by Paul Doherty
Claudia sat up. She must concentrate on the present. Murranus would have to wait; these abductions had to be investigated. She swung her feet off the bed. One conclusion she had reached was that the kidnappings must have been organised by someone who knew about their victims' movements. Before she left the palace, Claudia had read both the police reports and those of Helena's agents, yet she'd discovered nothing new. All the victims had been seized when they were vulnerable, in a lane, a lonely part of a garden, as they left the house early in the morning or returned from the baths in the evening. The ransom demanded was very substantial but not enough to make the victims' parents hesitate, whilst the place of liberation was well chosen. The great cemetery bordering the Appian Way was a rambling, desolate wasteland with dips and ditches, copses of trees, tangled bushes and thick undergrowth. Miles of decaying tombs, monuments, pillars, many cracked and open to the elements, made that place of death the natural haunt of outlaws, footpads and escaped slaves. The entire area reeked of misery and decay, the meeting place of every undesirable that crawled under the sun. Claudia had heard stories about people getting lost there and, by the time they stumbled out, being almost witless with terror. Others had gone into the cemetery and never returned. The Via Appia bordered one side of the cemetery whilst the rest of it petered out into open countryside, a place easy to slip in and out of. Every so often the city authorities would organise troops, both cavalry and infantry, to make a sweep of what one official called 'the meadows of murder'; even then pitched battles ensued between the inhabitants of that twilight area and trained troops. During the persecution of Diocletian, the Christians not only hid in the cemetery but opened up the gloomy catacombs below, a maze of needle-thin passageways, corridors, galleries and open chambers. The poor used to bury their dead there, but the Christians took it over and transformed it into an underground city.
Claudia had closely studied both the cemetery and the catacombs. The only person to her knowledge who owned a map describing the cemetery and the City of the Dead beneath was the powerful priest Sylvester. He had made a copy and given it to Claudia so she could study and memorise it section by section. He was always pleased to meet her there. She strongly suspected that Sylvester entertained hopes that she'd join his sect. After all, her father had been a Christian, and because of him, Claudia had been drawn into the political intrigue of the Christian community as it fought to escape persecution and gain official recognition. Sylvester had promised Claudia his complete support in hunting down the man who had murdered her brother and raped her.
Claudia lay back on the bed, chewing her lip. She scratched a bead of sweat from her face, half listening to the sounds from the tavern below. Petronius the Pimp was singing a bawdy song about a tavern-keeper who was trying to hire a good cook, another problem facing Polybius. Claudia smiled. Petronius had been drinking all day. She tried to shut out his voice and returned to the question of the catacombs where she used to meet Sylvester. Would they meet again now her enemy had been killed? Would Sylvester use her as a means of strengthening his ties with the Augusta? Or would they use each other and become allies, if not friends, in any crisis which faced them? Claudia quietly promised herself that sometime soon she would meet Sylvester and see what help he might provide. She glanced towards the window. Petronius had stopped singing. She groaned as she heard Theodore's booming voice; the actor was reciting lines about the death of Achilles before the walls of Troy.
'Will that man ever shut up!' Claudia murmured. She swung herself off the bed and walked across to the lavarium. She took a sponge and a tablet of her precious soap and washed herself carefully, cleaning her teeth with the powder Apuleius had recommended. She rubbed oil into her body and tinctured herself with a little of the precious Kiphye perfume, distilled from the blue lotus, which Murranus had bought her. She put on green linen underwear, dressed sensibly in a brown tunic, a belt around her waist with a thin sheath for a knife, and put on what Polybius called her marching boots. She threw a cloak around her shoulders, took her staff with a carved face on its handle from the corner and left the chamber, going down the stairs into the spacious eating hall. The place was still very busy. Daylight was fading so the oil lamps and lanterns had been lit. The kitchen was doing a most profitable trade, although Theodore, refusing the food on the platter before him, sat nursing his stomach. 'You'll have to wait!' Claudia whispered to herself.
Poppaoe went bustling by carrying a dish of steaming food; behind her trotted Sorry, holding a tray of wine cups. The kitchen was also full, people hiring stools so they could sit in a corner and eat from their platters. Claudia escaped into the garden. Murranus, Polybius, Apuleius and Narcissus were gathered in the far corner. Polybius had been drinking heavily and grinned benevolently as she approached. Claudia forced a scowl. She could tell by the almost empty jug that Apuleius and Narcissus had been matching him cup for cup. She quietly muttered a prayer of thanks, — at least Murranus was sober. She refused to sit down but gestured back at the tavern.
'Are you sure about what you've found?'
'Certain,' Apuleius slurred. 'The corpse of that young woman is perfectly preserved. I can't find any cause of death.'
'I would agree,' Narcissus quickly intervened. He picked up the wine jug and emptied it into his own goblet. He toasted Claudia, took a generous sip and tried to look sober as he half rose, wagging a finger in Claudia's face. 'I've seen more corpses,' he declared, 'than you have gladiators.' He started to laugh at his joke, then sat down trying to pull his face straight. 'I'm a professional embalmer/ he continued. 'Before I became a slave and the Empress freed me, I prepared the dead, young and old, male and female, rich and poor. I can tell just by looking at a corpse how they died, and that one is a real mystery!'
'What we need,' Polybius slurred, 'is a professional cook to cater for our increased clientele. That pompous actor for one doesn't like our food. Ah well, our Great Miracle has certainly brought increased custom!'
Claudia was tempted to ask more questions, but the sun was setting and a cool breeze was blowing. She had to meet those veterans at the tavern. Murranus was also impatient, tapping his fingers on the table and studying one of the garden statues, a carving of the goddess Diana of the Ephesians, as Polybius liked to describe it. Claudia touched the gladiator on the shoulder, then absent-mindedly kissed Polybius on the brow, patted Narcissus on the head and wished them all good night. She and Murranus left by the side gate. The gladiator paused in the alleyway to tighten the sword belt beneath his cloak. He grasped a heavy cudgel in one hand, Claudia's hand in the other, as they both went down into the busy square.
Claudia always found Rome at twilight a fascinating place, that time between night and day when the Citizens of the Light returned to their garrets, houses or apartments and the Citizens of the Dark came to life! They were all gathering to greet the night. The prostitutes, faces painted, balding heads covered in garish wigs, clustered like a collection of multicoloured butterflies on the corners of alleyways or the entrances to decaying houses and apartment blocks. Sharp-eyed pimps were touting for business. Hawkers and traders were setting up their stalls, most of their goods being the plunder from robberies or what other markets had rejected. Cooks were firing their portable stoves and grills, shouting what they had to sell, most of which was grilled or roasted until it was burned and the putrid taste hidden under cheap sauces and spices. Second-hand clothes-sellers hung their products from the branches of trees, whilst the money-changers, the receivers of stolen goods, lurked deep in the shadows advertising their presence with a tinkling bell. A small boy ran up with a cage of yellow birds; another tried to pester them with purses made out of snakeskin. Claudia just ignored them. She kept thinking of those abductions. Whoever organised the gang would draw their recruits from a place like this, a shifting population of former soldiers, outlaws, tricksters, rejects, slaves on the run, desperate men and women who'd sell their souls for a cup of wine and kill without a qualm for a silver coin.
The deeper into the city they walked, the busier the crowds became. Here and there a squad of auxiliaries or a group of Vigiles squatted outside the door of some tavern keeping an eye on what was happening, though they were more prepared to take a bribe and look the other way than do anything. Of course people recognised Murranus and greeted him with good-natured abuse and catcalls, which the gladiator just ignored.
'I wish…' Claudia paused at the corner of the alleyway leading down to the Lucia Gloriosa tavern.
'What do you wish?' Murranus bent down to hear above the sound of a line of clattering carts.
'I wish I'd questioned Theodore more closely.'
Murranus just squeezed her hand. 'Oh, don't worry about him,' he reassured. 'Theodore will make himself at home. He'll relax and tomorrow it will be all the easier to question him.'
Claudia agreed and walked on towards the Lucia Gloriosa, a fine, spacious eating-house and wine shop, in many ways very similar to the She Asses tavern. The owner, a former soldier, explained that there were no chambers upstairs, only a long, high-ceilinged room into which he ushered them. The chamber's pink plaster walls were unadorned except for hanging baskets of woven reeds and the occasional coloured cloth. The veterans were already assembled, grouped at one end of a trestle table in the middle of which stood a small portable Lares, its doors open to display a statue of some god, a figure on a rearing horse. The statue looked old. Fashioned out of bronze, it had already turned slightly green, the metal starting to flake. Before the statue glowed two small oil lamps placed either side of a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes and a jug of wine. The three men were busy, heads together, talking amongst themselves. At first they ignored the new arrivals, then Murranus coughed and the three men drew apart.
'What do you want?' The large, burly-faced man sitting at the end of the table spread out his hands and stared at them aggressively. 'Who do you think you are coming up here? Don't you know?' He glared at the tavern-keeper, who was still standing in the doorway.
'I think you'd better explain,' Murranus whispered.
Claudia undid her cloak, laid it on the end of the table and came forward, hands extended. 'My name is Claudia,' she declared. 'I have been sent by the Empress Helena; she wishes me to investigate the deaths of your two comrades.'
'You? Investigate?' One of the men sniggered and turned away.
'You had better listen to me,' Claudia retorted. 'Two of your comrades have been killed: a cut to the belly, their throats sliced and then castrated.' She paused. 'I am Claudia, agent of the Empress. I carry her bulla, her seal. Shall I call up a squad of Vigiles or those mercenaries lounging in the nearby market, then we can go to the palace so all this can be verified? Oh, by the way.' Claudia noticed how the veterans had shifted their attention to her escort. 'This is Murranus, Victor Ludorum — Champion of the Games, but also a freedman.'
The veterans relaxed. They waved the newcomers to the bench, found two more cups and filled each with a measure of water and wine.
As Claudia and Murranus settled at the table, the veterans introduced themselves as Stathylus, Crispus and Secundus; their Latin names belied both their appearance and their accents, which clearly showed them to be provincials. They acted full of confidence, old soldiers who'd seen all the horrors of war and could not be surprised by anything new. Claudia had met their kind before: leathery-skinned, sharp-featured, still wiry despite the folds of fat round the belly and face. They were dressed simply in tunics, belts and sandals. She noticed the war belts heaped in the corner as well as the cudgels and walking sticks lying on top of their cloaks. They were friendly enough, explaining how they met here regularly to share bread and wine and toast former comrades, recall long-forgotten battles and pay homage to their guardian Epona, horse goddess of the Iceni, a tribe which lived along the eastern coastline of Britain. They revelled in their former membership of the Fretenses, and were proud to be called the Vigiles Muri.
Claudia let them chatter on as the wine flowed. Stathylus, sitting at the top of the table, had been a junior officer, a decurion. He was hard-faced, with close-set eyes; he remained both watchful and hostile, aware of what Claudia was doing. Now and again he'd urge his two companions to drink slower or mix more water in their wine cups. Claudia, however, gently encouraged them to discuss their earlier careers, and of course, like all old soldiers, they were only too willing to talk. They were all Iceni horsemen from the flat plains of eastern Britain. Horse-lovers, born cavalrymen, they described how they'd been recruited into the Catephracti, the heavily armed cavalry, and been given various postings in that faraway, mist-shrouded province. Eventually they'd been posted to a mile fort along the Great Wall Emperor Hadrian had built in the north, stretching from coast to coast to seal off the province from the wild tribes beyond. They'd fought under a veteran centurion, Postulus, but during the civil wars, mutinies and the emergence of pretenders such as Allectus and Carausius, their numbers had been depleted. They were proud of having fought for Constantine Chlorus, the present Emperor's father, and of supporting the cause of Helena and her son through all their difficulties. They had as a unit been honourably discharged and given the opportunity to settle outside Rome. Some had brought their wives and families; others had simply deserted their roots for a new future at the heart of the Empire.
Secundus and Crispus did most of the talking. Born storytellers, they described their service in Britain, conjuring up images of deep forests, lonely wind-swept moorlands, freezing winters when all was carpeted in snow, followed by springs bursting with light and summers which brought the brilliant green grasslands and cornfields to life. They talked of warm breezes, a golden sun and rain-washed blue skies. Above all they described the Great Wall. Many of the tribes regarded this as the work of the gods with its soaring crenellated wall, watchtowers, signal posts, mile castles and great five-mile fortresses. The two men described the boredom of military life, offset by the terrors which lay beyond the wall, where savage Picts and Caledonians, superb fighters, slipped like wraiths through the tangled heather to probe, attack and ambush. The savagery and cunning of these tribesmen was something they had never forgotten, a terrifying nightmare constantly lurking just beyond the Roman line, ever vigilant, ruthless and merciless. Claudia listened fascinated, aware of the day dying, the darkness deepening, the flames of the oil lamps growing stronger. She became less aware of the peppery, spicy odour of the room, with its wisps of black smoke, whilst every time she looked at the carving of Epona, it seemed more lifelike. She noticed, however, that all three veterans deliberately skirted the crowning glory of their careers, the ambush and annihilation of that Pictish war band. At last
Crispus drew their story to a close. Claudia waited for Stathylus to step into her trap, which he obligingly did.
'What has this,' he hissed, leaning against the table, 'got to do with two of our comrades being killed here in Rome?'
'Everything.'
'What do you mean?'
'Look.' Claudia pushed away her wine cup. 'Two of your companions have been brutally murdered in this city. Petilius in his chamber, Lucius in an alleyway. The slums of Rome are full of men and women who take a life as easily as they would snuff out an oil-wick. However, both your companions were killed in the Pictish way, a knife to the belly, throat slit, then their genitals cut off, the penis placed in the dead man's hand. I understand the Picts do the same to dishonour enemy dead.'
All three men, eyes on Claudia, nodded. Crispus muttered a curse under his breath; Claudia ignored it.
'So why,' she continued, 'have two of your companions been killed in such a barbaric fashion? The logical conclusion is that it has something to do with your service in the Fretenses along the Great Wall. Some demon from the past has come prowling through the darkness to hunt you.'
Stathylus made a rude sound with his lips and quickly picked up his cup. Claudia could see he was frightened; the gesture was meant to divert her.
'Something else.' Claudia tapped the tabletop. 'General Aurelia
n recently invited you all to a reunion at his villa. You attended?'
'Of course we did.' Secundus spoke up. 'General Aurelian always favoured his men; this year it was our turn.'
'Yet afterwards, Petilius went to see the General about something urgent but the General was too busy to grant him an audience. Do you know what Petilius wanted?'
'We asked that ourselves,' Stathylus replied, 'but Petilius kept a close mouth; he was always like that. Perhaps he wanted to keep the information to himself so as to get some reward; we never found out.'
'But it followed that reunion,' Claudia insisted. 'Did any of you see anything untoward, something from the past?'
A chorus of denials greeted her words.
'Anyway,' she sighed, 'let's go back to the past, the Great Wall. The destruction of that Pictish war band.'
'Some eighteen years ago,' Secundus declared, ignoring Stathylus' warning look. 'It happened eighteen years ago.'
'And yet,' Claudia insisted, 'all this time later, two of your companions have been brutally murdered, in a manner very similar to the abuse perpetrated by your Pictish enemies. Now,' she smiled faintly, 'there are no Pictish warriors in Rome. Why such deaths? True, they might be Pictish slaves, but,' she shrugged, 'how would they recognise you eighteen years later? Moreover, doesn't the report say the entire war band you trapped was wiped out?'
Again there was agreement.
'The ambush also took place at night,' Murranus declared. 'I've seen Catephracti, their helmets are like those I wear in the arena, covering the head and protecting the face; even if one of those Picts did escape, how could they recognise a face, only glimpsed in the dark, some eighteen years later?'
'What did happen,' Claudia asked, 'that night of your great victory?'
'Why do you want to know?'
'I can't really answer that,' Claudia replied, 'except I have a feeling that you don't want to talk about it. I can't understand that. After all, it was a great achievement. More importantly, the grisly murder of your comrades, executed in a way so reminiscent of the Picts, may have something to do with the massacre of so many of their people. A matter of logic,' Claudia added, 'unless there is something else you haven't told me.'