Two For The Lions Read online

  It had churned me up too. Added to the anger I had first felt over Leonidas I felt a grim determination to expose whatever sordid business had now caused another death.

  XXXIV

  I KNEW WHAT I intended to do. I was uncertain about Anacrites. I should have remembered that although spies often cause death indirectly, and often deliberately order it, they rarely have to look the results in the face. So he surprised me. Outside the barracks gate I paused, ready to tell him to lose himself while I took up the questioning. He faced me. Those murky, greyish eyes met mine. His expression was grim.

  "One each?" he asked.

  I pulled out a coin and spun. He got Calliopus; I took Saturninus.

  Without conferring we set off separately to interrogate the rival Tripolitanians. I had my normal methods at my disposal; how Anacrites would manage in a real tussle, without a bank of torture irons and a set of pervenedly inventive assistants, was less clear. I suppose somehow I trusted him. Maybe he even had some faith in me.

  We met up again at Fountain Court that night. By then it was late. Before we set about comparisons we ate. I had panfried some sliced sausage which I stirred into a bean and leek braise, lightly flavoured with aniseed, which Helena had prepared. Looking quizzical, she accepted my suggestion to lay a spare bowl for Anacrites. As Helena put a wand to a couple of oil lamps, I could see she was touched by his pleasure at being allowed for the first time to join our domestic life.

  I winced. The bastard really wanted to be part of the family. He was yearning to be accepted, both at home and at work. What a creep.

  Once we reported results, a pattern emerged. Parallel accusations and synchronised unhelpfulness. Saturninus had blamed Calliopus for Rumex" death--a crude act of revenge for his dead lion. Calliopus had denied that; according to him Saturninus had good reason himself to kill off his prize gladiator: Rumex had been having an affair with Euphrasia.

  "Euphrasia? Rumex pronged his own lanista's wife?"

  "Easy access to the storecupboard," cracked Anacrites.

  It certainly made sense of our conversation with the other two gladiators and their hints about Saturninus not wanting to look too closely at the female admirers who pursued Rumex. Calliopus had put a real bloom on the story, even telling Anacrites that in the days when they briefly worked together, his rival's wife had flaunted herself at him. He made her out to be a trollop and Saturninus to be furious, bitter, vindictive, and without doubt prone to violence.

  Helena looked dour. She and I had witnessed the supposed adulteress at home, standing up to her husband and teasingly defying his wishes when it suited her. Helena would merely describe that as having an independent streak.

  "So is this yet another doe-eyed dame with a bit of brashness in her character, who sleeps with muscle-men for excitement? Or has the beautiful, gentle, utterly unflawed Euphrasia just been slandered appallingly?"

  "I'll go and ask her," announced Helena Justina bluntly. Anacrites and I exchanged a faintly nervous glance.

  Meanwhile I told how Saturninus had taken a different tack, making out that Calliopus was an unstable figure nursing ludicrous jealousies. He jumped to mad conclusions. He fired off on outrageous schemes for revenge when nothing had been done to him. His barracks was struggling, he refused to admit it, and--if we believed Saturninus, who explained it most reasonably--Calliopus had lost his grip on reality. He too was portrayed as being capable of murder, naturally.

  I had asked Saturninus himself why he had removed the original minders from Rumex and locked up the corpse. He wheeled out a plausible tale that he needed to keep the deceased hero's room secure from looters and trophy hunters while he had a chance to interrogate the men who were, after all, his slaves--and to punish their slack vigilance. I asked to interview them. They were produced: flogged, subdued, and unable to tell me anything of use.

  I then suggested that Saturninus call in the vigiles, since it was a case of unnatural death. He nodded vaguely. When I made it clear I intended to report it myself; he responded at once, sending out a messenger hotfoot to the local guardhouse. As usual, wrongfooting this man was impossible.

  As I discussed all this with Anacrites and Helena I was feeling depressed. Deep pessimism descended on me. Bad signs were already there. The feuding Tripolitanians would supply motives for one another until our hair fell out.

  What they said about each other could be entirely true or just as false; their home town rivalry and their failed business ventures were motives for mutual hatred. Even if neither of them were really involved in the death of Rumex, accusations and counter-accusations would fly.

  There were inconsistencies. Calliopus had always struck Anacrites and me as too well-organised to engage in impetuous spite; besides, although his business was smaller than his rival's, we knew he was not struggling financially.

  As for sexual jealousy, in my opinion Saturninus was fully in control of his domestic life, with a long-term wife from his native shore; if they ran into difficulties he seemed more likely to reach an accommodation with Euphrasia than to explode over a fling, even one with a slave.

  I think I knew, even that night, where we would end up. The vigiles would discover nothing to link either man to the crime. Neither would we. Nobody else would be implicated in the killing either.

  Helena did visit Euphrasia. To our surprise the woman readily admitted having slept with Rumex" She pointed out she was not alone in that. She seemed to regard having first pick of her husband's men as a perk of her position. She said Saturninus did not like it, though however deeply he cared he had no need to stab the gladiator" He could have matched Rumex in a public fight without quarter, a fight to the death--and earned money from it too. Besides, as an ex-fighter himself; his weapon was not the dainty blade that had been used on Rumex but a short sword, the gladium. Saturninus also would have killed with the arena death thrust.

  "That's through the neck, of course," commented Anacrites.

  Both lanistae had produced impeccable alibis, Calliopus proving he was at the theatre with his mistress (in his wife Artemisia's absence at the Surrentum holiday home) and Saturninus declaring he had been out to dinner with Euphrasia, which cleared her too. Very gallant. And meticulously convenient--as I had learned to expect.

  Alibis were immaterial. Both men owned groups of trained killers. Both knew plenty of murderous types outside their own exercise yards who could be coerced into bad deeds. Both could wield seriously persuasive quantities of cash.

  There was one particular suspect to check up on: Calliopus' allegedly rogue bestiarius, Iddibal. I went to interview him. I was told he had been bought out by a rich aunt, and had left Rome.

  Now that did smell suspicious. I had seen the supposed "aunt" with him, so I knew she existed. But as a gladiator, Iddibal was a slave. Apparently he had originally been a free volunteer, but his status had changed when he enlisted" When he signed up, he had sworn the oath of complete submission: to the whip, the branding iron, and death. There was no backing out. No lanista would ever let his men hope for escape. Gladiators were held to their gory trade by the knowledge that their only route to freedom was through death: their own, or those of the men and animals they vanquished for the pleasure of the crowd. Once in, only many victories could bring escape; being bought out was never a possibility.

  Anacrites was with me when I put this to Calliopus. We told him he was liable to be drummed out of the guild of lanistae for allowing the unthinkable. He squirmed and said the woman had been very persistent, her offer had been financially attractive, and anyway Iddibal had been regarded as a troublemaker, moody and unpopular, ever since he joined. Calliopus even claimed Iddibal had had a wall-eye.

  It was nonsense. Early in our investigation, I remembered seeing Iddibal throwing spears among his colleagues with good humour and a very keen aim. I also remembered one of the keepers telling me that when the crocodile who ate another member of staff was put down in the arena it was done by "Iddibal and the others'; that sounded
as though in the venatio he had been at least one of the pack, if not actually a leader. Calliopus said no; we thought he was lying. Deadlock again.

  We managed to trace Iddibal's movements on the night of the Rumex killing. He had gone, along with the so-called aunt and her servant, all the way to Ostia. We should have caught them there, but the party had actually sailed south in December, a suicidal risk. We could not think how they had persuaded a captain to take them at that time of year. The woman who had plucked Iddibal from the barracks must be absolutely loaded. Anacrites solved it: she owned her own ship" More curious still

  We decided Iddibal had run away from a wealthy home, and had now been fetched back by his family" Perhaps his auntie was a real one. He had bunked off from Rome for good, anyway, whether he had in fact gone home to mother, or bunked off with some hot-blooded widow purchasing herself a stud.

  "This is sordid," said Anacrites. Trust a spy to be a prude. One further line remained unexplored: the ex-praetor Urtica. Camillus Verus reckoned that the man had not put in an appearance at the Curia for some time. Even the sensational tales about his love life had died down.

  Magistrates may retire from politics, but a taste for sleazy behaviour tends to last. Pomponius Urtica might just be lying low to let his reputation pick up again--but the mauling theory seemed more likely to be true.

  Once again I travelled out to the Pincian, this time determined to gain admittance if I had to wait all day. This time they told me the truth: Pomponius Urtica was at home, but very sick. The porter stated that he had gout. I said he could talk to me in between groans, and I somehow managed to force my way in as far as the antechamber to the great man's bedroom.

  While the attendant doctor was consulted, I noted large quantities of medical equipment, including a bronze stand in the encouraging shape of a skeleton, which had three branches for cupping vessels. Those could be used for a variety of ailments, not least to create diversionary bleeding above a wound. Numerous rolls of bandage were neatly stored on a shelf: There was a smell of pitch--used for sealing holes in flesh, of course. A box with a sliding lid had compartments with hinged lids which contained several ground-up medicines. I stole a pinch of one powder that had been nearly used up and checked it later with Thalia, an expert in exotic substances. "Opobalsamum, I'd say. From Arabia--costs a packet."

  "The patient can afford it. What's opobalsamum used for, Thalia?"

  "Wounds, mainly."

  "How does it work?"

  "Gives you a warm glow thinking that anything that cost, so much must do you good."

  "An efficacious decoction?"

  "Give me essence of thyme. Where is he hurt?" That I could not tell her, for I never saw the man. His doctor barged out from the bedroom, highly annoyed at me being there. He mentioned an ague, then wouldn't discuss the gout story. Servants were called to escort me from the house in a style that only just stopped short of compensatable assault.

  I then tried to see Scilla, the ex-praetor's supposedly wild girlfriend. I always enjoy interrogating a woman with a dirty past; it can pose a challenge in several ways. Scilla was not having it. She lived at the praetor's house--and she stayed indoors. As a female way of life it was suspiciously respectable, though I sounded like a cad when I went home and said so.

  Thwarted at every turn, Anacrites and I went back to routine enquiries. That meant asking questions of every one who was known to have been at the barracks the night Rumex was killed, in the hope that someone would remember seeing something unusual. The vigiles were following up the case in parallel with us, though all their enquiries turned up negative too. Eventually they filed the case in their "No further action" pigeon-hole, and not long afterwards, so did we.

  XXXV

  WELL, DON't blame me.

  Sometimes there is quite simply nothing to follow up. Life is not a fable, where stock characters seethe with implausible emotions, stock scenes are described in bland language, and every puzzling death is succeeded in regular progression by four clues (one false), three men with crackable alibis, two women with ulterior motives, and a confession which neatly explains every kink in events and which indicts the supposedly least obvious person--a miscreant any alert enquirer could unmask. In real life when an informer runs a case into the ground, he cannot expect a fortuitous knock on the door, bringing just the eyewitness he wants, with confirmation of details that our shrewd hero has already deduced and stored in his phenomenal memory. When enquiries run into the ground it is because the case has gone cold. Ask any member of the vigiles: once that happens you may as well go sheep-shearing.

  Better still, have a drink in a winebar. There you may possibly strike up a conversation with a man you haven't seen for twenty years, who will spin you an intriguing yam about a mystery he hopes you can solve for him.

  Don't bother: his wife's dead and buried under the acanthus bed; the tortured wag with the haunted eyes who is cadging the house bilgewater off you in this pitiful manner is the bastard who put her there. I can tell you this without even meeting him. It's just a knack. A knack called experience"

  People lie. The good ones do it so niftily that however hard you press them you will never catch them out. That presupposes you can even tell which liars you should be pressing. It's pretty hard, when in the real world everyone is at it.

  Witnesses are fallible. Even the rare specimens of humanity who honestly want to help may fail to spot the vital scene taking place under their noses, or they misread its significance. Most of them simply forget what they saw.

  Draft blackmail letters are never left lying around. Anyway, who needs a draft to say , Give me the money, or else?

  If footprints turn up in a newly dug asparagus patch, they never belong to anyone with an easily identifiable limp.

  Long-term bullied spouses do not devise schemes of fiendish complexity and then trip themselves up over some tiny detail. They just snap, then grab the heaviest household tool available. The sexually jealous boil over equally messily. The financially greedy may plot with some skill how to escape detection, but they tend to walk away with the money and are long gone, using a new identify, before you even start your detective work.

  Murderers sometimes, somehow, do manage to approach their victims when no one is looking. They kill in silence, or when nobody notices the gurgles and thumps. They leave the scene unobserved. Then they sometimes keep quiet for ever.

  The fact is, many murderers get away with it.

  I suppose the trusting among you still believe I am now going to say that Anacrites and I gave up--yet then stumbled by chance upon a clue?

  Excuse me. Go back to the start of this scroll and read it again.

  XXXVI

  HELLO. Still waiting for an unexpected development?

  There was none.

  It happens.

  It happens all the time.

  XXXVII

  Since Falco & Partner were unable to solve who had killed Rumex, we returned to our commission for the Censors. We were not men who became obsessed. I, Marcus Didius

  Falco, was an ex-army scout and an informer of eight years standing: a professional. Even my partner, who was an idiot, could recognise a dead end. We felt frustrated, but we handled it. After all, we had our fortunes to earn. That always helps maintain a rational attitude.

  At the end of December was Saturnalia, my daughter's first. At seven months, Julia Junilla was still too young to understand what was going on. Far from clamouring to be King-for-the-Day, our prim miss hardly noticed the occasion, but Helena and I happily made fool... of ourselves arranging presents, food and fun" Julia endured it gravely, already aware that her parents were as crazed as a cheap pot. Since we had no slaves we made Nux take the role of lording it over us; Nux got the hang of being insubordinate very fast.

  Saturninus and Calliopus both left Rome, ostensibly for the festival. When neither had returned after several weeks, I made enquiries and discovered both had now gone to Africa, taking their wives. Hunting, it was said.


  Lying low, we thought. I asked at the Palace if we could head off in pursuit but, unsurprisingly since there was no evidence against either man in the Rumex case, Vespasian sent word that we were to buckle down to our Census work.

  "Ow!" said Anacrites. I just got on with it.

  For three months we worked harder than either of us had ever done. We knew these enquiries were a finite goldmine. The Census was supposed to take a year, and it would be difficult to extend much beyond that unless we had exceptional grounds. We just made out our report on the evidence we had, and the culprit was told to cough up.

  This was a job where suspicion alone sufficed. Vespasian wanted the income. If our victim was important it was wise to be able to substantiate our accusations, but in the arena world "important" was a contradictory term. So we suggested figures, the Censors issued their demands, and most men did not bother to ask if they could appeal. In fact, the grace with which they accepted our findings told us we perhaps even underestimated their degree of fraud.

  Our consciences, therefore, remained clear.

  Of course we did have consciences. And we hardly ever had to bend them into shape.

  I received a letter from Camillus Justinus who had reached the city of Oea, thanks to the money I had sent. After some swift exploration, he confirmed that Calliopus had no "brother", though he did own a thriving business supplying beasts and gladiators for the local Games as well as exporting them; the arena was a highly popular sport in all parts of Tripolitania. Horribly Carthaginian. A religious rite, replacing actual human sacrifice, in honour of the harsh Punic Saturn--not a god to tangle with.

  Justinus supplied enough detail... of the lanista's Tripolitanian landholdings for us to innate our estimate of unpaid tax in his case by a satisfying whack. In return for these efforts I sent the fugitive lad my drawing of silphium, though no more money. If Justinus wanted to make a fool of himself in Cyrenaica, nobody was going to blame me.