as his eyes focused and he saw Pliny, Marinus, and Suetonius seated on stools at the foot of his bed, he shrank back.
“It’s all right,” Pliny said softly. “I have some questions to ask you and you must answer truthfully. Your mother can stay.” He looked hard at Fabia. “You will not interfere, do you understand? Otherwise I will send you out of the room.”
She met his stare and said nothing.
“We know from the testimony of one of your stable boys that you rode out with your father before dawn on the day he disappeared.”
“That filthy little liar!” Fabia cried.
Pliny silenced her with a look. “I’ve warned you. One more word and out you go. Now, Aulus, what happened out there?”
The boy drew a deep, rattling breath. “I killed my father.”
Fabia lowered her head and let out a moan.
“Can you tell me why? Look at me now, not at her. Why did you kill him?”
The boy resembled his father, Pliny noted. The same red hair, the same sharp features. But where Balbus had displayed all the menacing power of a vicious dog, his son had only a squirrel’s twitchy nervousness.
“I’m a coward. I was frightened.” The voice was barely audible. Pliny leaned forward.
“Frightened of what?”
“The cave. I begged him not to make me go. He wouldn’t listen. He said Mithras would make a man of me. Mithras was a soldier’s god, he said, and he’d done plenty for Mithras and Mithras could damn well do this for him. He was taking me to be initiated. He said there were seven ranks. He was a Lion, nearly the highest, I would become a Raven, the lowest rank. He said everyone started as a Raven, even him.”
“Did he name the other ranks?”
“Yes, but in Greek. I didn’t know any of the words.”
“Go on with your story.”
“Well, he said we would meet the others there. They all approached the cave by different routes to avoid calling attention to themselves because the mysteries of Mithras were a deep secret. He warned me that I should never breathe a word to anyone. They would blindfold me, he said, bind my arms, aim an arrow at my heart, but then it would be all right and I would be raised up to the heavens and see the god. I didn’t want to. But he slapped my face, told me to stop whining. He was doing it for me, he said, to make me a man at last.”
Pliny exchanged glances with his companions.
“It’s the curse,” Aulus whispered. “You see how I am. I don’t leave the house because people spit and make the horns with their fingers when they see me. Even here, no one will drink from the same cup or eat from the same dish as me.”
“You’ve had it all your life?” Marinus asked.
“Since I was nine. If I’d had it as a baby they would have just left me on a rubbish heap and had done with it. I wish they had.”
“No, never!” Tears were streaming down Fabia’s cheeks. It was the first time Pliny had seen her cry. She had had no tears for her husband, but she was weeping now.
“They tried every way to get rid of it,” the boy continued. “Father took me to the temples of Asclepius at Pergamum and Smyrna, the temple of Isis in Rome. I had to smear myself with mud, bathe in an icy river, run around the temples barefoot in winter, wear evil-smelling things around my neck, drink—drink the blood of a dead gladiator, but I couldn’t, I threw it up. My father made me sleep outdoors on the ground, made me practice with a sword, slapped me, hit me with his vitis when my arm faltered. And finally, after I had a very bad fit, he decided to take me to this god in the cave. I just couldn’t stand any more.”
Pliny felt a tide of anger rise in him. His heart went out to this tortured child. “By Jupiter, If you suffered all that and lived you’re more of a man than most. Now I want you to listen to what my friend here has to say. This is Marinus, my physician.”
Marinus pulled his stool closer and looked at the boy gravely. “Your father loved you very much in his way,” he said, “but what he put you through is barbarous nonsense. What you have is called the ‘Sacred Disease’ but it is no more sacred than any other disease, as the great