The Venus Throw Read Online Free PDF Page A

her shoulder and a snake coiled at her feet. The whole statue was painted in such lifelike color that the goddess seemedto breathe and gaze down on us from beneath the visor of her crested helmet.
    “Magnificent,” he whispered. Trygonion, loyal to the Great Mother, gave the goddess of wisdom only a cursory glance.
    I stepped alongside Dio and gazed up at the statue’s familiar face. “The only female in the place who never talks back to me. But then, she never seems to listen to me, either”
    “She must have cost a small fortune.”
    “Probably, though I can’t tell you the cost. I gained her by inheritance, more or less, like the rest of this house. The tale of how that came to pass would fill a book.” *
    Dio surveyed the portico that surrounded the garden, clearly impressed. “Those multicolored tiles above the doorways—”
    “Fired by artisans in Arretium. So my late benefactor Lucius Claudius once told me, when I was merely a visitor here.”
    “And all these finely carved columns—”
    “Salvaged and brought up with great difficulty, so I was told, from an old villa at Baiae, as was the statue of Minerva. All are of Greek design and workmanship. Lucius Claudius had impeccable taste and considerable resources.”
    “And now all this is yours? You’ve done well for yourself, Gordianus. Very well, indeed. When they said that you lived in a fine house here on the Palatine, I wondered if it could be the same man who’d led a wanderer’s life in Alexandria, living from hand to mouth.”
    I shrugged. “I may have been a wanderer, but I always had the humble house of my father to come back to here in Rome on the Esquiline Hill.”
    “But surely that couldn’t be as fine as this. You have prospered remarkably. You see, I judged you rightly whenI met you long ago in Alexandria. I have known many wise men, philosophers who crave knowledge as other men crave fine wines or sumptuous clothing or a beautiful slave—as a glittering possession that will bring them comfort and earn other men’s esteem. But you sought after truth as if you wished to marry her. You yearned for truth, Gordianus, as if you could not live without breathing her perfume every morning and night. You loved all her mysteries in equal measure—the great mysteries of philosophy as well as the practical mystery of discovering the killer of an Alexandrian cat. To search for truth is virtue. For your virtue the gods have rewarded you.”
    I could think of no response but a shrug. In the thirty years since I had last seen Dio I easily could have died a hundred times, for my labors had often brought me into danger, or I could have fallen into min like so many other men. Instead I owned a fine house on the Palatine and counted senators and wealthy merchants among my neighbors. Dio’s explanation of my good luck was as reasonable as any other, though it seems to me that even philosophers cannot say what causes Fortune to smile on one man and show spite to another. Watching him resume his fitful pacing, I couldn’t help thinking that Dio, for all his years of devotion to finding the truth, had the haggard look of a man whom Fortune had abandoned.
    It had been some time since I had conversed at length with a philosopher. I had forgotten how mach they loved to talk, even more than politicians, and not always to the point. We had rambled far from the purpose of Dio’s visit. It was beginning to grow chilly in the garden.
    “Come, let’s go back into the house. If the brazier is too hot, I’ll have the serving girl bring you some cool wine.”
    “Heated wine for me,” Trygonion said, shivering.
    “Yes, more of your very fine wine,” Dio murmured. “I’m quite thirsty.”
    “Hungry, as well?” I said. My own stomach rumbled.
    “No!” he insisted. But as he stepped through the doorway he tripped and stumbled, and when I reached out to steady him I felt him trembling.
    “When did you last eat?”
    He shook his head. “I’m not