ranks. You honor us with your patronage, a man of your rank and power. And now let us eat and drink to your good fortune. I should say to our good fortune.”
The new-made Raven looked from face to face and was answered with smiles all around. Indeed, fortune was the word.
Chapter Two
Nicomedia, capital of Bithynia-Pontus. Two years later.
The 13th day before the Kalends of October
Clerks bustled back and forth in the great hall, carrying armloads of scrolls, making a great to-do of hunting for the missing documents, accomplishing very little. Gaius Plinius watched them with growing exasperation. The chaos of the archives, the slovenly habits of the staff he had inherited from his predecessor, the ruinous state of the old royal palace in which they were housed. Day three in his new post. He had expected bad: this was worse.
“Patrone.” His freedman Zosimus touched his shoulder. “It’s past midday. You’ll want to eat something and then rest for a bit. Doctor’s orders.”
“What? It can’t be so late already. No, just have a tray brought in.” Zosimus frowned. “It’s all right, my boy. I’ll rest later, I promise.”
What would he do without Zosimus? Secretary, companion, nursemaid at times. Friend. He had a head of yellow hair like an untidy haystack and the innocent, earnest face of a fool—but he was far from being a fool.
“See if you can’t find Suetonius out there somewhere and ask him to step in. And stop looking so worried.” Pliny waved him off. While confusion reigned around him, he busied himself arranging the objects on his desk—ink stand, styluses, sheaves of parchment, a carafe of watered wine, a bronze bust of Epicurus the philosopher inherited from his learned uncle, a cameo of his darling Calpurnia painted by her own hand. There was comfort in orderliness, even in small things. His passion for order amused his more exuberant friends.
Lately he had begun to be aware of his own mortality. He was nearing a half century of life—more than three-quarters of his allotted span. A half century that had seen the enlargement of the empire while rot set in at the center. By the grace of the gods they had survived Caligula, Nero, and Domitian and come at last to the present happy state of affairs—the reign of a sane and benevolent emperor who respected their liberty. He prayed it would endure at least as long as he did.
Pliny knew that others saw in him only a rather plump, rather domesticated, rather fussy man. He made no apologies. It was a lifetime of hard work, reliability, attention to detail that had won him, at long last, this extraordinary appointment: Governor of Bithynia-Pontus with overriding authority to clean up the most corrupt, mismanaged, seditious, and turbulent province in the Empire. The province had been a backwater for too long; a place for second-raters, governors from whom little was expected. That would all change now. Only a few people knew it, but Bithynia was to be the staging area for an invasion of the Persian empire. Restoring order and sound finances was now a top priority. Trajan, Best of Emperors, had entrusted this to him. And he would not fail him. Bithynia was a graveyard of governors. Pliny knew he had enemies who would relish his downfall. What man of importance didn’t? He was determined not to give them the chance.
“There’s a line of people out into the street waiting to see you. All clutching petitions in their sweaty hands.” Suetonius, pink-cheeked and pink-scalped—at forty he was already losing his hair—edged through the mob of clerks, accountants, and messengers, and dropped into an armchair beside Pliny’s desk. “Shall I send them all away?”
“On the contrary, I want you to interview them—unless you’re otherwise engaged?”
“I was about to be. Research, you know. But it can wait.”
“Ah, and which of your many works-in-progress are you researching today? Greek Terms of Abuse? Famous Whores? Physical Defects of Mankind?”
“Well, one never knows what will turn up, does one?”
They laughed easily together. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was one of Pliny’s literary protégés: a talented writer, a man of restless curiosity, a bottomless repository of rude anecdotes, a tireless collector of backstairs gossip, a lover of the odd fact, fascinated by the grotesque—in short, an extremely useful man to have along in this hellhole of sedition. He was vain, too, and combatted his baldness with concoctions of horseradish, cumin, and worse things—all to little avail. No sooner had he arrived in the province than he’d exchanged his