As she lay down on the bed and I was poised over her, our eyes met. We both knew that, in an instant, we could pass the point that would change our lives forever. This was our last chance to stop. Breathing hard—almost gasping—she arched her back, put her arms around me, and pulled me into her with a moan.
Perhaps it was the years of unacknowledged yearning finally finding an outlet. Or perhaps we knew we weren’t likely ever to have another opportunity like this. It was well into the early hours of the morning when we finally lay quietly, breathing deeply, with my arm around her, her head on my shoulder and her hand on my chest, playing with the Tyche ring. I knew she had never been with a man, but she had clearly learned some things from talking with other women in my house.
“Are you sorry we did this?” Aurora asked.
“How can you ask that? I’m just glad Tacitus went back to Rome ahead of us. He would recognize what happened in an instant when he saw us, as clearly as if we were slaves for sale, with placards around our necks listing our virtues and faults.”
Aurora propped herself up on one elbow. “And what are my faults?”
I kissed her breasts. “That side of your placard would be blank.”
“Very good answer. Not at all evasive.” She laughed and snuggled closer, if that was possible. “Do you think, by the time we get back to Rome, we can resume some pretense of being master and servant?”
I caressed her hair and kissed her forehead. “We both know we haven’t been master and servant for a long time, perhaps never. I just thank the gods that my mother is on her way to Misenum. As keenly as she watches everything—”
“I thought you didn’t believe in gods,” Aurora said.
I touched the Tyche ring and smiled like the besotted fool I was at that moment. “After tonight I may have to take a different position on that.”
She slid her hand slowly down my chest. “Speaking of a different position—”
But before she could finish the gesture or the thought, someone outside shouted, “Fire! Fire!”
*
The yelling grew louder, and we heard someone ringing a bell. We both jumped out of bed. I slipped on my tunic and looked out the window to see a sizeable fire blazing behind the taberna.
“It’s the shed.”
Holding her gown in front of her, Aurora stood beside me and craned her neck out the window. “The shed where the woman’s body is?”
“Yes. I need to go down there. You wait here.”
“But I want to see—”
“We can’t be seen together in the middle of the night. Count to a hundred, then come down. There should be a crowd by then.”
By the time I got downstairs people were coming from all directions, including my freedmen, Segetius and Rufinus, and other lodgers at the taberna across the road. Marinthus formed them into a line to pass buckets, hauling water from the Tiber. He stuck a bucket in my hand before I could even volunteer.
“Buckets!” he yelled. “Anybody who’s got a bucket or anything that will hold water, please bring it.”
As soon as Aurora arrived—and she must have counted rapidly—she took a position in the line close to the Tiber. Marinthus’ son, Theodorus, stationed himself beside her. A few hours ago that would have bothered me.
The shed was built of stone, with wooden beams supporting the tile roof, and a floor of packed dirt. It was slightly taller than the height of a typical man. The fire we were trying to douse was coming through the roof, sending tiles crashing into the interior. The buckets had to be lifted and the water thrown over the walls.
Our biggest handicap was the small number of buckets, pots, and other containers we had. I heard a crash and a shout from Aurora’s end of the line. While waiting for the next bucket to reach me, I looked in that direction, with the flickering light of the fire providing barely enough illumination for that distance. There was some sort of altercation taking place. Theodorus pushed a man out of the line. I heard him say something about a clumsy oaf, but then another bucket found its way into my hands.
We managed to put out the blaze before it could spread to any other buildings and before my hands were rubbed raw. I was relieved that Aurora kept herself modestly in the background. That’s our technique when we’re investigating: one comes to the fore, draws attention, while the other observes from the background.
Shaking his head slowly, Marinthus surveyed the smoldering remains. “I don’t understand how it burned so fast, sir. A fire needs air. There aren’t any windows in this shed. I’ve seen a fire in a closed room smother from the very smoke it produces. ”
Since it wasn’t safe to go into the little building yet, Marinthus and I walked around it. On the back wall I noticed that one stone had been knocked out from the inside. It lay at the foot of the wall.
“That’s never been there before, sir,” Marinthus said when I called it to his attention.
“Then the fire was no accident.”
When we returned to the front, I pointed to the bottom of the door. “There’s a worn space under the door, almost a hand deep.”
“Yes, sir. We go in and out of here quite a bit, often dragging things.”
“That, along with the new hole in the back wall, would create a draft that would give the fire enough air for it to burn.”
“Yes, sir. I can see how it would.”
The sturdy door was too hot to touch. “Do you have an axe or something we could use to knock the door down?”
In response to his father’s call Theodorus brought us a mallet.
“What was all that noise about?” I asked him. “When you pushed that man out of the line.”
“The idiot dropped a pot and broke it,” Theodorus said, “and he had already dropped one bucket.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know. Never seen him before. A guest at Justus’ place, I suppose. He was doing more harm than good. Kept babbling to himself and just getting in the way.”
Marinthus, grunting with the effort, pushed the door of the shed in enough to allow us to put our heads through and look inside. In addition to the smoke I smelled burned cheese and flour. The stone walls had suffered little damage. Everything inside, though, was reduced to ashes. In the middle of the shed, partly covered by tiles that had fallen in from the roof, lay a smoldering mass. Only its shape and the odor of charred flesh enabled me to identify it as human remains. The woman’s body was so badly burned that I knew immediately I could not hope to recover any more information from examining her.
“As effective as a funeral pyre,” I said.
“Yes, sir, and you didn’t have to pay for it.” Marinthus gave me a congratulatory pat on the back.
I ignored the inappropriate humor and the over-familiar gesture. “It’s clear the fire was set inside the shed. Someone must have poured oil over everything.”
“I store my extra oil for cooking and lamps out here. It looks like there’s several amphoras smashed.”
I nodded. “It must have burned for quite a while before it broke through the roof.”
“At least the place can be repaired, after it’s cleaned out.” Marinthus stepped back and surveyed the damage in its entirety. “But who set the fire, sir? And why?”
“With dozens of people trampling around here, there’s no hope of finding a clue about who. As for the why… Have you had anything like this happen before?”
“No, sir. This is a peaceful place, except for the occasional drunk or a dispute over a bill.” He lowered his voice. “I suspect this has more to do with…what you were storing in here.”
I moved closer to him and spoke softly. “I hate to admit it, but I agree with you. Because of that I’ll give you some money to cover the cost of the rebuilding.”
“That’s very kind of you, sir. So, what are you going to do now?”
I stepped away from Marinthus and brought my voice back to its normal volume, shaking my head as I looked at the burned-out shed. “I don’t think there’s anything more
I can do. I’ll post my two men as guards for the rest of the night. If a magistrate arrives from Ostia tomorrow, I’ll hand the remains over to him and tell him what I know, which is actually nothing. Then I’m going back to Rome.”
“Without finding out who did this?”
“More crimes go unsolved than are solved, I’m afraid.” I held my hands up as though surrendering. “I just don’t think there’s anything else I can do about this one.”
“Well, I hope you can sleep for the bit of the night that’s left, sir. Thank you—and your lady—for your help.”
By the time I got back upstairs Aurora was already in the room. It was sweet to think of it as our room, even though we had only a couple of more hours to spend together in it.
“Gaius, I’m so disappointed,” she said as soon as I closed the door.
“That wasn’t what you said an hour ago.”
“No, not about that.” She blushed and waved her hand toward the bed. “I heard you say you weren’t going to try to find that girl’s killer. But you told me you were going to.”
I took her by the shoulders and sat her down on the bed. “You know I would not go back on my word to you. The person who set the fire must have some connection to whoever killed her. Someone doesn’t want me to be able to examine the body and possibly identify her, which might lead me to the killer.”
“Do you think he could still be around?”
“I believe so. I told Marinthus I was giving up in hopes that the person who set the fire would hear me and think he’d gotten away with his crime.”
“So you’re not giving up?”
“No, I most definitely am not. Beyond talking to the sons of Sextus Tabellius, I’m not sure what I can do, but I’m going to do that much and then—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence because Aurora’s lips were planted firmly over mine.
*
“Gaius, wake up. Wake up.”
Aurora’s voice was soft in my ear but insistent. When I reached for her, though, she wasn’t lying in the bed next to me. I opened my eyes to find her standing over me, already dressed, much to my disappointment. The earliest glimmer of dawn was coming through the window.
“What—”
“Wake up. I need for you to come to the shed with me.”
“The…shed?” What did she want to do in the shed? Something erotic—Oh, yes, the shed. The memory and the smell of smoke hanging in the air jarred my groggy head. “What about the shed?”
“I want to show you something. Something important.”
“All right. Give me a minute.” Rubbing my eyes, I sat on the edge of the bed and reached under it for the chamber pot. Aurora stepped outside the door. Funny, we had sat side by side in a latrina on more than one occasion, covered by our clothing of course, but this must be some new level of intimacy that she wasn’t ready for. I didn’t understand, especially after last night. She had seen—and touched—anything she would see now.
When I was dressed and had thrown some water on my face from the bowl on the small table—the only other piece of furniture in the room—I joined her on the stairs and followed her out to the shed.
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
“I saw something in the shed that you need to see.”
I stopped in surprise. “How did you get in there? I posted guards.”
She snorted in derision. “Guards who were sound asleep as of a few moments ago.” Her face showed her dismay at betraying a fellow servant. “But don’t punish them, please.”
By the time we got to the shed the first rays of the day’s sunlight were visible and both of my freedmen were on their feet. “Good morning, my lord,” the man at the door said, unable to stifle a yawn. “Good morning, Aurora.”
“Has anyone tried to get in here?” I asked.
“No, my lord. It’s been very quiet.”
I knew they should be punished, but the only way I could reveal that I knew they’d been asleep was to implicate Aurora, and that I could not do. “You’re dismissed,” I said. “Get something to eat and…rest a bit. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”
As they ambled away Aurora said, “It wasn’t quiet when I came down here. That man was snoring as loudly as your uncle used to.”
I chuckled. When we were children we once sat in the garden outside my uncle’s room and laughed at his snoring. We wondered how Aurora’s mother could stand to sleep with him.
When Aurora pushed the door of the shed open, a cloud of smoke drifted out. The moisture in the cool morning air kept it close to the ground. As it settled, we fanned it away and stepped into the ruins. “The ashes are still warm,” she said. “Be careful.”
No sooner had she said the words than I began to feel heat through my sandals, like walking on the floor of a bath.
The wooden shelves on two walls of the shed had collapsed, dumping their contents. The table on which the woman’s body was placed had burned more at one end than the other, leaving her lying at an angle, about to slip off the table entirely.
“Why did you come out here?” I asked Aurora.
“I wanted to say good-bye to…to her—whoever she is—in private, and I knew this would be our last chance to examine the site before we disturb things. I moved some of the tiles off her body and then I saw this.”
She pointed to a knife protruding from the chest of the charred body.
“Why would someone stab a person who’s already dead?” I wondered.
“It’s not only that. Look more closely.”
Then, in the dim light and through the haze, I saw it—my dolphin insignia embossed on the handle of the knife. “By the gods. That’s my knife, the one I gave you before we left Rome. How did it get here?”
“I have no idea,” Aurora said. “I unstrapped it from my leg when I cleaned up and changed last night, before I came to sit with you on the terrace. That’s the last time I saw it.”
“That means someone got into your room while we were talking or while we were…”
“Otherwise engaged?”
“Yes, that will do.”
Aurora blushed. I could see her face redden even in the gloom. “Oh, no! I hope it was while we were talking on the terrace. I hate to think someone was outside the door while… What would they have heard?”
“What wouldn’t they have heard?”
“Gaius, now you’re embarrassing me.”
I kissed her cheek. “Sorry. You were wonderful. It was all wonderful.” I felt so free, being able to speak to her at last in such an intimate way, and so odd because I was doing it in such a macabre setting, a place Ovid never would recommend in his Art of Love. “But, more to the point, why would somebody take the knife? They must have found it while they were looking for something else. They couldn’t have known you had it.”
“No. I didn’t show it to anyone. I mean, I couldn’t dare to.”
“Did anyone brush up against you, so they might have felt it?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure of it.”
“So what could they have been looking for in that room?”
“If someone knew you had given the room to me, they could have been looking for something of mine or of Crispina’s.”
I pulled the knife out of the corpse. “All right, let’s say they happened upon the knife while they were searching that room. Pure chance. Then why do this?”
“It feels like some kind of message, or warning.”
“A message of what? A warning against what?” I looked around at the ruins of the shed. What had someone hoped to accomplish by stabbing and incinerating the body of a headless dead woman? How many times do you need to kill someone? “If they thought this would scare me off, they were badly mistaken. It makes me more determined than ever to find the person responsible.”
The sun was fully up now, and light filtered into the shed through what used to be the roof. I looked at the body and the area surrounding it one last time, but in the lingering haze I saw nothing that gave
me any hope of unraveling this knot, in spite of my braggadocio.
“I guess that’s all we can do here,” Aurora said, taking a few steps toward the rear of the shed. “With the fire destroying any clues that—” She gasped.
“What’s the matter?”
All she could do was point to the ground. Following her finger, I saw a head.
“Is it hers?” Aurora whispered.
“I don’t see how it could be anyone else’s.”
“How did it get here?”
“I’d wager that the person who started the fire left it here.” I stooped and looked as closely as I dared at the charred lump, poking it lightly with my knife. “It must have been on the table with the body but fell off when the table collapsed.”
“But that means someone who was at the villa brought it here.”
“Perhaps the person who killed her.”
*
I wiped my knife as clean as I could on the grass outside the shed. We made it back upstairs without being noticed and I put the knife in my bag. Aurora filled her bag with her things and all of Crispina’s belongings. By the time we had eaten a little something, Marinthus’ servant was back from Ostia with a magistrate, who took possession of the woman’s blackened remains as reluctantly as if I were asking him to take charge of an overflowing slop jar.
“Why is the head separate from the body?” he asked. Hearing my explanation, he twisted his lip. “That makes this a more complicated matter.”
He allowed me to give him a report of what had happened, which his wide-eyed scribe took down as I dictated it. When we were done, I pressed my seal into some wax at the bottom. The magistrate promised to visit the villa where the murder had taken place.
“I’m not sure my jurisdiction extends that far,” he said in conclusion, “but I’ll look into it.” His attitude and his tone were already turned back toward Ostia, where he clearly hoped to be in time for his afternoon bath, followed by a leisurely dinner, where he would regale his companions with the gruesome details of his morning. I hoped he didn’t dump the body into the Tiber along the way to lighten his load or invite his friends to gaze at it to gain himself a few moments of celebrity.
Theodorus made certain he was there when Aurora was ready to mount her horse for the trip back to Rome. She accepted his help with a smile. Looking down at his eager face, with admiration smeared over it like oil on a wrestler, I thought, If only you knew what a lucky bastard I am now. If only you knew.… Happiness—no, utter bliss—does lose a bit of its glow when you can’t tell anyone why you’re so ecstatic. For the first time, I understood how the initiates of a mystery cult must feel, and yet they can’t tell anyone what they’ve experienced. Aurora wasn’t the first woman I’d coupled with. That wasn’t the mystery. I was in love with her, and that made all the difference.
The Eyes of Aurora Page 9