John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.6]-Mightier Than The Sword

by John Maddox Roberts

  "But if the man owned property all over the City, why take his hired companion to the cellar of an unfurnished house?"

  "Good question," I allowed. "Of course, in such matters, some men have truly recondite tastes. Why, your own Uncle Caius Julius has been known to enjoy…"

  "Spare me," she said, very clearly, considering that her teeth were clamped tightly together.

  With my fellow Aediles I shared the warren of office space beneath the ancient Temple of Ceres. A man was waiting for me when I climbed the steps. "Aedile Metellus?" He was a short, bald man and he wore a worried look that furrowed his brow all the way back to the middle of his scalp. "I am Manius Varro, the builder."

  "Ah, yes. You recently completed a townhouse property for Aulus Cosconius?"

  "I did," he said, still worried. "And I used only the best…"

  "You will be happy to learn that I found no violations of the code concerning materials or construction."

  Relief washed over his face like a wave on a beach. "Oh. It's just about the body, then?" He shook his head ruefully, trying to look concerned. "Poor Aulus Cosconius. I'd done a fair amount of business for him over the years."

  "Was there any dispute over your payment?"

  He looked surprised that I should ask. "No. He paid in full for that job months ago. He'd been planning to put up a big tenement in the Subura, but he cancelled that a few days ago."

  "Did he say why?"

  "No, just that he didn't want to start anything big with uncertain times ahead. I thought he meant we might have a Dictator next year. You never can tell what that might mean."

  "Very true," I said, my gaze wandering out over one of Rome's most spectacular views, the eye-stunning expanse of the Circus Maximus stretching out below us. To a native son of Rome, that view is immensely satisfying because it combines three of our passions: races, gambling and enormous, vulgar buildings. His gaze followed mine.

  "Ah, Aedile, I take it you'll be organizing the races next month?"

  "To the great distress of my purse, yes."

  "Do you know who's driving in the first race?"

  "Victor for the Reds, Androcles for the Greens, Philip for the Blues and Paris for the Whites." I could have reeled off the names of all sixteen horses they would be driving as well. I was good at that sort of thing.

  "You Caecilians are Reds, aren't you?"

  "Since Romulus," I told him, knowing what was coming.

  "I support the Blues. Fifty sesterces on Philip in the first race, even money?" He undoubtedly knew the names of all the horses as well.

  "The Sparrow has a sore forefoot," I said, naming the Red's near-side trace horse. "Give me three to two."

  "Done!" he grinned. We took out the little tablets half the men in Rome carry around to record bets. With our styli we scratched our names and bets in each other's tablets. He walked away whistling and I felt better, too. Victor had assured me personally that the Sparrow's foot would be fine in plenty of time for the race. I flicked the accumulation of wax from the tip of my stylus, my mind going back to the condition of Cosconius's body.

  I had dismissed Varro as a suspect in the murder. Building contractors as a class are swindlers rather than murderers and his manner was all wrong. But our little bet had set me on a promising mental trail. My borrowed lictor was sitting on the base of the statue of Proserpina that stood in front of the temple before the restorations commissioned by Maecaenas. He looked bored senseless. I summoned him.

  "Let's go to the Forum." At that he brightened. Everything really interesting was happening in the Forum. In the Forum, lictors were respected as symbols of imperium. With him preceding me, we went down the hill and across the old Cattle Market and along the Tuscan Street to the Forum.

  The place was thronged, as usual. It held an aura of barely-contained menace in that unruly year, but people still respected the symbol of the fasces and made way for the lictor. I made a slow circuit of the area, finding out who was there and, more importantly, who was not. To my great relief, neither Clodius nor Milo were around with their crowds of thugs. Among the candidates for the next year's offices I saw the young Quintus Cosconius. Unlike the others standing for the tribuneship in their specially whitened togas he wore a dingy, brown toga and he had not shaved his face nor combed his hair, all in token of mourning.

  On the steps of the Basilica Opimia I found Cicero, surrounded as always by clients and friends. Ordinarily I would have waited upon his notice like everyone else, but my office and my lictor allowed me to approach him at once.

  "Good morning, Aedile," he saluted, always punctilious in matters of office. He raised an eyebrow at sight of my lictor. "Does your office now carry imperium? I must have dozed off during the last Senate meeting."

  "Good morning, Marcus Tullius, and no, I'm just carrying out an investigation for Varus. I would greatly appreciate your advice."

  "Of course." We made that little half-turn that proclaimed that we were now in private conference and the others directed their attention elsewhere. "Is it the murder of Aulus Cosconius? Shocking business."

  "Exactly. What were the man's political leanings, if any?"

  "He was a dreadfully old-fashioned man, the sort who oppose almost anything unsanctioned by our remote ancestors. Like most of the men involved in City property trade, he supported Crassus. Before he left for Syria, Crassus told them all to fight Pompey's efforts to become Dictator. That's good advice, even coming from Crassus. I've spent months trying to convince the tribunes not to introduce legislation to that effect."

  "What about next year's tribunes?" I asked.

  "Next year's? I'm having trouble enough with the ones we have now."

  "Even if Pompey isn't named Dictator, he's almost sure to be one of next year's Consuls. If the Tribunes for next year are all Pompey's men, he'll have near-dictatorial authority and the proconsular province of his choosing. He'll be able to take Syria from Crassus, or Gaul from Caesar, if he wants."

  Cicero nodded. "That has always been Pompey's style —let someone else do all the fighting, then get the Tribunes to give him command in time for the kill." Now he looked sharply at me. "What are you getting at, Decius?"

  "Be patient with me, Marcus Tullius. I have…" at that moment I saw a slave, one of Asklepiodes's silent Egyptian assistants, making his way toward me, holding a folded piece of papyrus, which he handed to me. I opened up the papyrus, read the single word it held, and grinned. "Marcus Tullius," I said, "if a man were standing for public office and were caught in some offense against the ancient laws—say, he carried arms within the boundaries set by Romulus —would it abnegate his candidacy?" My own solution to the law was to carry a caestus. The spiked boxing glove was, technically, sports equipment rather than a proper weapon.

  "It's a commonly violated custom in these evil times, but if I were standing for office against that man I would prosecute him and tie him up in litigation so thoroughly that he would never take office."

  "That is just what I needed to know. Marcus Tullius, if I might impose upon you further, could you meet with me this afternoon at the ludus of Statilius Taurus?"

  Now he was thoroughly mystified, something I seldom managed to do to Cicero. "Well, my friend Balbus has been writing me from Africa for months to help him arrange the Games he will be giving when he returns. I could take care of that at the same time."

  "Thank you, Marcus Tullius." I started to turn away.

  "And, Decius?"

  I turned back. "Yes?"

  "Do be entertaining. That's a long walk."

  "I promise it."

  At the bottom of the steps I took the tablet thonged to the slave's belt and wrote on the wax with my stylus. "Take this to your master," I instructed. He nodded wordlessly and left. Asklepiodes's slaves could speak, but only in Egyptian, which in Rome was the same thing as being mute. Then I gave the lictor his orders.

  "Go to Quintus Cosconius, the man in mourning dress over there with the candidates, and tell him that h
e is summoned to confer with me at the Statilian School in" —I glanced up at the angle of the sun —"three hours."

  He ran off and I climbed the lower slope of the Capitoline along the Via Sacra to the Archive. I spoke with Calpurnius, the freedman in charge of estate titles, and he brought me a great stack of tablets and scrolls, bulky with thick waxen seals, recording the deeds of the late Aulus Cosconius. The one for the Aventine town house where I had discovered his body was a nice little wooden diptych with bronze hinges. Inside, one leaf bore writing done with a reed pen in black ink. The other had a circular recess that held the wax seal protecting it from damage.

  "I'll just take this with me, if you don't mind," I said.

  "But I do mind," Calpurnius said. "You have no subpoena from a Praetor demanding documents from this office." One always has to deal with such persons, on public duty. After much wrangling and talking with his superiors and swearing of sacred oaths upon the altars of the State, I got away with the wretched document, to be returned the next morning or forfeit my life.

  Thus armed, I made my leisurely way toward the river and crossed the Aemilian Bridge into the Trans-Tiber district. There, among the river port facilities of Rome's newest district, was the ludus of Statilius Taurus, where the best gladiators outside of Campania were trained. I conferred with Statilius for an hour or so, making arrangements for the Games that had already bankrupted me. Then Cicero arrived to do the same on behalf of his friend Balbus. He was accompanied by five or six clients, all men of distinction in their own right.

  With our business concluded, we went out to the gallery that overlooked the training yard. It was an hour when only the fighters of the first rank were working out, while the tyros watched from the periphery. These men despised practice weapons, preferring to train with sharp steel. Their skill was amazing to see. Even Cicero, who had little liking for the public shows, was impressed.

  Asklepiodes arrived as we were thus engaged, holding a folded garment. "This is the oddest task you have ever asked of me," he said, "but you always furnish amusement of the highest sort, so I expect to be amply rewarded." He handed me the thing.

  "Excellent!"I said. "I was afraid the undertaker might have thrown it away."

  "Aedile" Cicero said a bit testily. "I do hope this is leading somewhere. My time is not without value."

  I saw a man in a dark toga come through the archway leading to the practice yard. "I promise not to disappoint you. Here's my man now."

  Young Cosconius looked around, then saw me gesturing from the distinguished group on the gallery. He came up the stair, very stiff and dignified. He was surprised to see Cicero and his entourage, but he masked his perplexity with an expression of gravitas befitting one recently bereaved and seeking high office. He saluted Cicero, ex-Consul and the most important man currently residing in Rome.

  "I am here on a matter of business," Cicero said. "I believe your business is with the Aedile."

  "I apologize for summoning you here," I said. "I know that you must be preoccupied with your late father's obsequies." When I had last seen him, he had been busy grubbing votes.

  "I trust you've made progress in finding my father's murderer," he said, coldly.

  "I believe I have." I looked out over the men training in the yard below. "It's a chore, arranging for public Games. You'll find that out. I suppose you'll be exhibiting funeral games for your father?"

  He shrugged. "He specified none in his will, which was read this morning. But I may do so when I hold the aedileship."

  Confident little bastard, I thought. I pointed to a pair of men who were contending with sword and shield. One carried the big,oblong legionary shield and gladius, the other a small, round shield and curved shortsword.

  "That's Celadus with the Thracian weapons," I said, referring to the latter. "Do you support the Big Shields or the Small Shields?"

  "The Big Shields," he said.

  "I've always liked the Small Shields," I told him. "Celadus fights Petraites from the School of Ampliatus at next month's Games." Petraites was a ranking Big Shield fighter of the time. I saw that special gleam come into his eye.

  "Are you proposing a wager?"

  "A hundred on Celadus, even money?" This was more than reasonable. Petraites had the greater reputation.

  "Done," he said, taking out his tablet and stylus, handing the tablet to me. I gave him mine, then rummaged around in my tunic and toga.

  "I've lost my stylus. Would you lend me yours?"

  He handed it over. "Now, I believe you called me here concerning my father's murder."

  "Oh, yes, I was coming to that, Quintus Cosconius, I charge you with the murder of your father, Senator Aulus Cosconius."

  "You are insane!" he said, his dark face going suddenly pale, as well it might. Of the many cruel punishments on our law books, the one for parricide is one of the worst.

  "That is a serious charge, Aedile," Cicero said. "Worse than poisoning, worse than treason, even worse than arson."

  Cosconius pointed a finger at me. "Maybe you aren't mad. You are just covering up for another of your friend Milo's crimes."

  "Asklepiodes pronounced that death was the result of a wound inflicted by a thin blade piercing the heart. He found a bit of foreign substance adhering to the wound, which he took to his surgery to study. I thought at first that the weapon was a bodkin such as prostitutes sometimes carry, but this morning it occurred to me that a writing stylus would serve as well, provided it was made of bronze." I held up the piece of paper Asklepiodes had sent me with its one word: "wax."

  "This confirms it. Aulus Cosconius was stabbed through the heart with a stylus uncleaned by its owner since its last use. A bit of wax still adhered to its tip and was left on the wound."

  Quintus Cosconius snorted. "What of it? Nearly every literate man in Rome carries a stylus!"

  "Actually, I didn't really forget my own stylus today." I took it out. "You see, the common styli are round or quadrangular. Mine, for instance, is slightly oval in cross-section." Cicero and his friends drew out their own implements and showed them. All were as I had described. Cicero's was made of ivory, with a silver scraper.

  "Yet Asklepiodes's examination indicated that the weapon used to kill Aulus Cosconius was triangular. You will note that young Quintus's implement is of that geometrical form, which is most rare among styli." I handed it to Cicero.

  Then I shook out the tunic the dead man had been wearing. "Note the three parallel streaks of blood. That is where he wiped off the sides of the stylus."

  "A coward's weapon," snorted one of Cicero's companions.

  "But young Cosconius here is standing for office," I pointed out. "He couldn't afford to be caught bearing arms within the pomerium. But most Romans pack a stylus around. It isn't much of a weapon, but no one is going to survive having one thrust through his heart."

  "Why should I do such a thing?" Cosconius demanded. You could smell the fear coming off him.

  "Yesterday," I said, "you told me you didn't know what use your father intended for that town house. Here is the deed from the Archive." I took the diptych from a fold of my toga and opened it. "And here he states plainly that it is 'to serve as a residence for his only surviving son, Lucius.' He didn't bother showing you this deed or getting your seal on it because he was a very old-fashioned man, and by the ancient law of patria potestas you were a minor and could not legally own property while your father was alive. He took you to show you your new digs, and that is where you argued and you killed him."

  Everyone glared at Cosconius, but by this time he had gained enough wisdom to keep his mouth shut.

  "Killed the old man for his inheritance, did he?" Cicero said grimly.

  I shook my head. "No, nobody gets killed over money these days. It's always politics. Aulus Cosconius was generous enough with his wealth, else why give his son a whole town house to himself? But he supported Crassus and Quintus here is Pompey's man. Aulus wouldn't stick his neck out for Crassus, but he could keep P
ompey from getting another tame Tribune without risk, or so he thought."

  I addressed Cosconius directly. "Sometime during the tour of that townhouse he told you that he forbade you to stand for Tribune. As paterfamilias it was his legal right to do so. Or perhaps he had told you before, and you waited until you were together in a lonely spot to kill him. The law admits of no distinction in such a case."

  Cosconius started to get hold of himself, but Cicero deflated him instantly. "I shall prosecute personally, unless you wish to, Decius Caecilius."

  "I shall be far too busy for the balance of this year."

  Cosconius knew then he was a dead man. Cicero was the greatest prosecutor in the history of Roman jurisprudence, which was precisely why I had asked him there in the first place. He took few cases in those days, but a parricide in a senatorial family would be the splashiest trial of the year.

  I summoned the owner of the school. "Statilius, lend me a few of your boys to escort this man to the basilica. I don't want him jumping into the river too soon."

  Cosconius came out of his stupor. "Gladiators? You can't let scum like that lay hands on a free man!"

  "You'll have worse company soon," Cicero promised him. Then, to me: "Aedile, do your duty." I nodded to my borrowed lictor. He walked up behind Quintus Cosconius and clapped a hand on his shoulder, intoning the old formula: "Come with me to the Praetor."

  That's the good part about being Aedile: You get to arrest people.

  These were the events of two days in the year 703 of the city of Rome, the consulship of Marcus Valerius Messalla Rufus and Cnaeus Domitius Calvinus.