Saturnalia mdf-18 Page 34
Then, as the oil lamps flickered and wine wafted me halfway to oblivion, the truth hit me: Scythax was right. There was a link between the villa and the dead runaway slaves. The flute boy may have been killed at Phryne's instigation yet it was not one of the household who took his life, but somebody who came in from outside. One of the doctors employed by the Quadrumati had let a patient bleed to death by accident. That was nothing; another was far more menacing.
I ordered Justinus to stop smooching Claudia and come with me after Petronius, who had left to go on duty at the patrol house. Once there, I asked Petro if his famous lists of undesirables included doctors. Since medicine is akin to magic, he had a list all right. He would not let me see it, but he found the address we needed and we set off to apprehend the man whom I was now convinced must be the killer.
'He hates all slaves. I've heard him disparage them-Hades, he even sneered at me when he supposed I was one-and people have been telling me about his attitude ever since I first met him. He follows the same broad Hippocratic doctrine as Zosime and the doctors at the Temple of AEsculapius. Zosime, or maybe it was someone else, told me a long time ago that he trained her. She calls the way they work, "softly, safely, sweetly"-but he has foully perverted that…'
We were going to see Cleander.
The streets were a nightmare, full of revellers who could not understand our need to pass through the crowds quickly. Petro had brought a few men, but most were too busy attending fires that night.
The smell of smoke hung on the air, as thickly as the noise of merriment. We found the house. It seemed to be in darkness, but after muted knocking by a vigilis who pretended to be a patient, Cleander himself opened the door.
Petronius Longus led him back inside and began to interrogate him. In response, Cleander only glared haughtily. We were all beneath him. He treated the charge of murdering the runaways with chilly contempt. Soon he began refusing to answer any questions at all. Petronius eventually had him taken away to the patrol house.
'Seen it before, Marcus. He will never confess. I can put Sergius to work on him, but this man is so arrogant he will think it a challenge to withstand the pain.'
'Maybe his slaves-or his patients-will give up information.'
'I bet they'll protest his innocence just as much as he does.'
'All his patients thought he was wonderful.'
'And his household won't admit that they should have seen what he was doing.'
'Well, keep at it, lad. If you let it be known among the vagrants that he's in captivity, you may just find more witnesses. His activities were known among the runaways, but fear kept them silent. Even Zosime should help. He trained her, but I never had the impression she was particularly loyal to him. She hates what has been done to the runaways, for one thing. Shock her with the facts; she'll give evidence. '
Petronius was called away. He left a man to guard the house, ready for a full search of the property next day. Justinus and I cast a quick eye over various rooms, and were about to leave ourselves. Then the vigilis called to us; he had found a locked closet. We could not discover a key to it; Cleander must have taken it. For half a beat we nearly left it for the lads to search the following day. But in the end, Justinus put his shoulder to the door and forced it open.
The interior was in darkness. As we crashed in, a faint groan alerted us to human presence. We ran for lights. Then we saw that Cleander had left a patient, or a victim, strapped to a pallet. He was gagged, and blood trickled inexorably from his arm into a by now very full bowl.
We could have left him there. Sometimes afterwards, I wished we had. But even when we recognised the patient as Anacrites, our humanity won. We removed the gag. We held his arm in the air until the blood flow stopped, then the vigilis, who knew basic bandaging, swathed his arm in tom cloth.
'I thought Cleander strangled his victims, Marcus.'
'He did normal doctoring as well, Quintus. Mastarna letting Scaeva die may have given him the idea. Perhaps Cleander hated Anacrites as an ex-slave, but thought a spy should die slowly… Drip, drip, drip-softly, safely, and sweetly over the Styx to the Underworld…' Anacrites was reviving enough to glare at me. We sat him up. He fainted, but we soon revived him. We were not gentle.
'There is always the chance of getting the bastard next time,' I told Quintus drily, letting the Spy overhear me. Anacrites hated having his life saved by me. Nothing good could come of it.
But for now, my assistant was overcome by kinder feelings. Since Camillus Justinus had left Claudia Rufina throwing herself into revelry at our house, he was returning there with me. Perhaps he felt that his time as Anacrites' house guest had given him a host/guest bond of duty; perhaps he wished to explain about the turnip. Whatever the reason, everyone else in Rome was indoors with happy ti-iends and relatives. Anacrites had no friends and probably no relatives. So I heard Justinus issue a good-natured invitation to the enfeebled Chief Spy. He asked Anacrites to come home with us and share our family celebration on the last night of the festival…
Io, my dear Quintus. Io, Saturnalia!
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