The Grove of the Caesars

by Lindsey Davis

  * * *

  We rode almost as far as the garden tomb where I had found Galanthus. Most of Julius Caesar’s walks, statues and pavilions were gone now, but traces of the old gracious garden layout remained. Public moves to repopulate the riverbank would eventually bring big wharf and warehouse complexes, but had begun quietly with permitting religious shrines.

  Hercules, according to Roman mythology, had a connection with Rome. In his tenth labour, he stole the cattle of Geryon, which he drove all across Italy, bringing them to the Aventine. Some were rustled by the filthy monster Cacus, that charmer after whom shit is nicknamed. Hercules slew Cacus in his disgusting cave under the Palatine, starting our fine tradition of good city public health. In gratitude we had temples to Hercules everywhere, including my favourite, the little round gem in the meat market. Meanwhile his status as a human who became a god and ascended to the stars made him a protector of emperors, with their own celestial aspirations. But if gladiators had built him a shrine, that was because he was a big, strong fellow, who could overpower anything.

  We trotted down parallel with the river, then through the Portuensis Gate. Syrians and Judaeans lived here and were buried in their own cemeteries. Officially outwith the city boundary, they had created shrines to various foreign gods, especially patrons of commerce and guardians of travel. At the first milestone stood the Temple of Fors Fortuna, goddess of Fate, a fickle dispenser of luck. Turning off the road there, we came to the remains of ancient quarrying for tufa and a vineyard. Here was Hercules in a rustic sanctuary. Hercules Cubans: Hercules having a nice rest on a couch.

  Two statues left us in no doubt. In the larger, the demigod was seated. Carved into a rocky outcrop, there was also an aedicular shrine, in the form of a rectangular niche, framed with columns and graced with a pediment, containing a pictorial scene. There, the powerful figure of Hercules reclined on a flat-topped rock with a three-legged serving table in front of him. So muscle-bound that he looked stony himself, head back, the demigod appeared to have already quaffed from the cup in his right hand, yet he kept the other on his club.

  Not all sanctuaries contain temples. This was a peaceful retreat with informal facilities. Hercules never needed to preside in a grand colonnaded edifice, on a hilltop acropolis. Here he was, having a break from his travels and labours, surrounded by greenery. Other divinities shared his space among the lovely trees and shrubs: Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, Bacchus, with some of their dedicated busts in red-painted natural stone, others in marble. There were the usual miniature statuettes deposited by the faithful, plus a long flat table for offerings. A private individual had donated two small altars. Stone furniture showed that people came here for outdoor dining, honouring their dead or simply meeting in professional societies under the guise of funeral clubs.

  It was all guarded by a sanctuary crone. A typical bent nosy-noddle, clad in black, she sidled about, eyeing visitors as if they had come to steal cakes off the altars, while eagerly cupping a clawed hand for tips. There were no cakes, so I bet she kept alive by eating them. Ursus seemed wary of her; he must have encountered half-mad, half-mendicant old bats before. With the light fading, we had no time for niceties. “Don’t give me any trouble, Grandma!” he commanded. This passed for finesse with the Seventh.

  I could see the crone believed her religious devotion made her the equal of anyone. Before she sounded off at him in screechy indignation, I quietly soothed her: “Ignore him. He’s just anxious, and a man. I warn you, there are more coming. We apologise for invading. Information suggests that Hercules Cubans has been used by a criminal for hideous profanity.”

  “Not in my shrine!” bleated the guardian. She was going to be wrong about that.

  I looked around. A neat boundary of plants marked out the sacred area. All temples in Rome had trees—symmetrical rose bushes, oleanders, olives, plane trees—softening them. Here were myrtles, figs and nuts. People always think of temples as isolated marble monuments, with grand steps, tall columns, friezes and huge pedimented porches. But even in those, their surroundings are always pleasant places for reflection; this simple shrine reflected that. Hercules Cubans lived in a small garden. Someone worked hard to keep it neat for him. All the foliage was trimmed, clipped and tidy. Bushes were round. Trees stood straight; twigs had been tipped to thicken them. Paths had manicured edges. No moss crept onto stonework.

  “Your shrine is beautifully kept. Tell me who looks after the grounds, please.”

  “One of the gardeners comes to tidy round for us.”

  “One in particular?”

  “Rullius.”

  “Has he been doing this for a long time?”

  “We have known him for years.”

  “He does a good job. A nice man?”

  “So lovely. Everyone thinks he is wonderful.” I glanced at Ursus. He acknowledged my unspoken comment. The crone saw us. She fluttered, as if hints of the man’s real nature might sometimes have worried her, though she said nothing. Whatever Rullius was accused of, she planned to stand up for him. Whatever we claimed he was, she would say we were making a crazy mistake.

  “I would like to hear exactly what your gardener does, please. Describe his routine when he comes.”

  She gave me a look as if I was crazy, but she went through it: he would arrive, weed the ornamental beds, hack out brambles, prune bushes, deadhead, deal with ants, sweep paths. He brought his own tools, the ones he used in his day job. He took them away again afterwards.

  “Does he keep anything here?” The crone looked bemused. They are always good at that. “Any tools or personal possessions? I suppose after he finishes,” I guessed, “he has a bite to eat?”

  “He makes a little offering to the god.” The crone gave me a weary look. “This is a place,” she spelled out, “where people come to honour friendly spirits. The college of charioteers meets here regularly.”

  “Their funeral club?” I was not surprised. We were out on a road from the city, so necropolis burials would be common. Associated gatherings would happen. Ursus had thought it was gladiators, and he might be right, but chariot drivers fitted. As benefactors, they would have disposable wealth too. “Rullius is a loner?” I pressed on stubbornly. “He never meets people? He shares his thoughts with Hercules in private? Does he do that out here by the altars?”

  When the crone did not answer, Ursus pressed her: “If a funeral club meets, they must have a place to gather.” Silence. That convinced us. “Come on, Grandma, their rites may be secret, but not where they sit down together to dine.”

  “The marble cave,” she reluctantly admitted.

  * * *

  The carved niche where Hercules reclined turned out to be on one outer wall of a room dug into the rock behind. The devotion hall was so discreet, it felt as if it was deliberately buried. The crone let us in. It was like being underground. Pitch black. We could see nothing.

  Ursus sent her to fetch light. With tremulous hands, she lit a single minute oil lamp; these shrine ghouls are always frugal. Immediately walls loomed with a subtle gleam. Despite the rural exterior of the sanctuary, this must have been an expensive indoor room. We gained no real impression of size. Our tiny light barely lit a single pace in any direction, though we glimpsed multi-coloured marble on floor and walls. Heads of charioteers on flat-backed pillars, like garden herms, emerged out of the darkness to look calmly at us as we gingerly walked about. The drivers’ circus faction must have paid for all this. They would hold club gatherings, reclining for cult feasts indoors when they were not dining al fresco. They, of course, would bring torches.

  “Rullius comes here.” Ursus spoke heavily, not even a question: he knew—and he knew why. He was wincing, the way I once saw him wince at Victoria Tertia’s body. “Dear gods.”

  From near the door, the crone’s voice wavered. She clearly had no idea why Rullius liked it here. “I let him in when he finishes. He takes a few moments quietly, all by himself.”

  “Very pious! Alone with his memo
ries…” Reliving crimes. Memories of rape and murder. Ursus could hardly bear to think of it. “Does he keep any property in here?”

  The crone grew more nervous. She fidgeted, trying to stop our questions. “He leaves a few bits and bobs with me. I always give his things to him when he comes inside for a rest.”

  “He is never resting … Show me his stuff!” growled Ursus.

  I said more quietly, “Show us, please, Gran.”

  So she went back to her hut, while the vigilis and I stood in silence in the vaulted funeral room, almost in darkness. We were thinking about what we might discover. Our mood was dark. The chamber was not oppressive in itself; the busts of charioteers had friendly faces. Only the thought of the depraved behaviour that had probably happened here caused an eerie atmosphere for us.

  The woman brought a sack. Ursus weighed it with one hand, then muttered and led us outside again. We approached the flat table for offerings. At this point, his vigiles team began to arrive. We had formal witnesses. They had brought torches so, as the dusk deepened, whatever we brought out was illuminated by the quiet flicker of torchlight, objects displayed in a centre of winter darkness that made this feel like a ritual. We were not giving offerings to the gods, however, but taking something back into our world.

  First came a bag with dice and gaming counters; nothing untoward. The old shrine guardian fussily explained the gardener liked to play against himself for relaxation. Next, a personal multi-tool, which a man could use for trimming his nails or cutting up an apple for a snack. An old hat. A bent chisel. “See, it’s just a man’s stuff!”

  “And this?”

  Finally, the horror: from the bottom of the sack, Ursus pulled out a locked wooden box. From the start, he must have felt it was there, but he left it to last. He had a sense of theatre. This was what we were looking for.

  Seizing the chisel, Ursus was able to knock off the lock. The crone squealed. She fell silent once the lid came up. At that point, even she must have realised what the supposedly likeable gardener had been doing over the years.

  Glinting in the light of an oil lamp, we saw a tangle of jewellery. Right on top lay a snake bangle: a double turn of cheap metal, the usual mad expression, once equipped with tiny red glass eyes—one of which had long been missing.

  “Methe!” I never met her, but I knew enough about her, her permanently grieving mother and her decent husband; I was on the verge of tears.

  Very controlled, Ursus tipped the box. A river of sad possessions ran across the offerings table. With a palm, he stopped any that rattled too near the edge. He started counting the pieces, but gave up, covering his mouth with one hand as if to hold back curses. There might have been as many as a hundred. Most were painfully cheap. Chains, earrings, pendants and bracelets finally reappeared while we witnesses stared with heart-broken sympathy. All the women who had lost them were being remembered. These belongings, torn from them during terrible deaths, at last spoke for what had happened.

  Barely able to touch anything, I did what I had to. First, I separated out Methe’s snake bangle.

  “Pull out what you can identify,” said Ursus, his voice hoarse. “You can return them.”

  “Evidence?”

  “He is not going to argue. I am not going to let him.”

  I picked out the two amulets my dancing boys had used to wear, then the gold ornament on an expensive chain that must have belonged to Victoria Tertia. I could not find the thin wire bangle Satia’s neighbour had described because too many were similar. Some of these personal things, like some women’s bodies, would never be identified. Some remains would stay anonymous even though the women’s jewellery was found. Some owners were lost for ever.

  I had no need to ask Ursus what would happen next. The shrine guardian was taken into custody to be questioned, and to prevent her being tempted to send unwanted messages. The sanctuary was placed under vigiles guard. Any of the public who had gathered on the perimeter were dispersed. Then the inquiry chief, with a small detachment of vigiles and me in attendance, set off to bring in his man.

  LIX

  There might have been a problem. Vigiles who had walked across the gardens reported that, once dusk had fallen, the gardeners had packed up for the night. Rullius had gone home.

  We knew that he lived over the river, near the Trigeminal Gate. To my surprise, Ursus had already identified where. For some time, he had been having likely suspects watched. Rullius was one.

  “Head of my list.” That could be bluff. I was not arguing.

  “Did you tell Karus?”

  “Am I a babe in the cradle?”

  The possible problem was that a short stretch on the left bank of the Tiber was traditionally disputed territory among the vigiles. Three districts coincided. Three cohorts pretended to haggle over who should patrol there: the Seventh coming down from the Campus Martius, the Sixth coming in from the Palatine and Circus Max, and even my home group, the Fourth, sometimes, if they wandered down from the Aventine and felt like causing an inter-faction rumpus. In fact, there was no doubt the Trigeminal Gate stood in the Eleventh District. The gate and its porticus, plus the riverbank temples and meat market, were therefore assigned to the Sixth Cohort. The Seventh’s patch ended at the Theatre of Marcellus. So Ursus had no jurisdiction.

  He maintained that before we left the station-house he asked his tribune to liaise. Possibly he had. At any rate, the Seventh were making a quick foray purely to lift a suspect. It was in a huge case, a case for which they had done the legwork and possessed the background notes, a case no other cohort could desire to take over—even at this final juncture, when medals might be earned.

  “In and out, before anyone knows we’ve been,” Ursus ordered. He had no intention of being thwarted. This investigation had caused him so much grief and he was determined to gain credit. In and out it was to be, or even quicker than that.

  “So now do we inform Karus?” I asked mischievously, as we arrived outside the building.

  “No, he’s buggered off back to his special assignment, thank you, blessed gods.”

  “And how will that affect Quietus?”

  “Don’t ask. I’ll sort it somehow, depending on how badly the Asturians smashed him up … Come on, Flavia. Let’s go in before this individual looks out of a window and sees us.”

  * * *

  It was an average apartment in an average block. Families would feel crowded, single people oppressed by those families. Too small, too noisy, too hot in summer—like anywhere in Rome. This counted as decent. No one around here would believe their tenement housed a major long-term perpetrator of disgusting crimes. It seemed a place for nothing worse than pilfering and cheating. Incest, perhaps, but always kept nicely behind closed doors. The worst things around here would be smells from the meat market, a rat problem near the corn dole station, and fevers if the river flooded.

  Nevertheless, it was where that ordinary man Rullius lived.

  “He’s at home.”

  “The wife?”

  “Her too.”

  “Children? How many?”

  “Four, we counted. Around five, seven, and nine, plus a baby. Three went out to play, half an hour ago.”

  “Find them. Keep them somewhere else.”

  “How, boss?”

  “How do I know? Give them juice. Buy apples. Play bounce-the-ball.”

  I hoped their mother had not told them never to accept an apple from a strange man. Surely even a serial killer’s wife would do that? The man on watch told us the children looked well-kept and healthy. When their father was at home, he came out into the street with them sometimes, for games. From what was said, I gathered Rullius had been under surveillance for much longer than today. Ursus knew his job.

  “How many exits from the apartment?”

  “Just the one. They all lead off the stairs. He’s on the fourth floor.”

  * * *

  There was a plan. Ursus intended to avoid a stand-off, or shouting, struggling, a
ttempts at escape. Most of all, if the public got wind of what was happening and came out to defend Rullius, he did not want a riot.

  I met the wife. When she answered the door to a polite knock, I was pushed forward to speak to her. She was small, mousy, so expressionless she seemed to have no character. Even so, she bridled while she claimed roundly that we must be mistaken: her husband could not have done anything to bring the vigiles.

  I could never decide whether she knew everything but would not face the truth, whether she had no idea and would never believe it, or whether all along she had been aware and accepted or ignored what was being done. If he was a classic killer, she was a classic killer’s wife. It would be easy to suppose he controlled her.

  “I suppose you will say he was with you?” asked Ursus. Although she looked as if she would never say boo, not even to a rat on the baby’s cradle, the wife snapped out angrily that he was. “I haven’t told you when,” Ursus pointed out quietly. He made a gesture for her to stand aside. One of his troops took hold of her arms, in case she kicked off.

  “Some men are vile,” I said, as I went past. “You picked one.”

  The truth was, Rullius had probably picked her. He would have chosen her carefully as cover for what he really wanted to do.

  Ursus and a few of us went into the apartment.

  The formal arrest was utterly mundane. Indoors, Rullius was eating. When he saw Ursus, he at once stood up, though neither threatening nor trying to escape. “Red-tunics! Here you are,” he said, as if friends had arrived to collect him for a visit to festival Games. “I wondered when you’d come.” He sounded as if he would just pick up a cloak before leaving.