The Venus Throw by Steven Saylor

flames from my balcony! The way the lurid glow danced on his handsome face, it was impossible to tell whether Caelius was appalled or amused, or perhaps a little of both.
    After much political wrangling, the Senate had recalled Cicero from exile, and he was back in Rome. His house on the Palatine was being rebuilt. And now, according to Bethesda, he had again matched wits in a court of law with his one-time pupil Marcus Caelius.
    “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” I said. “How did the case come out?”
    “Cicero won,” Bethesda said. “Bestia was acquitted. But Caelius says the jury was bribed and vows that he’s going to prosecute Bestia again.”
    I laughed. “Tenacious, isn’t he? Having once defeated Cicero in court, I imagine he simply can’t stand being bested by his old teacher this time. Or did a single speech not suffice for Caelius to adequately slander Bestia?”
    “Oh, for that purpose I think the speech did very well.”
    “Full of venom?”
    “Dripping with it. In his summation Caelius brought up the death last year of Bestia’s wife, and the death of his previous wife before that. He practically accused Bestia of poisoning them.”
    “Murdering one’s wives can’t have much to do with electoral bribery.”
    “Perhaps not, but the way Caelius brought it up, it seemed entirely appropriate.”
    “Character assassination,” I said, “is the cornerstone of Roman jurisprudence. The prosecutor uses any means possible to destroy the accused’s reputation, to make it seem more likely that he’s committed whatever crime he’s accused of.It’s so much easier than producing actual evidence. Then the defender does the same thing in reverse, accusing the accusers of various aborninations to destroy their credibility. Strange, to think that once upon a time I actually had a certain amount of respect and even admiration for advocates. Yes, well, I’ve heard the rumors that Bestia did his wives in. Both died relatively young, with no preceding illness and without a mark on them, so naturally people say he poisoned them, though even poison usually leaves some evidence.”
    “There wouldn’t have been much evidence if it was done the way that Marcus Caelius implied,” said Bethesda.
    “And how was that?”
    She sat back and cocked her head. “Remember that this was said in a court of law, before a mixed audience of men and women alike, not in a tavern or at one of his orgies. Marcus Caelius is a very brazen young man.” She did not sound wholly disapproving.
    “And a brazen orator. Well, out with it. What did he say?”
    “According to Caelius, the quickest of all poisons is aconitum.”
    I nodded. Many years of investigating the sordid means of murder have given me some familiarity with poisons. “Aconitum, also called panther’s-death, harvested from the scorpion-root plant. Yes, its victims succumb very quickly. But when swallowed in sufficient amount to cause death, there are usually noticeable reactions in the victim and plentiful evidence of foul play.”
    “Ah, but according to Caelius, the poison was not
swallowed
.”
    “I don’t follow you.”
    “According to Caelius, if aconitum touches a woman’s genitals, she will die within a day.”
    I raised an eyebrow. Even with all my experience of poison, this bit of information was new to me, and I was not sure I believed it. “What Caelius says is possibly true—though I’m inclined to wonder how anyone could ever have discovered such a curious thing. But then, I suppose there’s not much that Marcus Caelius doesn’t know about female genitalia.”
    “Ha!” Bethesda’s eyes sparkled. “Even Cicero didn’t come up with that one.”
    I turned up my palms to show modesty. “So, Caelius accused Bestia of having poisoned his wives by . . .” I left the sentence unfinished. There seemed no delicate way to complete it.
    “He did not accuse Bestia outright. Having stated the properties of aconitum, and having worked himself up