The Bull Slayer - By Bruce Macbain Page 0,6

were his oracle writers, men with a smattering of literary education who composed the answers in crabbed poetic verses that could mean anything. The written replies were attached to the tabellae, which were then resealed so deftly that no one would suspect they had been opened. Often though, if the hour grew late and they were tired, they would simply attach stock answers without bothering even to read the questions. In any case, the next day the questioners would receive their responses for the price of a silver drachma. Hundreds of drachmas a day.

But that was for the common run of questioners. Seekers of higher status were vouchsafed an oracle from the mouth of the sacred python itself. Pancrates was careful to do this only rarely so as not to dilute the effect by overexposure. It was a complicated and tiring performance. He would sit in the doorway of the temple, the snake, asleep with drugged milk, hanging like a dead weight from his shoulders, its head under his arm, while he opened and closed the mouth of a canvas snake head by pulling invisible strands of horsehair. A confederate hidden behind him spoke through a tube made of cranes’ windpipes.

For still more important clients—the Romans and their foolish wives—Pancrates would grant personal visitations: drawing out their secrets so subtly that he seemed, to their amazement, to read their unspoken thoughts. It was a talent he had perfected over years.

For the past six months he had toured the provinces of Greece and Asia, drawing immense crowds everywhere he went and putting to shame those shabby Christian proselytizers whom he encountered at every turn. Now he had returned in triumph to Nicomedia, all the more sought after because of his absence. It was time now to reactivate his network of informants. For in every great house there was some servant, some lowly hanger-on, who was on Pancrates’ payroll. They sent him people’s characters, forecasts of their questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready. And sometimes the questions revealed that the writers were up to illegal activities. In these cases he didn’t return the tablet with an answer but held on to it and used it to blackmail the sender. Here was where the real money was made.

Chapter Four

The next morning

The 12th day before the Kalends of October

“And so we entreat Almighty Zeus to favor our city, our province, our new governor and the benevolent Emperor who, in his wisdom, has sent him to guide us…”

Pliny, sitting stiffly, itching in his toga on this unseasonably warm morning, was moved in spite of himself by the thrumming baritone. Never mind that what was said was far less important than what was not said. He knew that Bithynia—like every land inhabited by Greeks—was a cockpit of warring factions, who agreed on only one thing—resentment of their Roman masters. In Nicomedia, in Prusa, in Nicaea and the other cities of the province, their ancestors had once debated questions of war and peace, life and death. Roman domination had put an end to that, yet their fractious spirit lived on, the more bitter as the stakes were smaller. Each city was a stage where the grandees waged constant battle for honor and influence. The rise of one meant the downfall of another and, like the all-out wrestling matches that these Greeklings were so fond of, there were no holds barred. Their world was a taut, vibrating web of shifting alliances, of rivalry and obligation. A disturbance at any node sent shivers racing along its silken strands. At the center of this particular web sat Diocles of the Golden Throat.

Pliny knew him, of course, by reputation. Diocles’ oratorical powers were famous throughout the civilized world, his circle of friends reached even to Rome. Diocles wasn’t a big man physically, he was shorter than Pliny, but he seemed somehow to swell, to grow as he addressed the citizens, councilors, and magistrates of his city. Tossing his leonine head with its mane of silver hair swept back, thrusting out his chest like a bantam cock’s, sculpting the air with gestures precisely choreographed to accompany every shifting inflection, he sent his voice up to the highest tier of seats in the vast, open-air theater. To Pliny’s trained eye it was a performance not to be missed.

A pity that the surroundings failed to equal the grandeur of the sentiments. The theater, at close hand, was a near ruin. After an expenditure of three million sesterces