The Grove of the Caesars

by Lindsey Davis

  “Why didn’t it work?” asked Ursus, as if he wondered whether residents complained that the man was a pervert.

  “His style is rather traditional. Imperial designers want innovation. Imported plants. Contemporary layouts. Caesar’s Gardens suits him because things are kept the way they have always been.”

  “Does he get along with his staff?”

  “I think he prefers plants. I’m the same. He says if you put them in with tenderness they will give you back tenfold.”

  “Unlike people!” I commented. Gaius smiled, but was blushing more than ever.

  There had been no sign of any passion for greenery when I spoke to the team before. As far as I remembered, Gaius had not even spoken. At the time, I put it down to his shock about Satia’s corpse. Now I wondered if he always kept quiet with the older men, rather than standing up to their hidebound attitudes. “You enjoy your work?” He nodded. “How do you find the other gardeners?”

  “Oh, they are all right.”

  “They look rough to me,” said Ursus. “I’d say they were skivers and lecherous toads. Have they made you go with them to learn what to do with women?”

  Gaius writhed with awkwardness, but he answered calmly, “Yes, but I already knew what to do. After the first time, they stopped nagging on about it. Then I just avoided the subject.”

  “Who nagged you?” Ursus carried on. He spoke as if it wasn’t important, though I knew what he was doing. “One of them or all of them?”

  “Quietus mostly. He took me.”

  “To a brothel?”

  “To a woman in the gardens.”

  “Rural! You know we’ve got Quietus locked up at the station-house?”

  Gaius looked nervous in a way we had not seen before. “Because of the billhook?” he quavered.

  Ursus let his questions roll out steadily, with a low level of excitement. “Did that tool really break today?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was mending it?”

  “He is our tool-mender.”

  “That figures then … You know we found those missing boys?”

  “Yes, it’s the talk of everywhere—someone had smashed their heads in, hadn’t they?”

  I pushed away my bowl. I had done all I could with the globuli. “Gaius, you wouldn’t want to suffer what was done to those boys. I won’t even tell you about it.”

  Eyes wide, he whispered, “Are they dead?”

  “Some things are worse.” I let him take that in. “So, Gaius, if you know anything, you ought to talk to us. Tell me about the night when that woman Satia died. Gardeners were sleeping at your compound. I’m sure you know about it, so you need to tell us who.”

  Gaius did not want to. We waited, but he refused to give. Ursus and I turned to one another. We held a short conversation together, letting the lad listen.

  “He’s frightened.”

  “He would be. Who can blame him?”

  “He thinks telling us could lead to trouble for him.”

  “He’s right. He has to work with them.”

  “Can we keep him safe?”

  “We can.”

  “We could take him out of the group—say he has had a breakdown.”

  “Because of what he saw, the corpse. It’s feasible.”

  “I would have him at my house, but you know the position. If the Pest, as they call him, comes looking for my boys … Well, you know. Does the Seventh have a safe house?”

  “We can look after him.”

  “Where? At the station-house? What about Julius Karus?”

  “I won’t tell Karus.”

  “And you’ve got your suspect in the cells.”

  “Quietus will be leaving as soon as Karus does the paperwork. Don’t worry your head, Flavia. Our lads will take good care of Gaius.” Ursus turned back to the apprentice. “Lots of fire-fighting tools to play with—and our tribune is very sensitive. He would love to have someone who knows what he’s doing to plant up window-boxes.”

  I kept my face straight at this prospect. I would balk at the Seventh “taking good care” of me … Still, I was not a lad. The worst they could do was take him to a whore to lose his virginity—again.

  Ursus took over my food bowl; he picked at my leavings of globuli fastidiously, masticating with his perfect teeth. “You ask him again about the night in question, Flavia.”

  So the task was mine. I squeezed out from Gaius what he knew: when Satia died in Caesar’s Gardens, he himself had gone home earlier. He lived with grandparents, not parents as Quietus had said. Quietus and Blandus had both stayed behind at their compound. Quietus always camped with the pony, while more recently Blandus had bunked down in the office.

  “Rullius?”

  “He goes home.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Across the river.”

  “And next morning,” I suggested, “who decided where your team would work?”

  “The Super. We weren’t gardening, though. He told us we had to look for the woman.”

  “Did any of the men object to the area chosen for you to search? Anybody restive? Anyone think you ought to work somewhere else?”

  The young man’s face clouded. He had worked out that I wondered whether one of his colleagues had known in advance that a corpse was there. He flushed again, then burst out anxiously, “Everyone knew we were going to find something awful. All the staff had been told we had to search for a missing woman, who was probably dead. We were assigned areas and sent to them at first light. Nobody had a choice. That agent—”

  “Karus?”

  “He had come to say how it must be done.”

  I knew all this was true. “All right. Now think back. Can you remember, Gaius, the night of the big birthday party, when Victoria Tertia was murdered? Did Blandus and Quietus sleep in the compound then, too?”

  “Yes, they did.” The lad was bright enough to see the implications, which clearly unsettled him. “I know they were in the gardens early next day, during that big commotion about her going missing. They helped people look for her … Oh, I don’t like having to talk about this!”

  Gaius abruptly snuffled into his hands, wiping his eyes. If a suspect had started to cry during an interrogation, Ursus and I would suppose he was feeling sorry for himself because he had done it. Not this one.

  Still, I would not be soft: “Gaius, you don’t need to cry. But I feel you haven’t told me everything.” He seemed past cooperating. Still I tried to squeeze more out of him. I suggested everyone at Caesar’s Gardens suspected who the killer was, yet nobody ever said anything. “It’s going to be the last person imaginable,” I mused. “In the end, though, we shall find some clue and pick him up. Time is running out for him. It’s inevitable. Then, when the vigiles arrest him, everyone who knows this man will refuse to believe that it’s him.”

  I had spoken as if I had a clear idea who it was. I must have sounded more convinced than I felt.

  Lured into sharing, Gaius at last decided to unburden. Almost apologetically, he told us something new. What he said concerned Rullius, the third gardener he worked with.

  Rullius, Gaius wanted us to believe, was a nice man. Everyone liked him. He worked hard, he was helpful to everyone, he even volunteered to look after the sanctuary of Hercules in Caesar’s Gardens. He had a wife and children. He lived with them across the Tiber, just past the Trigeminal Gate. Every night he called out, “I’m off, then!” as he headed away. He crossed on the Sublician Bridge, coming back to the Transtiberina with the pack animals at first light next day.

  This seemed to clear Rullius of guilt. He was never in the gardens or the Grove after dark, when bad things happened. At least, that was what everyone thought—but, said our young witness quietly, it was not entirely true. One evening, before our workmen began their demolition task, Gaius had been on his own in the Grove, looking at the big trees. He loved trees. He loved the ancient peace in that sacred forest.

  After Rullius was supposed to have left fo
r home that night, Gaius saw him, still in the Grove. He was going to the slimy grotto. Something about him prevented Gaius calling out. He watched as Rullius went into the old cave. Although Gaius stayed looking at plane trees for a long time, Rullius never came out again.

  It grew dark. Gaius had to go home to his grandparents. But he felt Rullius had entered the cave with an air of purpose so, until Larcius and the workmen dismantled the rocks, Gaius believed the other man sometimes used to sleep there.

  XLIX

  Ursus called over a man to take the apprentice to the Seventh’s headquarters. I saw a wink and overheard instructions for keeping him hidden from Karus. It was time for us to move.

  Fastidious as ever, the investigating officer removed strands of parsley from between his teeth, using a double-ended toothpick-cum-ear-scoop from the pouch on his belt where he kept his ruler. Unsurprisingly, I could see he had a knife-with-a-spoon too.

  “You have a knack,” he said, between expert picking. “I might never have got that out of him. Good for you.” His praise surprised me. Still, I knew who would claim full credit. My contribution would be ignored in reports. “I like your style, Flavia. This new lead may have broken the case.”

  It was a very small lead. “He lurks,” I disagreed. “When he can’t be bothered walking home across the river, or when his wife has her mother staying, or the children keep nagging for new toys, Rullius stays out and lurks. That proves nothing.”

  “It’s a lead,” insisted Ursus. “Now, we ought to have a look at those gardeners, shouldn’t we? Karus has been pottering about, but we can do it properly. And I want to inspect this grotto in the forest. You’d better show me.”

  Privately I cursed. I had, of course, intended looking by myself.

  We stood up to go. As we walked through the district before we headed towards the Grove of the Caesars, Ursus broke more news: he had received a catch-me-if-you-can letter. It had been thrown over the station-house gates last night. The troops found it that morning before I arrived.

  “Addressed to you?”

  “Yes. If it’s really from the killer, this is personal. ‘Ursus, greetings! You are doing very badly with me, I must say. Your new friend has not helped you get any nearer. I had to take another one out of action to remind you.’ Bad writing. Bad spelling. But you get the point … This could be him—or it could be a mindless creep in the community with time on his hands.”

  “Unsigned, I take it?”

  “Oh, he knows his own nickname. I bet he’s proud to have one. Such criminals see a label as validation. ‘Just nudging—from your respectful friend the Pest.’ Annoying turd!”

  “Would you say direct contact is rare in these cases?” I was thinking I must ask Uncle Petro about his experience.

  “No. But I’d say it’s a trial,” Ursus growled. “I haven’t got time for such nonsense.”

  We talked about having to investigate the note, a distraction from the real search. Other investigators, Ursus grumbled, might let themselves become sidetracked by such apparently compelling evidence. To him, it would be wasting endless effort.

  “You believe it’s a hoax?” I asked him.

  “Open mind.”

  “Pursuing it, though?”

  “Incontrovertibly!” Ursus assured me in a hollow voice, his form of satire. “This is of ‘utmost importance,’ in the good old phrase—so I’ll give it to Julius Karus! He can keep it tucked in his loincloth so he can wave it at witnesses.”

  I grimaced.

  * * *

  I was about to grimace much more. To reach the grove from the bar near the Via Aurelia, we had to pass the Naumachia. The fastest way was right up close at the end that faced the river, on the encircling pathway where snack and trinket booths would be set up outside on public occasions. I had avoided this area until now.

  With Ursus beside me, I had no qualms about randy sailors. However, a commotion was occurring that did cause concern. As we reached the massive oval structure, one of the vigiles came running towards us. He stopped and exclaimed with relief when he saw Ursus. Breathlessly he explained: a man covered with blood had been seen dragging a woman into the Naumachia. He was shouting, she was screaming. Terrified witnesses reported he had a knife to her throat.

  “Sounds like a domestic,” I said. “Some wife has burned his meal again.” More likely he was a brute, she had said she was leaving him and taking the children, he refused, and now the obsessional idiot intended to kill all his family. “I’ll go on,” I attempted, since I thought it a coincidence, and nothing to do with the gardens killer. If so, it would give me a chance to explore without hassle. “I can start at the Grove by myself, Ursus. I’ll leave you to deal with this nutter.”

  “Not so fast, Flavia! We do have a man who talks them down when they are jumping off a roof—I would let them jump, but pulling them back saves a mess on the pavement. Sadly, he’s not been at work for weeks, due to his bunions. You are going to come with me and use your magic touch—calming a maniac who is making wild threats should be right up your street.”

  Oh, Juno.

  “Karus is there,” said the vigilis. “People are saying it’s the Pest.”

  “Not his style!” I gasped, running. Karus. That was all we needed.

  “She’s right,” Ursus grunted, more out of condition than he would admit. “We looked at two decades of old crimes, and in all the reports, the Pest never used a knife once.”

  The vigilis, strong and healthy, kept trotting comfortably alongside us. “Well, this fellow has grabbed one from somewhere—and apparently it’s an enormous blade.”

  Letter to Manlius Faustus: Sir, we regret to inform you that in the course of a brave action, selflessly attempting to save others, your wife met with a tragic accident …

  L

  Leaden grey, the huge basin reflected almost the entire winter sky. However deep it was, the undrinkable waters from the Alsietina aqueduct kept permanently churning in from Etruria to top it up. The filler pipe was thirty feet in diameter. Even after they fed off it to irrigate local gardens, huge quantities of water torrented in.

  It is often claimed that the Flavian Amphitheatre is the largest ever, a new wonder of the modern world. Fortunately, I had a brother aged twelve who loved correcting people. Postumus had spent time with his birth-mother at a nearby arena, so this flooded basin ended up in the spidery note-tablets where he obsessively collected knowledge. Largest ever? Postumus knew: “The new amphitheatre in the Forum is six hundred and forty feet long times five hundred and twenty-eight feet wide, while the Naumachia of Augustus in the Transtiberina—I certainly don’t mean his other naumachia in the Field of Mars, by the way—is, as that emperor tells us in his helpful inscription Things What I Have Done, one thousand eight hundred feet long times one thousand two hundred feet wide. Indeed it is—”

  “Twice as big, darling.” Get your facts straight, gullible tourists.

  Olympus! Eighteen hundred by twelve hundred feet made, as Ursus muttered, a bloody big pond. I had vaguely been aware of the monument’s exterior size on occasions when I had had to walk around it. Once through the entrance, it was breathtaking. From inside, it was like staring across a huge flooded marsh. The surface rippled sluggishly beneath the wind. Odd coots and mallards treated it as an isolated lake. Out here, on the edge of Rome, without the crowds it had been built for, this was a lonely, mournful place.

  The impression of remoteness was heightened because during long periods of neglect seagulls had come up from the coast, taken the high walls for beautifully faced cliffs, and nested there. They stared down malevolently, like omens of the underworld. Occasionally a huge bird would sweep past us at speed, full of threat.

  Some banked seats had human occupants. Dear gods, whatever was about to happen here would have an audience. Sailors based in the barracks had heard of goings-on. They had rushed to see, and were cat-calling the parties involved, though I was confused as to whether they meant she should hang on for rescue, or he s
hould get on and kill her. There was no time to wonder; it was crisis point.

  The man with the knife had gone on board a ship. To have any chance of reaching him, we would have to find another on the far side. That meant jogging all around the interior on a decrepit walkway. It was risky. The planks sagged in sodden decay under us. Everything needed maintenance, because nowadays naval displays took place on the Field of Mars or in the much superior Flavian Amphitheatre. Those venues were conveniently central, and the Flavian basin could be filled and emptied in less than an hour, a crowd-pleaser.

  Vigiles, who had been called by the public, reported to Ursus while they ran with us around the basin. A distressing story emerged. It must have started while Ursus and I interviewed Quietus, then talked to Gaius, with trouble erupting after Karus had left the station-house. Keen to prove his theory about Quietus, he must have brought himself back to the gardens. The woman who was now being held captive had been visiting her brother, who worked in the ship sheds by the Naumachia. A man had learned that she, his wife, was having an affair—using the sheds as a love nest. The discovery had happened when Karus’s men, searching Caesar’s Gardens, found messages between the lovers.

  “What—were they buried?” I had visions of more scrolls.

  “No, they were hidden under plant lists in the superintendent’s office.”

  “He’s not the crazed husband?” I gasped.

  “No, he was the lover.”

  “Holy muses! Berytus? Who’s the husband?”

  “The man with the knife? A gardener. One of his staff.”

  This just got more and more unbelievable. “How did he find out?”

  “Karus named the lovers.”

  “Karus!” snorted Ursus. As he ran faster in disgust, his plodding feet threatened to sink through the rotten boards of a waterlogged part of the walkway. “Bloody Karus! What did he do?”