The Bull Slayer - By Bruce Macbain Page 0,4
only one of many. The night before Emperor Domitian was murdered. I was a Praetorian Guardsman then. We paid you a little visit, didn’t we? Almost cost you your life, didn’t it? And your charming wife’s.” He smiled at Calpurnia the way a crocodile smiles.
Pliny felt the blood drain from his face. That was a night that still, after fourteen years, haunted his dreams. And Calpurnia’s. And why was Balbus mentioning it now? To make him squirm, why else? Suetonius shot Pliny a worried look. Calpurnia felt for his hand.
Pliny drew a long breath. “Those were difficult days, my friend. Thank the gods we live in happier times.”
Eager noises of assent around the table. Then Fabia, Balbus’ wife, a big-boned woman all bosom and jewels, hastily changed the subject to her favorite, her only, topic of conversation.
“These Greeklings,” she said, “scoundrels every one of them. They don’t love us.” She spoke in a fluting, gentrified Latin that didn’t quite disguise something foreign in the accent—Thracian, it was rumored. Pliny had heard that she concealed barbarian tattoos under her clothing. He could almost believe it.
“No reason why they should,” he answered mildly.
“We’ve brought them peace, haven’t we?”
“Peace, lady Fabia, has never been what they wanted. If the Empire were to disappear tomorrow they would all be fighting each other again and loving it.”
“Strange words for a governor,” Balbus struck in.
“I’m a realist. They pay a high price for Roman peace as you, of course, would know, Procurator.”
Balbus eyed him suspiciously. “Is there a question buried in that remark, Governor?”
Marcus Vibius Balbus was not accustomed to being questioned. Trajan had appointed him Fiscal Procurator of the province. For over two years now he had wielded absolute authority to raise taxes and pay the soldiers, answerable to no one but the Emperor. He had his own office and staff and lived lavishly with his family in a spacious seaside villa south of the city, while Pliny and Calpurnia camped out in the shambles of their ruinous palace. Balbus’ power had equaled that of the governor himself. Not bad for a man who had started life as a common soldier, and clawed his way up the ranks: Chief Centurion of a legion, then a stint in the Night Watch, the City Battalions, and the Praetorian Guard, and finally a succession of civil posts in every corner of the world. The typical procurator’s career, it produced the tough, experienced men who made the Empire run.
Balbus was a man whom no governor questioned. Until now. Pliny’s extraordinary commission from the emperor overrode his authority. Balbus knew it. Pliny knew that he knew it. How long would it be before they had to confront it?
The procurator pulled in his horns just a little. “You have questions about the taxes, Gaius Plinius, speak to my man Silvanus. You there, Silvanus, are you still sober enough to speak? Introduce yourself. Where’re your manners, you ugly fellow? This is our new governor, come all the way from Rome to help us count our pennies. Show him some respect. Perhaps you’ve brought your abacus with you, show him how well you do sums.”
The man addressed was short-necked, beak-faced, and bald but for a few sparse hairs combed ear to ear; he resembled, Pliny thought, nothing so much as a tortoise. His eyes were narrow and nearly without lashes. He blinked them myopically. He stared at his food, his jaws working, and said nothing.
“The man’s as dumb as he is ugly,” Balbus said in a loud voice and laughed.
But Fabia, Pliny noticed, did not laugh. What was it that crossed her face for an instant? A tightening of the jaw muscles, the eyes moving to Silvanus and then sliding quickly away. Perhaps it was only his imagination.
“But he’s loyal,” Balbus continued. “Loyalty’s the great thing. Been with me for years.”
Another uncomfortable silence. Broken by Suetonius, who asked, “What can you tell us about the former governor?”
“Anicius?” Balbus answered. “Excellent man. Excellent. Miss him already.”
Pliny and Suetonius had met Anicius Maximus at the harbor where he was waiting, amidst a mountain of luggage, to sail back to Italy on their ship’s return voyage. He had seemed almost pathetically eager to be on his way. The emperor had nothing against the man, or at least nothing he had shared with Pliny, and yet Anicius’ jumping eyebrows, his fluttering hands, his muttered apologies for his hasty departure all seemed to signal some consciousness of guilt. Would he be the seventh governor of Bithynia to be