"No. Most years she goes with me, but she pleaded that she was not feeling well and wished to spend the evening at home."
"So, when you returned?"
"When I returned-this was perhaps an hour ago, maybe less-all seemed as usual. The janitor opened the door for me, the majordomo greeted me and reported all was well in the house."
"Did you speak to any of the other servants?"
"No. The rest had all retired. I do not require them to wait up for me when I am to return late."
I turned to Hermes. "Find the janitor and majordomo and isolate them in separate rooms. I will question them later." He nodded and went to do my bidding. "Now, Manius Silva, if you will tell me how you found your wife?"
"Well, from the atrium I walked back to our sleeping quarters. Hapi-that is the majordomo's name-walked with me. I don't believe we said much. I just spoke of how well the banquet had gone, I think. I opened the door as I do every night. I was immediately struck by a-a strange odor."
I knew that odor well. "You saw nothing at first?"
"Nothing. It was very dark. I assumed Quadrilla had snuffed the lamps. I knew something was terribly wrong. I called her name, but there was no answer. Hapi ran to fetch lamps and we went in. Quadrilla was lying-well, you shall see, Praetor. I saw immediately that there was nothing to be done for her. I ordered Hapi out of the room and backed out myself. Nothing has been touched in there. She is as I found her. I immediately sent messengers to summon you and Norbanus and the civic magistrates." People were learning how I conducted an investigation.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Manius, you've shown great presence of mind under the most distressing of circumstances. I appreciate your foresight. I will make my inspection as quickly as possible, then we can have the libitinarii in to give Quadrilla the proper rites." He nodded dumbly.
Hermes returned moments later. "I've done as you ordered, Praetor." By this time a small group had assembled in the house, mostly the other civic officials.
"Very good. Here is how we shall proceed. Only I, my assistant Hermes, and the duumviri will enter the room where Quadrilla lies. This is not a spectacle but an official investigation. All will keep silent until [speak, and then they will speak only to answer my questions. I abjure you to remember what you see and what words are spoken. This will be a matter for court testimony soon. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Praetor," they said.
"Very well. Let's see what is to be seen."
Silva conducted us to the room, which opened off a central courtyard. Nervous slaves stood by with lamps. "Hermes," I said, "take the lamps inside and place them yourself. You know how to do it." By this I meant that he had long practice at not disturbing a crime scene.
"Yes, Praetor." He took the first lamp and walked in very carefully. Then he returned for another, taking them in one at a time until he had placed eight or ten within. When the room was illuminated, I walked in.
Immediately I was conscious of the smell that Manius Silva had noted-the sordid smell of death. Quadrilla lay on the bed amid luxuriant, disordered pillows. She was quite naked and had that deflated look common to the newly dead, like a wineskin that has been drained. She was a handsome woman of advancing years and clearly had once been a great beauty. Her overstretched navel gaped obscenely, the sapphire gone from its setting. I looked around the room and did not see it anywhere.
"Manius," I said, "where did Quadrilla keep her-her abdominal sapphire?"
He pointed to an ivory box upon a table. "She had a number of them."
"Hermes," I said. He opened the box to reveal around twenty sapphires. Some were rimmed with gold, some carved intaglio, even one with a pearl set in its center. They were nestled in yellow silk, each in its own depression. One depression was empty. "Which one is missing?"
"The largest," Silva said. "It was her favorite."
"Was she wearing it earlier today?"
"She was."
"It may be in the bedding," I said. "We'll have it searched once her body is attended to."
There was no mystery about how she had died. She lay in an untidy sprawl, her head twisted to one side. The hilt of a miniature dagger protruded from the base of her skull, at what my physician friend Asklepi-odes would term the insertion point of the neck vertebrae.
"Manius, do you recognize this weapon?" I asked. "Is it from this house?"
"Never saw it before," he said. From without, I heard whispering to the effect that Quadrilla had been killed in the same fashion as Gaeto. Hermes shushed them.
Beneath the smell of death I detected another fragrance, one with which I had grown familiar of late. "Manius, I suppose you can identify this perfume?"
He stepped closed and sniffed with a sick look on his face. "Of course. It is Zoroaster's Rapture. It was her favorite, and incredibly costly. Even I was able to procure only small amounts of it. She wore it for special occasions."
"And was she wearing it when she left you earlier?"
"She was not," he said grimly, not missing the implication.
I walked carefully around the room. There was no disorder save on the bed, where the cushions and coverlets were in some disarray, possibly as a result of the death struggle, but I doubted that.
I examined the lamps that had been in the room before we entered. Each had a good supply of oil. Either they had been snuffed out, or they had not been lit that night.
"There is no more to be done here," I said. "Call in the libitinarii. I want to know if that sapphire is found. Now I will talk with the majordomo."
Hermes had put the man in a small room opening off the triclinium. As his name would indicate, he was Egyptian. Hapi is the twin god of the Nile. He was middle-aged, bald, and pudgy, possibly a eunuch. When I walked in, he was sweating profusely.
"Praetor!" he piped. Yes, definitely a eunuch. "Praetor, I had no idea- I don't know what-"
"Just tell me what you do know," I commanded. "To begin with, when did your mistress return from the festival?"
"Just after sunset, Praetor." He wrung his hands, eyes darting in all directions save toward me.
"Was she alone?"
"Well-well, she arrived in a litter. A closed litter."
"Then I will want to speak to the litter bearers."
"It was not my lady's litter, Praetor. Her own litter had returned perhaps an hour earlier. She had dismissed her bearers, telling them that she wished to stroll in Diana's Grove, and that she would walk home, since it was such a fine evening."
"I see. And did you recognize this litter or its bearers?"
He looked down at the floor as if his salvation lay there. "No, Praetor. It was costly, and the bearers were all black Nubians."
"And she did not explain how she came to return in this fashion? Were you not curious?"
"One-one learns not to ask, Praetor."
"I understand. Tell me exactly what happened."
"At an hour past sunset, as I said before, the litter arrived at the front gate. The janitor admitted it, and when I came into the atrium, my lady told me that she was going to her bedroom and I was to dismiss her gii'ls to their quarters."
"Did you see who else might be in the litter?"
"No. My lady only put her head out and held the curtains close around her. The bearers took her right back to the bedroom, and a few minutes later they left with the litter."
"And you didn't- Yes, I know, one learns not to ask. Did you hear anything unusual from the bedroom?"
"No, Praetor. She said that the master would be at the guild banquet until very late and I might as well retire to my own quarters. It was not a suggestion, Praetor. I know when I am receiving a command, however gently it is put."
"Do you remember anything else?"
"Just that my lady seemed-very happy, Praetor."
The janitor was of no help at all. He was an elderly Bruttian who was barely able to speak and whose intelligence seemed just about equal to his duties. One doesn't need much in a slave who does little but open and shut the
front door.
By the time I left it was determined that the sapphire was nowhere in the bedroom.
"I rather liked the woman," I told Julia when I returned to our town house. "I am sorry that she is dead."
"At this rate," Antonia observed, "there will be no one left alive to give you any trouble."
"The last one still alive will be the killer," said Marcus helpfully. "That makes it simple, at the very least."
"If there's only one," I grumbled. "There may be a whole pack of them."
"Quadrilla was killed by Gaeto's murderer," Julia said. "The method was the same."
"Or somebody is copying this homicidal technique to cover up an unconnected murder," I speculated. "In the bad old days in Rome, when senators were being proscribed, many men used the confusion to settle old scores."
"Nonsense," Julia said. "Quadrilla smuggled a lover home and the lover killed her and took that sapphire."
"Why?" Circe queried. "I mean, why take that sapphire, fabulous though it was? There was ten times its value in the box that held her other navel adornments."
"The killer was taking a souvenir, a keepsake," I said.
"That's insane," Julia said.
"Clearly, this murderer is not quite sane, however clever," I said.
"Gorgo was killed haphazardly, and perhaps the killer did not go to meet her with murder in mind. Gaeto and Quadrilla were killed with an incredible cold-bloodedness. And then there was the bizarre, ritualistic way Charmian's body was laid out."
"Assuming there is just one killer," Julia said. "If it is just one, and he is not sane, we may never find out his identity."
"Why do you say that?" Antonia wanted to know.
"Because people usually kill from greed or jealousy," she answered. "A madman does not act from such motives. Do you remember that madman in Lanuvium a few years ago?"
"Oh, I remember that one!" Antonia said, clapping her hands with delight like a little girl. "Was it twenty or thirty bodies found in his well?"
"Twenty, I think," Julia said. "He testified that he heard Pluto calling from the bottom of his well, demanding human sacrifices. He threw one in every full moon for almost two years. Other than that, he seemed like a normal, rational man."
"I remember Cato saying that it was a terrible thing to do to a good well," I said.
"Our killer may be acting according to motives that make sense to him alone," Julia said, "and if that is the case, we may never discover who it is or who will die next."
"And I have to conduct a trial tomorrow," I said.
"Is there no way to delay it?" Julia asked.
"None," Hermes said. "Even if the augurs find the omens unpropi-tious, they'll just throw Gelon into the local lockup until the praetor can find time to return here, or until the next praetor peregrinus comes down from Rome."
"We can't have that," I said.
"Then go to bed," Julia ordered. "It's almost sunrise now."
"Very well," I said, suddenly feeling unutterably tired. "But I want to be wakened immediately if those cavalrymen return with some live bandits."
13
The horsemen returned early in the morning, as I was rubbing my bleary eyes and plunging my face into a basin of cold water. I was not in a good mood, and my disposition was not improved by their report.
I went into the atrium to find Sublicius Pansa, glittering in his polished cuirass and helmet, awaiting me.
"Praetor!" he cried joyfully. "I am happy to report that the bandits have been scoured out and will menace the district no more." You'd have thought that he'd conquered the Parthians single-handedly.
"Excellent. Now where are your prisoners? I want to question them."
"Ah, well. Praetor, you see, the boys were very keen to avenge your honor and the honor of Rome. After all, these vile creatures had raised profane hands against a serving praetor, insulting both to Rome, and to-"
"You didn't take any alive?" I said, disgusted but not at all surprised. Actually, I was somewhat astonished that they had managed not to get themselves massacred by the bandits.
"What did you bring me?" I asked, resigned.
"If you will come this way, Praetor." He strutted out into the street, where his turma awaited. Besides the cavalrymen there were seven horses draped with corpses. I took a close look but saw no familiar faces. The bandits smelled no prettier dead than they had alive.
Regilius sat his horse a little aside, looking disgusted. I signaled him to me and he rode over and dismounted.
"All right. Tell me what happened."
"We found three dead while tracking them," he said. "They'd been wounded in the fight with your lot. Caught up with the rest of them at the foot of the volcano. These twits treated it like stag hunting on their fathers' estates, whooping and chasing them down with lances. Could've got you your prisoners easy enough, if they hadn't been having so much fun." He spat on the unoffending pavement. "Found something for you, though."
"If so, I am grateful."
He led me to a small horse tethered behind the ones carrying the bodies. It was a handsome animal but very tired.
"This is the one we've been looking for. Knew it as soon as I saw their tracks." He caught my look. "It wasn't ridden by your murderer. He was a big, ugly brute that was no horseman. That's one reason it was so easy to ride them down. This is a fine beast, but she shouldn't have been carrying so much weight. Whoever rode her to the grove and to the slaver's house was the right weight for her."
"So she was pay," I said. "The murderer gave her as part of the bandits' fee for getting rid of us."
"Makes sense," Regilius said. "Bad bit of luck, though. I was hoping I'd be able to track her to the bugger's stable."
"It would have been conclusive evidence," I affirmed. "But our murderer is very good at getting rid of evidence." How good, I was just beginning to appreciate.
Although I considered the bandit-hunting expedition to have been a disaster, the townspeople felt otherwise. The sight of the dead bandits put them in a good mood and they hailed the cavalry as if they were conquering heroes. It did not hurt that they were Pompeian forces, Campania being one of Pompey's strongholds.
In the early morning, the town forum was packed with people come to witness the trial. Not just the town was there but also people from nearby towns and the surrounding villages. They had all come for the previous day's festival, and were staying on an extra day to see the splashy trial everyone had been talking about for days.
With my lictors clearing the way before me, I took my seat in the cu-rule chair on the dais. At my nod the day's proceedings began with sacrifices and the taking of auguries. To my relief, there was no examining the livers of sacrificial animals, for there was little Etruscan influence so far south. Rome, on the very border of Tuscia, has always been plagued with these liver readers. Instead, the local augurs took the omens decently, by observing the flight and feeding of birds and by determining the direction of lightning and thunder. Whatever methods were used, the omens were deemed propitious and we were permitted to proceed.
A chorus of hisses and execrations greeted Gelon, who rode in escorted by my own men. If his acquittal depended on crowd approval, he was already a dead man. Beside him rode Tiro. The two had spent the previous day closeted together, preparing the defense. Tiro looked confident, but that is part of a lawyer's job.
Next the jury was empaneled, some forty comfortable-looking equites who blandly took frightening oaths before the gods, happy in the knowledge that the gods, too, can be bribed.
One of my lictors led the witnesses to their benches. There were a good number of these, among them Diocles the priest, some nervous-looking temple servants, and Jocasta. Just before all was arranged, a man wearing a white tunic and the winged red hat of Mercury came running into the forum, holding aloft a little golden caduceus. He had tiny silver wings affixed to his sandals, and the crowd made way for him. He halted before the dais and took a small scroll from the wallet slung over his shoulder.
"The Temple of Juno the Protector at Cumae sends this to the Praetor Peregrinus Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, holding assizes at Baiae, in accordance with his subpoena." Hermes took the scroll and tipped the messenger as the crowd muttered, wondering what this might mean. Hermes tucked the scroll into his tunic and returned to my side.
I held up a hand for silence and received it. I nodded to young Marcus and he stepped forward, a picture of Roman gravitas. Around his arm was tied a bandage far larger than was justified by the wound beneath. "People of Baiae, attend!" he intoned. "Today the praetor peregrinus hears the case of Gelon, son of Gaeto the Numidian, accused of the murder of Gorgo, daughter of Diocles, priest of the Temple of Campanian Apollo. Long live the Senate and People of Rome!"
"Counselors, attend me," I said. The two advocates approached my curule chair. I nodded to Tiro. He turned to face the crowd and raised his right hand, palm to the sky.
"By Jupiter, Best and Greatest, dispenser of justice and protector of the innocent, I swear that I will prove the innocence of the accused. I am Marcus Tullius Cicero Tiro, freedman of the great proconsul Marcus Tul-lius Cicero."
At my nod the other now turned and raised his hand. He was a tall man with a face of great distinction, about forty-five years of age. His toga was draped in the fashion set by Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, a wonderfully effective look for delivering rhetoric.
"By Jupiter, Best and Greatest, punisher of the guilty, I swear that I will prove the guilt of Gelon, son of the notorious slaver, murderer of Gorgo, daughter of our revered priest. I am Aulus Julius Vibianus, citizen of Rome and Baiae."
This surprised me. I had no idea that the Julian gens had a branch in Baiae. The only Julians you ever heard of in Rome were the ones sur-named Caesar, and there were few of them. They never used the praenomen Aulus. I looked at the man's sandal and it was red, with the ivory crescent at the ankle, so he was a genuine patrician. I glanced toward Julia and she shrugged. She'd never heard of them either, it seemed.
Julia, of course, had no official capacity, and some in Rome might have thought it rather scandalous that she would even be present at one of my trials. But nothing was going to keep her away from this one, just as no law or custom prevented her from occasionally leaning over to whisper something in my ear. As long as she never spoke aloud, no one could accuse her of female interference, or me of being swayed by my wife's advice.
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