled to see you again…this morning…a god…miraculous man…you must ask him…yes, a snake…” Calpurnia had that fixed smile on her face that meant she was bored to tears.

Again Balbus brought his battered face close to Pliny and said in a whisper that was meant to be heard around the table, “We’ve met before, you know, you and I.”

“Have we? I’m afraid I—”

“Don’t remember my face? Well, I was younger and handsomer then, and I was