Two For The Lions Read online

  "Sorry about this--" I adopted an expression of faint annoyance as if we were all being inconvenienced. "I dare say it's nothing to do with us, but when something like this happens while we are conducting a Census enquiry we have to check the scene--"

  That was a complete lie. The slab-chested fellows in leather loincloths were unused to facing devious officials. In fact they were heavily trained to do just what they were told. They sent a lad to see the man who had possession of the key. He thought it was Saturninus asking for him, so he came along meekly. There were a few doubtful glances among the various personnel, but it seemed easiest to let us do what we wanted, then to lock up again quickly and pretend nothing had occurred.

  So, by a mixture of our bluff and their inefficiency, we gained entry to the dead man's quarters. It was easy, even after a murder. I did wonder if last night somebody else had used similar tactics.

  When we walked in, to our surprise, Rumex was still there.

  In this situation there was more chance than usual that Anacrites and I could make our partnership work" We were both professionals. We both recognised an emergency. We had to act as one. If Saturninus were on the premises, he might any minute hear of our arrival and race to intervene. So I glanced at Anacrites, then we moved in together. We needed to scour the place rapidly for clues, taking notes, each serving as witness to what the other found. We had one chance to do this. There could be no mistakes.

  We had entered not a tiny cell with a straw pallet, which was all most fighters ever acquired, but a tall room about ten feet square. Its walls, once plain, had been painted in a rich dark red then completely covered with graffiti of arena scenes. Stickmen with swords chased each other, stabbed each other, fell down and stared up in mute appeal at each other. Lively fights were depicted all over the middle ground and upper frieze. Thracians hung their heads and died above the dado; myrmillons were being dragged out lifeless below it while Rhadamanthus, King of the Underworld, supervised in his beaked mask, accompanied by Hermes with his snaky staff.

  Rumex had owned a lot of stuff. Armour and weapons would be kept by his master, but he had been laden with gifts. A vibrant Egyptian carpet, which most people would have preserved as a treasured wall-hanging, lay rucked by casual usage on the floor Apart from the bed, the furniture comprised huge chests, one or two standing open to reveal mounds of tunics, cloaks, and furnishings, all presumably donated by admirers On a tripod a smaller coffer revealed a jumble of gold chains, armlets and collars. Goblets of exquisite workmanship stood on burnished trays alongside others that were in execrable taste, though stuck with costly gems. Since Saturninus would have extracted the greater percentage of what was dotingly presented to his hero, the original tally must have been enormous. (An appealing prospect for us two as auditors, since it had not been represented in the lanista's accounts.)

  The two gladiator guards and the keyman were peering in after us, starting to grow nervous. Anacrites fetched out a note tablet; despite his bored manner, his stylus moved at speed. He was listing the stuff I nodded and went to the bed, like a curious tourist.

  Rumex lay on his back as if he were asleep. He was wearing only a single white tunic, probably an undergarment. One arm, that nearest to me, was slightly bent, as if he might have been leaning up on his elbow but had fallen back as he died. His great head faced towards me as I stood at his bedside. Beneath him was the kind of coverlet under which imperial princesses snuggle up to their lovers. Its rich nap must be tickling the back of his thick neck.

  It was the neck that transfixed my attention. Around it lay a heavy gold chain; but not the one with his name on that I had seen him wearing before. The new one was pulled tight across the throat, but at the back of the head it looked looped up, where it would have caught in the hair had the gladiator not been so closely shaven. The chain lying oddly was intriguing enough. Either somebody had tried to remove it--or Rumex had been pulling it on over his head.

  That was not what made me draw so sharp a breath. A short trail of congealed blood disfigured the luxurious bedcover beneath the dead man's cheek. It ran from a small wound where Rumex had been stabbed through the throat.

  XXXIII

  I CROOKED AN eyebrow to Anacrites. He came across and I heard him groan under his breath" With one forefinger he tried gently to pull loose the gold chain, but it held fast under the weight of Rumex" head.

  Each of us must have been thinking this through: he was relaxed in bed when he was stabbed; it was quite unexpected. Something was going on with this chain, but the killer chose not to steal the thing. Perhaps horror overcame him. Perhaps he was disturbed at the scene. Perhaps the cost of the chain had seemed a good investment and it was readily abandoned once the gladiator was dead.

  The knife was missing. From the size of the wound, it must have a small, slim blade. A handknife, easily concealed. In a city where it was forbidden to go armed, a bauble you could excuse to the vigiles as your domestic fruitknife. A little thing that might even belong to a woman--though whoever struck that blow had used masculine speed, surprise and force. Also perhaps experience.

  Anacrites stepped back; so did I. We had made a space that let the two gladiators see the corpse. From their grim exclamations it was the first time.

  They knew death. They must have seen their colleagues killed in the ring. Even so, this deceptive scene, with Rumex so obviously at his ease at the moment of his killing, had deeply affected them. At heart they were men. Horrified, pitying, undemonstrative yet stricken. Just like us.

  My own mouth felt dry and sour. The same old dreary depression at life being wasted for some barely credible motive and probably by some lowlife who just thought he could get away with it . . " The same anger and indignation. . . Then the same questions to ask: Who saw him last? How did he spend his last evening? Who were his associates?

  When had I said that? Over Leonidas.

  I played it as carefully as possible. "Poor fellow. Do you know who first discovered him?"

  One of the gladiators was still speechless. The other forced himself to croak, "His minders this morning." The man had no neck, with a broad, ruddy, wide-chinned face that in other situations would have been naturally cheerful. He looked overweight, his chest in a fold and his arms chubbier than was ideal. I put him down as a retired survivor, running to seed.

  "What's happened to the minders?"

  "The boss took them away somewhere."

  "Saturninus himself extracted them?"

  "Yes."

  Well that had a neat symmetry. First Calliopus had lost his lion and tried to disguise the circumstances. Now Saturninus had lost his best fighter and it looked as if a cover up had been applied swiftly here too.

  "Was he angry that they let someone get to Rumex?" The two new guards exchanged a glance and I had a feeling the old minders had been given a heavy thrashing" It would serve a double purpose: punishment--and making sure they kept their mouth, shut.

  "I heard about it in the Forum," Anacrites murmured, staring at the corpse. He managed to sound like anyone stunned by shocking news. A good spy, lacking character himself; he could blend into the background like fine mist blurring the contours of a Celtic glen. "Everyone was talking about it, though nobody understood what had happened. All sorts of stories were starting to circulate--if anyone asks us, what is supposed to be put out?"

  "Died in his sleep," said the first guard. I smiled wryly.

  Typical of Saturninus. Effectively true--yet it gave away nothing.

  "You must have been friends with Rumex. Who do you think did it?" I asked. With a creak of leather, the guard shrugged his big shoulders helplessly. "Do we know if he had visitors last night?"

  "Rumex was always having visitors. Nobody kept count."

  "Women, presumably. Don't his minders know who was here?"

  The two gladiators exchanged mirthless laughs. I could not tell whether they were commenting on the number of female admirers their dead friend entertained in his room, the uselessness of
the clique of slaves surrounding him, or some much more mysterious point. It was clear they did not intend to enlighten me.

  "Didn't Saturninus try to find out if any women called on Rumex last night?"

  Again that sense of hidden mirth. "The boss knows better than to ask about Rumex and his women," I was told in an oblique tone.

  Anacrites pulled a fresh cover from one of the overflowing chests and spread it over the corpse with a show of respect. Just before he covered the face, he asked, "Was this a new chain?"

  "Never seen it before."

  Anacrites asked why the body was still lying here, and we heard that the undertaker was expected later that night. There certainly would be a more than decent funeral, paid for by the gladiators' own burial club, to which Rumex had in his lifetime contributed generously. Nobody knew why Saturninus had locked up the body instead of simply sending for funeral arrangers earlier.

  I wondered whether he had more urgent business than attending to the fom1alities. I asked where he was. Gone home, very upset, apparently" At least that gave us a breathing space.

  "Tell me," I mused, "what do you know about the other night? When Rumex had to kill that lion?" Snatched glances passed between his two friends. "It can't matter any more," I said.

  "The boss won't like us talking."

  "I won't tell him."

  "He has a way of finding out."

  "All right; I won't push you. But whatever occurred, it seems to have done for Rumex!"

  At that they looked anxiously towards the door.

  Anacrites smoothly closed it.

  In a low, rapid voice the first gladiator said, "It was that magistrate. He kept nagging the boss to do him a show at his house. Saturninus offered to take our leopardess, but he was set on a lion."

  "Saturninus doesn't own one?" prompted Anacrites.

  "His were all used and killed in the last Games; he's waiting for new stock. He tried to get one a few months ago, but Calliopus sneaked off to Puteoli and pipped him."

  "Draco?" I asked.

  "Right."

  "I've seen Draco. He's a handsome beast with great spirit - and I know other people who would have liked to be the purchaser." Thalia had told me she fancied him for her troupe. "sp Saturninus lost out, but he bribed a keeper at Calliopus' menagerie to let him borrow Draco for a night? Do you know about that?"

  "Our folks went there and thought they'd picked him up all right. Afterwards we reckoned it was the wrong lion, of course. But they only saw one; the other must have been hidden away."

  "What was Saturninus planning to do with him?"

  "A show with the lion tethered in a harness No real blood; only noise and drama. Not as frightening as it would look. Our keepers would control the lion, while Rumex dressed up in his gear and pretended to fight him.

  Just a display so the magistrate could get his girlfriend all hotted up."

  "The totsy? Scilla, isn't it? She's juicy stuff? A lively girl?"

  "She's a tough one," our informant agreed. His companion laughed lewdly.

  "I follow--so what went wrong that night at Urtica's house? Did they hold the display as planned?"

  "Never got started. Our keepers opened up the cage and were meaning to get the harness round the lion--"

  "Sounds a tricky manoeuvre."

  "They do it all the time. They use a piece of meat as bait."

  "Sooner them than me. What if the lion or leopard decides today's choice from the cats' caupona will be human arm?"

  "We end up with a one-handed keeper," grinned the second man, the one who hardly spoke. The cultured, sensitive one.

  "Nice! And was Rumex used to fighting animals? He wasn't a bestiarius, surely? I thought he norn1alIy played a Samnite and was conventionally paired?"

  "Right. He didn't want the job, and that's a fact. The boss leant on him."

  "How?"

  "Who knows?" Once again, a shifty look passed between the two gladiators. They knew how. The old phrase "nothing to do with us, legate" went unsaid, but its implied customary addition "we could tell you things, all right!" hung in the air. They shared an unspoken pact that they would not tell me. I would put the whole conversation at risk by pushing it.

  "We'll have to ask your boss then," Anacrites said. They deliberately made no comment, as if daring us'

  "Let's go back to the ex-praetor's house," I suggested.

  "The lion's cage was opened up, and then what?"

  "The keepers wanted to prepare everything quietly but the damned magistrate came on the scene, wetting himself with excitement" He grabbed one of those straw dummies they use to excite the beasts' He started to wave it about. The lion roared and crashed out past the keepers. It was terrible. He leapt straight at Urtica."

  Anacrites gulped. "Dear gods. Was he hurt?"

  The two men said nothing. He must have been. I could find out. That afternoon when I had tried to see him at his Pincian mansion, perhaps Pomponius Urtica had been groaning indoors, recovering from a mauling. At least I knew now what had befallen the torn straw man I had discovered in the workshops at the Calliopus barracks.

  "It must have been an awful scene," Anacrites joined in again.

  "Urtica was down, his girlfriend was screaming, none of our team could handle it."

  "Rumex just grabbed a spear and did his best?"

  His two friends were silent. Their attitudes seemed different. One had said his piece while the other listened with a slightly sardonic expression. It could be that the second man disapproved of him telling me the tale. Or it could be something else. He might just possibly disagree with the story as it had just been told.

  "Then they had to decide what to do with the dead lion?" suggested Anacrites. Again, nothing from them.

  "Well," I countered, "you can't just shove a Circus lion behind a bush in Caesar's Gardens and hope the men who trim the lawns will just collect him in their clippings cart."

  "So they put him back where he had come from?"

  "Obvious thing to do."

  Anacrites and I were doing the talking because the friends of Rumex were apparently no longer prepared to give" I pushed for one last query: "What caused the trouble originally between Saturninus and Calliopus?"

  It seemed a neutral subject, a change of topic, and they agreed to speak again. "I heard it was an old row about a tally in the sparsio ," the first one told the other. The sparsio was the free-for-all when vouchers for prizes and even gifts in kind were hurled at the arena crowds as a bounty.

  "Back in the old days." Even the second became less reticent. Only slightly, however.

  "Nero stirred up trouble on purpose," I prompted. "He liked to watch the public fighting over the tickets' There was as much blood and broken bones up in the terraces as down on the sand."

  "Calliopus and Saturninus had been partners, hadn't they?" Anacrites said. "So were they watching the Games together? Then did they fall out over a voucher in the scrum?"

  "Saturninus grabbed the voucher first, but Calliopus trod on him and snatched it--"

  The lottery had always caused havoc around the arena" Nero had enjoyed stirring up those wonderful human talents: greed, hatred and misery. People used to place huge bets too, gambling on the chance of winning a prize, only to lose everything if they failed to grab a ticket. When the tickets were thrown by attendants or launched from the spitting voucher machine, chaos ensued. Holding on to a ticket was the first lottery; getting one for a worthwhile prize was the second game of chance. You could win three fleas, ten gourds--or a fully laden sailing ship. The only drawback was that if you bagged the day's big prize you were compelled to meet the Emperor.

  "What was the controversial win?" I asked.

  "The special."

  "In cash?"

  "Better""

  "The galleon?"

  "The villa."

  "Oho! That must be how Calliopus acquired his desirable cliff-top gem at Surrentum."

  "No wonder they fell out then," said Anacrites. "Saturninus
must have been very unhappy at losing that." Ever the master of the banal. He and I knew exactly what that villa at Surrentum was now worth. Losing it, Saturninus had been screwed. It lent an extra dimension to Euphrasia's sarcastic interest in why Calliopus had sent his own wife Artemisia there now.

  "They've been feuding ever since," said the chubby gladiator. "They hate each other's guts'

  "A lesson to all who work in partnership," I murmured piously, aiming to worry Anacrites.

  Unaware of the undercurrents, our informant went on: "We reckon they would kill one another, if they had the chance."

  I smiled at Anacrites. That was going too far. I would never kill him. Not even though we both knew he had once tried to arrange a fatal accident for me.

  We were partners now. Absolutely pals.

  It was time to leave.

  As we all stirred ourselves, Anacrites suddenly bent forwards as if on an impulse (though nothing he ever did was without some sly calculation). He drew back the coverlet from Rumex" face and gazed down somberly once more. Trying to prize out one last relevation, he was pretending to feel some ghastly fascination with the stiffening corpse.

  Drama had never been my style. I walked quietly from the room.

  Anacrites rejoined me without comment, followed by the dead man's two friends, whom I sensed would now guard him in an extremely subdued spirit. Whatever murky business was stirring in the world of the arena,

  Rumex was free of all pressure and all danger now. That might not be so for his colleagues.

  We said our goodbyes, Anacrites and I showing decent regret. The two gladiators saluted us with dignity. Only when I glanced back as we walked off down the corridor did I realise that the scene had affected them much more than we had understood. The big overweight one was leaning on the wall covering his eyes, obviously weeping.

  The other had turned away, green in the face, helplessly throwing up.

  They were trained to accept bloody massacre in the ring. But for a man to be slain all unprepared in his bed was, for them, a deeply disturbing event.