"We wondered about this one," said the undertaker. "As you can see, she had recently been severely beaten. That's probably why she ran."
"I want to see her back," I said. The gloved and masked attendants turned her on her side. In her death rigor she moved like a wooden statue. Her back was savaged worse than her front, but I saw no stab wounds. There had been no crushing blow to the back of the skull. I signaled them to let her rest.
"Have you any idea when she died?" I asked the undertaker.
"I think it must have been yesterday evening sometime. The rigor is consistent with that time. Also, if she'd been dead longer, there would be signs; the beginning of decomposition, bites from scavengers, and so forth."
"Had you any idea who she was?"
"Someone said she looked like a slave from the Temple of Apollo, body servant to the girl who was murdered," the undertaker went on. "I sent a messenger to the priest, but we've received no answer yet."
"I'll be responsible for her," I said. "I will pay for her funeral and burial."
"Funeral?" the man said.
"You heard me. She will receive the rites and be decently cremated and interred."
"As you wish, Praetor."
The officials behind me remained stony faced, undoubtedly convinced that I was mad. But they recoiled in horror when I bent close to the poor girl and sniffed. I have the usual dislike of dead bodies, but some things must be done.
"The praetor is gathering evidence," Hermes told them in a voice that told them to keep quiet.
She smelled very faintly of horse. Had she been hiding in a stable? Yet I saw no bits of straw or hayseed in her hair. There was another smell, even fainter but unmistakable: the fragrance called Zoroaster's Rapture. I straightened.
"Has the body been bathed?" I asked.
"No, this is just how she was found," the undertaker explained. "Since she is to have a funeral, we will of course prepare her properly."
"Do so." I turned to the officials. "I want to know where she was found and the circumstances."
Silva gestured, and a man in gaudy military garb came to the front. I recognized him as the officer of the city guard.
"Just after first light this morning," he reported, "I was notified that a young woman's body had been discovered at the municipal laundry. I-"
"Take me there," I said, cutting him off. I wanted to hear the rest of his tale on the site.
In a mass, we walked from the precincts of the temple and through the city and out one of the side gates. This took no more than a few minutes, Baiae being the small town that it was.
"I must say, Praetor," Norbanus said, "that you are making a great fuss over a dead runaway."
"Is everyone here really as obtuse as they pretend," I asked, "or is this some act put on for my benefit?" I glared around, but nobody said anything. "Gorgo, daughter of Diocles the priest, was murdered. Now her slave girl has likewise been murdered. The two are connected. Investigating this unfortunate slave girl's death is as important as investigating Gorgo's."
I might as well have been speaking to them in Parthian. When people are accustomed to thinking in terms of rank, status, hierarchy, and so forth, it is difficult if not impossible for them to think any other way. I had learned long since that my mental fluidity was a rare thing in a highborn Roman. In any sort of Roman, for that matter.
The municipal laundry lay just outside the gate. Although it was just a place where wives and family servants could come to do the household laundry, like everything else in Baiae it was a thing of beauty. A low hillside had been terraced and a stream diverted to descend what appeared to be a great, marble stairway. Here a number of women were at work, beating the wet clothes and bedding with wooden paddles, laughing and gossiping the whole time. On a sunny slope just downhill, bronze drying racks awaited the clean cloth.
There were many places to sit and rest amid the soothing sound of flowing water. Huge, mature plane trees provided abundant shade. Protective herms lined the watercourse, and at the top of the marble stair a benevolent, reclining water god watched over all. It was the sort of scene pastoral poets like to sing about: nature with all its dangerous aspects banished, nature tamed and made orderly.
"Where was she found?" I asked.
The guard captain strode to a spot next to the watercourse, beneath a plane tree. It was a grassy little nook, the sort of place where a family might come for a picnic. "She was laid out here," he said.
'"Laid out'?"
"Yes, Praetor. She was found exactly as you saw her in the libitinarium, arranged just as she would have been if she were on a funeral bier."
"But naked?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who found her?"
"Some slave women from the house of Apronius Viba. His house is just against the city wall by the gate, and they were the first to come here this morning."
I went over the ground, but the springy turf and short-trimmed grass held no prints. I saw nothing that might have been lost or discarded by the killer. At the edge of the little clearing a stone stair led up the slope, away from the watercourse. Curious, I climbed it. Everyone else followed dutifully.
The stair traced a curving path beneath low-hanging branches and ended at a broad pavement flooring on a notch cut into the hillside. A retaining wall perhaps ten feet high covered the vertical face of the cut, and it was pierced by at least thirty low, square doorways. I had never seen such a structure before.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Why, Praetor," said Silva, "these are ice caves."
"Oh, yes. You told me about these a few days ago. Who owns them?"
"The ice company leases them to various men of the city," said the guard captain.
"I want a list of all the lessees," I said.
"Why, Praetor?" Norbanus demanded. "One of them is mine, I freely admit. But why do you want to know this?"
"Because they strike me as a good place for a runaway slave to hide," I said, but that was only part of my reason.
He shrugged. "Very well. I can get you the list. There are several of these facilities around the city."
"This is the one that interests me," I said. "It will do."
I saw no more profit to be had in this place, so we returned to the city. By this time my new house was prepared. I sent the rest on about their business but I asked Cicero to tarry. He was clearly bored with life away from Rome and was following my progress out of curiosity.
"Join me for lunch, Marcus Tullius," I asked him. "I have no kitchen staff here yet but we can send out for some food.",
"Gladly," he said.
"Thank you for backing me up with these plutocrats," I said as we took chairs in the house's excellent impluvium collonade." In fact, I was not at all sure about my constitutional powers in this matter. It's not the sort of thing you get taught studying law."
"You're on quite solid ground in a municipality like this," he assured me. "Your imperium overrides all local authority, and your authority to use military force is unquestionable. Of course, that won't stop these people from suing you as soon as you step down from office."
"I'm not worried about that," I told him. "These men are so terrified at having their dealings investigated, they'll never go to Rome to haul me into court."
He grinned. "Isn't guilt a wonderful thing? Even when it has nothing to do with your investigation, it can get people to see things your way. By the way, it was very decent of you to arrange the rites for that poor girl."
"You mean very un-Roman of me?"
He frowned. "Not at all. The humane treatment of slaves is a bedrock of Roman custom. It is one of the things that distinguishes us from barbarians." He was dreaming, but I didn't mention it. "But there could be complications. I hear you've confiscated two of the priest's slave girls. He will construe your taking charge of this one's body as further unauthorized appropriation of his property. He will have grounds for suit."
"I took them to keep him from killing them. And they are evid
ence. Besides, he's as dirty as the rest of them-I can feel it. He's hiding something and I mean to find out what it is."
A short while later, Hermes returned from the market, trailed by a boy carrying a large basket crammed with goodies. I'd sent Marcus and the rest back to the villa for rest, doctoring, and to tell Julia what was going on. Over a humble but delicious lunch of sausage, seed cakes, fruit, and wine we discussed the latest twists.
"What sort of killer," I said, "goes to the trouble of murdering a slave girl, then lays her out with all possible dignity, as if she were a beloved relative, in one of the most beautiful sites the town has to offer?"
"A pervert," Cicero said without hesitation. "We've seen them in court often enough. The mad ones who kill repeatedly and perform little rites every time: perform unspeakable acts, take body parts, or else dress their victims in beautiful clothes or pose the bodies in grotesque ways or perform ceremonies of their own sick devising. It happens all too commonly."
"She was killed near water, like Gorgo," Hermes noted.
"Yes, that could be a connection," I agreed. "The mad killers Marcus Tullius referred to often employ such ritualistic repetitions. But why take such care with a victim, then strip her naked?"
We thought about this for a while, and it was Hermes who had the inspired answer. "When she ran, she must have had to stop frequently in the fields to rest. By the time she arrived at her protector's house, her clothes would have been filthy with dirt and blood. This friend must have given her new clothing."
"But why take it off-" Then I saw what he was driving at. "Of course! She was given slave livery. Many of the great houses here dress their slaves in distinctive uniforms. The killer couldn't afford to have her found in the livery of his own household."
"Very astute," Cicero approved. "You may have the answer."
"That leaves us the motive for her murder," I said.
"She may have simply known too much," Cicero said. "There has been a groat deal of bloodshed around here lately. Plenty of reason to eliminate an inconvenient slave witness."
"Would she have fled to Gorgo's murderer?" I asked.
"She ran to someone she thought had reason to protect her," Hermes said. "She may have been wrong about that."
"If so," Cicero said, "she wouldn't be the first to learn, too late, that a friend can be treacherous."
A short time after this, a messenger came from Norbanus with the list I had requested. The ice company had leased caves to a number of familiar names: Norbanus, Silva, Diogenes the scent merchant; even Gaeto himself was among them.
"This doesn't narrow the search down any," I said disgustedly. "The only one missing is Diocles the priest. He isn't rich enough to afford such an exotic property and probably doesn't entertain enough to need one."
"You don't suspect him of killing his own daughter, do you?" Cicero said, shocked.
"Men have done it before," I pointed out. "Even Agamemnon killed a daughter when it seemed necessary. Diocles was conveniently 'away' that night. He had the opportunity and he may have felt she had dishonored him with her multiple liaisons."
Cicero laughed drily. "Decius, I do not envy you. It's hard enough to get a conviction when you prosecute one man you know to be guilty. But to sort out one or more guilty parties from such a crowd, that is a labor worthy of Hercules!"
A little later Julia and the rest of my party arrived. She greeted Cicero courteously but coolly. Cicero was known for his opposition in the Senate to Caesar's ambitions. Cicero took his leave and I brought Julia up to date on the day's happenings.
"I've brought Leto and Gaia. They can be the mourners at Charmian's funeral."
"Are they up to it?" I asked.
"Gaia is much recovered. Germans are tough. And Leto is greatly heartened."
"Heartened? Why?"
"They were concerned that Diocles might seize them. They were not entirely sure that a praetor peregrinus would be competent to protect them. I told them that they were in my personal charge, that I am a Caesar, and that anyone who dared to interfere with them must answer personally to Julius Caesar."
"Ah, that should do the trick," I said. A mere Metellus holding the second-highest office of the Republic was no bargain as a guardian, but Julius Caesar himself, that was another matter entirely.
"And it was an excellent gesture, to give Charmian a funeral."
"Cicero thought so, although he considered it eccentric."
"Cicero is just a jumped-up snob. I, on the other hand, am a patrician. I appreciate the obligations of nobilitas."
"I know a bit about nobilitas as well," I assured her. "My family, though plebeian, have been consulars for a good many centuries."
"My point exactly," she said with impeccable obscurity.
"On to more pertinent things," I said. "What do you make of the circumstances I've been investigating? In particular, the odd combination of smells on that girl."
Julia shuddered. "Just doing such a thing seems obscene, but I understand why you did it. In a way, I almost wish I had been there. My sense of smell is much more sensitive than yours."
"Well, she's still right over there at the Temple of-"
"Don't even suggest it!" she cried with an apotropaic hand sign to ward off evil. "The very thought fills me with revulsion. Now, if you are through making absurd suggestions-?"
"Quite finished," I assured her.
"Well, then. Assuming you are correct about Zoroaster's Rapture, and I am confident that you are, it occurs to me that the person with whom she sought refuge would have bathed her immediately. The scent may have been in the bath oil or in an unguent applied to her wounds. Like many of the costliest scents, that one is believed to have curative properties."
"Have you ever heard of a perfume that expensive being used on a slave?"
"This is Baiae. The oil or unguent may have been all that was convenient when she arrived."
"That makes sense. What of the horse smell?"
"Maybe she didn't take refuge in a stable. Maybe she had been riding a horse."
"Is that possible? In her condition?"
"We already know that she was incredibly resilient. Just surviving the beating in the first place, then escaping and making her way on foot to Baiae. What was one more ordeal to such a creature?"
I began to ponder, seeking to place the facts we had into some sort of coherent sequence of events, some possible process that might account for all, or most of them. I call this making a model. Julia preferred to call it a paradigm, because she was a snooty patrician and preferred to use Greek.
"All right," I said, "let's try this. The girl, with the collusion of Gaia, flees the temple. Somehow, hurt and bleeding, she makes her way to Baiae."
"She had to pass through a gate," Julia said. "Probably the Cumae
gate."
"Good point. I'll look into it. Somebody may have seen her, although from what I've seen of the city guard, the Gauls could have marched in without waking them. So she got through the gate and went to the house of her friend protector, whatever you wish to call him. She is taken in, bathed, her wounds treated, given new clothes."
"Eventually," Julia said, following my line of thought, "she becomes a liability. Just why, we don't know. Perhaps she knew too much; perhaps he couldn't afford to have her discovered in his house. He tells her he's taking her somewhere else, somewhere safer."
"He mounts her on a horse," I speculated. "He leads her on another. But they go only as far as the municipal laundry, where he does away with her, removes the incriminating clothes, and goes away, probably back into the town."
"It's a possibility," Julia said, "but it leaves too much unexplained. Why did he kill her? Why the ritualistic disposition of the body? And just who did the girl think had a reason to protect her?"
"Almost anyone would be an improvement on Diocles," I said. "As for the rest, maybe Cicero's right and he's just mad."
"Madness is a too-convenient explanation for seeming irrationality. It is a
way to explain away that which we do not understand. More likely, the murderer had a very good reason for each of these apparently inexplicable things-we just don't know what it might be."
"All too likely," I said.
Circe breezed in by dinnertime, with her cluster of personal servants and attendant luggage.
"This is the most entertaining trip I've ever taken," Circe cried as she rushed into the colonnade. "Murders in strange places, pitched battles on the road! We'll be the envy of all our friends."
"You'll have an endless fund of stories to tell when everyone is back in Rome for the elections," I agreed. "I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to provide you with this bonanza of gossip."
A litter came right into the impluvium and was set down next to our table. In it Antonia was mopping the heroic brow of young Marcus with a damp cloth. He looked blissfully content.
"Marcus Caecilius Metellus!" I barked. "Get out of that litter and stand on your own feet! That little cut is on your arm and it hardly even bled, you malingering wretch. What am I going to do with you if we're called off to war? In the legions, you're expected to march forty miles a day if your legs are cut off at the knees!"
He crawled from the litter, grumbling, "Aren't you the grumpy one today."
"Can't you let a wounded hero enjoy a little pampering?" Antonia scolded. "You used to be known as the laziest rake in Rome."
"I earned my reputation the hard way," I told her. "Marcus is too young for such things. Decadence takes age and experience. He has neither."
Hermes came in from the town forum, where I'd sent him to collect gossip. "You'll be pleased to learn," he reported, "that there are calls to petition Rome for your recall, to send a band of local lawyers there to sue you for all manner of tyrannical and extraconstitutional practices, possibly to demand your execution."
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