A Capitol Death Page 23

  Nothing. I was wasting my time here.

  I thanked them for letting me ask questions. Lemni’s ashes must be ready for collecting from his pyre. If they had no objection, I said, I would remain here for that, since I had met the dead man and liked him. Afterwards I would leave them in peace.

  XLV

  I waited while Lemni’s remains were formally collected by Larth. It gave me time to think.

  The ritual seemed to stiffen the augur. Covering his head, he slipped easily into the calm persona he must use for his duties. Its gravity seemed to comfort him.

  Their ancient slaves were helping Larth. I stood quietly with Percennia. As her husband carefully placed the ashes and bone fragments in a round glass jar held by one of his younger retainers, I murmured that he would clearly miss Lemni very much.

  At first I thought Percennia would not reply. Eventually she said, “Theirs was a good, rare friendship.” I wondered if she had been jealous, though she seemed too generous. Suddenly lowering her voice, she went on, “I hope you will drop any foolish suggestion of my husband killing that man, Gabinus.”

  I inclined my head, though in silence.

  “Even if Gellius had found him and remonstrated with him, it would never have ended in violence. He is not the type!” his wife insisted. I let her think I accepted it. I knew that, when pressured by circumstances, anybody is the type.

  She left the subject. Instead she told me sadly, “We were intending to hold a funeral feast here in the garden. Now I don’t know…” She tailed off.

  By this stage, Percennia and Gellius were showing elderly fragility. They both seemed bowed by trouble; they must have been dealt a serious blow by last night’s events. Trying to remain composed, Percennia gave the old female slave instructions for bringing their luggage as they prepared to stay with friends. A practical woman, she told me an address in case of further queries.

  The couple’s unexpected departure to someone else’s house would probably affect them further. Once they were sitting in some senatorial guestroom with time for reflection, shock would catch up with them. I found myself hoping they came to no harm.

  A large plain glass cinerary urn had been placed in the basket of a pull-along trolley that the old male slave must use to collect shopping. He was spry enough, though past his best. A boy was to accompany him; their destination was not mentioned. Without more ado, I said goodbye to the householders and politely left. They must have thought I had finished here.

  Scorpus had left Taurus with the barber. I had seen him give the barber money to cover use of his stool, though he said the vigilis must not have a real shave, because he might have to leap up to follow someone. I was intending to give Taurus the nod. When I came out into the street I saw that, despite his orders, he was under a napkin, head back, oblivious.

  I parked myself discreetly in a doorway and wrapped my stole around my hair as a gentle gesture to disguise. It often works.

  On emerging from the house, accompanied by the young boy, the first thing the old slave did was look around to see if his exit was being observed. He even glanced over at Taurus as if, regardless of the shave in progress, he knew why he was there. The rest of the vigiles had now left, taking their siphon engine. Scorpus was long gone. Pulling his trolley behind him, the old man set off, not noticing me. He was walking fast, deliberately evading Taurus. The young boy scampered with him.

  We crossed the Argiletum, a teeming, sordid street. It had always been a main thoroughfare but led into the bad area called the Suburra. Julius Caesar was supposed to have lived in the Suburra but from him, always a maverick, it was raising a finger at the establishment. Nobody who could do better would expose themselves to this place of many trades and pervading crime.

  Caesar defied Fate. Few enemies would have dared attack him; if they had, he would not have cared. Less arrogant, I tried to take precautions. It was tricky. The Argiletum was clogged with both normal traffic and visitors. Shops spilled out across the pavement, regardless of the regulations. In between untidy piles of metalware, basketware and amphorae sticky with food or wine, people offered trays, selling congealed snacks or small religious statuettes. Every tourist coming for the Triumph had to go home with a mismatched set: two versions of Jupiter, one rude eastern Venus, a faux-bronze bull with one horn missing, an amulet against the evil eye, a model womb in case of gynaecological disease … Once their mouths were crammed with Lucanian sausage and gherkins, people were incapable of saying, “No, thanks.”

  When we turned off into back-streets, the congestion grew worse. The old man with the trolley was given a pathway; the skinny boy managed to slip through. A lone woman faced greater problems. As I tried to balance following my targets with keeping safe, I was often buffeted. It might have been unintentional. Probably not. I was wearing sturdy walking shoes so whenever I spotted who did it I could graze their shins; if they looked too brutal, I just took the punishment. I had no time to stop for an argument.

  I had done worse in my time. I stayed cool, ignored my bruises and pushed on after the slaves.

  They ended up at a basic lodging-house, a featureless doss packed with cheap rooms. They took the trolley indoors with them. Thieves would show no respect for Lemni; they wouldn’t want his remains. The glassware that held the last fragments of him was another matter, an alluring target. Emptied out, it would be saleable.

  While the boy guarded the trolley, I saw the old man come out, go up a staircase and return with a crone, who must have been the concierge. She had something in her hand, like a latch-lifter. After a time they all came back out into the street, where the old slave added a new bundle to his trolley. Whatever he brought was wrapped in a piece of woollen blanket; he had clutched it in both arms, staggering under quite some weight, then positioned it very carefully. While the crone waved amiably after them, he and the boy set off again. The trolley must have been harder to drag; they slowed down.

  This was a mistake. Struggling with their unwieldy load signalled them as vulnerable. Dubious do-gooders offered to help. The boy knew his job, but his polite rebuffs were being ignored. Surprisingly, the old fellow drove off the first would-be street-thieves by standing his ground and letting out a loud yell.

  The pair set off again, now hauling the trolley together so they could move faster. Members of the public were crowding them and trying to peer in at whatever they were carrying. Hands pulled at the cover around the second bundle. The old man let go and shooed people away, waving his bony arms above the trolley to protect its contents.

  They turned the trolley around so they could push it. With some gusto, they shot off again. They sped along, heading west. Emerging into the civic area, they went around the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Caesar, until they passed the Atrium of Liberty where the censors’ records used to be stored. They turned right on the Vicus Argentarius. The prison was behind them. They were further along than the metal-workers’ headquarters. They were closing on the Porta Fontinalis, where I had been the other day, the day I saw the aedile’s tomb.

  At this point, they thought they had shaken off trouble. I could see they were wrong, though I was helpless to warn them. A couple of determined luggage-lifters had dogged them all the way. When they hit the pinch-point at the ancient gate, these predators jumped them.

  One clipped the lad, another shouldered the old man. I put on a spurt but was too late. It was over in an instant. The old slave fought back; they put him on the ground. The boy found himself in a headlock. Before anyone could do anything—assuming the public had wanted to (joke!)—the first held onto the boy while the second had the trolley away. Then the boy was flung aside as both muggers disappeared.

  I did not stop to check on the slaves. I hared after the trolley-thieves.

  XLVI

  The slaves had been heading past the gate as if intending to turn around the Arx. The thieves did a rapid double-back. After they had zipped around, burying themselves in the crowds, they slowed down, laughing as they con
gratulated themselves. They sauntered right past me. I took a close look, unsure whether to tackle them. Nobody had protested when the slaves were attacked; no one would help me.

  They were not exactly white-tunic clericals: a lean, mean-faced goon in dusty work garb, whom I wouldn’t hire to shovel horse-shit, and a harder, fight-scarred no-brain wearing a more upscale tunic that he must have pinched. Having seen them in action I knew they would fight dirty. Being female would give no protection. With two of them determined to hang onto what they had stolen, even a man would think twice.

  They looked back over their shoulders but saw no sign of the Gellius slaves and did not recognise me. I tucked in behind them while I wondered what to do.

  The stately Clivus Argentarius, bounded by the Capitol and the imperial fora opposite, lacks dark alleys down which gutter rats can dive. These two were brazen, however. When they thought they were safe, they stopped right in the middle of the street to investigate their loot. As they bent over to inspect the trolley contents, for me it was now or never.

  I thought I heard a whistle, like the vigiles calling for back-up when they have sniffed out an overturned oil lamp. I didn’t stop. I ran right at the thieves crashing into them hard. At the same time I loudly screamed, “Rape!”

  Don’t knock it. Even street pickpockets use this distraction. As a trick it works. People are guaranteed to cluster around in a circle, wanting to watch.

  I had failed to knock the two men over, but they both staggered. This was helped by them being off balance as they straightened up with armfuls of something weighty. Each had one bundle from the trolley; when I collided with them, both were dropped.

  I had an advantage of surprise. It didn’t last. Of course they both turned on me at once.

  I had really done it now. This was deeply dangerous. From the expressions on their faces their response could be fatal. Street muggers in Rome like to avoid attention, but when cornered they become feral. They may back off from a sting they haven’t started, if something about it looks too public, but once they are hanging onto stolen goods, they refuse to let go and turn vicious. Only an idiot would take them on. Now I was that idiot.

  I had never been afraid of death, only any pain that precedes it. I cannot say what I would have done if I really had been alone. Fortunately the Fates were not ready to snip my thread of life. Help arrived.

  Taurus and Zenon, vigiles of the First Cohort, powered up the Clivus just as I was preparing to be torn asunder in foul ways. With sturdy legs in solid boots, their sprint was an athlete’s dream. Used to patrolling the top end of the Forum, a genteel beat unless someone fell off the Tarpeian Rock, the pair were keyed up for a fight. Rescuing me would brighten their morning. Using their usual arrest tactics—unnecessary and protracted punching—they reduced the two thieves to jelly, then according to custom kept hitting them until they (Taurus and Zenon, that is) had had enough. They exchanged signals that they were prepared to stop. After a couple more punches to prove they were winners, they did.

  I thanked them, expressing mild regret that it had not been necessary for me to get my hands dirty.

  They were both short and muscular, Taurus with sharp features, Zenon chubbier. Taurus said they had been following all along. Scorpus, he reminded me, “had his methods.” Still grateful that I was alive, I conceded that they worked. The methods must be more sophisticated than I’d originally thought—or those two got lucky. I made a pale attempt to pretend I had realised the troops were there, though we all knew I had not thought to check.

  To get over my poor street-craft, I turned to examine the thieves. One was kneeling in the road, coughing blood as he clutched his battered guts; the other just stood bent over from the waist, hideously groaning.

  “What shall we do with them?” asked Taurus. Zenon leered, full of unpleasant ideas. His excitement was greater since the vigiles so rarely catch anyone.

  The thieves had happened on the trolley slaves by chance, so in a way they were irrelevant to me. As muggers they ought to be punished, though, and I could bear witness that they were very violent.

  “Throw them into the condemned cell in the Tullianum,” I suggested. “If they are still down there alive when the Triumph ends, the jailer can strangle them. It ought to be Dacian captives, but Domitian won’t be bringing any.”

  “We haven’t done anything!” one thief moaned, trying it on in the classic style of Rome’s more pathetic criminals. Given the chance, he would probably say his mother had neglected him as a baby and his stepfather was cruel.

  “You defiled the dead,” Taurus retorted. “What you’ve stolen is ashes that were bound for a necropolis. Don’t you have any conscience?”

  “Rhetorical question!” I snorted.

  “We weren’t to know!”

  “No excuse. You’re going in the jail, like the lady said.”

  To emphasise the wickedness of the crime, Taurus and Zenon gestured to the stolen goods. In one case, the result of me rushing the criminals was a disaster. The dropped glass urn that had contained Lemni’s ashes lay smashed in the road. Among glittering shards, Lemni was now spread around on the Clivus Argentarius.

  I had had dealings with corpses in my work. This was the first time a victim had ended up like wet-weather anti-slip gritting. Since the day was sunny and the roadway dry, poor Lemni was in fact acting the other way; his knuckle bones and teeth caused pedestrians to skid. Pieces of his shattered urn were waiting to amputate toes.

  The vigiles responded with care for the community. Leaving me to guard the prisoners, Taurus commandeered stools from a snack stall to form a rough and ready safety barrier, while Zenon found a road-sweeper and borrowed his broom. Soon they had Lemni pushed together again in a neat pile, even though the pile also contained stones, glass and pigeon droppings.

  I looked for the other bundle from the trolley. I was just in time to snatch it back from a sly youth who was seizing his moment to lift it from the gutter. He cursed me. I asked if his mother knew he talked like that. He strutted off, reduced to nothing.

  This object, still cushioned within its piece of blanket, had survived intact. Zenon and Taurus gathered around while I squatted down beside the parcel, which was quite large; I untied some string that secured the wrapping. Inside, was a big, bulbous, reddish-coloured ceramic pot. It had a small base and a raised lip into which its lid fitted snugly.

  On one side was an incised picture of a round face: straight nose running up to arched eyebrows, slits for eyes and mouth, even lined-out ears. Calm and blissful, these were the stylised features of somebody asleep in death. When I gingerly pulled up the lid, inside were more grey ashes.

  I gazed up at the vigiles, each holding a slumped prisoner. “Well, boys, here’s a puzzle. If that’s Lemni you swept up in the road—who in Hades is this?”

  XLVII

  The anonymous remains were in a fine Etruscan-style container that had cost some grieving person a goodly sum. When similar items came up at the auction house, Father always declared they were of immense antiquity; they could easily be more recent, and often were, because such pots were still being made to their centuries-old design; with ceramics, nobody can prove it either way. This one was very clean; it looked new to me. But well made.

  Whoever was in the face-pot now acquired a lodger. Taurus and Zenon decided it would be indecent to leave Lemni at the side of the road where dogs would pee on him. They made the road-sweeper pick up the remains on his shovel, then delicately filtered Lemni and associated road dust into the pot too. They had just finished this solemn act of piety when the two Gellius slaves, whose master had loved Lemni so much, came limping down the Clivus. Zenon whipped the lid onto the overflowing container.

  We stopped them. Taurus quizzed them. They seemed reluctant to tell us either where they had been for their first stop or where they had intended to go next with their trolley. Larth had told them not to talk to us.

  In Rome it is unacceptable to blame slaves for obeying their master�
�s orders. Mind you, the vigiles are always allowed to swear at them nastily.

  It was decided that, as I had suggested, Taurus and Zenon would free themselves from hassle by depositing their prisoners in the Tullianum jail. It was locked up still, but they broke in, just as they had the other morning when they needed to fetch those long hooks to recover Lemni’s body. After a few yells, the two thieves were pitched down into the cell, which is notoriously deep and escape-proof. The vigiles shouted the traditional farewell that they had better behave themselves, adding sternly that prison was too good for them. They reapplied the locks on the outside door, or made it look as if they had.

  Taurus had to report to Scorpus. He took the face-pot for safe keeping at the station-house. Zenon would escort the old slave and his empty trolley back to his master and mistress, since his ordeal had nearly finished him. I reminded them that Larth and his wife were now staying with friends, whose address I passed on. The old man must know, but he seemed confused, no longer fit for anything. The boy was reluctant to part from him, but was told he had to come with me. I wanted him to show me where they had meant to take the trolley next.

  Under compulsion, he trotted along with me up the Clivus. He had been nervous of the vigiles, but reacted better to me. Along the way I played it friendly, luring him into conversation. I told him I had a brother of about his age, which I put at around thirteen. That is supposed to set lads at their ease, though most don’t care.

  This one said he was the old fellow’s grandson, name of Marcellus. He was thin, well-mannered, biddable. He had been born into service with the family. Gellius Donatus was a kindly, if slightly distant, master; Percennia was a good mistress. Marcellus, with his young sister and both grandparents, helped around the home. It was light, undemanding work. He liked his job. He thought himself fortunate. He hoped one day to gain his freedom so he could run some kind of business. Import/export, he suggested, though perhaps with little idea of what that cliché meant.